While squeezing some Seville oranges at the weekend (for duck a l'orange, as you do), I realised that what Seville orange juice really, really needs is tequila. I therefore present the following:
Marmalagarita
40ml tequila
20ml Cointreau
Juice of a Seville orange
Dash of orange bitters (Fee Bros. preferred)
Back from the monster tour of England and Scotland (Southampton to Windermere and back, via Dunblane), and it turns out that we had monster produce waiting for us (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
alisdairo - did I forget to tell you to help yourself?):
That's 7.26 kg of courgette (1st2lb in old money). I had to get the bathroom scales to find that out!
The agriculturalist and not the prog rock band, that is.
We have an allotment, the one in the NW corner of this map.
Many things about it are good, principally the price (£3.58 per annum) and the location (our house is four houses away due west). What's less good was the state when we assumed the lease: thigh-deep in brambles. We've been gradually clearing them - currently about 20% done - but what's clear is that the previous leaseholders didn't bother clearing the brambles by hand, preferring to chop them up with a rotorvator. I'm pulling out about a dozen large roots the thickness of my thumb per square metre, mostly rooted about 50cm down, and many small fragments around 15cm long.
This could be a long struggle. Suggestions welcome.
...cats, bears, wolves and monkeys playing Uno.
(Wolfie has just played a blue 1, and play is passing clockwise; Brown Bear is therefore just about to win. Cat has managed to stitch Monk up something rotten with a few well-placed +4s, and has left him with a hand worth upwards of 120)
The garklet keeps asking what Cat and Monk get up to while he's at nursery, and we've started to stage vignettes to indulge him and amuse ourselves.
...cats, bears, wolves and monkeys playing Uno.
(Wolfie has just played a blue 1, and play is passing clockwise; Brown Bear is therefore just about to win. Cat has managed to stitch Monk up something rotten with a few well-placed +4s, and has left him with a hand worth upwards of 120)
The garklet keeps asking what Cat and Monk get up to while he's at nursery, and we've started to stage vignettes to indulge him and amuse ourselves.
Last Friday, ias reminded me that a) it had been a very long time since I'd made bread and that b) the nursery's attempt to get the kids to make bread last week had ended in abject failure, so I might as well enlist the garklet's help when I made bread at the weekend.
I like making bread, but it is time-consuming. Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery has been one of my favourite cookery books (along with Jane Grigson's English Food, Diana Kennedy's Art of Mexican Cookery and the first Moro cookbook) ever since the mother-in-law gave me her copy, and I've had success with David's instructions for a tinless Coburg loaf every time.
At Easter, we spent a week in Malta, and my abiding memory of that week is the bread. Maltese bread is a thing to behold: flavoursome and well-textured sourdough. I can offer a pair of anecdotes that explain how seriously the Maltese take their bread:
I picked up a copy of Anne and Helen Caruana Galizia's Food and Cookery of Malta (on the strength of a quote by Elizabeth David on the back cover, and after a conversation with the Vallettan bookseller in which she tried to persuade me to buy the glossy illustrated books and not the book "for chefs"), which spends a chapter on bread.
So, on Saturday I made a Coburg loaf with the young lad and started on a Maltese loaf. The process for the Maltese loaf is unlike anything I've tried before, and certainly takes much longer: you start with a basic dough, knead and let it prove for six hours or longer, add extra flour and sufficient water to turn it into a very soft dough, knead and let it prove for another six hours, then dissolve the dough in water, add extra yeast and flour, knead and prove for another three hours, shape into a loaf before a final prove, then bake. I finished the loaf this evening.
I can't say that I'll use this method every time, but the results are quite astonishingly good (albeit not quite up to the work of Maltese professionals), and I'll do this again in the future.
Last Friday, ias reminded me that a) it had been a very long time since I'd made bread and that b) the nursery's attempt to get the kids to make bread last week had ended in abject failure, so I might as well enlist the garklet's help when I made bread at the weekend.
I like making bread, but it is time-consuming. Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery has been one of my favourite cookery books (along with Jane Grigson's English Food, Diana Kennedy's Art of Mexican Cookery and the first Moro cookbook) ever since the mother-in-law gave me her copy, and I've had success with David's instructions for a tinless Coburg loaf every time.
At Easter, we spent a week in Malta, and my abiding memory of that week is the bread. Maltese bread is a thing to behold: flavoursome and well-textured sourdough. I can offer a pair of anecdotes that explain how seriously the Maltese take their bread:
I picked up a copy of Anne and Helen Caruana Galizia's Food and Cookery of Malta (on the strength of a quote by Elizabeth David on the back cover, and after a conversation with the Vallettan bookseller in which she tried to persuade me to buy the glossy illustrated books and not the book "for chefs"), which spends a chapter on bread.
So, on Saturday I made a Coburg loaf with the young lad and started on a Maltese loaf. The process for the Maltese loaf is unlike anything I've tried before, and certainly takes much longer: you start with a basic dough, knead and let it prove for six hours or longer, add extra flour and sufficient water to turn it into a very soft dough, knead and let it prove for another six hours, then dissolve the dough in water, add extra yeast and flour, knead and prove for another three hours, shape into a loaf before a final prove, then bake. I finished the loaf this evening.
I can't say that I'll use this method every time, but the results are quite astonishingly good (albeit not quite up to the work of Maltese professionals), and I'll do this again in the future.
Bumped into hobbitdave while waiting for the bus with ias and the garklet after work today. Cue the following conversation after Dave left:
garklethobbitdave?nmggarklethobbitdave going?nmggnommi.garkletnmggnommi's boyfriend!garkletgnommi's boyfriend?nmggarkletgarkletnmggarkletnmggarkletBumped into hobbitdave while waiting for the bus with ias and the garklet after work today. Cue the following conversation after Dave left:
garklethobbitdave?nmggarklethobbitdave going?nmggnommi.garkletnmggnommi's boyfriend!garkletgnommi's boyfriend?nmggarkletgarkletnmggarkletnmggarkletAn account of a conversation while waiting at bus stop with ias and the garklet:
garkletiasgarkletnmggarkletnmggarkletiasnmggarkletiasgarkletiasgarkletiasnmggarkletnmggarkletiasgarkletnmggarkletnmg1. This is a persistent verbal tic that he's had for the last six months. My, how we've tried to cure him of it.
An account of a conversation while waiting at bus stop with ias and the garklet:
garkletiasgarkletnmggarkletnmggarkletiasnmggarkletiasgarkletiasgarkletiasnmggarkletnmggarkletiasgarkletnmggarkletnmg1. This is a persistent verbal tic that he's had for the last six months. My, how we've tried to cure him of it.
Soon after the garklet was born, a little over three years ago, ias sent me out with a shopping list, as follows:
I decided to get these from the big John Lewis in town, on the ostensible grounds that it was marginally closer to the car park than Boots. This also meant that I could browse the AV department. One thing lead to another, and I ended up leaving with the following items:
Apart from making a shopping basket that clearly shouts "new dad" (nipple cream + superfluous technology), the PVR has been a godsend, not least because we've been able to pause live TV when putting the garklet to bed. The garklet clearly now assumes that a) you can pause live TV, b) you can rewind live TV, and c) you can watch Chuggington at any time. When he's older, he'll probably disbelieve me when I tell about the days when there were only three channels. Maybe I should hang on to my nan's old channel-preset-less black and white portable?
Unfortunately, it's been starting to look a little tired. We'd missed the over-the-air updates to the PVR's software, so we don't have any nifty features like series link. It's also a royal pain to get data off the PVR; you can plug in a USB cable, but it perversely refuses to mount as a mass storage device, and the necessary client software is Windows-only, and both sluggish and error-prone. Most seriously, it has started to crash every couple of days, so there's no guarantee that recordings will actually happen.
I'd been eyeing up its successor, the 9300-T, on the grounds that a) it had an HDMI output (no more fuzzy SCART on the 1080p flatscreen) and b) it had a larger disc. ias expressed a few reservations, so I'd also looked at other devices (the Topfield PVR, for example).
julesfm pointed out that there was a third route, namely a tuner in a desktop computer. After playing with his EyeTV for a bit, I took the plunge with an EyeTV Diversity on a Mac Mini Server (lovely machine - 2.56GHz dual core with 2x500Gb discs and 4Gb RAM). This also has given us a DVD playing solution - something we've been missing since a Certain Toddler lost the remote for our DVD player.
So far, our experience has been pretty good (pattern-matching recording schedules are ace), but there have been a couple of hiccoughs which are probably worth documenting:
All in all, it seems pretty solid, but the hammering it'll get over Christmas will be the real test.
Soon after the garklet was born, a little over three years ago, ias sent me out with a shopping list, as follows:
I decided to get these from the big John Lewis in town, on the ostensible grounds that it was marginally closer to the car park than Boots. This also meant that I could browse the AV department. One thing lead to another, and I ended up leaving with the following items:
Apart from making a shopping basket that clearly shouts "new dad" (nipple cream + superfluous technology), the PVR has been a godsend, not least because we've been able to pause live TV when putting the garklet to bed. The garklet clearly now assumes that a) you can pause live TV, b) you can rewind live TV, and c) you can watch Chuggington at any time. When he's older, he'll probably disbelieve me when I tell about the days when there were only three channels. Maybe I should hang on to my nan's old channel-preset-less black and white portable?
Unfortunately, it's been starting to look a little tired. We'd missed the over-the-air updates to the PVR's software, so we don't have any nifty features like series link. It's also a royal pain to get data off the PVR; you can plug in a USB cable, but it perversely refuses to mount as a mass storage device, and the necessary client software is Windows-only, and both sluggish and error-prone. Most seriously, it has started to crash every couple of days, so there's no guarantee that recordings will actually happen.
I'd been eyeing up its successor, the 9300-T, on the grounds that a) it had an HDMI output (no more fuzzy SCART on the 1080p flatscreen) and b) it had a larger disc. ias expressed a few reservations, so I'd also looked at other devices (the Topfield PVR, for example).
julesfm pointed out that there was a third route, namely a tuner in a desktop computer. After playing with his EyeTV for a bit, I took the plunge with an EyeTV Diversity on a Mac Mini Server (lovely machine - 2.56GHz dual core with 2x500Gb discs and 4Gb RAM). This also has given us a DVD playing solution - something we've been missing since a Certain Toddler lost the remote for our DVD player.
So far, our experience has been pretty good (pattern-matching recording schedules are ace), but there have been a couple of hiccoughs which are probably worth documenting:
All in all, it seems pretty solid, but the hammering it'll get over Christmas will be the real test.
Very clear sky tonight, so have actually managed to see the Geminids despite the skyglow and the floodlights in one of our neighbour's gardens. A couple of very bright meteors and about another four or five lesser ones, all in ten minutes or so. If you have a clear sky where you are, now would be a good time to step outside for a quarter of an hour - look to the east.
Briefly contemplated waking the garklet up to show him the best sky that he's yet had an opportunity to see in Southampton, but thought better of it. I'll just have to point Jupiter out to him on the way home (and try and explain the phases of the moon) as usual.
Very clear sky tonight, so have actually managed to see the Geminids despite the skyglow and the floodlights in one of our neighbour's gardens. A couple of very bright meteors and about another four or five lesser ones, all in ten minutes or so. If you have a clear sky where you are, now would be a good time to step outside for a quarter of an hour - look to the east.
Briefly contemplated waking the garklet up to show him the best sky that he's yet had an opportunity to see in Southampton, but thought better of it. I'll just have to point Jupiter out to him on the way home (and try and explain the phases of the moon) as usual.
Since we had our loft boarded and smartened up a few years back, we've been merrily using it to store away the things that we don't need from day to day, or which don't belong in the library. Unfortunately, it's starting to get a bit full in there (what with ias's sewing stuff, my tools, Xmas decorations, the garklet's baby clothes, our suitcases, and so on), so we've been planning on putting some of Mr Kamprad's fine modular shelving solutions up there (specifically the GORM range).
Now, I could just have gone up there with a tape measure and an old envelope to note down how many of each item we needed, but the space is confined enough (and our need for storage great enough) that I am going to have to cut shelves down to fit. Version 1 of the plan was on the back of an envelope, but didn't have accurate measurements. Version 2 was in Illustrator - great for the plan view, not so good for working out whether it will all fit under the roof.
Version 3 is in Google SketchUp, complete with models of the shelves (rather than just bounding boxes). Fortunately, I stopped short of modelling everything in the loft so that I could plan how to fit things on the shelves.
In other news, we took the garklet to the cinema this morning - Harbour Lights (and some other cinemas in the Picture House chain) are screening episodes of In the Night Garden to get the little ones used to sitting quietly in a darkened room. He liked it greatly, and was so well-behaved that I'm toying with the idea of taking him to see Up.
Finally, I've also managed to get around to reading Brundibar to the lad - a Sendak-illustrated version of the Czech children's opera that was first performed in Theresienstadt in 1943. The story itself is charming, but Sendak's illustrations add another layer on top of this (Brundibar is pictured with a toothbrush moustache and side parting, for example) which make this more than just a children's book. I'm still quite surprised that Portswood library had a copy. Highly recommended.
Since we had our loft boarded and smartened up a few years back, we've been merrily using it to store away the things that we don't need from day to day, or which don't belong in the library. Unfortunately, it's starting to get a bit full in there (what with ias's sewing stuff, my tools, Xmas decorations, the garklet's baby clothes, our suitcases, and so on), so we've been planning on putting some of Mr Kamprad's fine modular shelving solutions up there (specifically the GORM range).
Now, I could just have gone up there with a tape measure and an old envelope to note down how many of each item we needed, but the space is confined enough (and our need for storage great enough) that I am going to have to cut shelves down to fit. Version 1 of the plan was on the back of an envelope, but didn't have accurate measurements. Version 2 was in Illustrator - great for the plan view, not so good for working out whether it will all fit under the roof.
Version 3 is in Google SketchUp, complete with models of the shelves (rather than just bounding boxes). Fortunately, I stopped short of modelling everything in the loft so that I could plan how to fit things on the shelves.
In other news, we took the garklet to the cinema this morning - Harbour Lights (and some other cinemas in the Picture House chain) are screening episodes of In the Night Garden to get the little ones used to sitting quietly in a darkened room. He liked it greatly, and was so well-behaved that I'm toying with the idea of taking him to see Up.
Finally, I've also managed to get around to reading Brundibar to the lad - a Sendak-illustrated version of the Czech children's opera that was first performed in Theresienstadt in 1943. The story itself is charming, but Sendak's illustrations add another layer on top of this (Brundibar is pictured with a toothbrush moustache and side parting, for example) which make this more than just a children's book. I'm still quite surprised that Portswood library had a copy. Highly recommended.
The garklet is running around naked after his bath. I'm playing him some music to dance to. On the grounds that he likes the KLF remixes of the Doctor Who theme, I played him some Vangelis, and then some Jean Michel Jarre.
He's now running around wrapped in bubble wrap shouting "like a robot!"
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zvi and krja
