what's your favorite pampering?

[Swatopluk]

Give me the coordinates and maybe I can rent a satellite to take a look

[stellinacadente]

I would be extremely surprised to the point of flabbergastedness if you had been there in person. It is a lake in the forests in the very south of the Swedish province Småland, close to the border of Skåne, some 40-50 km from the nearest town, Älmhult (yes, the Älmhult of IKEA fame). My family on my mother's side comes from the area, and we have a summer house there, too. 

Nope, never been to Sweeden, this lake looks very much like one close to Inverness in Scotland where I spent many summers...

Thanks for the picture!

[Opsa]

I love a day at the beach, and if that's not available, a sea salt scrub. I also like ginger chews and maple sugar candy and Goldschläger and Maker's Mark bourbon and a good cigar and hanging out by the fire and sitting in a hot tub with the snow falling outside. Is that asking so much? 

[Griffin NoName]

Not if you have a fire in your bathroom.

[stellinacadente]

sitting in a hot tub with the snow falling outside.

how about sitting in a hot tub outside in the snow?

I tried that during my visit to Rekijavik (Iceland... I really hope it is spelt that way)...

at first I thought the hotel guests were totally insane... then the friend I was with got me to give it a go... it was superb!

[Griffin NoName]

Bit like jumping in the lake straight out of the sauna. Which I did in Finland. Ace.

[stellinacadente]

Oh  I get to treat myself to my favorite Spa soon!

[Lindorm]

Tomorrow, I will do a bit of pampering of others. My little trainee driver and the shunter in the harbour where we are going to work tomorrow will be treated to an apple tarte baked according to a recipe from a old early 17th-century swedish cookbook. The cake is somewhat similar to a strudel, but with slightly different methods and very different spicing. Though I have cut down on the grains of paradise and mace -that is a bit of an aquired flavour, and none of them are exactly adventorous about food. I hope they will like it! 

[Griffin NoName]

mmmm. I dislike strudel only because of the spices. Perhaps I would like the Swedish version.

[stellinacadente]

Strudel YUM!

The other day I made Scottish Shortbread according to the traditional recepie I recevied from an old lady friend of mine who lives in Largs, est of Glasgow...

Powerful stuff

[Lindorm]

The early modern apple cake went down a treat. And my trainee has been pampering me with making a killer of a lemon meringue pie and a fabolous hardcore old-school cake with vanilla buttercream filling. And I have reciprocated further by introducing her to such culinary delights as hot dogs cooked on the diesel engine of a locomotive. I see it as a practical application of the training on diesel loco systems! 

[Sibling DavidH]

...hot dogs cooked on the diesel engine...

I bet you could cook anything in the days of steam!

[Lindorm]

...hot dogs cooked on the diesel engine...

I bet you could cook anything in the days of steam!

The prefered method was apparently to place your sausages, bacon, eggs, whatever on a reasonably clean coal shovel, and hold it in the firebox for a minute or so, for a very effective wok-flash-fry. You also had to take care of the exhaust air, since the draft could apparently suck the goodies of the shovel and up the chimney if you were careless.

On the class T44 diesels, I normally use one of the coolant water pumps as a heat source. Once you start doing any serious work, the coolant water temperature usually gets to about 90 degrees C, which is a good temperature for heating tinned goods, or food in a metal container. There is a very convenient sort of ledge on the left side of the A coolant water pump, with a set of water pipes above it, perfect for placing a tin in. Of course, the plumbing is a bit different from motor to motor, configuration control not being a buzzword in the locomotive building industry in the early sixties, so the fit is sometimes not optimal. A few lashings with some steel wire usually sorts that problem.

There is a perfectly good hotplate in the cab, too, but where's the excitment in that? 

[Aggie]

I'm seriously considering making a small solar oven to keep in the back of the pickup when I'm in the field.  Might take a little bit of insulating to keep the temperature up in -20C weather...  but we do get lots of sunny days in the winter.