Looking Out To Sea

This is the guy that wrote the bread book I’m always raving about. I’d embed the video here but there doesn’t seem an easy way to do that. Watch him make sweet dough for doughnuts and so on.

It’s been a busy few days here. At the beginning of the week I had a birthday (I can’t remember if I mentioned that). I made some cake for work, instead of buying something from Greggs. I got a lot of compliments for the Chocolate Gingerbread, so I’m glad I went to the extra effort. It was also a good excuse to spend Sunday using our new pans and putting the oven through its paces. In fact that day I made:

• Chocolate gingerbread (from Nigella Lawson’s Feast)
• Banana and walnut loaf (from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course)
• Flapjack (from Katie Stewart’s A Young Cook’s Calendar)
• Pain façon beaucaire (from Richard Bertinet’s Dough)

It was quite a busy but very productive day. I’m just sorry I didn’t think to take any photographs. So instead I’ve posted a photo of the Ice Cream Cake that Helen made. If I was being properly critical I would say the banana loaf didn’t turn out very well (maybe the bananas weren’t properly over-ripe) and the bread looked a bit funny (but still tasted great).

On Tuesday we had our second last BSL class. Alarmingly I have to redo one of the assessments because (typically enough for me) I wasn’t participating enough. This assessment was a three person discussion/debate, with one of the participants a tutor to lead the discussion and introduce the topics. I’m quite nervous about repeating the same mistakes this week. We’ll just have to see.

By Friday we were both pretty tired. All week the weather had been hotter than expected. We spent the evening eating takeaway pasta from La Favorita and drinking wine with Emily. The throbbing sensation in my head the next morning was there to remind me how much more wine I drank than I should have.

Saturday afternoon we were at Lawrence’s for his birthday barbecue. Watched certified-fire-loon Rory set fire to things — marshmallows, slices of lemon, whatever else was to hand. Burning marshmallows quickly move between pleasant sweet, acrid sweet and oh-god-i’m-trapped-in-a-smoke-machine. It starting chucking it down later on, so we didn’t go back out to another party (guilty guilty). Also, we hadn’t put any thought or effort into costumes,

(Fascinating aside: I’ve just noticed that someone found my website by searching for the phrase “robert kilroy silk cannot die soon or painfully enough”. And indeed, I’m hit number two when I search for that without quotes.)

On Sunday Keith and Jo came by on a brief visit before heading back down to London. Jez came round for the afternoon too. I made more bread which was doubleplusgood. Jo also gave me a recipes for her grandmother’s Irish soda bread, which was typically folksy in its details: one loaf has “about 3 handfuls” of flour. It turns out that Jo and Jez, who were both staying for tea, are almost dietary complements of each other, since one is a pescetarian and the other doesn’t eat seafood. This makes cooking interesting, especially cooking from Nigella. There’s a lot of meat and a lot of fish recipes and precious little else.

Those are the highlights of my week. I’m ready to drop now.

Last Christmas, when I went home to see my parents we found a cookery book I used to like as a child, though I never made much from it: A Young Cook’s Calendar by Katie Stewart (Piccolo, 1976). A bargain at 40 pence!

One of the recipes I do remember making a lot was flapjack. (I’m still very scathing about the flapjack available in shops. They’re never right.) This is the charming little introduction it gives before the recipe:

Flapjacks are everybody’s favourites. If you are going out for the morning wrap up a few pieces to put in your pocket. Take an apple too and you should last until lunchtime.

Hmm, tempting…

So what’s been happening? Since Friday night we have been officially moving out/moving in, depending on what your frame of reference is. The whole time we were at the old flat we talked about “moving out” but now it seems a strange phrase. We moved in! We’re here now.

Nine months ago on our first night in the old flat we went to The Sizzling Scot for food. We ate large meals and got rather drunk on hand-poured measures of fine whisky. We decided a reprise was the best way to finish our time at the old flat. We went out together, ate rather too much, had a pleasant chat with the head waiter about moving house, and got given two whiskies before we left, this time on the house. A fine establishment!

We were up on Saturday morning to pack furiously, though I think the only things furious were the headaches. Between one and two o’clock a bunch of friends came with vehicles and we started ferrying stuff to the new flat. It just so happens that most of Edinburgh is closed or diverted at the moment because we’re working towards a city tram system in 2011. This makes moving across town all the trickier.

By about four o’clock the heat and the hard work had everyone else running for home and comfort. We still have at least one more car full of stuff to ferry over before we’ve properly “moved”. Even a couple of heavy bags and a rucksack taken by bus didn’t make much of a difference.

In the new place we are gradually making little safe havens — most notably the kitchen, which looks quite normal. (Apart from the missing dining table and chairs; that is a small flaw.) We spent a good evening yesterday unpacking lots of boxes and putting things in kitchen cupboards. Nothing is in a permanent position yet. We’ll just place everything and see what happens when we need to use things on a regular basis. Some stuff will be moved to easier access places, and other stuff hidden away.

Our furniture buying has been quite unsuccessful — unless you count ruling things out as a success. I think our biggest problem with the “ruling things out” technique is we don’t stop once we’ve ruled out all but one item. So having ruled everything out we have to start looking for more options.

As for successes — I baked bread this evening and Helen cooked stir fry. This counts as proper food preparation, I think, even if we only have one pan. I had some problems with the bread but it was my first time with this recipe and with this oven. Things will fall into place when I’ve had practice and more experience of both.

We’re both on holiday until Wednesday to give us time to get everything sorted — including transporting our old sofa to Helen’s brother and making a trip to Ikea for all those little essentials. More details to follow, when I can think of them.

We spent last weekend painting the front room in our new flat. It’s the first time I’ve painted a room and it shows. Well, it’s not that bad but it could be more evenly coloured.

It was easy to get all the painting done last weekend because we don’t have any furniture yet. This could become quite awkward as we’ll be moving in this weekend. We have no dining table or chairs (though there is a window seat…) and no sofa either.

We haven’t really made any firm decisions about dining tables. I don’t really like formal or “modern” tables — I want something that has character and feels friendly. A farmhouse feel to it, rather than a silver-service restaurant aesthetic. What can I say about my romantic notions that is not apparent? ;-)

I’m looking forward to the new flat with an almost silly amount of excitement. Despite not even having any furniture to eat at, I’m excited about baking. I bought the book Lawrence recommended a few months ago¹ — Dough: Simple Contemporary Bread by Richard Bertinet. I just watched the included DVD and now have to resist the urge to just not bother going to work and baking bread all day instead. The Amazon reader reviews for the book are similarly effusive/evangelical/ominous: buy this book and you will become dangerously addicted to bread-making.

The other cooking we’re doing, the Nigella Express Challenge, is a bit neglected at the moment. We are the furthest behind schedule we have been since we started. By my reckoning that’s about 13 recipes behind schedule, assuming a regular timetable. Moving house will may impact us in either way:

• An excuse to eat a lot of easy food or takeaway pizza. Having La Favorita across the road is a dangerous temptation.
• Lots of food-laden gatherings. Dozens of flat-warming parties!

The more enthusiasm we get for option two the more likely it will happen that way!

But back to the move: we haven’t done any packing either. Our brave friends have volunteered to bring cars on Saturday and haul our various bits and bobs from one end of town to the other, through massive roadworks and diversions. If there are any lone bodies out there who are willing to lend a hand on Saturday or Sunday then get in touch. Getting all this stuff up to the third floor might be more trouble than we’ve anticipated.

Helen wasn’t feeling well yesterday so we didn’t get go anywhere. Instead I made a chocolate cake. It didn’t turn out quite right though — it split in my hands as it came out of the tin and is quite sticky inside. I don’t know where the fault lies — either with me or the recipe or the oven. It’s alright if you want to eat it with a spoon but not so great to eat in your hand.

Today I made a loaf of white bread. It takes quite a while but there’s something very therapeutic and calming about kneading dough. Especially if you get into a rhythm and just blank your mind.

I left it a little long on the second proving and so it has rather outgrown the loaf tin. At least this one rose at all — my last attempt was a bit like a sack of gravel to look at. Tasted a bit dull too!

The bread’s cooling now and there’s some cheese sitting out to warm up. There’s been a round of Camembert in the fridge for a wee while, waiting to assault the nasal passages whenever the door is opened. We’ll show it who’s boss this time.

In between the baking I have been playing with some of GHC’s type extensions to Haskell. In particular, generalized¹ newtype deriving and phantom types.

If you say pudding often enough it becomes a verb. We were pudding yesterday evening and will be doing so again today. Serial pudders? That’s us.

Of course if you say it too much it becomes a horrible non word.

Yesterday I got home from work and set to making some stock. I was unsure if there was a good way or bad way to do this, so I pulled out The River Cottage Meat Book from the shelf.

Fifteen minutes later I had almost completely lost track of what I had intended to do, as I was so engrossed in this great book. But I eventually got the stuff together and (after straining it all today) I confess it smells amazing. I’m now quite upset that we’re planning to spend this weekend away and I won’t get to use it immediately.

We’ve been concentrating on Nigella Express so much that I completely forgot that there were other recipes. The Meat book is so captivating, though, that I really must start to pay it closer attention. But Nigella’s making us eat a lot of meat anyway, so there’s not really room in our diet for more. Occasionally — in a period of meat overdose — we throw together a massive vat of lentil curry as some kind of penance, or maybe as a concession to economical cooking.

Check out the fun time I had cooking burger and fries from Nigella Express. You should try the chips recipe, it’s great fun. You get a freezer bag and put a bunch of new potatoes inside. Then you get a rolling pin and beat the crap out of the little blighters. And then when they’re little chunks — or when you’re tired, whichever comes first — you fry ‘em up. She suggests shallow fry but I think a deep fry would be give a crisper, more golden finish.

Getting nice new potatoes is probably quite important too. The only ones I could get in Somerfield were a bit tired.

I had a deep philosophical conversation with Martin earlier and came to the conclusion that the green Eee was the way to go. (Thanks for the encouragement Calum; you’re still invited for Nigella-food some time!) So I ordered it, and hope to get it within a week. (Finding somewhere that stocked it was harder than I expected.)

Meanwhile, I have to think up, practise, and then record, a ~3 minute presentation for my next BSL assessment. I hate these things where you have talk about your hobby or whatever because I never know what to say. I had this paralysis in school with French essays and it hasn’t really got any easier. Must get thinking…

Went for a wander down to Stockbridge via the Water of Leith yesterday, and got caught in the rain while we were out. Thankfully we were both wearing spring-weather clothes and the rain was quite light.

We ended up in Avoca on a little side street, which was friendly and had excellent pub food. The steak ciabatta Helen had looked very tasty, and my chilli con carne was excellent, and the rice really fluffy too. Helen also had a sticky-toffee pudding which was very fluffy and oozing the volume of syrup Nigella would be proud of.

We met Sarah out there and she gave us some fake fur (more on that in a later post). It also turns out she didn’t realise we had a new flat, so that was pretty cool to have a chat about. We’ll need to get her round to our current flat for pudding some Sunday night, before we move away.