Toadfish Monastery

I got this idea yesterday, remember that I was talking about Summer in a bottle some time ago?

Yesterday I realised it should be Seasons In A Bottle.

Spring In A Bottle: Birch sap, tender birch leafs, lemon grass (or lemon balm) and vodka.

Summer In A Bottle: Wild strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and vodka (I think a rum version would be drinkable too).

Autumn In A Bottle: sloe berries and vodka (gin would work too).

Winter In A Bottle:? What in the world of fruits and herbs could represent winter?

Ideas?
Does this sound interesting or just horrible?

I thought it could be nice with a book thread that gave a little more flesh on the bones than the
What Are You Reading thread.

If you have read a book and want to recommend it or discuss it this the place. Share the books you think other Siblings should read (or don't read for that matter )

Give a short description of the story without too many spoilers and add your personal ponderings and feelings about the book as well as perhaps a few arguments to why (or why not) we should run to the nearest Book Shop and purchase a copy of it.

Come on let your inner bookworm loose!

Just out of curiosity, who around here plays or have played or are just interested in RPG's (role playing games) and/or board games?

Even little experience counts as do old experiences.

Me? My SO introduced it to me when we met many years ago. I don't get to game as often as I would like to but I hope that will change some time in the future.

Christmas's coming up with festivities and family dinners.
In our little family it's usually my mother who prepares the must haves like the ham, the pickled herring, the meatballs etc. I help her if I have the time, but I'm allways in charge of the desert and beverage department (planning, buying, making). It has been a lot of cakes, drinks, and assorted cheeses over the years... 

In the Yule is Cool thread Opsa asked if anyone wanted her fudge recipe, and I also have a recipe I would like to share:

Saffron parfait with Raspberry coulis a fancy name for an easy to make ice-cream and cold raspberry sauce!
6 servings

You'll need
2 fairly big bowls
1 smaller bowl (for the raspberries)
1 baking tin round, square or rectangular, depending on how you plan to serve it (I usually use a round  23 cm diameter baking tin that have a removable bottom)
Cling foil to cover the inside of the baking tin.
1 whisk
1 plastic/rubber spatula
Assorted spoons
Food processor (or a fork  )
Freezer

The Parfait
Saffron 0,5 g (around here that is one envelope of saffron)
3 egg yokes
1/2 dl* sugar
1/2 dl honey
3 dl heavy cream

Whisk egg yokes, sugar, honey and saffron until it becomes a very puffy batter.
Whisk the heavy cream heavily until you can turn the bowl upside down without the the cream landing on the table. But don't turn it in to butter...

Gently turn down the the whipped cream into the egg batter (do not stir) until it's evenly distributed.

Cover the inside of your baking tin with cling foil.

Pour the batter into the baking tin, cover with cling foil and put in the freezer over night or for at least 8-10 hours.

The Raspberry coulis
200g Frozen or fresh raspberries
Icing sugar to taste
water

Mix the raspberries (save some for decoration, to a smooth sauce,
add sugar to taste (not too sweet, the ice-cream is sweet) if the sauce it too thick add water teaspoon by teaspoon. The mixing is best done with a food processor but can be done with a fork too.

Serving
Take out the ice-cream from the freezer 10-15 minutes before serving, if it's stuck in the tin flush the baking tin with hot water for a couple of seconds.

I usually serve it portion by portion in cake like pieces, with some whole raspberries some lemon balm leaves on top and the sauce in a pool around it.

Enjoy! 



*decilitre

I work as an Illustrator, so I draw things for a living, but I also do all sorts of other creative things.

I write some, I sometimes make jewellery, I draw and paint, but my favourite hobby is photography.

I intend to put up some of my doodles here as well as links to my Flickr page and my home page (when I finally get that online).

Comments are of cause welcome!

/Darlica

I'm a fan of animated short films and movies. I'm not picky about genre as long as well executed and has a good story (or a really good excuse for a story at least ).

This is a place for posting about your favourite (and not so loved) animated flicks long or short, discussing them and share your thoughts about them, new or old, computer animated 3D or old style cell animation, animé or Central European style puppet animation alike.
   



I'll start with my latest favourite: Ratatouille!
The Pixar/Disney production about a little rat who wants to be a chef.
I love it! It has cute rats (I happen to like rats), is set mainly in a restaurant kitchen, has a good story and the animation is simply splendid.  It's so well done it will become a standard setter like Monsters Inc. was when it came. The level of detail is amazing whit out stealing attention from the story.

I can heartily recommend it.

/Darlica

The British author Doris Lessing has been awarded this years Nobel Prize for Literature.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7039100.stm

Any thoughts?

Has anyone here read her any of her works like The Golden Notebook, Memoirs of a Survivor and The Summer Before the Dark?
I haven't read anything of her yet but I plan to.  Do you have a special book or short story to recommend?

Every autumn I get apple fever (and I'm not talking about computers...).
This means that I want to bake, cook, and eat apples until it comes out of my ears.

When it's apple season around here the fruit is cheaper than usual and there are more kinds of apples to choose from, unfortunately many old sorts are on the decline, nobody knows about them or ask for them any more people usually buy "red" or "green" apples. 

Anyhow one of my favourite apple dishes are apple pies and especially Smulpaj that would be crumb pie in English I think (if you recognize the recipe and know the proper Eng. name please tell me!)

It's very easy to make but you can refine the basic recipe as much as you want making it your own.
I usually uses an apple called Discovery for this since it is firm and won't become to mushy during preparation it also looks nice (the fruit meat is pink closest to the peel and white in the middle) and it gives the pie a bit of rhubarby taste and look.

Darlicas Apple pie 6-8 pices

You need a aside from the ingredients; a rather big bowl (or food processor) a baking tin 24 cm diameter, and an oven set to 225°C

The dough:
1½ decilitre wheat flour
1½ decilitre oat-flakes
1½ tablespoon sugar
1 pinch of baking powder (isn't necessary but gives crustier crumbs)
125 g butter (real butter and cold, directly from the fridge)

Measure up the dry ingredients in a bowl or food processor mix a bit so the sugar, oat-flakes and baking powder is well mixed with the flour.

Cut the cold butter in dices and use your fingertips to mix the flour-mix with the butter by pinching it together (or just use the food processor  ) the dough is ready when your bowl is full of crumbs.

Here I usually put the bowl with the dough in the fridge and start with the apples.

The filling
4-5 firm apples (not the mealy kind)
2- 5 tablespoons of sugar (I prefer brown unrefined sugar) depending on how sweet the apples are and how sweet you like your pie.
2 tablespoons of butter
Cinnamon to taste

Peel and cut into thin wedges. Heat a frying pan and melt the butter, when the butter stops sizzling throw in the apples, stir gently, add the sugar and cinnamon (I love cinnamon so I use a lot of it), stir again and turn down the heat a bit, let the apples simmer for awhile (it's not wrong to pour a tablespoon or two of calvados or apple brandy in to the pan but it isn't necessary)  then take them of the stove and let them cool.


assembling
Butter the baking tin or use aluminium foil, take the dough out of the fridge and sprinkle enough dough crumbs on the bottom of the tin so it is barely covered. Gently pour the apples in to the tin, even the surface with a spatula if needed and sprinkle the rest dough crumbs on top.

Put it in the oven for 30 minutes.

Enjoy with vanilla ice cream or with vanilla yoghurt dressed up with some lime zest and a little squeezed lime.

We have been reading about Chatty's little Spencer making the moves on the dog sitter, conning her on  frozen yoghurt and other delicious stuff.

What fun, disturbing or disturbingly fun things does your pet do?

Our late family dog, William, smiled. Yes, smiled. Every time I came to see my mother after I moved out he would be standing on the porch on his hind legs, yap like a puppy and show all his teeth in a big grin, while wagging his tail like crazy. No. not a pretty sight, but kind of cute, I wish we had video taped it but we never did.
First time I saw that it actually frightened me a bit (Irish Terriers have a lot of teeth, cosy and snuggly as they may look with their mouths shut ), mostly because I couldn't read that mixed message. It sort of reminded why one shouldn't smile widely when greeting a unfamiliar dog... 

He also learned how to simulate hiccup when we were eating or preparing something he coveted, like grilled chicken or smoked salmon... 
I really miss him, it's almost two and a half year since he past away and it still brings tears in my eyes to think about him, it brings a big grin too but still.

Ludvig the present family dog, who also lives mostly with my mother, is still to young to fully have developed any odd behaviours, but his working on it. He's far to smart for his own good (just like his mother who among other things masters the art of opening doors)! I suspect I will have more stories to tell about him as time pasts.

/D

It be Talk like a pirate day and not a pirate in sight! Have ye' all fallen asleep over at Admirrral Benbow's?
Leavin' it t' a landlubbin' lass t' start t' conversation, that's just nice o' ye', ye' darrrn sea dogs! 

Is there a place (or may be many) that you have visited that you would love to go back to?

I have a few:
Prague: I fell in love with the city when I got outside the hotel door the morning after we  arrived. I was there at the end of November beginning of December (1999) and I would like to go back sometime during the spring months.
We stayed at Hotel Kafka (still there I just googled it) in the Zizkov district, went to the fortress, museums and a lot of other touristy things and ate a lot of very good food. the last night we wanted to go out for a beer close to our hotel since we had a lot of things to do (last minute shopping spree before we had to get to the airport in the afternoon. We ended up at PALAC AKROPOLIS (Akropolis Palace also still there) a huge 6 storey place with bars, restaurants, dance floors, you name it... We ended up in the Pub speaking to some locals in the same age as us 
(using an interesting mix of English, German, Czech, gestures and drawings ) laughing and toasting until 2 in the morning. I guess much have changed in Prague since 1999 but I would still love to go back and take the little less touristy paths trough the city.

Soller and port de Soller, Mallorca: Far from the buzz in Palma and Magaluf a small town in the Northwest corner of the Mallorca Island. You can get there by car, lovely winding roads high above the coast line, breathtakingly beautiful at some places, or you can take the small narrow gauge railway from Palma de Mallorca to Soller trough almond orchards, olive groves, and the big mountain massive (in long tunnels) at the middle of the island and past old palace gardens that hangs on the mountain sides.   
The Town of Soller is spectacular in its own right dating back to the Roman Empire with mediaeval buildings here and there a bank palace designed by one of Gaudis disciples. It also has a little botanical garden devoted to the plants native of the Mallorca and Menorca islands.

I don't think I am, but at least now I have a name for my character...
"Duchess Darlica the Dulcet of Biggleswade by Biscuit"

Want a silly noble title too? Follow the link!
http://www.masquerademaskarts.com/memes/yourtitle.php

Yesterday at work I got accuse of being a racist... by a coworker... 

(As I mentioned before I work part time in a booze and wine shop and in Sweden we have a alcohol monopole, so there are only one chain of government supervised shops that are allowed to sell beverages with more than 3% alcohol)

Now, getting accusations like that thrown at you from customers isn't that unusual. If you deny someone of non Scandinavian extraction to shop because they can't show a ID that confirm that they are of age (20 years old) it's basically the first thing you hear... I even got it from a 27 year old Asian woman just because I asked her for ID... I swear she didn't look to be a day over 16! But thinking so was obviously racist of me...

Now I can shrug that of, the customers doesn't know me, I'm just another uniform working for the man to them, but getting to hear it from someone I worked with several days a week for the whole summer... It made me really sad.

The background story was that I was alone at the cashier's desk when three people entered the store. I recognized one of the as a person on of my bosses told me to keep my eyes on because they might try to shoplift... Now as the good little minion I am at work, I did what I'm told and ringed the bell that signals "more staff on the floor stat!" and it so happens that these three men where all very dark skinned...

My coworker came out of the storage area took one look at the entourage and went back inside, telling another of my coworkers that I was a racist, "ringing the bell just because three black guys entered the shop"...
She told me when I got of my cashier spell and got to the storage area.

I confronted my coworker as soon he came in to the storage too. Telling him that I just did what I was told to do by a boss, and that skin colour has noting to do with it at least not from my part, and that I expected him to actually stay on the floor next time I called for backup. [mad]

I guess I wanted a " I'm sorry, I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions! But all I got was "umm, ok."

I have always been the one refusing to to treat people differently because of colour, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or looks in general. I have however been threatened and shouted at by skinheads and called a lot of degrading things because I tend to stand my ground and tell people my opinion, also my henna red hair triggers stupid reactions. But I never expected this.

I'm still sad. I thought I could shake it of but it seems harder than I thought.

/D

Most people are creatures of habbit.
Is there any foodstuff you are mor or less addicted to?

To me it's orange juice, if I don't get my orange juice in the morning I simply won't wake up properly.
And It's not all about the fruit sugar (my loving SO did the shopping for me and brought home some juice with tangerine, apple and something more, it wasn't such a hit) for me it's about the orange taste.

I also have garlic cravings .But not for breakfast and not every day.

/D

Hi my name is Darlica and I'm a chili head...

I thought it could be a good idea to start a thread about cooking with chili since we stumbled in to that area in the gardening forum.

Good fresh chili is sometimes hard to find over here so at any given time there are between 10 and 15 kinds of hot chilli sauces in my frigde and  thai pepper in the frezzer.

My current favorite food that includes chili would be Thai squid and chili salad.

The oddest thing I have tasted so far that contained chili is my SOs habanero vodka...



How about you?

Hi Darlica here, I found out about this place when Big Otis Landfish or Agujjim here posted about this place at the Devils Panties fan forum.
The DP forum is all fine and dandy, but I like to be able to have serious discussions too now and then and to me this place looked like the forum I've been looking for for a long time now.

I'm 32, Swedish, lives with my Significant Other,loves gardening and plants (green fingers runs in the family) would not survive in my flat without my housplants and the balcony, plays RPGs when I get to (and read gaming books when I don't), likes good eating and drinking, is more of a dog person than a cat person, have belifes but I'm not sure in what...
I'm a freelance Illustrator but I work part-time in a wine and booze store to make ends meet.


I shoulden't be here right now, have too much work on my hands, but this place seems so tempting...  I guess I failed a Will roll.