*wry* systems operating within parameters

[kaberett]

You can tell, because I got home at around 8.30pm after a 12+-hour day at work - most of it in lab - and because actual food sounds difficult and like effort... I have a from-scratch quiche in the oven (membrillo paste made by my mum, caramelised onions, a metric fucktonne of vintage cheddar, rosemary crust), new potatoes coming to a boil on the stove, and dough for chelsea buns murbling away to itself in the breadmaker.

Important Alex Facts: when food is too much like effort, I do this kind of nonsense, because it is ritual and calming and the process is an ends in itself, and as and when everything is done I'll suddenly go "... huh. Food. Sufficient food for the next few days. ... APPARENTLY I AM HUNGRY."

(Meanwhile all the washing up has happened - or at least the first round - and I've sorted the recycling. Domestic bliss, or something.)

Comments

[fyreharper]

daaaaaaaaaang, I wish "actual food sounds difficult and like effort" turned out that way for me! :)

[kaberett]

per below, the background is that quiche is actually a thing I can trick myself into making when I have 0 interest in actually eating food, because the process is (1) entirely familiar and (2) interesting enough to be a thing in and of itself. Get me slightly more interested in food or slightly more tired and it stops being a thing that Just Happens, but currently I'm in the sweet spot... which means I have enough of the stuff for the next three meals :-)

[redbird]

Ah. I am trying to figure out whether I can make rice pilaf for dinner on a similar "I do this a lot, it is a familiar process" approach, or whether it's going to be a quick trip to the pizza place across the street. With which there is absolutely nothing wrong—except that I got my lunch there today.

[kaberett]

Hah! Yes. I hope that you managed to work a thing out. :-)

[redbird]

I did, and told Cattitude that the dinner was partly due to my friend with the internationally recognized qualification in quiche-making. I not only don't have such a qualification, right now I don't have the eggs (Cattitude makes a fine quiche, and maybe when the high temperature isn't in the 30s I'll get him to make another).

[kaberett]

:-)

Eggssss. My problem is generally that I don't really use milk very much, and nor does my housemate, so making sure we have it in for guests and the occasional milk-specific thing is *actually hard*, which has never been the case in any other household I've ever lived in, where I used other people's milk infrequently enough that nicking small amounts in exchange for fresh bread was legit...

[kaberett]

ps unlike the last two times I didn't actually simultaneously cook chips from scratch

>_____________>

[cosmolinguist]

And here I was just being proud of myself for slicing up half a red pepper (the only veg left in the house the night before veg box day) and plopping some (homemade! and the best ever) pesto on my frozen pizza when I got back in from the pub tonight. :)

[kaberett]

Hah. Okay, so, important background: I actually have an internationally-recognised qualification in making quiche, by which I mean "the coursework component of my GCSE in Food Technology was making quiche over. and over. again."

Consequently it is pretty much something I can do on autopilot, and that I find fairly soothing; this is at least the third time in the past few years that I've gone "... fuck if I have any interest in eating, quiche is at least interesting to make though" and done the thing. >>; (As distinct from the times when I'm specifically interested in eating quiche and make it, on which occasions it actually feels like effort...)

[cosmolinguist]

::nods:: I'm often much better at/more interested in cooking or otherwise preparing food than I am in eating it. Quiche seems a useful thing to be able to conjure up on autopilot.

[birke]

I had no idea it was possible to take* a GCSE in Food Technology. That's great. :D

*Or whatever verb you normally use.

[kaberett]

take, yes! ("sit" for writing the exam)

And it is pretty cool :-) It... sometimes dithers off into "compare ingredients & nutrients between different bought foodstuffs", but my teacher (at a secondary school specialising in Design & Technology) was firmly of the opinion that she was there to teach us to cook, and the exams were incidental.

[birke]

That is the BEST coping mechanism.

[kaberett]

yes!

[jjhunter]

This sounds very much like that time I started making mac n' cheese out of a box because No Spoons For Proper Cooking, and it acquired mushrooms, black beans, fresh rosemary and two more types of cheese before I was done.

Brains are funny things sometimes.

[kaberett]

<3

Aren't they just.

[ofearthandstars]

Last night I had one of those "food is too effort" nights and I ended up making fluffy pancakes with a blueberry reduction sauce. Not our usual healthy fare, but it was what my soul needed.

[kaberett]

nom nom nom nom nom blueberries :-)

(I was having a that-manner-of-batter craving, so I got my mum to buy me waffles in King's Cross/St Pancras this morning at 7.30am on her way from Cornwall to Cambridge...)

[kaberett]

(tonight's How Do I Food is looking like it's going to be US-style pancakes, frozen berries, maple syrup, grilled halloumi.)

[ofearthandstars]

Mmm, sounds delicious!

[silveradept]

That sounds like a useful coping mechanism. Although I may be partial to quiche, and that may cloud my judgement.

Still, pastry ahoy.

[kaberett]

yes! and if you make a bit over you can have exciting raspberry jam tarts (in all seriousness, raspberry jam in wholemeal-rosemary pastry is an astonishingly delicious combination for all that on the fact of it it sounds Obviously Wrong...)

[silveradept]

I've had lavender shortbread cookies, and while those didn't appeal to me, I can completely see how they would to others, so that combination doesn't sound immediately wrong to me.

[kaberett]

Hee, okay. :D

[fyreharper]

Ooooh, this sounds intriguing.

:headtilt: have you posted rosemary-crust recipe before? I would be interested in making its acquaintance ;)

[kaberett]

Nope, I haven't posted the recipe, but it's pretty much "take a basic shortcrust, add chopped rosemary, doesn't matter whether dried or fresh"!

So -- for a small quiche, ~100g of flour (plain, white or brown or a mix), ~50g fat (I usually use butter these days), Some Water (cold!), and a teaspoon or so of chopped rosemary added once you've rubbed fat into flour and before you've made it uh klebrig with Wasser.

[fyreharper]

Oh wow this has so many fewer things than my usual crust! (which has egg and cider vinegar and such... and actually makes four crusts... and is quite lovely really, but rosemary, and also did I mention it makes four crusts, sometimes I do not want to have to deal with that)

Is there an approximation for how much water is Some? i.e. tiny splashes vs spoons vs larger thing... whereish to start so I maybe don't overwork the thing trying to figure it out ;p I'm assuming I should be aiming for General Crust-ish Amount Of Sticky...

[kaberett]

I tend to have a centimetre or two in the bottom of a normal drinking glass and not get through all of it! Probably 1-2 tablespoons for this quantity of flour?

[kaberett]

(if you want more instructions - or anyone else reading! - please do say. <3)

[sidheag]

Lol, where can I buy some of this excellent coping mechanism?

[kaberett]

if I could parcel it up and sell it I'd do so in a heartbeat ;)

(I mean, I don't think I'd actually recommend the route I took to developing it? But I appreciate that it's a skill I've acquired...)

[khalinche]

I also do this. The hungrier I am, the more complicated the cooking. I think this might be because my response to being hungry is to cook, and so it gets to halfway through the cooking process but I am still hungry, so I do more cooking, and it accumulates until the meal has eighteen more components than it needs to.

I was a little delicate (read: hungover) the other morning and my houseguest observed that the scrambled eggs we had for breakfast cured my hangover without me even needing to eat them, because the cooking of them got me back to being calm and centred and active.

[kaberett]

Yes, precisely! This is a physically-complex task that brings you into the moment & physicality (how warm's the butter, how warm're my hands, do the onions sound/smell like they're burning, ah the breadmaker's just started in the other room) but that doesn't require a great deal of thought beyond awareness-of-self.

[khalinche]

That plus a few other things that sometimes write beautifully about, such as family associations, but also the sense of self-reliance and competence is really reassuring. And it's a productive activity: there's a psychological tic common to people who are doing or who have done PhDs which involves a little fidgety voice asking why it is you're not doing something, surely there's something somewhere that you should be doing. I find it hard to do meditative things or exercise for the sake of it, but if there's something that results from it (something that exists to nourish me and build social relationships, also) then that's something I'll happily potter away at.

Also, I'll be starting a job in South Kensington soon if you'd like to have lunch sometime?

[kaberett]

Yes please!

[khalinche]

What's your preferred means of contact for arranging things like lunch? I usually use a combination of SMS and emails.

[kaberett]

SMS and e-mail both good; SMS better for short-notice plans, because I'll notice it if I'm down in lab (the same is not true of e-mail!). My number's in my contact info post, linked from sticky; I'll make sure you're on the thing.