Do they call him Snerg the confectioner? No.

Well... I've had my first attempt at making turkish delight. I used a gelatine based recipe since that's what was lying around. What I learned was:

1. Gelatine in sachets means that you can't control the amount. I think I had slightly too little as it didn't really set enough.
2. With that much sugar in it, the gelatine doesn't seem to be forming jelly as such. It still has that gooey consistency (a little too gooey this time around), so if I want to use gelatine it doesn't ruin the texture.
3. I added around 50mL to a recipe that required only a teaspoon. I can pretty much only taste the lemon juice. It's nice but I wasn't looking for lemon delight. Clearly "the juice of one lemon" means a crappy lemon with very little juice. It's quite strong in lemon taste.

I've now obtained some Cream of Tartar (I'm not going to make that from scratch!) and I've added another batch of petals to the remaining rosewater. After it soaks I'm just bottling it because I'm out of roses.

Soiree was fun!

One of my "My brain is full now!" procrastinations on the weekend was going to Soiree. Here's a piccie of the view from high table



Was pleasant to listen to quite a lot of performance and also do a bit of dancing. There was also plenty of good food. Mmmm. I think someone told me they were period recipes, which would explain why the combinations seemed a little unusual (in a good way).

p.s. I just had some fresh tamarind. Yum! Thankyou MissKrin!

9 down, 3 to go!

Hoorah! Had an exam yesterday. That's it for 4 months, then it's back to some subject that I haven't chosen yet...

I was just trying to find out how long rosewater lasts in the fridge, or keeps in general. Have no idea yet but I really must have entered the wrong search terms. In google I tried a few things, one was a search for preserving rosewater. It turned up a recipe that makes me think twice about food and what combinations are disturbing. It's a recipe for "Watermelon and feta salad with clear tomato jelly". For some reason that just doesn't sound right to me. Certainly not right or wrong enough for me to try making it.

Strength testing...

On the weekend I tried out the rosewater in a pancake batter. 1 cup milk, 1 cup wholemeal flour, some sugar and 1 1/2 tablespoons (North American Metric ones) of rosewater. While we couldn't really taste the rosewater as such, you could tell somthing was there. Not sure if it's a fair test really.

Rosewater is steeping away....

Okay, so the rosewater is busily making itself and smelling lovely. First batch has been squeezed and 2nd steeping is in progress. Might go for a 3rd, depending on how strong it tastes.

As for the Turkish Delight recipes, I'm kind of tempted to make the gelatine version, although it does seem a bit lazy. If I go for that one, it's on Epicurious here or elsewhere with extra lemon juice.

If I do it properly (with cream of tartar and heaps of sugar), I found two choices here and here. The one suggesting the pistachios was a gelatine one. Weird. I thought they would work better in the Tartar by not sinking to the bottom so easily. Oh well.

Proto turkish delight

While we're in farming mode, here's our turkish delight farm. It currently looks like this



and



which was after we harvested



so now it's busily making rose water. We'll see how that goes. Turkish delight is one thing I want to make with it. Maybe also some "cordial". If it has a strong enough taste there should be plenty to make other stuff too. Any suggestions?

Garden Salad!

Well... not quite yet. We have some overgrown aging carrots that now look like this:



and earlier my folks came by and put in some other vegies. The letuces are coming along nicely



but the cucumbers and zucchini are missing, presumed eaten by snails.

It's Barbecue Season

So I found this hilarious. It's from White Ninja Comics.



(Click image for the whole comic)

Two funny things happened to me today!

Firstly, it looks like they've finally finished the IT review. We're getting a preliminary speech about it. They've chosen to give us the talk on Friday 13th.

Seconly, the local feminist group were advertising themselves. They had a cake stall. Not they they are reinforcing stereotypes or anything.

Mind you, lunchtime was a crowded with people vying for attention. There was also the Oxfam/Fair Trade cakestall (bought some of their white chocolate with almonds to try out), an oompah band turned up with guys handing out pretzels to advertise the upcoming octoberfest (their choice in muzak was not so good... chicken dance!?!!), and not to be outdone, some guys walked out on to the library lawn carrying a black coffin. I assume they were advertising a play.

I've had 2 iced coffees today plus my usual breakfast coffee. I'm bouncing a bit. Just to disturb everyone, the 1st iced coffee I bought today was a "Vanilla Ice". It's a bit sweet with the extra vanilla, but I do it just so I can ask for "vanilla ice, ice baby". In winter I order a double macchiato and call it a "Mac Daddy". Maybe I need help.

Damn Monkeys and 'Kn Apes

Last night Mz DestructoMeg took me to the Lowin Award ceremony for Australian contemporary composers. I feel so... ummm... cultured or summink. We had canapes and drinkies so it's all good! Was good to have some live performances thrown in to the mix.

On the way home we stumbled across the Sydney Good Food festival in Hyde Park. It was funny because you could see that Thai food is so not exotic anymore. All the Thai restaurants represented had very little queue. Things like Japanese and Himalayan fared much better. And nobody wanted the Indian food... We ambled around but nothing seemed to strike me as particularly delicious. Possibly because I could identify most of the restaurants there.

Oh yeah... driving back home I bought the final piece of the puzzle. I now own a gas bottle.

***NEWSFLASH***

As of Saturday, high noon, the BBQ has been "cured". There's a few "features" on how some of the buttons work, and it does smell a bit like burned paint, but it's all ready to go! Now to find my pith helmet....

Barbecue Wrasslin'

Okay... I *think* I now have a fully assembled BBQ. I still have some spare bits. I don't know if they are actually imporant, and I'm not 100% certain of where they go. The diagrams are a bit special, and don't really tell you what is actually going on. I'm just hoping that they aren't somehow structural. Unlikely, but I'm not sure I'd like to see a flaming BBQ collapse in front of me.

I also don't yet have a gas bottle.

I have, however, finished Mr Sheening my armour.

Just doin stuff.

Well.. I managed to get my act together enough to go to Spring War! Well, actually I needed to get out of the city so it wasn't really a choice. Just needed to relax out among the trees... and the battlefield. The highlight for me was sitting in the Turkish Coffee House (a tent with some pillows and low tables), drinking turkish coffee, eating turkish delight and looking out at the trees.

Yesterday I managed to submit my assignment for my current subject. It was handed in on time and I don't think it was as bad as I thought it might be. The relaxing break was a good thing.

Workwise I am witnessing the most overly complicated office move in the history of mankind. Not that it is complicated, just that someone keeps "helping" and changing things regularly. There is always more than one "surprise du jour".

And lastly... I attempted to assemble a BBQ (early xmas prezzie from the folks) last night. There should always be one or two bits left over. It's traditional and adds to the puzzle of the whole thing. There shouldn't be 14 pieces left over. Took a while to work out where I think they should go... this time for sure! How hard can it be to assemble a BBQ? Really?!?!

I also still need to Mr Sheen my armour...