Odds and ends
Nov. 16th, 2004 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI've been cooking.
Now, to understand this we have to go back a bit.
This past weekend was the Autumn Ball of the Friends of the English Regency. So far as I know this group (which has no organisation, no officers, no meetings, but still they peservere) was the first to start the Regency Dance movement. All from a love of the novels of Georgette Heyer (which I commend).
I first started dancing with them in November of '78 (IIRC).
Maia was going to attend, but was called to bail her father out of a jam (in part of his own making, but I digress), and ended up spending the week on her horse, in the wildsof Death Valley.
So Friday morning found me behind my time, racing to the train (because it cost the same to take the train as to drive a round trip, and Maia was going to want company for the drive back).
I made it, gasping from running the quarter mile from the car to the train (which was waiting at the station when I arrived). I admit I'm not in the shape I was, but lumbering with an extra sixty lbs in about a minute and-a-half ain't to be sneered at). First stop of the train (half an hour after I got on), the city I live in. Sigh.
Rolling past house farms and fields, the sun rising and the reds and greens of autumn in California.
When I got to the home of the family we used to room with (and with whom I kept a room while I was away) began the cooking. Barry and I are fans of Patrick O'Brian. We also like to cook (and the tragedy of living with him is that the kitchen was his. I could, and did use it, but breakfasts and baking were the limit of real cooking. He likes to make supper, and I was not going to duplicate effort). As that series takes place in the Regency (I also commend them) we thought we would use the cookbook Lobscouse and Spotted Dog", of which we each have a copy.
So a month ago he minced some meat. On Friday evening we raised a coffin, and made some short-crust puff pastry. Oh, the divine smell of it.
Come the morning, I decided I had not the urge to go to the dance practices (and truth be told I worry for my ankles and knees... My joints are in decent shape, but I no longer presume they will serve for all I desire). And so we made a spotted dog.
It also smelled divine.
I dressed and we went to the Ball. A good time was had by all and 11 lbs of mince-meat pie was gone in a trice. Barry had nought of it.
So, home again. Finally, after three weeks (Maia having been called away the day after I got back from Ft. Lewis). I took some chicken kiev out of the freezer (Maia bought a bunch of frozen steaks and chicken, a box of chicken kiev was in the mix). Cream and dried oyster mushrooms, with a dash of pepper in the sauce. Very Russian. A bottle of gewurtz and the realisation Maia's Tues. classes start at noon.
So, a phone call toakirlu and I have a recipe for swedish pancakes (2-3 eggs, a dollop of milk. Beat, add a cup +/- of flour; dash of salt, mix. Add more milk until the texture of sweet cream. Allow to rest for 20-30 minutes. A bit of melted butter can be added, just before pouring a ladle's worth onto a hot skillet. Like crepes, when they pull up, remove. Serve with butter and jams. Strong coffee is my preferred tipple, but tea will do).
Tonight, pasta puttanesca, alla me: homemade pasta (semolina, eggs and olive oil).
Tomato sauce, oregano, basil, a few cloves of garlic, three dried cayenne (powdered), sundried tomatoes (soaked in zinfandel, all poured into the sauce) half a raw onion, sofritto (whole onion, chopped and sauted in olive oil and some of last night's gewurtz, until translucent, add to the sauce: reserve about 1/4 and let them carmelise, enough sliced green olives to make it pleasantly chunky. It ought to be just a trifle hot to the tongue, so the pasta and some wine will kill the heat.
Maia thinks it was a trifle too warm, so when I put the rest in the fridge, I'll add a can of sauce, and that ought to mellow it out enough so she doesn't complain about taking it for lunch.
Now, to understand this we have to go back a bit.
This past weekend was the Autumn Ball of the Friends of the English Regency. So far as I know this group (which has no organisation, no officers, no meetings, but still they peservere) was the first to start the Regency Dance movement. All from a love of the novels of Georgette Heyer (which I commend).
I first started dancing with them in November of '78 (IIRC).
Maia was going to attend, but was called to bail her father out of a jam (in part of his own making, but I digress), and ended up spending the week on her horse, in the wildsof Death Valley.
So Friday morning found me behind my time, racing to the train (because it cost the same to take the train as to drive a round trip, and Maia was going to want company for the drive back).
I made it, gasping from running the quarter mile from the car to the train (which was waiting at the station when I arrived). I admit I'm not in the shape I was, but lumbering with an extra sixty lbs in about a minute and-a-half ain't to be sneered at). First stop of the train (half an hour after I got on), the city I live in. Sigh.
Rolling past house farms and fields, the sun rising and the reds and greens of autumn in California.
When I got to the home of the family we used to room with (and with whom I kept a room while I was away) began the cooking. Barry and I are fans of Patrick O'Brian. We also like to cook (and the tragedy of living with him is that the kitchen was his. I could, and did use it, but breakfasts and baking were the limit of real cooking. He likes to make supper, and I was not going to duplicate effort). As that series takes place in the Regency (I also commend them) we thought we would use the cookbook Lobscouse and Spotted Dog", of which we each have a copy.
So a month ago he minced some meat. On Friday evening we raised a coffin, and made some short-crust puff pastry. Oh, the divine smell of it.
Come the morning, I decided I had not the urge to go to the dance practices (and truth be told I worry for my ankles and knees... My joints are in decent shape, but I no longer presume they will serve for all I desire). And so we made a spotted dog.
It also smelled divine.
I dressed and we went to the Ball. A good time was had by all and 11 lbs of mince-meat pie was gone in a trice. Barry had nought of it.
So, home again. Finally, after three weeks (Maia having been called away the day after I got back from Ft. Lewis). I took some chicken kiev out of the freezer (Maia bought a bunch of frozen steaks and chicken, a box of chicken kiev was in the mix). Cream and dried oyster mushrooms, with a dash of pepper in the sauce. Very Russian. A bottle of gewurtz and the realisation Maia's Tues. classes start at noon.
So, a phone call to
akirlu and I have a recipe for swedish pancakes (2-3 eggs, a dollop of milk. Beat, add a cup +/- of flour; dash of salt, mix. Add more milk until the texture of sweet cream. Allow to rest for 20-30 minutes. A bit of melted butter can be added, just before pouring a ladle's worth onto a hot skillet. Like crepes, when they pull up, remove. Serve with butter and jams. Strong coffee is my preferred tipple, but tea will do).Tonight, pasta puttanesca, alla me: homemade pasta (semolina, eggs and olive oil).
Tomato sauce, oregano, basil, a few cloves of garlic, three dried cayenne (powdered), sundried tomatoes (soaked in zinfandel, all poured into the sauce) half a raw onion, sofritto (whole onion, chopped and sauted in olive oil and some of last night's gewurtz, until translucent, add to the sauce: reserve about 1/4 and let them carmelise, enough sliced green olives to make it pleasantly chunky. It ought to be just a trifle hot to the tongue, so the pasta and some wine will kill the heat.
Maia thinks it was a trifle too warm, so when I put the rest in the fridge, I'll add a can of sauce, and that ought to mellow it out enough so she doesn't complain about taking it for lunch.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Food, books
Date: 2004-11-17 12:50 pm (UTC)Oh, she made a cake last week from a traditional Czech recipe. Yeast dough, filled with Italian plums and poppyseed paste, covered in walnuts. All the local fall goodies. Yum. I made a roe-deer leg roast that wasn't bad though not much to it--just marinated it in some Chinese plum wine and the usual herbs.
Unlike sunny California, it is cold here. Stay in and cook weather. It takes me forever to get out of bed and go to work and then I stay late because, well, I arrive late, but also the return journey is just too grim. Though quite often phonemonkey meets me at the local, right at the tram stop, for a couple pints of Budvar.
Glad to hear you're a Patrick O'Brian fan! My friend Stan the Man (a 50-something blues musician from Edinburgh) turned me on to them a couple years ago. Great stuff. He's got the whole set and lent them to me in order. If I'm in the middle of re-reading the series the style starts to bleed over into my own writing, though, which has my friends thinking I'm turning into (even more of) a pretentious Anglophile twat and isn't really appropriate for documenting Java Web service platforms, either. Going to borrow them off of Stan again and pass on to phonemonkey when the winter starts to really get to us.
Only read one Georgette Heyer, and I forget which one, but it was dang good fun, too. My friend William King, who writes fiction for Games Workshop, recommended them to me. Says they are great for evoking atmosphere if you don't mind the slightly over the top hero. Same may be said for Rafael Sabatini, I suppose. Oh, you'd likely enjoy Nigel Tranter as well, especially if you've any interest in Scotland.
Well, a comment longer than your post, almost.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 02:12 pm (UTC)Well...maybe not all the time. I'll need someone to drool over costuming with.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 04:47 pm (UTC)TK
no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 04:52 pm (UTC)And you'll have to talk to Maia about the whole kidnapping thing. I may not be completely opposed, but she might not be in total agreement.
And if you think you are taking me to Texas, for good, not.
TK
:)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 05:37 pm (UTC)It was sooo good. Non-blogging husband doesn't like squash and he loved this dish.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 06:55 pm (UTC)TK
no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-18 08:13 am (UTC)TK
no subject
Date: 2004-11-18 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-01 03:25 pm (UTC)Oooh. Must get that. Maybe I can make something for the Elegant Arts Society (http://www.elegantarts.org/) Regency Assembly this year. (We'd love to have you come if you're ever in Connecticut in October.)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-01 05:13 pm (UTC)It's a pretty good cookbook. Has some oddities (I doubt, even though I have a ready supply, that I shall ever make fried millers), and some of it is a lot of work (If you choose to make ship's biscuit, have at least one other handy to help with the pounding) but lots of it looks really good, and none of it (that we've tried) has been bad.
Amusingly, the friend with whom I shared this little peccadillo, made comment in a Civil War board, explaing to them what 'scouse' was, because they had no idea. Some of the ideas he related to me were... interesting, and I wish I could recall them.
As for Conn. in Oct... maybe, but I've no idea when.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 03:49 am (UTC)The first thing I'll point out, is to make the raw biscuit thinner than you think.
It is the base for any number of secondary dishes, and I can also give you some civil war recipies, where it can be used in lieu of hard-tack.
TK