I never knew that there were two main types of taragon until I lost my firt taragon plant. The main ones that are available are the French variety and the Russian variety. One tastes really good, and the other is almost inedible. I can't remember which is which, but I am fairly sure that the type that is usually on sale in the herb section of supermarkets is the tasty type.
I like making a Jamie Oliver salad which consists of about 50% taragon and the rest being made up of grapes and shallots (the shallots having been soaked in vinegar beforehand). It's a great salad, with the taragon providing a great deal of zing.
I did manage to find some pots of it in Bunnings last year, so I planted the seedlings and grew them to a size where I could start putting them into the salad.
I got the wrong bloody variety, didn't I. The salad was just awful, and I wasn't going to waste any time picking out bits of taragon, since there was so much of it in the salad. Complete waste of time and effort.
By that point, I had taragon growing in half a dozen pots around the garden, so the whole lot had to be pulled up and thrown out.
And of course since then, I have been unable to find either seeds nor seedlings anywhere.
Blast.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Wednesday, 30 May 2007
Why are some people such a pain in the bum?
The owner of the place that we are renting is a real pain in the bum.
We've had a water leak for some months now - the street is usually coated in water, and it is completely obvious that it is coming from our place.
We told the agency about it, and they refered it the owner, and he drove past and had a look and said it was us over watering the lawn.
So we stopped watering the lawn, and the water kept coming. So he sent his own plumber, who took one look and said there was a big puddle of water underneath the lawn and it was draining out.
A week later, it was still leaking, so I ran the washing machine and went outside with my camera. I was able to video water starting to leak shortly after the washing machine went into the spin cycle. Finally - hard evidence that was difficult to contradict.
The owner then said he would come and have a look, but he never did. He then said he'd send his plumber, who never turned up. The agent finally organised their own plumber, who arrived today, took one look at it and put some thingy down the drain that pushed out a couple of litres of grease and goo. The verdict is that the drain was blocked just enough to allow most of the water through, but enough to cause a leak. The pipes were a right bastard to get to - the apprentice ended up with grease in his hair, and it was not a good look. Or smell. It stunk.
We now have grease splattered around the walls of the laundry, and grease over the washing machine, and the laundry stinks to high heaven, but the leak has stopped.
Now comes the challenge of getting all the other faults around the house repaired. If it took this long to fix this problem, and I think Sydney Water was threatening fines, then what hope do we have of getting the rest done?
We've had a water leak for some months now - the street is usually coated in water, and it is completely obvious that it is coming from our place.
We told the agency about it, and they refered it the owner, and he drove past and had a look and said it was us over watering the lawn.
So we stopped watering the lawn, and the water kept coming. So he sent his own plumber, who took one look and said there was a big puddle of water underneath the lawn and it was draining out.
A week later, it was still leaking, so I ran the washing machine and went outside with my camera. I was able to video water starting to leak shortly after the washing machine went into the spin cycle. Finally - hard evidence that was difficult to contradict.
The owner then said he would come and have a look, but he never did. He then said he'd send his plumber, who never turned up. The agent finally organised their own plumber, who arrived today, took one look at it and put some thingy down the drain that pushed out a couple of litres of grease and goo. The verdict is that the drain was blocked just enough to allow most of the water through, but enough to cause a leak. The pipes were a right bastard to get to - the apprentice ended up with grease in his hair, and it was not a good look. Or smell. It stunk.
We now have grease splattered around the walls of the laundry, and grease over the washing machine, and the laundry stinks to high heaven, but the leak has stopped.
Now comes the challenge of getting all the other faults around the house repaired. If it took this long to fix this problem, and I think Sydney Water was threatening fines, then what hope do we have of getting the rest done?
On the road again
It's been over two weeks since I have been on the bike, thanks to the flu. I went out for a ride yesterday - just a short stroll up and around Balmain, but even an easy ride put a dose of fire into my lungs. I had to blow snot out of my nose a few times, which is something that I rarely have to do.
The worst of it was that I had to pick up the car in the afternoon, which meant going for another ride to get to the mechanic. When I went to get on the bike, the back tyre was flat - glass sliver.
When I changed the tube, I found that the spare was also punctured.
When I went to use the big pump, I found that it was stuffed and would pump no air.
It's a conspiracy I tell you.
Thankfully, the new tyre changing tool that I mail ordered worked a treat in refitting the tyre to the rim. At least one good thing came of it, but I was hoping to never have to use that tool.
Bugger.
The worst of it was that I had to pick up the car in the afternoon, which meant going for another ride to get to the mechanic. When I went to get on the bike, the back tyre was flat - glass sliver.
When I changed the tube, I found that the spare was also punctured.
When I went to use the big pump, I found that it was stuffed and would pump no air.
It's a conspiracy I tell you.
Thankfully, the new tyre changing tool that I mail ordered worked a treat in refitting the tyre to the rim. At least one good thing came of it, but I was hoping to never have to use that tool.
Bugger.
Self raising pizza
Ever wondered how Pizza Hut and the like manage to make pizzas with a really big and puffy base?
I think I found out by accident tonight.
I used self raising flour in the dough by mistake. It fluffed up a lot more than usual, and bits of it looked just like a Pizza Hut pizza.
I hope it tastes ok.
I think I found out by accident tonight.
I used self raising flour in the dough by mistake. It fluffed up a lot more than usual, and bits of it looked just like a Pizza Hut pizza.
I hope it tastes ok.
Hicks up in the sky
Of course the government had to fly him back on a private charter.
Would you get on a Qantas flight if you knew he was on board?
I wouldn't.
The government had a choice between hiring a small plane and putting Hicks on board with 4 other people or essentially hiring a very big plane (like a 747) and putting Hicks and 4 others on board because Qantas would have to tell all the other passengers who they would be flying with.
Since most would change flights, the government would have to pay for all the empty seats.
Would you get on a Qantas flight if you knew he was on board?
I wouldn't.
The government had a choice between hiring a small plane and putting Hicks on board with 4 other people or essentially hiring a very big plane (like a 747) and putting Hicks and 4 others on board because Qantas would have to tell all the other passengers who they would be flying with.
Since most would change flights, the government would have to pay for all the empty seats.
Monday, 28 May 2007
Lego war toys
Further to my recent post about the stupid reaction of some people to lego characters with guns, I decided to build a tank out of Duplo.Now Duplo is about the most inoffensive stuff that you can find. Here, I have made a tank using the base of a train engine, and put a mine roller on the front (a roller attachment from a farm set - this normally goes on the back of a tractor).
Fitting the main arnament was tricky, since the blocks aren't meant to go sideways.
I couldn't work out a way to make the turret traverse. There might be something in a lego set that would allow me to do that, but Duplo is just too basic.
See? Give a bloke some blocks meant for 12 month old kiddies and guns are soon created.
Sunday, 27 May 2007
700mb movies suck
I have watched the odd movie of late that has been compressed to fit onto a CD - they've been around the 600 to 700mb mark.
Movies that have been compressed that much blow chunks. One episode of a sitcom is ok, but a 90 minute movie? Waste of time.
Yes, bittorrent and company might be seen as a threat to the movie studios, but in the end, who wants to watch an action movie that looks like it has been shot on a hand held camera in a Malaysian cinema? Proper movies on DVD are worth paying for. Free movies uphold the old axiom of "you get what you pay for".
Movies that have been compressed that much blow chunks. One episode of a sitcom is ok, but a 90 minute movie? Waste of time.
Yes, bittorrent and company might be seen as a threat to the movie studios, but in the end, who wants to watch an action movie that looks like it has been shot on a hand held camera in a Malaysian cinema? Proper movies on DVD are worth paying for. Free movies uphold the old axiom of "you get what you pay for".
Shot to the pig
Interesting article in the SMH today about a child killing a giant pig in the US.
The thing that amazed me was that the kid was using a huge handgun:
He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-calibre revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.
I also don't get how a kid has the wrist and forearm strength to handle a .50 cal handgun. I've used a .44 revolver, and a few 9mm pistols, and they kicked like crazy.
The thing that amazed me was that the kid was using a huge handgun:
He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-calibre revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.
Through it all, there was the fear that the animal would turn and charge them, as wild boars have a reputation for doing.
Hmm. The boar is shot with a .50 calibre handgun. I would have thought that one .50 cal slug would be enough to bring a boar down - and that it would not be running around after being shot 8 times. He might have shot at it 8 times and hit it once.I also don't get how a kid has the wrist and forearm strength to handle a .50 cal handgun. I've used a .44 revolver, and a few 9mm pistols, and they kicked like crazy.
Shot to the foot
So the ABC is going to show the Great Global Warming Swindle in July?
Everyone should know about it by now, since certain idiots at the ABC decided to make a song and dance about it - particularly Robyn Williams. What an idiot. All he had to do was keep his trap shut, and it could have been shown at 1am without anyone being the wiser.
By the time the ABC get around to showing it, half the country will have downloaded it and had a look see.
There are times when the best way to protest is simply to keep mum about it. The ABC could not have asked for better publicity.
Everyone should know about it by now, since certain idiots at the ABC decided to make a song and dance about it - particularly Robyn Williams. What an idiot. All he had to do was keep his trap shut, and it could have been shown at 1am without anyone being the wiser.
By the time the ABC get around to showing it, half the country will have downloaded it and had a look see.
There are times when the best way to protest is simply to keep mum about it. The ABC could not have asked for better publicity.
Wednesday, 23 May 2007
Bumper cameras
They're going to be the next big thing, and you read about it here first.
Cameras pointing out the rear are becoming more common, but what about cameras pointing out the side of the car up the front?
There are a few streets around here where in order to see if any traffic is coming, you have to pull halfway out into the street and crane your neck around and have a look. Why not stick a sideways pointing camera on the bumper? That way, you just poke the nose out a foot or so and have a squiz.
I am a genius.
Cameras pointing out the rear are becoming more common, but what about cameras pointing out the side of the car up the front?
There are a few streets around here where in order to see if any traffic is coming, you have to pull halfway out into the street and crane your neck around and have a look. Why not stick a sideways pointing camera on the bumper? That way, you just poke the nose out a foot or so and have a squiz.
I am a genius.
Tuesday, 22 May 2007
When will our anti-smoking campaign cease?
At present, we still have a lot of smokers standing around outside having a puff. In order to stamp that out, various governments throw gobfulls of money at anti-smoking campaigns. We have ads on the TV every day. We have Quit lines. We probably have Clockwork Orange type groups running around snatching smokers from alleys and brainwashing them into giving up.
When will it no longer be worth bothering with all this?
After all, there will come a point where the costs of throwing money at groups to stop people smoking will outweight the benefits of doing so.
As a proportion of the population, those that smoke are continuing to drop. Don't ask me what the numbers are today - go google it yourself and find out. But let's say that 50% smoked when we were kids, and it is now down to 30%. A big chunk of that drop was achieved through fairly costless means - banning the advertising of cigarettes, the odd ad in the paper and a huge increase in tobacco taxes.
But those measures only got rid of the low hanging fruit - those that found it easy to quit. More and more money now has to be thrown at actively making people give up, like setting up a QUIT phone line and staffing it 24x7. And the cost of advertising it.
Let's say it currently costs $1000 to entice a smoker to give up, and the benefit is $10,000 in savings in health costs etc.
What will happen when we are down to say 20% of the population smoking? I predict that the cost to make the next tranche quit will increase, and it will increase quite quickly. It might cost $2000 to make the next lot quit, and then when we get to 15% smokers, it might cost $5000 per smoker, and then it might hit $10,000 when we get to say 12%.
It could conceivably cost $50,000 per person to convert smokers when we hit the 10% level. Do we just call it quits at that point and say "enough is enough, the money can be better spent on prostate cancer or obesity or breast cancer". Or do we just carry on regardless, because a bureacracy has now been put in place that is totally dependent on QUIT funding to stay operational?
My guess is that the QUIT campaign will be with us for the rest of our lives, even if the proportion of those that smoke falls to 1% in the next 20 years. Killing Qangos is just too hard for most governments to contemplate, and imagine the outcry if any government axed an anti-smoking campaign. It would be like coming out and saying that you don't support motherhood. Political trauma.
Might be a good career to be had in a place like that. Sounds like a nice gravy train.
When will it no longer be worth bothering with all this?
After all, there will come a point where the costs of throwing money at groups to stop people smoking will outweight the benefits of doing so.
As a proportion of the population, those that smoke are continuing to drop. Don't ask me what the numbers are today - go google it yourself and find out. But let's say that 50% smoked when we were kids, and it is now down to 30%. A big chunk of that drop was achieved through fairly costless means - banning the advertising of cigarettes, the odd ad in the paper and a huge increase in tobacco taxes.
But those measures only got rid of the low hanging fruit - those that found it easy to quit. More and more money now has to be thrown at actively making people give up, like setting up a QUIT phone line and staffing it 24x7. And the cost of advertising it.
Let's say it currently costs $1000 to entice a smoker to give up, and the benefit is $10,000 in savings in health costs etc.
What will happen when we are down to say 20% of the population smoking? I predict that the cost to make the next tranche quit will increase, and it will increase quite quickly. It might cost $2000 to make the next lot quit, and then when we get to 15% smokers, it might cost $5000 per smoker, and then it might hit $10,000 when we get to say 12%.
It could conceivably cost $50,000 per person to convert smokers when we hit the 10% level. Do we just call it quits at that point and say "enough is enough, the money can be better spent on prostate cancer or obesity or breast cancer". Or do we just carry on regardless, because a bureacracy has now been put in place that is totally dependent on QUIT funding to stay operational?
My guess is that the QUIT campaign will be with us for the rest of our lives, even if the proportion of those that smoke falls to 1% in the next 20 years. Killing Qangos is just too hard for most governments to contemplate, and imagine the outcry if any government axed an anti-smoking campaign. It would be like coming out and saying that you don't support motherhood. Political trauma.
Might be a good career to be had in a place like that. Sounds like a nice gravy train.
Lego weapons
I posted last week about a furore in the media about Lego introducing a character with a big gun. Well, here are some pictures of Lego characters that we have around the house. Most of them are armed in one way or another.The guy on the far left appears to have a black medium machine gun of some sort perched on his shoulder (terrible way to carry a machine gun - I always cringe when I see photos from Vietnam of Yanks carrying the M-60 that way). The Storm Trooper next to him has some sort of big, grey pistol.
Here are our two fellows in close up.
I think these two escaped from Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boatride, but given the size of those pistols, I wouldn't mess with them.
These fellows appear to be carrying lengths of steel pipe, possibly in order to bash the two poofs seen above.
There's never a mad Prussian around when you need one. We also have another Stormtrooper, armed with a different pistola. I am not sure what the bloke next to him has - possibly a flame thrower?
This bloke appears to be carrying a double barrelled pistol. Quaint.
The bloke in the middle has two pistols.I think that is enough of a demo. Give an 11 year old boy some toys, you can guarantee that most will soon be armed with something.
Lego weapons
I posted last week about a furore in the media about Lego introducing a character with a big gun. Well, here are some pictures of Lego characters that we have around the house. Most of them are armed in one way or another.The guy on the far left appears to have a black medium machine gun of some sort perched on his shoulder (terrible way to carry a machine gun - I always cringe when I see photos from Vietnam of Yanks carrying the M-60 that way). The Storm Trooper next to him has some sort of big, grey pistol.
Here are our two fellows in close up.I think these two escaped from Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boatride, but given the size of those pistols, I wouldn't mess with them.These fellows appear to be carrying lengths of steel pipe, possibly in order to bash the two poofs seen above.There's never a mad Prussian around when you need one. We also have another Stormtrooper, armed with a different pistola. I am not sure what the bloke next to him has - possibly a flame thrower?This bloke appears to be carrying a double barrelled pistol. Quaint.The bloke in the middle has two pistols.I think that is enough of a demo. Give an 11 year old boy some toys, you can guarantee that most will soon be armed with something.
Colour me amazed
I got a reply from the Council yesterday about the dud BBQ in our local park. That's not a bad turnaround - I plugged the message into their website on the weekend, and they responded on Monday morning.
It took them until 4.30pm to get around to responding, but at least it was on the first working day after I sent them the message.
Now we just have to wait and see if anyone does anything about it. Must go to the butcher and buy another packet of snags, and return to the park for a final test.
I'm always shocked when local government turns out to be much more efficient than the state government - I have long thought that local government was the plankton at the bottom of the food chain as far as government goes, but this mob are pretty good.
In fact they make my lawyers look pretty useless. I have rung my ambulance chasers a few times, left messages and never had a response. I have also sent them faxes, and never heard back. They don't have an email address, so I presume that they only do something if a letter arrives with a stamp on it. I have to visit the post office now because I have run out of stamps, and I'll need some when next I need to deal with them.
For crying out loud....
NRMA also have an interesting tactic with their claims people. They don't appear to have voicemail. That way, if you ring and no one answers, they don't have to do anything with their claim. Since I have some IAG shares, I'll have to rock up to their next AGM and ask a question about this wonderful policy, and ask who should be praised for thinking it up.
It took them until 4.30pm to get around to responding, but at least it was on the first working day after I sent them the message.
Now we just have to wait and see if anyone does anything about it. Must go to the butcher and buy another packet of snags, and return to the park for a final test.
I'm always shocked when local government turns out to be much more efficient than the state government - I have long thought that local government was the plankton at the bottom of the food chain as far as government goes, but this mob are pretty good.
In fact they make my lawyers look pretty useless. I have rung my ambulance chasers a few times, left messages and never had a response. I have also sent them faxes, and never heard back. They don't have an email address, so I presume that they only do something if a letter arrives with a stamp on it. I have to visit the post office now because I have run out of stamps, and I'll need some when next I need to deal with them.
For crying out loud....
NRMA also have an interesting tactic with their claims people. They don't appear to have voicemail. That way, if you ring and no one answers, they don't have to do anything with their claim. Since I have some IAG shares, I'll have to rock up to their next AGM and ask a question about this wonderful policy, and ask who should be praised for thinking it up.
Monday, 21 May 2007
Toggler mobile
I have spied this car around our neighbourhood a few times recently. The only reason I can think of parking it here is that there must be a mad firebomber that I don't know about that is willing to commit arson on such atrocities.I will leave it to others to leave their thoughts in the comments section.
Sunday, 20 May 2007
Harpoon them whalers
God, Rudd is an idiot.
He let the cat out of the bag today, telling the media that he wants to send the Navy down south to stop the Japs from zotting whales.
Fool. You never tell them in advance. You just send a Collins sub down there, torpedo a few boats and use the "Titanic defence". Gee, shucks, weren't us. Captain must have been drunk and run into an iceberg.
After a few sinkings, the crews will probably not want to risk another voyage, and that will be that.
Then the oceans will be over run with bloody whales in no time and no yachtie will be safe from plowing into one at night out in the open ocean.
He let the cat out of the bag today, telling the media that he wants to send the Navy down south to stop the Japs from zotting whales.
Fool. You never tell them in advance. You just send a Collins sub down there, torpedo a few boats and use the "Titanic defence". Gee, shucks, weren't us. Captain must have been drunk and run into an iceberg.
After a few sinkings, the crews will probably not want to risk another voyage, and that will be that.
Then the oceans will be over run with bloody whales in no time and no yachtie will be safe from plowing into one at night out in the open ocean.
Dud BBQ
I put the Council to the test again today. Five Dock park is a reasonably short walk from our place, and it was a lovely day, so we strolled over for a quick BBQ and a bit of kick the ball time.Good thing the park has three BBQ's, as one was completely stuffed. They are the completely horrible electric type, where you press a button, wait 10 minutes for it to heat up, then press the button again because it has turned off automatically, then clean it, then press the button again, then put your snags on it, only to find that only one side is hot, then press the button again .... etc etc etc.
I am so used to these BBQs taking all morning to heat up that we stood around the dud one for a good 10 minutes thinking that it was just taking a while to warm up. Then we determined that the only reason the hot plate had any heat in it was because the sun was out, and it was radiating enough to heat the plate up somewhat. In summer, it would probably get hot enough to fry an egg, but on a cool May day, I could have put my tongue on the hotplate with no fear of singeing.
The big test for the council is to see whether they respond to the message that I have just sent them telling them that the BBQ is stuffed. I'll give them a week, then invite the deputy mayor to meet us there for a cookup, and I'll target that BBQ in particular. I'll give him the tongs, and then 10 minutes later, I'll give him a copy of my message. We'll see how long it takes him to pull out his mobile and reef someone in the maintenance department.
Bread
Penny came for a BBQ lunch yesterday, and she asked how I bake bread. Most people that have tried it want to know, as it generally tasted like real bread, rather than the white paste that we typically buy at the supermarket.
The usual conclusion that people make is that we have a bread maker squirelled away in the kitchen somewhere, but in reality, all we have is a mixer and an oven.
The recipe that I use most of the time is one that I got from my Mum, and she got it from my brother, and he clipped it from the Financial Times. It's very basic. Purists will stick their noses up at it and state that "it is not real bread". Whatever.
I don't make huge loaves, since I prefer to eat fresh bread every day. That means making something that is about half the size or less of your average supermarket paste loaf. Anything more is a waste, unless you want to slice it and freeze it (which is great for making toast the following morning).
If I want to make "real bread", as in something like the French make, then I turn to my book Dough, which has some marvelous recipes in it. If I ever get back to the UK, I'll have to go to the Bertinet Kitchen in Bath and do some lessons.
The Dough book is excellent, partly because it comes with a DVD that has a short movie on it explaining how to knead dough and what the consistency should look like. My dough never looks like that in the DVD, so don't expect baguettes if you come for lunch.
Here's what I do.
I throw some yeast and sugar into the mixing bowl, along with some warm water. I give that a stir and then leave it to sit until it bubbles a bit. Bertinent poo-poo's this approach, saying one should rub "proper" yeast in the flour by hand, and never use sugar to help it rise. I've done that, and the bread still rises, but you end up with much smaller bubbles in the bread. I like my bread to have big bubbles in it - that's just my preference. If you want small bubbles, leave out the sugar and knead it after the first rising. Sometimes of course I end up with massive bubbles in the bread - bubbles that are more like caves. That would never do in a commercial bakery, but I don't give a bugger about them.
Note that I don't measure the amount of water either. Bertinet is most particular about weighing everything, and you need a set of digital scales to do it properly. I am too cheap to spend $80 on some digital scales, and besides, I went into the kitchen the other day and found a 15kg monkey sitting on my scales, which only go up to 3kg, so I get the feeling that mine are no longer that accurate, given that the spring has probably been stretched well beyond its design limits.
After the water and yeast has bubbled a bit, I throw in some olive oil (I use the Jamie Oliver method and just splash in a dollop). I guess you are supposed to add one table spoon. I can't be bothered with the extra washing up, so I just dollop it in.
I then toss in 2.5 to 3 cups of flour. I use a 50/50 mix of wholemeal and white flour. I find that makes a bread with a nice mouthfeel. If you go too hippy and add more wholemeal, or even make it 100% wholemeal, then you end up with a loaf that feels more like a granite kitchen top than bread. 100% white flour on the other hand makes a great loaf, but I feel that my innards need something to help push the poo through, so I go for 50% "metamucil".
I use a mixer with a dough hook to do the mixing, but for 20 years, Mum did it with a big plastic bowl and a wooden spoon. Because this mix is quite sloppy, you can easily mix it with a spoon. I am lazy, and I make a drier mix than Mum most of the time, so you need the mixer and hook to work it. Either that, or you need forearms like hams to do it by hand.
Once in the mixer, I chuck in just enough water to make it goopy. This is always a matter of trial and error. I have tried weighing the water etc, and it's made a good loaf, but the difference in quality at the end between a loaf where I have weighed everything and one where I have just chucked it together is not that great.
After all, how did bakers make bread before the invention of accurate scales? I presume they just chucked it together and did it by feel, adding more water or flour as required to get the right mix.
I made this mix quite goopy and wet - it is almost like the flour and water paste that we used as glue as kids. If I was doing it the Bertinet way, it would be much drier - it would even stick to the sides of the bowl.
I have this great plasticy mould thing that I use
as my bread tin. I smear a bit of flour around the inside to help stop the dough from sticking, although it doesn't help much when the dough is this wet. If I make a fairly dry dough, the dusting of flour helps a lot.
At this point, I normally sprinkle sesame seeds on the top, or a bit of salt. Mum pours a bit of olive oil on hers. I have tried that too.
It's now time to put it somewhere warm and let it rise for an hour. As it is getting colder at the moment, I heat the oven up slightly, then turn it off and stick the bread in there for an hour. I have learnt to put it on a tray, because if it rises too far and boils over the edge, the tray will catch the drippings. It beats having bits of burnt dough stuck to the bottom of the oven.
Normally, at the end of the hour, you'd take the dough out and knead it slightly. The Dough book is well worth buying simply to watch the DVD and get Bertinet's thoughts on "knocking back" the dough, which is the last thing that you want to do with it. Bertinet folds it gently in order to fold more air into the dough, which is why baguettes are so light and fluffy on the inside. If you knock all the air out of it, you end up with a slab of concrete.
I don't bother. I just turn the temperature of the oven up and let the bread cook.
I have tried many ovens and many temperatures, and surprisingly, bread is very resilient. You can cook it at many different temperatures and for different lengths of time and still get something quite edible out of the oven. I have baked it at 180 for an hour, and at 250 for 20 minutes, and the only difference is generally in the crust.
The trick I learnt from Dough is to spray water into a really hot oven. The steam forms a really crusty crust. Again that is why baguettes have a beatiful, light fluffy crust. The French use steam ovens. The only way to replicate a steam oven at home is to get a squirty bottle and squirt a water spray onto the sides or floor of the oven.
If you don't cook your eyeballs in the process, it works pretty well.
Another thing that I do is take the bread out of the tin once the top has browned and plonk the bread down on the tray. That helps the bottom and sides to brown. If you leave it in the tin, the top will be nice and crisp, but the sides might be a bit pale and not so crusty.
Bertinet is very big on cooking bread at 250 degrees. That's like making pizza. The thing is though, he is making small, thin loaves generally, whilst I am making a short, fat loaf. If you put a fat loaf into a hot oven for a short time, the outside will be nice and crisp, but the inside might still be uncooked. One trick is to start it really hot to crisp up the outside, then turn it down so that it cooks all the way through.
When is it cooked? I judge it by the colour of the crust. When it looks nice, I reckon it is cooked. Sometimes, I have pulled it out to early, and the inside has still been a bit underdone. It's fine after being toasted, but you can't use it for sandwiches. At other times, it has gone a bit long and been almost stale to taste.
But hey, it's bread. If you bugger it up, you just make another loaf.
I buy 10kg bags of flour at the markets for $8, and I use about 300 - 400gms of flour per loaf. Looked at that way, I am using about 30 cents of flour per loaf. It's not a big problem to simply tip a dud loaf into the bin and try again.
Compared to what we are paying for white paste at the supermarket, I can afford to stuff up 8 loaves in a row and still be in front.
Here are a few links to the Chorleywood process. I have another good book on food that describes it in great detail, but these short descriptions will have to do.
BBC food page.
Bread matters. Read the very last paragraph at the bottom of the page. Ugh.
Technology in Australia. After reading this page, I discovered why so much Amercian bread is inedible - they use a different production process.
Food processing technology. The interesting thing that I discovered from this link was how some big bakeries put the dough into a semi-vacuum in order to speed the formation of bubbles within the dough.
Duh!
The usual conclusion that people make is that we have a bread maker squirelled away in the kitchen somewhere, but in reality, all we have is a mixer and an oven.
The recipe that I use most of the time is one that I got from my Mum, and she got it from my brother, and he clipped it from the Financial Times. It's very basic. Purists will stick their noses up at it and state that "it is not real bread". Whatever.
I don't make huge loaves, since I prefer to eat fresh bread every day. That means making something that is about half the size or less of your average supermarket paste loaf. Anything more is a waste, unless you want to slice it and freeze it (which is great for making toast the following morning).
If I want to make "real bread", as in something like the French make, then I turn to my book Dough, which has some marvelous recipes in it. If I ever get back to the UK, I'll have to go to the Bertinet Kitchen in Bath and do some lessons.
The Dough book is excellent, partly because it comes with a DVD that has a short movie on it explaining how to knead dough and what the consistency should look like. My dough never looks like that in the DVD, so don't expect baguettes if you come for lunch.
Here's what I do.
I throw some yeast and sugar into the mixing bowl, along with some warm water. I give that a stir and then leave it to sit until it bubbles a bit. Bertinent poo-poo's this approach, saying one should rub "proper" yeast in the flour by hand, and never use sugar to help it rise. I've done that, and the bread still rises, but you end up with much smaller bubbles in the bread. I like my bread to have big bubbles in it - that's just my preference. If you want small bubbles, leave out the sugar and knead it after the first rising. Sometimes of course I end up with massive bubbles in the bread - bubbles that are more like caves. That would never do in a commercial bakery, but I don't give a bugger about them.
Note that I don't measure the amount of water either. Bertinet is most particular about weighing everything, and you need a set of digital scales to do it properly. I am too cheap to spend $80 on some digital scales, and besides, I went into the kitchen the other day and found a 15kg monkey sitting on my scales, which only go up to 3kg, so I get the feeling that mine are no longer that accurate, given that the spring has probably been stretched well beyond its design limits.
After the water and yeast has bubbled a bit, I throw in some olive oil (I use the Jamie Oliver method and just splash in a dollop). I guess you are supposed to add one table spoon. I can't be bothered with the extra washing up, so I just dollop it in.
I then toss in 2.5 to 3 cups of flour. I use a 50/50 mix of wholemeal and white flour. I find that makes a bread with a nice mouthfeel. If you go too hippy and add more wholemeal, or even make it 100% wholemeal, then you end up with a loaf that feels more like a granite kitchen top than bread. 100% white flour on the other hand makes a great loaf, but I feel that my innards need something to help push the poo through, so I go for 50% "metamucil".
I use a mixer with a dough hook to do the mixing, but for 20 years, Mum did it with a big plastic bowl and a wooden spoon. Because this mix is quite sloppy, you can easily mix it with a spoon. I am lazy, and I make a drier mix than Mum most of the time, so you need the mixer and hook to work it. Either that, or you need forearms like hams to do it by hand.
Once in the mixer, I chuck in just enough water to make it goopy. This is always a matter of trial and error. I have tried weighing the water etc, and it's made a good loaf, but the difference in quality at the end between a loaf where I have weighed everything and one where I have just chucked it together is not that great.
After all, how did bakers make bread before the invention of accurate scales? I presume they just chucked it together and did it by feel, adding more water or flour as required to get the right mix.
I made this mix quite goopy and wet - it is almost like the flour and water paste that we used as glue as kids. If I was doing it the Bertinet way, it would be much drier - it would even stick to the sides of the bowl.
I have this great plasticy mould thing that I use
as my bread tin. I smear a bit of flour around the inside to help stop the dough from sticking, although it doesn't help much when the dough is this wet. If I make a fairly dry dough, the dusting of flour helps a lot.At this point, I normally sprinkle sesame seeds on the top, or a bit of salt. Mum pours a bit of olive oil on hers. I have tried that too.
It's now time to put it somewhere warm and let it rise for an hour. As it is getting colder at the moment, I heat the oven up slightly, then turn it off and stick the bread in there for an hour. I have learnt to put it on a tray, because if it rises too far and boils over the edge, the tray will catch the drippings. It beats having bits of burnt dough stuck to the bottom of the oven.
Normally, at the end of the hour, you'd take the dough out and knead it slightly. The Dough book is well worth buying simply to watch the DVD and get Bertinet's thoughts on "knocking back" the dough, which is the last thing that you want to do with it. Bertinet folds it gently in order to fold more air into the dough, which is why baguettes are so light and fluffy on the inside. If you knock all the air out of it, you end up with a slab of concrete.I don't bother. I just turn the temperature of the oven up and let the bread cook.
I have tried many ovens and many temperatures, and surprisingly, bread is very resilient. You can cook it at many different temperatures and for different lengths of time and still get something quite edible out of the oven. I have baked it at 180 for an hour, and at 250 for 20 minutes, and the only difference is generally in the crust.
The trick I learnt from Dough is to spray water into a really hot oven. The steam forms a really crusty crust. Again that is why baguettes have a beatiful, light fluffy crust. The French use steam ovens. The only way to replicate a steam oven at home is to get a squirty bottle and squirt a water spray onto the sides or floor of the oven.
If you don't cook your eyeballs in the process, it works pretty well.
Another thing that I do is take the bread out of the tin once the top has browned and plonk the bread down on the tray. That helps the bottom and sides to brown. If you leave it in the tin, the top will be nice and crisp, but the sides might be a bit pale and not so crusty.
Bertinet is very big on cooking bread at 250 degrees. That's like making pizza. The thing is though, he is making small, thin loaves generally, whilst I am making a short, fat loaf. If you put a fat loaf into a hot oven for a short time, the outside will be nice and crisp, but the inside might still be uncooked. One trick is to start it really hot to crisp up the outside, then turn it down so that it cooks all the way through.
When is it cooked? I judge it by the colour of the crust. When it looks nice, I reckon it is cooked. Sometimes, I have pulled it out to early, and the inside has still been a bit underdone. It's fine after being toasted, but you can't use it for sandwiches. At other times, it has gone a bit long and been almost stale to taste.But hey, it's bread. If you bugger it up, you just make another loaf.
I buy 10kg bags of flour at the markets for $8, and I use about 300 - 400gms of flour per loaf. Looked at that way, I am using about 30 cents of flour per loaf. It's not a big problem to simply tip a dud loaf into the bin and try again.
Compared to what we are paying for white paste at the supermarket, I can afford to stuff up 8 loaves in a row and still be in front.
Here are a few links to the Chorleywood process. I have another good book on food that describes it in great detail, but these short descriptions will have to do.
BBC food page.
Bread matters. Read the very last paragraph at the bottom of the page. Ugh.
Technology in Australia. After reading this page, I discovered why so much Amercian bread is inedible - they use a different production process.
Food processing technology. The interesting thing that I discovered from this link was how some big bakeries put the dough into a semi-vacuum in order to speed the formation of bubbles within the dough.
Duh!
Thursday, 17 May 2007
The Craptiva
Thanks to the backend of the Disco being a bit bent from a bingle, we have had a hire car for the last two weeks. The insurance company issued us with something 'similar' to the Disco, and it ended up being nothing like it.
A Craptiva might be roughly the same size, and give you a higher than usual driving position, but it is not a Disco.
On the good side, it has a pile of room inside - except for headroom when I am getting in and out. It has a wickedly sloped windscreen, probably copied from the design of the X5, and I found that I bashed my head on the A pillar everytime I got in and out. It hurt.
The back seats have acres of leg room. When you look at a car like this and a Commodore or a Falcon, it really is chalk and cheese as far as legroom in the back goes. The ads tell you that these things can seat 7, but that would be two adults and 5 midgets. Or three very skinny people in the backseat. Three rowers or three wrestlers would not fit across the back seat.
The boot had stacks of room as well, and the car had more pockets than a magicians waistcoat. If anything, it had too many places to stick stuff, like cans of drink, and not enough places to stick important things, like elbows. When I am driving, I like to rest one elbow on the window shelf and the other on the console thingy between the front seats in the Disco. Both are at the perfect height, and the window shelf is flat and broad enough for an elbow like mine.
The Captiva has a black hole between the seats which is supposed to take two cans of drink, but it is deep enough to take a small keg of beer. I kept on falling sideways as my elbow was sucked into that black hole. I tried leaning the other way, but the window shelf is narrow and slopes downwards. You'd need superglue to keep your elbow on the shelf. I was reduced to hanging onto the Jesus strap when in the passenger seat thanks to the lack of elbow facilities.
The motor has no shortage of get up and go, but that meant that it went through about 50% more fuel in two weeks than we are used to, and we really didn't go anywhere during that time except to school and back twice a day. It is about as fuel efficient as a T-34.
I am also used to the sedate way the Disco takes off. It's like driving the Titanic - when you want to leave the quay, the captain says "forward half" to the first officer, he repeats the order to someone near the helmsman, that guy moves the telegraph lever to half forward, that signal is repeated in the boiler room where an engineer tells the stokers to start shovelling in the coal.
About five minutes later, there is a rumble, a puff of black smoke and the screw starts to turn. Advancing in the Disco is like finding a cure for AIDS. It's a long wait.
The Craptiva on the other hand had a throttle that was as sensitive as a hooker after a night with a football team. Touch it lightly, and it was about 3 seconds to an expensive speeding ticket. That is one aspect that I hate about modern cars - the marketers all think that performance is the key attribute that buyers are looking for, so they put racey engines with featherweight throttles into Mack trucks. What I want is comfort, with a bit of performance if I ram the pedal to the floor. When you're stuck in a 10 mile tailback with the traffic advancing in fits and starts, the last thing you want is a power pedal that threatens to hurl your front bumper into the tailshaft of the car in front, and brakes that will lead to early onset whiplash during a short drive to the shops.
I didn't take it out on the open road, but I wasn't tempted after crashing it through a few of the local pot holes. By the time I extracted my hips from the base of my skull, I was of the opinion that I didn't want to be bashing it over the corrugations of the Pacific Highway at 110 any time soon.
The Disco came back today. Minus a few feet of exhaust, which is being put back on tomorrow, and with some extra masking tape that wasn't there when I dropped it off. One phone call later, I found out that the tape was holding the back window in whilst the glue dried.
A Craptiva might be roughly the same size, and give you a higher than usual driving position, but it is not a Disco.
On the good side, it has a pile of room inside - except for headroom when I am getting in and out. It has a wickedly sloped windscreen, probably copied from the design of the X5, and I found that I bashed my head on the A pillar everytime I got in and out. It hurt.
The back seats have acres of leg room. When you look at a car like this and a Commodore or a Falcon, it really is chalk and cheese as far as legroom in the back goes. The ads tell you that these things can seat 7, but that would be two adults and 5 midgets. Or three very skinny people in the backseat. Three rowers or three wrestlers would not fit across the back seat.
The boot had stacks of room as well, and the car had more pockets than a magicians waistcoat. If anything, it had too many places to stick stuff, like cans of drink, and not enough places to stick important things, like elbows. When I am driving, I like to rest one elbow on the window shelf and the other on the console thingy between the front seats in the Disco. Both are at the perfect height, and the window shelf is flat and broad enough for an elbow like mine.
The Captiva has a black hole between the seats which is supposed to take two cans of drink, but it is deep enough to take a small keg of beer. I kept on falling sideways as my elbow was sucked into that black hole. I tried leaning the other way, but the window shelf is narrow and slopes downwards. You'd need superglue to keep your elbow on the shelf. I was reduced to hanging onto the Jesus strap when in the passenger seat thanks to the lack of elbow facilities.
The motor has no shortage of get up and go, but that meant that it went through about 50% more fuel in two weeks than we are used to, and we really didn't go anywhere during that time except to school and back twice a day. It is about as fuel efficient as a T-34.
I am also used to the sedate way the Disco takes off. It's like driving the Titanic - when you want to leave the quay, the captain says "forward half" to the first officer, he repeats the order to someone near the helmsman, that guy moves the telegraph lever to half forward, that signal is repeated in the boiler room where an engineer tells the stokers to start shovelling in the coal.
About five minutes later, there is a rumble, a puff of black smoke and the screw starts to turn. Advancing in the Disco is like finding a cure for AIDS. It's a long wait.
The Craptiva on the other hand had a throttle that was as sensitive as a hooker after a night with a football team. Touch it lightly, and it was about 3 seconds to an expensive speeding ticket. That is one aspect that I hate about modern cars - the marketers all think that performance is the key attribute that buyers are looking for, so they put racey engines with featherweight throttles into Mack trucks. What I want is comfort, with a bit of performance if I ram the pedal to the floor. When you're stuck in a 10 mile tailback with the traffic advancing in fits and starts, the last thing you want is a power pedal that threatens to hurl your front bumper into the tailshaft of the car in front, and brakes that will lead to early onset whiplash during a short drive to the shops.
I didn't take it out on the open road, but I wasn't tempted after crashing it through a few of the local pot holes. By the time I extracted my hips from the base of my skull, I was of the opinion that I didn't want to be bashing it over the corrugations of the Pacific Highway at 110 any time soon.
The Disco came back today. Minus a few feet of exhaust, which is being put back on tomorrow, and with some extra masking tape that wasn't there when I dropped it off. One phone call later, I found out that the tape was holding the back window in whilst the glue dried.
Slack, slack, slack
It's been 15 days since I had a whinge to our local MP, and the dozy cow still hasn't responded or done anything about my problem.
All she has to do (or someone in her office more likely) is pick up the phone to the local plod, announce who they are and state the problem. Most plod will stand to attention, salute, and order the youngest pube (probationary constable) outside to clean up immediately.
Problem solved.
The lazy dingbats in her office though haven't lifted a finger yet. It's not like they're equipped with rotary phones that might chip the varnish on their fingernails - they just need to punch in the numbers and bark some orders.
Christ, they could even walk out the door, turn left, stroll 100 metres and talk to the plod face to face. That's how close the office is.
How on earth did we manage to re-elect this Labor government?
All she has to do (or someone in her office more likely) is pick up the phone to the local plod, announce who they are and state the problem. Most plod will stand to attention, salute, and order the youngest pube (probationary constable) outside to clean up immediately.
Problem solved.
The lazy dingbats in her office though haven't lifted a finger yet. It's not like they're equipped with rotary phones that might chip the varnish on their fingernails - they just need to punch in the numbers and bark some orders.
Christ, they could even walk out the door, turn left, stroll 100 metres and talk to the plod face to face. That's how close the office is.
How on earth did we manage to re-elect this Labor government?
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