Here is a video of a man in armour running on a treadmill

This sort of thing always makes me wish I'd pursued a career in science, instead of failing to pursue a career in anything.

Two TV stations, you say? Where is this magical land of plenty?

Why, it's Canberra!

Bread!*

I have been making a bit of bread in the last few weeks, but all the no-kneads and quick breads were just to get my hand in.

Yesterday was the big test.

I made sourdough bread from a starter I developed myself - no shop bought yeast around here, no sir.

I'm really pleased with how it came out, but the whole process was frankly a bit fiddly. First you have to develop a starter, which basically involves mixing flour and water and letting it ferment under controlled conditions. You have to tend to it carefully over the course of a week or so, refreshing the mix so it ferments and doesn't rot, which is actually quite fun in a way. After a day or two you start to see the little bubbles popping up on top of the mix, and that's when you know that Chemistry is happening. I found this particularly pleasing, having been told in high school that I was hopeless at science by more than one frustrated teacher. Now look who's making yeast! Didn't need a Bunsen burner for that, did I Mr Graves?!

Now, bear with me because I am no food photographer, but this is what it looks like after a couple of days;

Not that exciting so far. Just brown sludge. Anyone can make that, I hear you say. Well. After a week or so it starts to get really frothy, and it smells amazing. Not good, necessarily - don't forget that this is basically soggy flour on the verge of rotting - but complex and appley and like something that's doing something that I still feel is almost magical. The day that I woke up and opened the container and saw all the bubbles I cackled manically and shrieked 'IT'S ALIIIIIVE!'

After all that coddling comes the actual bread making. You take a bit of your hand-reared yeast and make a sponge (which is the word we professional bakers use to describe the first stage of making the dough), leave it overnight, then mix in the rest of the flour the next day. And then, after a bit of kneading (and a tiny bit of weeping with the effort of beating two kilos of obstreperous bread dough into submission), a few hours of proving and some anxious hovering around the oven, you get....

In all honesty, this is probably a bit more effort than I would be prepared to go to on a regular basis (It takes the better part of a week to go from 'hmmm, maybe I'll make some bread', to 'OMG THIS BREAD IS AMAZING'), but you can freeze the starter and just use it when you need it instead of continuing to feed it forever and ever - my bread book talks about professional bakers who have kept starters bubbling away for thirty years, and I do love the idea that I could still be cooking with the descendants of this loaf for my grandchildren.

But for all the effort, it was totally worth doing, for two reasons. For one, it tastes amazing. It is dense and chewy, in a good way, and the flavour is more complex than any of the quick breads I've made could ever be. But more than that, the process as a whole is utterly absorbing and so rewarding in a way that I never would have expected it would be. This is more or less the same way that people have been making bread since before the pyramid were built, and there is something quite awe inspiring about that; thousands of years and unimaginable technological advances later we're still making and eating bread made using more or less the same technique.

*I was thinking about doing a pun in the title, but then I realised that not every post kneads a pun. I mean, really, I doughn't think anyone enjoys them as much as I think they do. And I'm still serious about trying to earn a crust as a writer, and if a potential employer sees this blog, well, any way you slice it, they aren't going to be impressed. I need to mature as a writer - I can't just loaf around any more, relying on puns to fill out my posts, like some hack without a crumb of self-respect.

A poem for Monday

I'm a big fan of James Fenton's poetry, and I just found this great recording of 'God, A Poem' that I had to share. Perfect for a slightly gloomy Monday afternoon!

Marshmallows

We're on our way up the coast this afternoon to spend a couple of days with Jo's parents and family, which we are looking forward to very much. We should have left early this morning, but I'm waiting to hear from Centrelink and I can't go until they call. I found this video of some Scottish chaps putting marshmallows in a vacuum, and I think it's a nice visual representation of how I feel about waiting in general. Urge to kill rising...rising...

Enjoy!

All I need now is a goat, and I'll be totally self reliant

Now, you might assume that in a house with a population that consists of one university student and one teacher, both of whom are on holidays, and one person who is unemployed (-able?), that there might a lot of sleeping til lunchtime and drinking more than is strictly advisable going on. And you would be correct in making such an assumption.

However, we have also found the time in our hectic drinking and sleeping schedules to do all sorts of productive little jobs and to indulge in various wholesome hobbies.

I am pleased to be able to present to you, the blog reading public, a piece of photojournalism I have tentatively entitled Keeping Busy (or; 101 Fun Ways to Avoid Thinking About the Ultimate Futility of All Human Endeavour).

1.


I am making a dress! I haven't attempted any sewing in a while, and it might be a slow process. So I have chosen to make a sundress that I won't be able to wear for a few months anyway, which takes the pressure off slightly.

I have solid history with sewing projects. For the first few steps I am retentively meticulous. I have been known to hand-stitch entire seams to get them juuuust right. But, inevitably, about halfway through I start to think 'gosh, this is jolly easy, I'm sure I could get this done much faster than this!', and I race through the rest of the project, ruining it in the process. I'm determined to get it right this time, so stay tuned. Some time in the next year or so I expect to be able to show off my new dress. Just don't look too closely at the seams. Or the hem. Or the straps. OK, you know what? You can just piss off if you're going to be so fucking judgmental. Jeeze. This is why we don't hang out anymore, you know that, don't you?

2.
I made a scarf! I haven't knitted since I was a kid, and I will admit that my mum had to cast on for me because I couldn't quite remember how to do it, but the rest of that is 100% Handmade by Tash. I've worn it in public and everything.

I found the whole process incredibly soothing, not least of all because it gave me something to do while I listen to podcasts other than play Angry Birds. I'm going to move on to another project soon, I'm thinking a fluffy hat? Possibly with a pompom?

3.


Everyone aside from me has been gardening! I have not been because I am lazy and it is cold outside. But mum and Jo have turned over the weed patch under the deck, and the plan is to turn it into a veggie garden with a bit of lawn so we can actually sit down there. We're hoping to be able to put a pizza oven in as well. I believe this is against council regulations, but then our neighbours have an illegal spa on their property and our other neighbours have an illegal dwelling*, so they're not likely to kick up a stink. I'm really hoping we can get this done before summer - I can just imagine sitting down in the little grotto veggie garden with a Pimm's and a woodfired pizza on the go.

The next project is this little patch of garden behind the garage that was my vegetable garden before we left for Spain, but which has become hopelessly overgrown;



Somewhere in there is a Tahitian lime tree, a Thai basil plant and some Mexican habanero chillies (I like to keep a very multicultural garden). Also some wormwood, which I have always been tempted to use to make some absinthe but have been too scared so far, because of the whole, you know, blindness and insanity thing that goes along with it if you get it wrong.

I swear that when we get back from our trip away next week that I will get stuck into tidying up the garden and make it at least presentable. Hopefully I will be able to salvage at least some of the actual plants.

4.


We have been making bread! This is one of mine, a white loaf with oat flour and it is delicious, thank you. But Jo's the real baker in the family. While I have to weigh everything out, Jo just has a knack for knowing when the balance is right and can do it all by how it looks and feels. Jo also has the patience and upper body strength required to knead the dough properly, whereas I have the arms and attention span of a small child. I could use the food processor's dough hook, but that feels like cheating - I'd rather have the dense, chewy bread that comes from honest laziness than the fluffy loaf of a cheater.

I'm also making a sourdough starter, so in a couple of weeks I should be able to start baking proper sourdough made from fermented wild yeast. Which is much nicer that it sounds.

5.


We have been creating serious safety hazards! Look at that. Last week Jo volunteered to have a look at the bannister, which had been getting a bit wobbly. Which ended up with him tearing the whole thing out (to be fair, it was pretty far gone). I'm sure that one day in the not too distant future (cough, cough) we will have a replacement bannister. In the meantime we are putting our faith in green nylon string and a sign scrawled on an old envelope that reads; 'danger! wobbly bannister!'. (Oh, and if anyone is reading this and thinking that this is the perfect opportunity for an insurance scam, just remember that we are so poor we have to make our own bread. It's really not worth your while.)

6. Y finalmente - I have been indulging in some amateur bird watching. I have seen two kinds of birds (because they're the only ones that come to the deck, and when I say 'birdwatching' I mean 'I was sitting on the deck and some birds landed on the water bowl') - see if you can spot the difference!




*If anyone from the council is reading this, that was OBVIOUSLY a joke, and no one has any illegal anything or intends ever to have anything illegal, ever.

Except for the crappy neighbours two doors down. I think they're running a brothel out of their garage and they seem to have regular cock fighting tournaments in their back garden. You should investigate that immediately.