Food

Maia told me yesterday that this was, "community day" at the Central Coast Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (as a holdover from the days when titles to things were long and descriptive I love the way Quakers actually name themselves).

Which is to say there will be a potluck after meeting.

I offered to make bread.

I decided to work the starter. Empty the jar, add three cups of water, three cups of flour and place in a corner. I let it rest for about nine hours, put a cup of the goo, and about a 1/4 cup of flour (I'm moving this from a wet starter to a "dry" one) and a and at 5 p.m divided the rest into two sections and worked them into dough (I don't have a bowl large enough to work the amount of dough one gets from four cups of sponge).

I kneaded them together, cut them apart, braided them, kneaded them back together and made sure the stuff was homegenous.

Then I cut it into rolls and baked it.

In the meanwhile I made dinner, a greek salad (romaine, tomatoes, butter-beans, kalamata olives, feta, cucumber and curly parsley), tzatziki (garlic, Fage yoghurt, and salted cucumbers. Maia thinks it needed some lemon) and prepared breakfast (which I am just finishing.

Breakfast was dirt simple, both last night and this morning.

All I had to do that the three of us might eat was spoon the clotted cream over the raspberries.

The clotted cream (which might have been better a slight bit more clotted, but had no real failing) is easy enough to make too.

Take a pan the heavier the better(yesterday was a score day for me at the yard sales, a pair of corning Visions saucepans (no lid, but at a whopping seven dollars for a 1 qt. and 2 qt. pair, I won't complain) and place the cream, I used a pint, on low heat (as low as possible; I used a pair of cast iron heat diffusers under mine). When the surface is rigid, and slightly undulated (so saith the joy of cooking) it's done.

Cook it at too high a heat (or with cream of too low a butterfat) and it will coagulate the protiens, and be ruined (much as a broken custard). If the heat is low enough you can keep cooking it, which forces out some of the moisture and makes it more to Devonshire Cream (oh! the horror).

It's best if one lets it rest for a few hours at room temperature (and if it's not been pasteurisd it gets slightly sharp). It needs to rest overnight (or through the day, should one be making it for late afternoon tea).

I just put a lid on the pan and let it sit out. Discarded the hardened foam and ladled the cream over the berries.

Simple decadence.

Every time I think my disgust has found its bounds

From Crooks and Liars:

Transcript from FOX-dressing up to look like terrorists


(Rush Transcript)

IT WOULDN'T BE OUT OF THE QUESTION FOR THEM TO PICK ON SOMEONE WHO MAY NOT BE MIDDLE EASTERN BUT WHO MAY LOOK MIDDLE EASTERN. SAY, SOMEONE WHO IS FROM SOUTH AMERICA, SOMEONE WHO IS FROM CENTRAL AMERICA, AND, SAY, YOU KNOW, WE KNOW THEY'RE RACIAL PROFILING US, SO WE'RE GOING TO TRY TO GET SOME PUBLIC OPINION ON OUR SIDE. LET'S DRESS THIS GUY UP, TELL HIM TO ACT SUSPICIOUS, AND IF THE POLICE APPROACH HIM, TELL HIM TO RUN AWAY, AND WHEN THE POLICE CATCH HIM, THEN HE APPEARS TO BE INNOCENT, SO, YOU KNOW, IN ESSENCE, THEY START SENDING OUT DECOYS. THEY CAN DO ALL KIND OF THINGS WHEN THEY KNOW THAT YOUR NET -- THAT YOU HAVE CAST A NET THAT'S THAT NARROW.

I haven't been able to find out who, on Fox News Live, actually said this (and it's possible this is me getting suckered), but Christ on a crutch.

If we look at this seriously it argues the Cops can't make mistakes. Somehow they knew de Menezes was affilitated with al Qaeda, and al Qaeda knew the cops would figure it out, and so they set him up to get shot so the cops (who are, in this authoritarian wet dream, some kind of omniscient) would look bad when they shot him.

If I were going to be more paranoid than I am, I'd say the timing of the London Bombings was to get the PATRIOT Act extended. I'd like to think not (because if it was, then al Qaeda has a much better finger on the pulse of U.S. politicians than I want to think they do), but it niggles at the back of my head (just as I think the Spanish Train Bombings were meant to keep Bush in office).