The best Christmas cake
A very merry food adventure – Christmas with family & friends
It was the morning of Christmas, not a soul stirred in the house. Outside though, is a different story. Family of Guinea Fowl are noisily scavenging the yard for an assortment of farm fresh rusk crumbs, seeds, and live insects. And Ziggy. It is time for Ziggy to make his appearance for his early morning feed. That is not a quiet little mouse….
It has been a while since I shared some base case menus, and spending the holiday on the farm, represents the ideal opportunity to experiment with the menu. Or the venue.
Here is a sample of Al Fresco eating, from my pop-up restaurant dreams.
Breakfast
Breakfast in bed Kisses for me You don't have to say You love me Breakfast in bed Love can make you sing
UB40 sets the tone well.
But, perhaps a bit awkward with your dad, and fellow farmers. Therefore, breakfast on the dune.
Base case: Eggs. We had been increasing our egg stash with shop bought purchases, and farm friendly offerings, and had not made a dent in our stock with our baking prowess.
Base case +1: Its outside, of course it simply must be cowboy food. Add Baked Beans. But first start with our recent onion harvest, and some bacon. Once heated, carefully nestle fresh eggs discretely in carefully crafted wells. Voila!
And the ever-ready sour dough bread of course.
Simple, yet effective.
Dinner
Accompanied by the sounds of Andra, dinner was again outside. This was more a case of the labour of love. Like UB40, this is no song, but an entire album.
Our Christmas eve dinner venue was set up in the wrong place, being the centre of attention of the hot afternoon sun. But it was the perfect place for a beautiful sunset, tinged by a cool breeze as the day unwound.
Base case was pork steak. I chose to keep it simple and savoury and jazzed it up with smoked Paprika and Soya sauce. Supplemented with golden Jewel Sweet Potato (tossed with carraway seeds), carrots (coated in turmeric & cumin), finished off with baked apple (dusted with 5 spice). Accompanied with a herb salad from my veggie-tunnel, dressed with my own pickled ginger (Both of these being base case “on hand” ingredients), and strong cheese.
And champagne, do not forget the chilled ice bucket and cold bubbly!
I opted to continue the healthy menu, with a chocolate cheesecake mouse for dessert.
PS – The dress code was “green accessories”, dressed as you are 🙂
Lunch
First time I tried tongue. Set in Agar Agar. Anyone else find it amusing that I am using vegan gelatine to set a cold meat dish?
Its for lunch later today, so I will post pictures once it is nicely dressed.
Have a merry Christmas. Keep your social distance but do keep in touch. Keep safe but do enjoy what this new way of life can offer.
Feel free to leave a comment.
My problem is not your problem, and your problem is not mine
WordPress tells me, that the first 3 words, and the last 3 word, are the only ones that readers see, and those are the ones that attract a reader’s attention.
It is sardonic that “My problem is, is not mine” would be the impression my headline leaves.
I will get back to the definition of sardonic. For now, permit me to vent.
It was a tough week. I had been asking for COVID financial assistance since March from the power that be. It is now December. I had been given several promises and options, and while not ideal, we are not in a situation to be picky about what help we will take.
Before I ruffle some feathers, let me thank the shareholder for approving the solutions they did approve.
But there is a long and laborious road from promises, to execution. What is said, is done. Right? Wrong. What is said, must still be done. So here is what I explored this week. There is an African saying: “It is easier to slide down a pole, than to climb up it”. That is true. But what is also true, is that the top of the pole is not the part that executes the mundane tasks of paperwork to support a transaction. For that, you need to connect with the executor. (Not the executioner – that is a whole different moral debate).
Holding people accountable for what they promised, is all good and well. But when you ask for help, you must be prepared to work for that help. Even if someone said they will assist, and even if they have the best intention to assist. But the minute you walk out of that office, that person must attend to their own problems, which you probably know nothing about.
I trusted that the counterparty would eventually deliver, but my patience was wearing thin. I have a fair inkling I believe of the problems of the counter party to this transaction, but I had been patiently understanding for too long, and my problem was now becoming a crisis.
First, it took monthly visits to convince my audience of the problem, and to understand the weather on their side of the pond. Getting to balance accountability and responsibility, of both parties. Then it took weekly visits to ask how the paperwork was progressing, which would see a respite from the pressure of my problem. Then it took daily, literally every day, visits to get someone, anyone, to press the button to conclude the transaction.
Perhaps, part of the frustration is that I am a goal orientated person, and I do not particularly care how we get there. You can ask an ex-colleague, Trevor. We had many “healthy debates” about meeting deadlines, vs quality of work. It is a chicken or egg debate, for which there is no one always correct answer. That end goal attitude is what gives me my “gift of perseverance”, but it is also frustrating when I cannot find the next person in the chain of command that is required to execute the transaction.
I am also an eternal optimist 
, so getting stuck in the lift in one of those trips did not deter me. Even if some people inferred it was because I was becoming too troublesome in the office I was visiting……. I rather saw that incident as a gem in the story of how I finally got to the solution.
So, knowing that the counter party have their own problems, I changed tack. I do not know why I would use a sailing term, as I only ever tried windsurfing as a teenager. I guess because the term denotes a particular strategy of changing one’s approach depending on the prevailing conditions.
(Another one of those benefits of being goal orientated rather than process/route orientated).
I nicely explained, that if they could simply place that signature here, and then press that button there, for a transaction that was already approved several weeks ago, they could make me go away. i.e., I would represent one less problem for them to resolve.
It worked. I am not saying you must become someone else’s problem in order to resolve your own problem. I am saying that everyone is busy, and you cannot assume that others understand, or will prioritise your problem over their own. So, keep at it. It is only if you keep at it, that your problem will “Do like a Disprin – Dissolve”.
Thank you for listening. As I re-read and do a quality check on this post, I can see how my frustration dissipated. Now, how long do you think I should wait until I pester the powers that be for the paperwork required for solution number 2?
PS – Sardonic : Mocking, scornful, ironic, sarcastic. You get the nuance?
PPS – I found this cute “12 [easy] steps to define a problem” on wiki-how.
https://www.wikihow.com/Define-a-Problem
Señor Onion, the fear and the flavor of the onion family
Some thirty-odd years ago, SABC ran a TV program called Señor Onion. He was a Mexican (or Spanish?) onion and he used to play a guitar and sing; and lived in constant fear of being eaten.
It has taken me all morning, to find something on the internet, to jog your memory of this Mexican aromatic, but I can only find three references to this show, and no visuals. How on earth did we do this in the ages gone by?
Now that I have set the scene, let me share my lessons on life. Onions.
The by-product if you will, of living off the land, is good neighbourliness. It reminds me of a line I read in a sci-fi novel, which was not any easier to find on the internet. Because I read in a paperback, before I started using e or audio books, and now I can’t recall the author, nor the title. But it goes something like this:
A man stood gloriously in the sun, thinking it just and right that the sun shines just on him. Not realising that the sun shines equally on another, regardless.
So, thanks Sjelda. The onions you needed to thin out for an optimal harvest, established themselves very well in our garden, and reaped a bountiful harvest.
PS – nice idea about the “stem onions”!
Space.
Do not be stingy with your surface area consumption. Onions need breathing space in order to develop. So while sowing them makes spacing a bit challenging (given the tiny seed), the better you do at this stage, the less work there is later trying to transplant them without damage.
The same can be said for carrots, but that is another blog for another time.
Sun And Water.
In these particular beds, we make use of flood irrigation. And the onions furthest from the corner, had the most sun, and yielded the largest onions.
Harvest.
When the leaves start laying flat, probably a good time to harvest. We harvested over a period of just over a month, which tells me they can stay in the ground for a bit. We stretched it out a bit, so that we could cope with the volumes during the curing process.
Curing.
We built this air-dry cage. No dark cool places available in this semi-arid country, but the air is nice and dry. So dry, it takes a week to dry out freshly harvested spinach, herbs etc. These green things we wash, lay out in a single layer on a dish towel on the idle Jewel, under a food covering, and when we return next weekend, we have dried herbs. Celery leaves work particularly well.
Back to the onions. They stay in the cage for about 2 weeks. Then I check that they sealed properly. This is why it is important to only harvest when the leaves have fallen flat. That creates a natural seal to keep the moisture inside the onion, and no chance for moisture to escape via the stem, resulting in air pockets, or for rot to enter through the stem, and set in the middle of the onion.
Once that state of “seal” is achieved, I cut off the excess stalks, and then leave them in the cooler (not really cool, but at least dark) for another two weeks or so.
Then they are ready to use.
Use.
Caramelised onions. I shared my brother’s recipe before. Simply slice them up, toss in a little olive oil, and leave in slow cooker overnight on low setting. Next morning, if there is any moisture left, let it cook open for the moisture to evaporate.
It makes the sweetest tasting caramelised onions, without using sugar, and freezes well for later use on pizzas, smoked cheese, etc.
Pickled onions. The recipe I can share here, is for pickled ginger. I have not tried pickled onions yet.
Onion sourdough bread. Sweet & sour.
Décor. I like the whimsical Onion flower.
Factoids.
It is the tissue like skin, which makes you cry.
It is that very sweetness, that makes them a health food. They are filled with complex sugars that keep our metabolism healthy, vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre beta carotene, folate (one of the B vitamins), and they have no fat.
An average sized onion has 30 calories.
It’s a strong antiseptic (and keeps unwanted people at bay also. But then again, wanted people too…. 😉)
If your feet are cold, rub chopped onions on them. The increase in blood flow will warm your feet.
Get rid of inion breath by eating parsley.
In 2012, worldwide production was estimated at 74m tonnes.
And with that, I serenade you good night. 
Could you catch corona in the current climate? Casual commentary on my condition
The tool I use to document my blog, has a very nifty “headline analyser”, that scores the headlines according to word count, common words, sentiment etc. I cannot wait to see that it does with today’s headline.
Also, cannot wait to see what you will do with it.
Yes, I tested positive for Corona on Thursday.
No, I am not on supportive breathing apparatus.
Although the men in the long coats are standing by to take me to a soft padded cell. Being stuck indoors with my husband, aka the Big Baby, is driving me nuts.
So this blog will simply describe the situation, and my experience. It will counteract some of those scary “can’t breath, can’t eat, can’t move” video clips that circulated on social media, because not all experiences are like that.
As I write this, I can link this to some threads in some previous blogs. Each person is unique and must contribute in their unique way. Each person’s Corona is unique and needs its own tailormade response.
Here is what worked for me:
- The first signs
Dizziness.
That was it. No collapsing in the street, no special orders for extra set of lungs. I simply was dizzy late Sunday.
I tried to sleep it off all day Monday but decided to go to the doctor on Tuesday when that did not work.
All the literature talks about nausea, headaches, fever, coughing, tiredness, diarrhoea (I nearly got it trying to spell it!), sore throat, loss of taste etc.
Now I know, you do not need all the symptoms to be Corona’d. I guess this is one of the reasons it makes it so difficult for doctors to quickly identify and respond. It sure does not make sense to haul out a COVID test for every little sniffle.
2. The contamination
It was only when I got an email on Wednesday, informing me that a person at a function I attended the previous Thursday was tested positive, that I decided to ask the doctor to request a COVID test.
Were there protocols at the event? Yes. Did everyone follow them? No. Was that where I caught it? Maybe, maybe not.
Now I know, its much easier to follow social distancing rules with strangers, than with friends and colleagues you realise you have missed for ages.
I will be giving you a hearty “forearm bump” next time I see you. No akward “I-want-to-hug-you-but-COVID-says-I-can’t-so-let-me-give-you-this-akward-presentation-of-arms-without-body-contact”.
3. The test
It was an extremely sweet Lab assistant that swabbed me, and to give him credit, he was gentle. But it was first ticklish, then burning, then eye watering.
Now I know the value of empathy. It does not change anything, but your perception. And your perception is your reality, right?
4. The outcome
I am impressed. By Friday lunch time I had my call from my Counsellor. This is not some political local windbag, but my very own guide from the Ministry of Health. Kahile was well informed and immensely helpful. He even explained why he was offering to accommodate me in a lodge. (Which I was tempted to take up, seeing as my employer is a provider of some of those lodges, and we need to revenue!)
And not 10 minutes after, my contact tracer called to get the names and numbers of all those I had contact with. Luckily, I had self-isolated from Monday already, so the list was truly short.
Now I know, contact tracing is real, and it works.
5. The treatment
Not particularly scientific. So, let me list the many home remedies recommended by anyone who heard I was positive.
- Steaming. With Vicks, which I only got on Friday, so tried Tiger Balm for the first two days. Yeah, Tiger Balm may not be the kindest on your delicate nasal passages.
- Hot tea (or any beverages) with lemon and Fresh Ginger (eating both afterwards). Finally getting The Husband to try tea without milk & sugar!
- Immune Boosters. Wish we could try some new flavours.
- Seasick medication for my initial dizzy symptoms. Probably no longer required but let me continue.
- Multi vitamins
- Fresh fruit
- Hot meals
- Gargling with salt water
- Sanitization
And thanks to The Husband’s brother, who drove all the way out of town to deliver the extra doses.
6. The end
No, not in the way of Jim Morrison “This is the end, my beautiful friend, this is the end”, but rather a case of I have nothing further to report.
We will self-isolate for at least 10 days, which means we may be seen in Public by next week Monday again. Not this Monday, next Monday.
I will undoubtedly catch up on drafting a few posts, and I certainly will share any new Corona experience with you. Keep safe and keep your social distancing!
———-X———
Ah, update: The Husband also tested positive. I will say that for us, through thick & thin.