Bread making
One thing I’ve always loved doing, but never had much time for, is making my own bread. Now I’m Sabbatical Girl, I’ve been getting stuck in to making my own leaven (starter) and trying out some of the more intensive recipes from the bookshelf.
One of the coolest books I’ve read on the subject is The Art of Handmade Bread: Contemporary European Recipes for the Home Baker, by Dan Lepard. For starters, he’s a brilliant photographer, and there are some really interesting background stories on bread making all over Europe. But the recipes are bloody interesting as well – and there’s a range of breads you’ll recognise (soda bread, plain white sourdough) as well as some that’ll probably make you go HUH?, like the lard cake, garlic and goose fat pancakes, and mustard and maize rolls.
I confess my last two forays into his recipes didn’t wind up particularly well, though both times it was my own fault (rushed off to something else and wound up leaving the loaves to rise ALL NIGHT, only to wake to gooey mess in the morning). But his soda bread is flawless and I love the white sourdough (which I’ve made in the past). If you’re interested at all in a more artisan approach to making your own bread, I heartily recommend you check out the book. (OK, OK, the link above is an Amazon Associates one, which I thought I’d try out seeing as I’m trying to come up with new ways to survive my sabbatical (more on this in another post, I think). Up to you if you choose to use it or not, but much appreciated if you do!)
Without further adieu, here are a couple photos from this morning’s mess:
The two leavens (right: regular white, left: rye)
Close up of the rye leaven
The gooey mess after I turned it out of its tea towel (the other one was even worse). Note to self: don’t leave bread to rise overnight unless otherwise instructed!!!
The end product. Kinda sexy but not really what I had in mind!
The agonies of shopping sprees for the unemployed
Something I was anticipating but hadn’t yet experienced in my newly-unemployed life was the ’shopping spree’ mentality that I occasionally go through. I’m not much of a clothes-buying girl, and I thought I’d cleverly cut myself off with my book-buying habits by making a few regular trips to the library, but when the urge hits me, it hits hard. Usually my buying frenzies are hobby-related (cue large bins of wool for spinning, and yarn for knitting, fabric for sewing, etc. etc.), so they’re quasi-useful. I tell myself I’ll make my own clothes, things for family and friends, or make art (the ten pack of ilford black and white that came in the post a few weeks ago).
But a few days ago the tarot bug hit me, and it’s hit hard. I don’t really talk about tarot cards much, because, well, I haven’t cracked out my old decks for quite a few years. But I was sorting through a box of stuff and came across a few decks and woah, the wash of art, symbolism and tactile yumminess of them all was pretty intense. So I scrounged around and found my old books (Connolly’s Apprentice and Journeyman books, Greer’s Tarot For Yourself), and got out the cards and had a good old play.
Then I made the mistake of going to Aeclectic Tarot, and the dam burst. That site is the enabler of the insane tarot collector. There are hundreds and hundreds of decks detailed there, most of which have a good accompanying review and a sample of the cards. I had more tabs open on my browser than I knew what to do with. Steve was shaking his head (amused, I hope). There was no way I could resist.
In the past, in my working life, when the bug struck I’d either slap down my credit card then and there, or else write my must haves in a little notebook, which I called my ‘30-day list’. I’d write things down I HAD TO HAVE, and promise not to buy them for a month. A month later, I’d look back at my list, and if I was still feeling desperate about whatever it was, I’d get it. A very sly and effective way to rein back on the spending, if I do say so myself!
But: now I don’t have a steady income, just a pot of savings that I’m dancing around anxiously, I’m not keen to keep hitting it hard with some big hundie hits. So what’s a girl to do? At first I just sighed and thought I’d better just not spend any money, but then I realised I had a whole pile of stuff I’d been meaning to put up on TradeMe (NZ ebay), and it’s sort of snowballed. I’ve got sewing patterns that have never been used, a couple decks of tarot cards that just never clicked with me, a book, some DVDs (two movie, one yoga), and a computer game. If I’m lucky I should score a couple hundred dollars, which is more than enough to get the two decks and two books I’ve got my eye on. I might even – GASP – make money in the process!
(Yes I’m aware that I’m employing the circular logic that the desperate cling to during sales (look how much I SAVED!!), but if you think about it, it is sort of awesome to have a spending spree and wind up with some extra cash in had.)
Anyway, for the record, the decks I’m getting are:
The Vampire Tarot
Universal Fantasy Tarot 
They’re a bit mad, but I like them a lot. For a good long while this deck was top of my list, but I got a little put off by all the apparent cards with beheadings on them (especially for the suit of swords, funnily enough). Next time!
What I’m reading
Just a quickie to note what I’ve been reading (and listening to) over the past few days:
Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott (a classic; I always find something incredible in here every time I read it)
Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay, Andrew Horton
Writing Fiction: A guide to the narrative craft, Janet Burroway (another classic)
Perdido Street Station, China Miéville
“The Waste Land”, TS Eliot
“Automatic”, Jesus and Mary Chain
“The Köln Concert”, Keith Jarrett
Sabbatical day 9
You know what? That stuff I wrote earlier is pretty shite. Rambling on about structure? Ye gods. If anything it just goes to show how in ‘work mode’ I was when I wrote it. That feeling of needing to be productive, of having to account for every minute in the day. If anything I think it shows how nervous I was last week about the whole thing as well. Interesting.
I’ve been doing some cool stuff – yoga, photography, eating with friends (Alex for dinner on Sat, Jamie & Em’s on Sun, coffee with Katherine today), writing and even a spot of organising as well. It’s been really good. The weather’s been off and on – either pea soup or gorgeous and sunny. It was gorgeous and sunny today!
Caught the bus into town just after 12, and met Steve for a drink at 3C (Chews lane), but ye gods, the cider was expensive! Ten bucks for a cider and a lime and soda for Steve. My unemployed inner banker was balking at the price. Sigh. There’s always got to be one thing to angst about, I suppose. Now I have all the time in the world I worry about money.
–
Reading: Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
Listening: They Might Be Giants, The Sugarcubes
Sabbatical day 3
I knew it had been a while since I’d written, but I didn’t realise just how long – ye gods. Well, here I am, on day three of what I’m calling my sabbatical, but what is really just a year off. Just flicked back to my previous post to see how much I actually wrote about it and I see now I was quite vague about what I was going to do. I guess at the time I didn’t really have the full sense of what it would entail, and even how it would feel.
Taking a year off’s not exactly like a huge holiday, as might be expected. It’s more like a massive social experiment, with your own life as the subject. It’s easy to suppose that certain preconceptions you had about yourself, pre-sabbatical, would hold fast – but as you might suspect, it’s really not the case. And while some things are becoming apparent even now on day three, I have the feeling that only as the days and months pass by will I start to change.
Sorry – that sounds pretty waffly. I’ve just been doing some freewriting and I’m still in that mode, I’m afraid. Well, to get a little more concrete, here are a few of the things I’ve been thinking about over the last three days:
Structure. The first thing, I think the most important thing, is structure. Nothing worse than structure, right? Especially seeing as you have taken the plunge and decided that’s exactly what you want a break from in the first place. Well, I don’t know about everyone, but I really do want to make the most of my time off, and losing track of the days, and even what I did three days ago, isn’t what I had in mind. For a little while I actually thought of making myself a timetable, but it was a little too work-like for me (and I want to keep some sense of fun about the whole thing). So instead of rigorously booking things in I’ve made a point of noting down what I do during the day, in my little week-per-page diary. Nothing big, just stuff like: Jeremy & Megumi’s for dinner. Morning pages. Met Katherine for drinks. Made pasta. Work on short story. Letter to Colette. At a week’s glance I can see what I got up to. It makes me feel like I’m not bumming around so much, even though what I’m doing is enjoyable. But for the record, the things that are non-negotiable in my day are:
- morning pages
- a walk (min. 30 minutes)
- teeth/showering/getting dressed (probably should have listed that first)
- some sort of chores (lately I’ve been trying to keep the dishes load down, which makes me sound like a slob, but really, we’re just two people in a house with no dishwasher. When we were both working sometimes a day or two might slide.)
Pressure. Yeah. I didn’t think I’d suffer from this so much, but even on day three self-pressure is really rearing its ugly head. I went for a big walk yesterday, and felt really tired when I got home. I wound up spending the afternoon on the couch, knitting and watching, er, Buffy reruns. In the evening I had really wound myself up, thinking all the useless thoughts: you slob, you’re wasting your time, I knew it, this year’s going to be all about you watching TV and going insane with boredom, frittering away your big opportunity… etc. etc. etc. I really am going to have to work hard on making sure I don’t beat myself up too much. After all, one of the reasons why I wanted to take the year off was so I could decompress a little, so I could daydream and shake loose. Yeah, ok, so it’s Buffy, but it was only day two, you know? And one day in a sea of a year isn’t much – especially considering I could easily spend a day at work last year just bumming around when I had no work assigned and I was waiting for a project to pop onto my radar. Anyway – be realistic about the pressure you put on yourself. The purpose of the year off is to work on stuff you didn’t have time for when you were working, yes – but also to enjoy yourself and relax.
Anyway, I don’t know exactly where I’m going with this post – it’s hardly meant to be some definitive guide to taking a year off, but I’ve found it interesting anyway. One thing I thought I’d be suffering from was a lack of social stimulus. But it’s been nice emailing people when I actually have time to write a more well-thought-out response, and I even wrote a letter to my sister in the UK this morning. Plus when I do catch up with friends, I think I take it much less for granted, and feel more present in the conversation, which is pretty cool.
Anyway, it’s time for a cuppa and maybe a snack. I’ll tune in again soon!
Happy November!
November has brought with it a whole raft (balsa? floating? laden with goodies?) of new changes and interesting things:
NaNoWriMo: another November, another novel. There seems to be heaps of talk this year about the ‘novel in a month’ challenge, mostly around the fact that NaNoWriMo novels aren’t “real novels”, and the frenzied, head down, don’t look up style of writing that it generates isn’t “real writing” either. Argh. In cases like this I think the only answer is: if you like doing it, keep doing it. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But it certainly seems a bit bitter-spirited and mean to begrudge anyone who likes to do it. Yes, it’s silly. Yes, a lot of things get written that might not normally have seen the light of day if the writer had thought about it a little first. I see that as a good thing, not bad. In any case, my profile is (the ever original) jnickelsen. My synopsis and an excerpt are up there. Yes, it’s a story about clones. Clones in New Zealand. That is all.
The house painting: it’s finally done! It looks so much cleaner and happier than before. We’re both really pleased with it.
Work: I don’t know how much I should talk about this one, seeing as it hasn’t really been announced at work (or to my parents, heh) yet, but oh well – no time like the present! I’ve decided I am going to take a year off work, starting at these upcoming Christmas holidays. A sabbatical. Not surprisingly, I’m really looking forward to it. I plan to write (short stories, my longer piece, game reviews, maybe even some freelance writing), read (everything that’s on my to-read list, which is a bit of a daunting task), revise all of my French language learning that’s faded away over the years, ditto with my jazz piano, and guitar. I’m going to sew, garden, bake, and get the house clean and tidy (and my study organised!!) for the first time ever. I have no idea what to expect. It’s going to be quite the experiment.
Diana Gabaldon: Seems a strange thing to mention, but last night Steve and I went to a “books and bubbles” night to hear Diana Gabaldon talk. The books and bubbles bits aside (which was all a bit “girl power-y” for my liking, not to mention the fact that Steve was maybe one of ten men in the audience, out of five hundred), Diana Gabaldon was every bit as intelligent, interesting, and entertaining as I thought she would be. I like people who have done the science-arts crossover; I think they bring a gravity and ‘to the point’-ness to their work – which is not to say that she isn’t hilarious, of course. But her writing style is very direct, and I have always admired that about her. And she brings such a wealth of research to her novels, but incorporates it quite seamlessly in with the rest of the story, rather than going “oo, I found a fact. Everyone, look!”
She is definitely in my wee pack of writers who I have in my mental compartment of people who I want to be reading when I’m writing. Not to copy, because I don’t really write anything like Diana Gabaldon’s books, but to try and inherit some of the tone, the flavour, of why and how they write. It’s a subconscious thing, I guess. You want the method to impress upon you. And if you read enough of one author in a short period of time, you’ll know what I mean. So who else is in there? Garth Nix (especially after I finished reading the Abhorsen trilogy and found myself crying – yes weeping! – at the cafe where I went to read, at the end of the Abhorsen novel); Philip Pullman, for the same reason; Murakami; Jostein Gaarder; Mulisch’s The Discovery of Heaven; Laxness’s wonderful oddness of The Atom Station… and, you may find this strange, but also John Bellairs, author of The House with a Clock in Its Walls, The Figure in the Shadows, The Letter, the Witch and the Ring, and, one of my personal favourites, The Eyes of the Killer Robot. One of these days I’ll write a post on him. Gothic novels for kids.
Anyway, it’s time I was off – my NaNo novel is calling to me.
——
Listening: The Ramones, It’s Alive
Total chaos, and reflections on house painters
Well, it’s organised chaos anyway. I’m at home on the second of my five days off. It’s 9:30 in the morning, and I’m showered and coffeed, and have a cat on my lap – a good start! I’m also sharing the house with a team of four Vietnamese house painters, and a window guy, David, who are all beautifying the house as we speak. It’s great! I’m loving the fact that soon we will be able to actually open all the windows in the house, without having to pound at the frame to squeeze the window open. And no more of that nasty red mould (lichen? whatever it was) that was creeping up one side of the house. And we’ll have doors and gates painted in Pohutukawa, one of the loveliest trees (and colours) if you like your reds. So it’s all good. I just have to put up with all the doors and windows in the house open (it’s a nice day luckily, but still spring, so not the hottest), scraping, whizzing of drills, yelling, and the occasional hunt down of the one Vietnamese guy who can speak English to make, er, adjustments to what the guys are doing.
I think that’s the bit I’m having the most problem with. I’m not a bossy person – would make a terrible foreman. Steve notices things, like – the guys have painted the doorsteps, when we told the boss man we wanted to sand them back and polyurethane the wood. (He didn’t tell them, argh.) I didn’t even notice. But if I had, I would have felt terrible telling them – especially after they spent however much time painting the steps. And I also have this weird paranoia that they are all on the outside looking in, and thinking how lazy I am, reading all morning, and spending time on the computer. Gah. I wonder if it is awkward for them too, or if they really don’t care at all.
I went down to the Karori library cafe yesterday around 11:30, and stayed till 1. It was quite nice – they make a great soy flat white. But I also felt a bit aimless, even though I’d brought my notebooks and laptop with me (no wi-fi, but no biggie). So I walked home again, did some weeding in the garden, did the dishes, and then made chickpea and lentil patties for dinner. Oh drool. They were so delicious, and there were heaps left over for my lunch today as well.
Anyway, I’m trying to be productive, so I’m going to sign off now, make a cup of tea, and then hop back on the computer and review some of the workshop stories the others in my writing class have submitted for the week. Then there’s some of my own writing to do, and I have to wander down to the post office to send off some games I sold on TradeMe.
Adios!
The Proxies, Courtenay Place on a Friday Night, and kitty Weight Watchers
Brr, it’s cold this morning. I didn’t get up until quarter to nine, even though Steve got up and dressed and off for a mountain bike ride at eight. I sat in bed, wrapped in blankets, poring through my new treasure, the Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. I got it in the post on Friday with four other books I’d ordered from the Folio society: A High Wind in Jamaica, Robinson Crusoe (I love this book so much), The Remains of the Day, and Brideshead Revisited. With these, and the nine (ergh!) books I ordered from Amazon a week ago I’m all ‘booked up’ for the near future.
The extreme book-ordering on Amazon happened as a result of starting to read Garth Nix’s Sabriel, absolutely loving it, and feeling greedy, decided I’d gobble up the lovely looking paperback set. Then books one and two of the Hunger Games had to go in the cart, as well as the two Dreamdark books, and it went on from there. (I’m currently reading Edith Patou’s East at the moment, btw, which is a re-telling of the story ‘East of the Sun, West of the Moon’. It’s told from the perspective of quite a few different characters, which I found jarring at first but now I like quite a lot.
Yesterday was a bit of a slow day, after the madness that was the Proxies at the Adelaide on Friday night. Good, goofy fun – we went along with Jeremy and Megumi, which is a bit of a story in itself. We decided to catch the bus in to Newtown, but the trolley bus’s rope broke, just past the botanic gardens. We got off and high-tailed it down to Lambton Quay, to wait for the next bus, only to find that the bus that arrived was the same one we’d got off earlier – somehow it had been repaired that quickly! It still took us about an hour and a half to get to Jeremy & Megumi’s in Newtown. We finally got there and consoled ourselves with a few beers and some gorgeous takeaway curry at their place.
The Proxies, if you hadn’t figured it out by now, are a Pixies tribute band. I’d never really been much of a fan of tribute bands in general, but this is my second time seeing them. It is so fun to be able to spend three hours leaping around with your mates, singing all your favourite songs at the top of your lungs. Brent came along later on, and so did Dave and Clive from work and Clive’s lovely girlfriend Lize.
Steve and I walked down to Courtenay Place from the Adelaide, to catch a taxi and again marveled at the chaos and mayhem of that street on a Friday night. We were reasonably drunk, so no-one thought we were impostors or anything, but all I can say is jeez, you could tell it was school holidays.
Saturday morning (yesterday) we got up with headaches and had to take Sooty to the vet for his dental check-up and his micro-chipping. The vet looked at the check on my wrist (done by the guy who took our money at the door of the Adelaide) and said “is that so you can remember?” Ha ha. Then he weighed the Soots and said he’s overweight (argh!) and would we be interested in putting him on kitty weight watchers? They do a plan for your cat and you go in for monthly weighings and things. The vet was trying to do a promotion for the plan, so for thirty bucks Soots can go back for his check-in sessions and we don’t have to pay any more. We said why not? I have to take a ‘before’ photo of him today, poor guy.
I’ve been scribbling notes for my book/story/novel thing this morning – the one that’s still going through my head after a year or so of dead-ends. I have another ‘lead’ that I’m going to follow up, and hopefully will make some headway this month, before I have to put it all aside and take something else on for NaNoWriMo. I also have to finish up some stuff for my short fiction class, so I’d better get back to it.
‘Till next time….
Oh, and I have another review up at NZGamer. This time it’s for Red Faction: Guerrilla.
Borderlands hands-on
Just a quick note to let you know my Borderlands hands-on is up at NZGamer. It’s a truly awesome game!
Soots
It’s Monday evening. No, I’m not sitting on the couch with the cat, this was taken back in July. I’m at my desk, just hangin’. Soots just did come in though, and he did his thing where he comes a little close, as if to say he wouldn’t mind terribly if you did want to pick him up and smother him with attention. So I picked him up, and he’s gone all smoochy, which is to say there’s the faintest hint of a purr I can barely feel on my leg, and he keeps looking up at me, and if I bend my head down towards him he gives me a wee lick on the forehead.
Poor Soots. He hates noises, plastic bag rustling, stompy feet, and doesn’t really like it if you go after him for a pat or to pick him up. We got him from the Cats’ Protection League back in December 2006. The women who worked there called him a “little lost soul”. They had to feed him alone in his cage, because he didn’t like having to fight for the food bowls with the other cats. He used to belong to a lady who had a stroke, and then apparently the neighbours looked after him for a while, but I guess that didn’t work out. He doesn’t have many teeth left – when we first got him we took him to the vet and he wound up having six teeth removed – one was so loose it practically fell out in the surgery.
He thinks a lot, and is extremely paranoid, but as soon as you’re in bed, and the lights go out, he hops on top of you and gets in for a close cuddle. Or if you’re horizontal, or even just on the couch watching telly. He loves laps. But only if he comes to you. Pippi (the little black and white one) jumps all over him, and at first I was a bit worried that he’d hate her and go even more anti-social, but they seem to get on just fine now and race up and down the hall after each other.
He’s such a wee sweetheart.
Self-portraits
This is where I spend most of my evenings (note the empty wine glass), scribbling and generally faffing around. The rest of the study is in even more of a state, even with the new bookshelves put in. One day, if I’m brave, I’ll put in a picture of the entire room.
Too bad Alice’s head’s been cut off by the lamp – it’s one of my favourite Rackhams. (Note the witch off to the right! I love her.) The black and white photo on the right is of the flat I lived in, on Queen street, in my last year in Dunedin. Ben took the photo.
I love looking at pictures of other people’s writing areas (like the guardian series of authors’ rooms). I think mine looks cluttered but still quite welcoming.
Universe vs household chores
Some days you come across something that totally, bizarrely, sums up what you’ve been thinking about all week. Today was one of them. Cheers Charlie Brooker – we have obviously experienced some sort of transcendental mind meld. Let me know if you have one of those dreams with cats that have superpowers and I’ll know it’s true.
Anyway, the astronomers who made the discovery about Andromeda deserve our awe and respect, because their everyday job consists of dealing with concepts so intense and overwhelming that it’s a wonder their skulls don’t implode through sheer vertigo. Generally speaking, it’s best not to contemplate the full scope of the universe on a day-to-day basis because it makes a mockery of basic chores. It’s Tuesday night and the rubbish van comes first thing Wednesday morning, so you really ought to put the bin bags out, but hey – if our sun were the size of a grain of sand, the stars in our galaxy would fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and if our entire galaxy were a grain of sand, the galaxies in our universe would fill several Olympic-sized swimming pools. You and your bin bags. Pfff!
The human brain isn’t equipped to house thoughts of this humbling enormity. Whenever I read a science article that nonchalantly describes the big bang, or some similarly dizzying reference to the staggering size and age and unknowable magnitude of everything, I feel like a sprite in an outdated platform game desperately straining to comprehend the machine code that put me there, even though that isn’t my job: my job is to jump between two moving clouds and land feet-first on a mushroom without ever questioning why.
Perhaps astrophysics stories should come with a little warning. Just as graphically violent news reports tend to be preceded by a quick disclaimer advising squeamish viewers that the following footage contains shots of protesters hurling their own severed kneecaps at riot police – or whatever – maybe brain-mangling science reports likely to leave you nursing an unpleasant existential bruise for several hours should be flagged as equally hazardous. How can I flip channels and enjoy Midsomer Murders once I’ve been reminded of the crushing futility of everything? I can’t even get worked up about the murders in that kind of mood. Yeah, kill him. And her. And them. Sod it. It’s all just atoms in an unfathomable vortex.
1000 blank white cards
So I’ve been playing more board games lately – everything from our old copy of Pay Day (with pieces from Go To The Head of the Class) to Saint Petersburg – and I was sifting boardgamegeek.com AND found reference to something that sounded sort of mysterious: 1000 blank white cards. I looked it up and found yet another internet phenomenon I seemed to have missed when it was actually phenom-ing. (Find info here and here.)
The gist is that you start out with 1000 blank cards, from which you draw on a handful, and use these, mixed in with a whole lot of blanks, to ’seed’ your deck. When you play (basic drawing and playing sort of mechanics), you either score points based on what is on the card, or, if you get a blank, you have to draw on it and create a new card. Awesome eh? At the end of the game, the players vote for their favourite ‘x’ number of cards to include as the seeds for the next game.
And while it would be nice to produce some gorgeous looking works of art, I think that’s not the point… the main thing is to be creative and have fun with your friends – the stuff of all great board games. I’m totally going to try this one out.
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