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Lovely weekend
7 JunWet and yechhy outside today, with rain – serious rain, not the light misty stuff we had all weekend. It was a fantastic Queen’s Birthday weekend – we taped the French Open tennis semi finals and finals, and watched them across the whole three days.
While we sat on the couch Steve worked on editing some of his POV mountain biking movies, and I started that sweater I think I mentioned last post. After doing a fair bit of fine-gauge knitting (an ysolda shawl, plus a pair of socks), knitting on bigger needles feels both weird and awesome, as the work just goes so fast! I must be half through already.
Oh, and the food: I whipped out my Nigella Express cookbook, which I haven’t actually used that much (though her sour apple martini is one of my staples), and planned out the weekend’s eating:
- Tuna and bean salad for lunch (Sun – Mon)
- Coq au riesling for dinner on Sun
- Croque Monsieur bake (Monday brunch)
- then for dinner last night we had a Brandied bacony roast chicken, with a potato and mushroom gratin, and green salad :))
Needless to say the fridge is crammed with leftovers, so we’re pretty much set for the week as well.
I got lots of writing in – my SocNoc novel is up to 8,800 words, most of which I actually like. We sauna-ed twice, I finished Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (which was lovely), and yesterday we went for a hike in the Wright’s Hill Reserve – up Salvation, and down Deliverence, a couple of mountain biking/walking trails. It was so muddy though we only came across a few bikers, and everyone was happy and chatty.
Now it’s a work day – though I’m working from home, which means I’m still in robe and PJs – and the drizzle isn’t quite as charming as when you’re on holiday. Still, the cats like that I am at home, and I’ve started a new writers.com class, the Novel for Beginners (or something similar), with Dennis Foley, which I’m really looking forward to. It’s not a “how to write” class as much as it is a “how to structure your own approach” class, a “find the bones of your novel” class. So no critiquing but hopefully a lot of new ideas.
More wool, and kiwifruit chutney
9 JunHey! How’re things?
It’s been raining non-stop in Wellington lately. Apparently in the last three weeks we’ve had four days when it didn’t rain. I’m guessing today is day number five, because it’s gorgeous and sunny today, though still freezing outside. Someone on the news last night mentioned we’re only a few weeks away from the shortest day of the year. That totally caught me by surprise. In fact, the last few months have raced by for me, so much faster than I thought they would. It’s like I’m working again – weeks and days are just flying by.
Even though it’s lovely today, yesterday’s weather was the absolute worst we’ve had all year. Heavy, heavy rain, and hail! I was talking to dad on the phone last night and he thought he could hear someone frying bacon. Nope – it was the hail. I had the heater on all day, and even got the oil column heater set up in the hallway down the other end of the house because the kitchen and our bedroom just weren’t getting warm at all.
I did some more dyeing, but I’m not sure if the results are something I’ll put up as roving in my etsy shop. I think the colours will spin up nicely though, so I might spin the yarn and then put that up. I did however put this up this morning:
Red Delicious Polwarth roving
And then at the end of the day I started working on some kiwifruit* chutney.
Kiwifruit chutney
Kiwifruit in the middle of winter, you ask? Well, mum got a load of unripe kiwifruit from the vines at the hotel where she works (they have heaps of fruit trees that they let the staff pick fruit from, including some nice Pinot Noir grapes that mum made into jam!), and sent heaps back with us. I went through all the ripe ones (still tons left) and chopped them up for this recipe, which I got from the excellent Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving:
Ball’s Kiwifruit Chutney
1.5 L chopped peeled kiwifruit
3 green apples, peeled, cored & chopped
1.5 cups chopped onions
1.5 cups cider vinegar
1.5 cups regular sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup raisins
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 t chopped ginger
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1 t mustard seeds
1/2 t cayenne
1/2 t ground cloves
salt & pepper
(The recipe also called for allspice, but we forgot to buy some).
You combine everything but the spices and simmer for about 30 minutes, then add the spices and cook, about 10 mins, until thickened.
Then you prep your jars and lids (wash, and then heat to the same temp as your resulting chutney; whether you leave the chutney to cool, and then have an easier time of it with the jars, is up to you – most people go with hot hot hot), fill the jars, leaving a centimetre of headspace, wipe rims, lid, and then put in your canning pot.
Cover with water and bring to the boil. Process for 10 mins.
Kiwifruit chutney 2
* As cute as we kiwis are, nicknaming ourselves after a cute flightless fuzzy brown bird, and cute flightless fuzzy brown (& green) fruit, we don’t tend to call kiwifruit ‘kiwi’, the way the rest of the world does. There’s a subtle discernment working: ‘Kiwis’ are the people, while ‘kiwi’ works in the singular and plural, and we use this for the bird. That leaves just ‘kiwifruit’ for the fruit.
Bread making
8 FebOne 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!
Total chaos, and reflections on house painters
13 OctWell, 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!
Saturday stuff
9 SepToday started out pretty slowly – Steve woke up early and cooked us both breakfast (scrambled eggs and bacon on top of English muffins, with yummy curried zucchini chutney and tabasco sauce on top), then headed out to meet Alex T for a bike ride. I took some photos this morning, of my latest yarn, and put it up at my new shop. Yeah, I’ve got a shop! I didn’t want to mention it earlier as I only had a few things posted, but now I feel that I have enough there to actually point people to it. I haven’t sold anything yet, but I’m of the opinion that if your stuff is of reasonable quality (and I do think it’s good) then you shouldn’t have too many difficulties in the long run.
I love the yarns I have posted; I’d keep them all myself, but there is something really fun about going through the steps of selling something you’ve made. Taking photos, figuring out length, wraps per inch, writing an interesting description, then posting it all up on etsy.
Here’s what I put up today:
I also spent a little bit of time on Photoshop, playing around with creating a little logo. I know Photoshop’s really old hat for most people, but I’m really only starting to discover it now. I guess I never had a use for it before (or never thought I did), while now I want to try out things like creating a banner for my shop, and all of a sudden I’m messing around with layers, backgrounds, fonts, etc. etc.
Here’s the logo I finally came up with. (Let me know what you think.)
I think it’s pretty damn cool.
I then spent the rest of the morning carding some of Galadriel‘s fleece in my drum carder (that I bought cheap off Trademe). It’s so fine and black – it’s gorgeous. But hard to get out some of the bits of grass and things that have gathered in there too. The carding seems to get out a lot, but because the fleece is so fine, it makes picking stuff out nearly impossible. I did about five or six batts in all (takes quite a few layers passed through the drum carder to make those though, the teeth are quite short) and then got a sore back from leaning over it all.
Anyway, we’re off to Alex’s for dinner now. No doubt we’ll be talking about Vietnam (his brother works for the embassy there and Alex went over earlier in the year)… should be good. I should go get changed though, I’m covered in fluff and fleece… (fluff from the massive cleaning frenzy we both got into later this afternoon.)
Latest review is up
7 JunAt NZGamer. This one’s on the new Superman game. It’s just a preview, nothing flash. Just wait for the one I’m doing for Rise of Legends. (Due Friday, so should be up on the web next week I guess.)
In other news, my exam for American Gothic is next Tuesday. I’ve taken Monday off work and am going to have a good long cram. Have been getting in some work last week and this week, so I’m feeling relatively prepared, but this weekend will be the real test. I’m hanging out for a bit of a break though. I feel like I need a holiday!
What else have I been doing lately? Well, it was Queen’s Birthday on Monday, so we had that day off. I spent it studying (of course!), making bread (focaccia and pita bread), playing Rise of Legends, and my new fave, Dreamfall. It’s such a sweet game. And totally engrossing. Beautiful scenery, interesting storyline, cool characters. I really rate it.
Happy Birthday, Discombobulated!
20 FebToday finds us celebrating my diary-x fifth anniversary. Unfortunately, diary-x is not functioning at present. Gee. I was planning to celebrate my “birthday” with a bit of fanfare and promises of sending out mix tapes or something similar to anyone who felt like getting in on the feelgoodness of it all. Unfortunately I suspect I won’t be hearing from any of those people I’ve been in touch with via my diary over the years. In any case, if you’re keen, flick me an email and I’ll see what I can do.
It’s actually turning out to be quite a quiet day here at work, for some reason, so I guess I’m at leisure to detail a bit of what I’ve been up to. The weekend was busy; Steve did the Karapoti (as I mentioned earlier), coming in at around 3 hours 45 mins. The official times aren’t up yet so I’m just going by my watch. It was a quite interesting day though. I managed to get in a bit of reading for class (American Gothic), and even did a bit of knitting in the car. We both flaked out pretty early in the evening (disturbingly I think I was more tired than Steve was).
Sunday kicked off with a bottle of French champagne, as we gathered our stamina for the day ahead. Yes, champagne, and leftover meatballs and tomato sauce (home made, of course) on toast. Hmm… better than it might sound. We then kicked into overdrive (read: we left the house) to gather the rest of the supplies for the BBQ we were having that afternoon. It was a bit of a farewell sort of do, with Steve’s Raumati mates all coming round to say goodbye. It was lovely, and quite touching – a beautiful evening, with everyone sitting in the hot sun, eating lemongrass prawns and fish curry, drinking wine and beer and watching the sun set out over Kapiti Island.
