bookmark_borderTre år gammel mesterkok

Eggs - oops!
Eggs – oops!, a photo by PhylB on Flickr.
Phyllis laver tit scrambled eggs til frokost, og Amaia hjælper hende. Jeg har derimod aldrig lige fået styr på, hvordan man laver den ret.

I dag skulle Phyllis lige gøre et job færdigt først, men Amaia var sulten, så hun begyndte at kommandere med mig: Giv mig den kasserolle der! Og det lille piskeris! Find smør, æg, mælk og ost! Hjælp mig med at skære et stykke smør af — dér! Sådan! Tænd for blusset! Så, nu er det smeltet — hurtigt, der skal mælk i! Nej, mere, ja, sådan! Og nu æg! Seks! Og nu skal jeg piske! Nej, du må ikke hjælpe, far! Og nu skal der ost i! Nej, ikke med rivejernet, med kniven! Seks stykker! Nu skal der ikke piskes mere, der skal røres. Og nu er det færdigt, sluk for blusset!

Ovenstående er ikke et ordret citat, da hun taler 80% engelsk til mig, men det var helt nøjagtigt, hvad hun mente.

Og resultatet var glimrende — æggene var brændt lidt på, men det smagte lige så godt som normalt.

Så nu har jeg en datter på tre år (hun bliver fire til januar), der er bedre til at lave scrambled eggs end mig. Hun har lært meget, siden hun var lille og kun brugte æg som kasteskyts som på billedet!

bookmark_borderBuchwider Bräu β₂

Beta 2
Buchwider Bräu ??, a photo by viralbus on Flickr.
My first Belgian witbier was full of ginger, coriander and orange peel, and although the result was unpleasant it didn’t really taste like my favourite witbier, Korenwolf.

This time I managed to find some recipes on Dutch home-brewing forums (sometimes it’s useful to be able to read Dutch!), and I used them as a basis, adding interesting ingredients such as spelt malt, curação orange peel and elderflowers.

The result — Buchwider Bräu ?? — is quite nice, but it’s still not right. I need to add more orange peel and elderflowers, but there’s something else that isn’t right yet. The Dutch recipes called for the addition of flour (yes, real, normal flour), and perhaps this is the missing ingredient?

I need to get hold of some more Korenwolf bottles, however — my memories of it are becoming too hazy for precise flavour comparisons.

bookmark_borderOh that she were…

A banana and a medlar.
A banana and a medlar.
When I last blogged about the medlar, we hadn’t had any fruit in our garden yet.

This year, however, our tree is full of beautiful bletting (i.e., rotting) fruit. We need some more frost to speed up the process, but that has been promised for next week, so I’m really looking forward to feast on rotten open-arse fruits soon.

I would have loved to plant a poperin pear tree next to it (cf. the famous lines in Romeo and Juliett: “O Romeo, that she were, O that she were // An open-arse and thou a poperin pear!”), but as far as I know, that specific cultivar has disappeared.

Its cultural role as the phallic fruit par excellence has been taken over by the banana, of course, but I’m not sure it’s as easy to grow medlars and bananas side by side.