Better. Yes.
I’m better. No, really. This time I really am better.
I had thought I went to bed last night at least a little more cheerful, even if I still couldn’t breathe and I think my back hurts quite so relentlessly and godsblattingly as much because of sleeping sitting up as because flu always makes me ache in places that the rest of the time I mostly forget are places, although the forgetting part does not in fact include my back, which has been a ratbag since I started falling off horses at the age of eleven. Anyway. I ache like fury, in both remembered and forgotten places, and the only reason to look forward to going to bed is to keep reading, since sleeping is an issue like global warming or the destruction of rainforest or the Republican nomination for president is an issue, and therefore if I was somehow feeling a little more cheerful this must be a good sign.
I got out of bed first try this morning.* I was, furthermore, hungry. How great is that. My stomach has been convinced that we have been involved in a highly unpleasant storm at sea the last week or so, involving much pitching and yawing, and has behaved accordingly. Calm seas today.** I got dressed. I had a cup of tea. I had an apple. I had . . .
. . . I wasn’t hungry any more. Oh. Well. Okay. Hellhounds and I went for a hurtle. We’ve been going out for about the right amount of time, the last few days, but somewhat less than the right amount of mileage. Today we were hitting nearer the mark. Yaay.***
Went down to the mews for lunch. I’m HUNGRY. And . . . I won’t eat anything. What. The. Frell. It’s like I woke up in the body of a hellhound or something.† Fed hellhounds. Even they are eating. Me . . . nah. Food. Nasty. OH COME ON. I’M OLD, I HAVE ME, I’M JUST GETTING OVER FLU, I NEED FOOD. I NEED PROTEIN.
Come any nearer with that olive/frond of dill/blameless scrambled egg and I will grow violent. Why yes, thank you, I would like another cup of very strong black tea.††
ARRRRGH.
So I was thinking, okay, what do you do when you have some stupid little cow who’s been sick for so long she’s forgotten how to eat? What might not only tempt her but provide something nearly enough resembling nutritional value as might draw her further back toward sanity . . . and protein? How about . . .
Carrot Cookies
Even with my history of telling you to judge your own ingredients and your own batter, this one is a bit mad. I’ve got notes all over the margins of wildly varying quantities. Note that both grated carrots and honey can have SPECTACULARLY variable water content. If your batter is runny, stop. Do not bake. Add flour or oatmeal. You want the batter sticky. These are drop cookies. They should behave like drop cookies.
2-3 c flour. Half wholewheat/meal is good
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
pinch to ¼ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon (I round it up pretty generously)
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp cloves
2-3 c quick oatmeal
1 c raisins (I like golden in this recipe)
1 c chopped nuts (I recommend pecans)
½ c soft butter
1 c grated (raw) carrots
½ to 1 c honey, depending on how sweet you want it, including how sweet your carrots are. No, really. Taste your batter.
2 eggs, beaten frothy
Mix the dry stuff together: I’d start with 2 c flour and 2 c oatmeal. I don’t think I ever start with the full cup of honey; I usually start around the scant ¾ c level. Now beat the honey into the butter. Usually I’m a little carefree about the whole ‘soft’ butter thing, but if you want to beat it into honey your life will be a lot easier if it’s genuinely soft. Then beat in the eggs. Then the carrots. Now beat in the flour mixture gradually, as your arm or your electric whizzer can stand the strain. (If you’re using electric, you want it on slow enough it doesn’t pulverize your raisins and nuts. Ask me how I know this. I think food processors are a mixed blessing and I’ve mostly gone back to the wooden spoon technique, but then I don’t bake a lot any more.) If the texture is right, taste. If you need to drizzle another ¼ c of honey into the batter, it’s not rocket science, just do it, and beat it in, maybe with a few more flakes of oatmeal. If it’s too runny . . . well, you’re going to need more honey too because of the more flour/oatmeal you’re going to be adding, and if you’re adding more than a sprinkly handful you’ll probably want to cast in a little extra cinnamon.††† Practical Physics in Your Kitchen. You just want instructions, right? Sorry.
Drop in biggish globs on greased cookie sheets. 350° F, about 15 minutes.
* * *
I wish to note for the record that I ate a large piece of fish for supper. I’m sure strength is pouring back into my valiant cells. Feh.
* * *
* There was some whimpering and clutching of bedposts, but we can’t have everything.
** I might even try putting my belt back on. This would be a good thing, since I’ve been eating so little the last few days my jeans are showing some alarming signs of falling off.
*** Mind you, I still can’t breathe, and I am terrifying on the phone.
† I thought I was having more trouble typing than usual . . .
†† How many hours before I can start on the cider?
††† Or you can shout, Wrangledabnag it!, and then pack the whole sloppy mess into a big baking dish. I think 13 x 9 will do it—I know I have done this but I didn’t bother to write down what size pan I used. It’ll probably take kind of forever to cook and be a trifle fragile. But it’ll taste just fine.
Death-deflecting chocolate
Oh BLERG. When (still) feeling like death and mildew and old socks . . . clearly chocolate is called for.* Besides, I need a night off.
Sometimes what you want is whatever you can do really fast.
(Almost) Instant Chocolate Gratification
4 T butter
8 oz dark chocolate
2 T golden syrup, dark Karo, or light molasses (warning: molasses has much more flavour than the other two. You need to like the taste of molasses if you use it here)
Cinnamon or vanilla, possibly
8 oz plain digestive biscuits, rich tea biscuits, wheatmeal biscuits, vanilla wafers, graham crackers, or whatever of that kind of thing either takes your fancy or you can grab in a hurry because the necessary moment is NOW
Melt butter, chocolate and liquid sugar together gently in a small pan. Stir till thoroughly mixed. If you want to use cinnamon or vanilla, use a half-tsp here. I use cinnamon not vanilla when I use molasses, other than that it’s whatever.
Rolling-pin your biscuits to fine crumbs. Stir the chocolate stuff in.
Pour into a greased or carefully parchment-papered (this includes up the sides) 8” square pan and refrigerator for several hours till set. Don’t cheat: it’s messy and annoying if you do.
So I guess I should say making this is dead fast (and easy). Waiting around for it to finish turning into itself you need a sofa, some hellhounds, and a few trashy novels.
Less (Almost) Instant Chocolate Gratification, But Still Pretty Fast
10 oz dark chocolate
6 T butter
1 egg
½ tsp vanilla
1 c granulated sugar
1 ¼ c plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Reserve about 2T of the sugar.
Melt chocolate and butter together and cool. Beat the egg, then beat in the sugar till light and pale. Add the chocolate mixture when it’s cool enough not to cook the egg** and the vanilla. Then add the flour. If it gets too stiff to stir easily, knead the rest in.
Break off bits of the dough and roll cookies into big round pebbles the size of walnuts. (I do this between my palms. Some people prefer a table.) Roll in the reserved sugar. Then space out on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. I squish them very lightly with a finger so they don’t roll around. They will not be pretty if they turn themselves from free electrons into molecule clumps. Ahem. You can get the lot on a single baking sheet, but use all the space, they do spread.
400° for 8-10 minutes. They crack all over.
They don’t take nearly as long to cool as the refrigerator bars do to set.
And may we all sleep better tonight than I did last night.
* * *
* At least Chaos is feeling better.
** Generally speaking this is less of a disaster than you might think. In ordinary daily the-queen-is-not-coming-to-tea baking infinitesimal flakes of cooked egg disappear. Fortunately.
Bleeeech con’t, day two
I couldn’t get out of bed this morning either. Ratbags. Gigantic throbbing neon ratbags. Did I tell you that I was going to the concert that I missed last Wednesday, tonight, as the tour swung back (roughly) in this direction, pausing at Barnstorming, which is not implausibly far by train?
I didn’t go. And as I write this it’s happening now. Whimper.
Sigh. Well, I kept the booking for the dog minder to hurtle hellhounds this afternoon. She said when she brought them back, shiny-eyed and panting,* that they had been very lively. Yes. I’m sure. They’ve been a trifle short of hurtling the last day and a half.**
So, day two of no energy and very little brain. With reference to the latter it is a very good thing that Penelope rang me this evening to tell me that the (bell) ringing tomorrow morning has been moved up twenty minutes. The . . . ? Long pause my end. Oh. Right. Memorial ring tomorrow morning. Of course. I knew that.
As long as I had her on the phone I asked her about the no-flour bread I mentioned here the other night, and for which I’ve now had several requests. She confirmed what I remembered, that she made it up as she went along, and I have continued that tradition, creating a batter that looks right. But generally speaking it goes like this:
Baked ground-seed somewhat breadlike substance
Start with an egg. Beat it up.
Add ¼ c oil or melted butter. Groundnut (peanut) oil is good. If you like the flavour, olive oil is also good. Beat together thoroughly.
Probably about 2c ground seed. This is what Penelope used, and what I’ve used since: http://www.linwoodshealthfoods.com/productdetails/36/milled_organic_flaxseed_sunflower_pumpkin_seeds.aspx And yes, it’s eye-openingly expensive—but your nonbread will be more filling than your average mere floury object too, and you can get away with thinking of it more as a vegetarian main course. But stir in enough to make a softish but not runny batter—gooeyness more or less what you’d expect out of an ordinary tea or quick-bread batter.
You may want a little salt. I like a little tamari.
When you’re happy with the texture, sprinkle or sift one or two (measuring) teaspoons of baking powder and one or two (measuring) teaspoons of dried herbs to your taste over your batter, and beat that in.
If you’d rather use fresh herbs, chop them up and add them before you add the baking powder because chances are they’ll dampen the batter a little more and you’ll have to adjust. A big handful of parsley or coriander is good. I don’t think fresh basil bakes all that well: if you want basil, I’d use the dried.
Pour it into a round 8” pan. I haven’t cared to find out just how sticky ground seed is, so I butter and flour the pan and put a circle of parchment paper in the bottom and butter and flour that too.
350°F for about half an hour. It won’t rise, but the baking powder and the beaten egg seem to stop it from turning into a brick. Bake till the edges are turning brown, and the middle is firm to a light touch.
I haven’t made it for a while, but I’m clearly going to have to. I’m sitting here remembering how good it tastes.
* * *
Bratsche wrote:
I always enjoy reading about your pleasure from your [singing] lessons as well as the progress you’re making.
Progress. Blerg. When I was warming up today it was taking even longer to persuade my voice to come out of hiding because we were both so traumatised by yesterday. You know that weary old adage that voice teachers and random members of the populace like to quack at you—that you have no idea what you sound like from the outside? Well, you do after you’ve made the mistake of recording yourself. And since I played it back right after I made the recording, I know what this or that note feels like when I’m singing it.
But, as previous, I like singing, and at the moment it’s one of the few passion-engaging things I can do, because I can always sit down between phrases, or revert to Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes for a bit, or whatever. So I persevered, in my wombly way, and the music started to get hold of me.
Peter had been having a snooze*** upstairs when I started, and when I was about halfway through my practise he came downstairs and started rustling around in the kitchen. I finished a song and was turning over my music and thinking about what to have a hack and chop at next.
That’s a nice noise, said Peter.
My hand froze. That’s what? I said.
That’s a nice noise, repeated Peter.
You’re being kind, right? I said.
No, he said. You don’t sound timid any more. It’s nice.
. . . So maybe I am making progress. You do have to remember that Peter is about as musical as a tablecloth or a cricket bat. Still.
I occasionally have students who really want to challenge themselves with material (most of the time I say, “Ok, let’s go for it!”, knowing they’ll learn a lot from diving in somewhat over their heads). And as I work on learning a new instrument, I’m definitely drawn toward the harder pieces, because I like the sound of them better.
Yes. I don’t know if it’s like this for string players, or for professional musicians learning a new instrument, but certainly at my level I realise there’s also a kind of ragged line about learning—there’s more you could do on a simpler piece if you could do it yet, but you can’t, so you might as well go stretch yourself like a rubber band on something you clearly can’t do yet, but that’s a thrill just to try to replicate a little of. And you can go back to the simpler thing later when you’re all clevered up from the stretching. Also as it happens most of what I’ve been singing lately is mournful and while I like mournful, Se Tu M’Ami is a kick because it’s about a girl saying I like you fine, honey, but if you think I like only you, think again. I doubt I’m putting much of this over, but I’m aware of the bounce when I’m singing it. Erm. Trying to sing it. Although on the subject of putting it over, while I don’t know if any of this is audible, I’m back on good terms with Caro Mio Ben again, thanks to Nadia. One of the things she said—speaking of mournful—is that a way to approach it is that every phrase is a sigh.
. . . it’s the amount of time she spends talking me out of the holes I’ve dug for myself
Yes, but that’s just part of what a good teacher should be doing (in my biased opinion). Dealing with the non-technical and non-music-specific bumps is part of learning how to make music.
Nadia says she knows a lot of voice teachers who have gone back to school and become shrinks. Snork.
* * *
* That’s hellhounds, not dog lady. Although she was possibly a trifle out of breath.
** Although they’re not complaining about the extra time on the sofa. Hey, can anyone out there recommend a pretty-to-look-at but stupid hidden-object/mild adventure/no blood, killing or monsters, no-time-limit-setting, preferably unlimited hints, iPad-compatible game? I finished Rosecliff and am almost through Crystal Portal, and have basically bombed out of Serpent of Isis because I loathe the freller. I don’t like the moronic cartoons, the hidden objects are too hard, the puzzles are IMPOSSIBLE^, I hate using your flashlight in darkened rooms, and—and this is why I’m quitting—the quality of the graphics for the level of complexity is frankly inadequate and since I’m playing the thing on my still-shiny-almost-new iPad 2, I don’t think it’s my screen. I object to wasting (numbered) hints on things that I missed because they’re indecipherable.
^ One of my biggest complaints about computer games generally, every time I’ve had a little stab at this utterly supernumerary category of time-wasting, is that all of them seem to assume that you already know how to play computer games. Is there a pill? Or an energy drink? And suddenly the scales fall from your eyes and all the frelling conventions and assumptions are writ plain?
*** Peter’s ability to sleep through my thumping and squealing is one of his greatest virtues as a husband.^
^ Although agreeing to pay for the extra quarter-hour of voice lesson is also high on the list.
Geography and Chocolate
THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO HAS MADE THE AUCTION/SALE A HELLGODDESS-ASTONISHING SUCCESS. THANK YOU. The rough results are up on the auction site. When Blogmom and I have caught up on our sleep a little, one or the other of us will tell you more about final results and future whatevers. But chiefly . . . THANK YOU. Ding dong bell, you might say.
* * *
There’s been a conversation on the forum about geographic perception. Or lack of perception.
blondviolinist wrote:
|
Black Bear wrote on Sat, 08 October 2011 10:28 |
|
Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, the Dakotas–those are all “great plains states.” |
I had a friend (who had grown up in Seattle) once inform me that those states were Eastern states. I just about died laughing. Honey, do you know where the Mississippi is? Do you know how many hours you have to drive from those states to get anywhere near the Eastern United States?
Everyone knows this iconic New Yorker cover, don’t they? Or are my own East Coast roots showing? http://bigthink.com/ideas/21121
The New Yorker shop [sic*] sells prints of it and if it cost about one-fifth of what it does cost I’d buy a copy.** http://www.newyorkerstore.com/steinberg-collection/new-yorker-cover-3291976/invt/124544/
* * *
Meanwhile . . . I promised a friend about three weeks ago a red velvet cake recipe.*** I knew I had a red velvet cake recipe, but I also knew that I hadn’t made it in a while because if I’m going to deal with all those calories I want them really, really worthwhile. Here’s my biased take on the red velvet cake question: there isn’t enough chocolate because some deranged person has decreed it’s more about the colour.† I got rid of a lot of my cookbooks when we moved out of the old house—aside from the bookshelf space problem, menopause zero-metabolism was already creeping up on me—so even after trolling through the cookbook shelves of three houses†† there are at least two other red velvet recipes I can’t seem to find. But here’s one that I know I’ve made, both because I kind of remember it and because the annotations are clearly in my handwriting. And the pages kind of stick together. This is a good sign. I may have to make this one again some time.
Note that the original called for one tablespoon of cocoa powder and a two ounce bottle of red food colouring. Ewww.
½ c soft butter
1 ½ c golden sugar: the raw, low-refined kind that isn’t the pure white of standard granulated. It doesn’t have as much flavour as brown, but more than white, and it’s mellower than dark brown (and more interesting than light brown. Say I).
2 large eggs
1 tsp REAL vanilla
2 c flour, or maybe a little more
¼ c unsweetened non-Dutch-process ‘natural’ cocoa powder
pinch salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 c buttermilk, or 1 c milk minus 1T, plus 1T vinegar to sour it. I’ve been told many times this is cheating, but it’s a lot easier than finding buttermilk and then figuring out something to do with the rest of it. Theoretically, I think, if you’re using vinegar, it should be skim or low-fat milk—‘butter’ milk is a misnomer—but I always used to use whole/full fat because that’s what I drank, and it worked fine.††† Most of that soured-milk stuff works semi-interchangeably in baking—I always thought—you get a slightly different taste and texture if it’s sour cream or yogurt, say, but if your ingredients, especially your chocolate, are good quality it’ll all be silky—or velvety—and damnably excellent.
Standard cake deal: cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs. Sift dry and add alternately with sour milk. Beat hard, but don’t hang about either: as soon as the vinegar hits the baking soda your batter starts expanding. Turn into 2 8” or 9” round pans with removable bottoms which have first been buttered and floured with great enthusiasm and thoroughness. (A greased and floured cut-out of parchment paper works just as well if you don’t have push-out-bottom pans.) 350°F about half an hour: the layers should rise in the middle, and the edges start to pull away from the pan walls. Let cool at least ten or fifteen minutes before you try and get them out of the pans. I tend to think soured-milk cakes are more fragile than others, but that may just be my karma.
Frost when cool. I recommend vanilla buttercream, myself, but as you like.
I still haven’t given you my favourite chocolate cake recipe, have I? Or have I? The Red Devil AKA McKinley’s Famous Exploding Chocolate Cake? Which is another of these sour milk + baking soda + chocolate = red. My Red Devil cake, despite its distressing incendiary habits, is the reason I pretty much don’t make any other chocolate cake any more. I don’t dare have cake very often‡ and I only really pine and yearn for that one.
* * *
* I grew up in the hard-copy only era, certainly, but I also grew up at a time or anyway on the fringes of a society that believed The New Yorker was cool^. I am still having a hard time getting my head around the on line presence of a New Yorker shop. It’s like finding out that Hillary Clinton moonlights selling pencils on a street corner. I even follow the NYer on Twitter. It’s just not the same, reading the cartoons off a computer screen.^^
^ Although I don’t think I’ve actually read the thing since Janet Malcolm on Sylvia Plath, which seems to have been 1993. How time flies. Eeep. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/janet_malcolm/search?contributorName=janet%20malcolm
^^ Which is not to say that some comics were not totally made to be read off computer screens. http://xkcd.com/730/
** Maybe this is the modern on line version of cool.
*** I believe she needed it by last week.
† Also, chocolate has changed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_velvet_cake I’ve been trying to remember, but I seem to be unduly tired yet again today,^ my progress through the erratically charted geography^^ of chocolate. http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/02/cocoa-powder-faq-dutch-process-v/ I stopped using Dutch process when I stopped drinking cocoa, but that was a long time ago; I may have cluelessly used Dutch process in the pre-annotation version of this recipe, which would help explain why I thought it was boring. (It still needed more chocolate.)
^ Go away, you Mutant Virus, and take the ME with you! You have seriously outstayed your welcome!, as Holofernes might have said to Judith if he’d had the chance.
^^ I perceive a theme. Also, speaking of themes, anyone who doesn’t follow me on Twitter may need to know this: http://www.chocolateweek.co.uk/
†† I never said there weren’t drawbacks. . . .
††† I’d use low-fat now because the rest of the carton would be easier to give away, because that’s what everyone I know now uses. And yes, I assume I could still escape major punishment for ingesting the amount of (cooked) milk that was in a few pieces of cake, despite the ‘no dairy’ billboards lining my alimentary canal. I’d be worrying more about getting the waistband of my jeans closed.
‡ See: getting waistband of jeans closed
ANNOUNCEMENT
Okay, we’re on. The New Arcadia Bell Restoration Fund sale/auction that you were beginning to think I had forgotten about GOES LIVE THIS FRIDAY. MAKE A NOTE.
And, perhaps, to get you (back) in the mood . . .
Inspired by the clock that hangs on the wall opposite where I sit, hunched over my computer, at the kitchen table at the mews.
No, not champagne. British cider. Which is to say hard cider. And my favourite teapot, which got broken some years back, had polka dots on it.
OF COURSE THEY’RE CHOCOLATE CHIP. Don’t be daft.
I’m trying to remember the last time I made this recipe. The fine old American tradition of chocolate and peanut butter tends to make the British giggle and look superior.*
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
¼ c soft butter. I did once make these with all peanut butter and mysteriously it wasn’t as successful. The straight butter brings out the peanut flavour somehow—as well as producing a better crumb—or again it may have been that particular jar/batch of peanut butter. Peanut butter isn’t as variable as honey, but it’s surprisingly variable nonetheless, especially, I suspect, if you decant it from giant vats at your health food shop, which I used to do, when I had a health food shop with giant peanut-butter vats. The original recipe called for equal amounts of butter and peanut butter, however, which I don’t approve of either. This is about the peanut butter. Well, and the chocolate.**
½ c chunky peanut butter. This may need adjusting depending on how squidgy your peanut butter is. But stand by to add more flour if the dough is very soft and goopy.***
1 c well tamped down dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract (NOT FLAVOURING. That hellgoddess obsession: use REAL VANILLA.)
2 c flour. I recommend half standard white and half spelt. They make white spelt now, if you can get hold of it. When I was still making these you could only get wholemeal spelt, and you could push up the percentage to about ¾ spelt, but you need a little plain white to lighten the texture. I’d try it with wholemeal and white spelt. The spelt flavour goes really well with the peanut butter.
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 c chopped dark chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips
I’ve been known to add ½c chopped hazelnuts. No, not peanuts. Hazelnuts are more interesting, and to my taste they go with peanut butter better than most of the other standard nuts—almonds, walnuts, cashews. I bet Macadamias would be good too.
Cream butter and peanut butter together thoroughly, then brown sugar. Then beat in egg, finally vanilla. Beat AND BEAT till fluffy. Mix the baking powder and soda into the flour(s), stir till all the same colour, then add to the creamed stuff. Beat till blended but no more. Stir in chocolate chips last.
Drop on greased or parchment-paper-lined cookie sheets. 350°F, probably about 12 minutes, till they’re just going brown around the edges. They’ll be fragile when they come out, so leave them alone till they’re at least half cool. This is why I use parchment paper: you can just pull it, cookies still in place, off the sheets. Of course then you run out of counter space†, but hey.
* * *
* Feh.
** It’s always about the chocolate.
*** The worst thing that happens if you guess wrong and your cookies are too goopy, is that they run together while they’re baking and you have to cut them up and then eat them carefully because they’ll stay fragile even when they’re cool. But they’ll taste fine. That’s the worst thing that happens if your cookie sheets have edges all round. Let me tell you about how having cookie/baking sheets with edges all the way around is a very good thing.
† Unexpected Uses of Hellhound Crate Top.