kaberett | vital functions (Reply)

Reading. Still working on La Grotta Ices, Kitty Travers. I think this is going to get its own separate post at some point this week when I've actually finished it, in full awareness that reviewing a cookbook you've not made any recipes from is not necessarily an ideal approach...

Finished Cooking Outside the Box, Keith Abel. Nothing that made me go "ooh, yes, I'll try making that", but I can perfectly well see how it might be a useful resource.

I have also been browsing a lot of philately websites in the process of Organising The Stamps, which is now DONE unless I decide that I really Do want to work out what the oldest from each country is, but that's plausibly more sensibly done with the whole collection in front of me...

Cooking. Oh gosh. Well. Er. Probably the most noteworthy thing is the dubious paneer I made via some extremely indifferent "ricotta" from the yoghurt I failed to put the culture into on my first attempt. But it was edible, we ate it, and A actually quite liked it, and most of the whey has been turned into bread.

I also experimented with making coconut sauce for mango & sticky rice using dessicated coconut. I will not be repeating the experiment, but we had some good hilarity out of it.

Honey roast beetroot, blood orange and chickpea salad used up some bits we'd had hanging around the fridge. I very much liked the effect on the chickpeas but found myself going "but what if... cheese???"

Making & mending. I've swapped the various innards of my previous phone over to the new screen-and-digitiser assembly, and also discovered that iFixit were not kidding when they said that this particular battery is not one you can meaningfully reuse. So, er, I've also got a new battery on the way, and should soon know whether I'm going to be able to do things like "recover data"...

There has also been a fair bit of Allotment Infrastructure: tweaked the older of the two fruit cage doors (so it now latches properly); remounted one and a half of the two roof vent auto-openers that came down as part of the aftermath of Storm Eunice; called A over to help with the last half and He Just Fixed It (I did not have enough hands); and put together most of a Structure for peas to (eventually) climb.

Growing. I have managed, I think, to reach the tipping point where spending time at the allotment is an active source of Yes That Will Be Nice as opposed to Well It Might Be Nice In Future But Right Now I Just Feel Guilty And Intimidated By The Amount Of Work To Do.

Things achieved this week: took all the seedlings over to the greenhouse (courtesy of a lift from A). Did a Significant Chunk Of Weeding (two cleared beds, some more progress). Into the ground: some more peas and beans, and also two of the tomato seedlings that don't particularly like warmth and therefore needed to go in the ground in advance of me going away for a few days. It is early to be doing that, but oh well. More woodchip everywhere, both on paths around the beds and on the main path through the fruit cage. Fed the bin most of a flour-sack's worth of weeds and it is now heating up nicely. Cut the healed-over ends off some of the jostaberry prunings that looked like they might still be alive in order to give them better access to the water I'd stuck them in -- no idea if this is actually best practice but I think they're looking a little happier for it, so hopefully I will be able to shift those this week coming. (ewt, I can still dig you up one of the outstanding Actually Established bits as and when we ever get our act together.)

I have also picked up, thanks be to Freecycle, a rather the worse for wear New Zealand flax, which now needs babying until we're next headed down to Cornwall..

Observing. BAT. :D

At the plot yesterday there was a Very Brave slow worm. I startled it while raking wood chip -- I initially thought it was a Very Large Earthworm but then went "... no that isn't right..." and when I went closer to look at it I was torn between delight and Guilt that it froze and stopped moving. Lovely pinkish-orange stripe down the side; I called A over to see, he also enjoyed looking at it, it clearly wasn't going to move and was heading in the opposite of a direction it actually wanted to, so I picked it up to relocate it somewhere more comfortable and it decided (like all snakes everywhere and always have and always will even though it is a Fake Snake) that the opening of my sleeve looked like a Dark Cozy Hole and thoroughly buried its front half in same upon discovering that in addition to Dark and Cozy and Hidden it was also Warm. Relocation was eventually successful, and I still cannot get over how lucky I am to get to see so many of these in London, of all the places.

Many fantastic caterpillars, none of which I have yet identified.