Away for a bit

Well, folks, we're off to Oban and the Isle of Mull for the weekend. We'll be with the International Family group from the University, but are staying at a bed and breakfast, rather than at the hostel (the rooms in the hostel were better set up for families than for just couples). No writing on the will be done (at least for me - T. may, but who knows), but lots of photography is expected. There may be dolphins. There may be puffins ('though they're supposedly all done with the whole mating and having chicks thing, this late in the year). There will be leisure. There will be video. There will be debauchery sleeping!

Shadow Shot Sunday

Today's Shadow Shot was taken at 5:20 a.m., in Glasgow, Scotland. To the left is the shadow cast upon the wall outside of the bathroom, through the window shown to the right. Yep - the sun was already well and truly UP at 5:20, and had been for about an hour by then. This is the craziness of living so far north, and partial recompense for the long, dark Winters.

Happy Shadow Shot Sunday!

Van's Answer

Excerpt from an email:"Wow - did I ever just have a sudden hunger pain for veggie haggis. Have you had any lately? Mmmmmmm....."

All it needs is a little dab of gravy, Van. And a plane ticket.

Shadow Shot Sunday

Greetings, all! Today's Shadow-Shot-Sunday is brought to you by the wonderful people of the town of Pitlochry. The town is about half-way to the Scottish Highlands, and is a wonderful place for tour buses to stop for lunch. Shown here is the bench outside of the public toilet facility, just alongside of the parking lot for the tour buses.

Happy Shadow Shot Sunday!

Raisin Bagels

So, the other day we were watching somebody on TV make bagels (Globe Trekker, Arctic Canada episode, Ian goes and visits a bagel bakery - no, we don't know why). The thing about it was, though, that they didn't form the bagels into little rolls & then poke a hole into them; they formed them into snakes & then rolled them over into a bagel shape! This seemed interesting to us, so, of course, we had to see if we could duplicate the process. The movie here will give you my take on the process. How'd they turn out? Well, delicious, of course, as they ought: pinhead oatmeal, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg - that's the recipe for a wonderful raisin bread, no matter what. Shapewise? Shapewise, I think that this way leaves a bit to be desired, particularly as some of them came out more like pretzels than bagels: with their ends showing. Will I try it again? Why, yes, I think so, because all of the bagels actually had holes in them, as opposed to when we form them into little rolls & try to force a hole into the middle!

Instant Chocolate Milk?

OK, people, it is officially HOT, here in Glasgow. Right this moment it's 25°C / 77°F. That's as close to the peak for what we get here as to be totally unbearable. We've got the windows open, went out to the market and bought a couple of wee watermelons, and are wondering whether we could get by for dinner on watermelon and instant chocolate milk. If only we knew how to make the stuff.

I've managed to track down Alton's Recipe for hot chocolate mix, but ... is it the same, really? Will it survive being both for sweetness (the quantities there look wrong) and to make cold chocolate? We'll see.

Instant Hot Chocolate Mix:

• 1.5 cups powdered milk (go with soy, if you can find it)
• 1.5 cups powdered or confectioner's sugar
• 2 cups cocoa powder (natural process)
• 2 tsp cornstarch (to thicken & stabilize)
• Pinch salt (finer salt like popcorn or even pickling salt; i.e. not kosher salt)
• a little cayenne pepper
• a little ground cinnamon (1 1-inch stick)
• a little ground nutmeg (1/8 of a nut)
• a little ground allspice (6 berries)
• 2 tsp Ground Ginger
• a little ground cloves (6 whole cloves, ground)
• a little ground cardamom (seeds from 6 pods, ground)
• guts of 1 vanilla pod, ground up with the rest of the spices

1. Mix it all together
2. Seal it up somewhere safe

When ready to use:

1. Mix a little into a paste
2. Add hot (or ice cold) water, until it's the consistency of melted chocolate.
3. Drink.

We'll see how it goes, but that's the general recipe, adjusted to get rid of the majority of the milkiness and sickening sweetness of most mixes. We're going more for the hot chocolates we had in Northern Italy: something resembling a dark chocolate bar, melted, in a small cup.

Lost in Translation

Just a brief note, to let you all know: cooking isn't the same, from country to country. This evening's example: "Swiss Cheese." It doesn't exist, in the UK. Probably doesn't exist in all of Europe. Why? Well, because what an American thinks of as "Swiss Cheese" is known as "Emmental" or "Emmentaler," here in the UK (and the rest of Europe). Why? Well, I'm guessing that the Swiss ... have more than just one kind of cheese that they make. Radical concept, I know. It's just one more thing, though, that throws a wrench (or, you know, if you're from the UK, "a spanner") into the works of cooking.

Blogworld Catchup

If I haven't commented upon your blog, and I usually do, it's because I'm desperately trying to catch up with the posts which built up while we were in Italy. I subscribe to around 160 different feeds, and some of those push out multiple posts per day, so I'm just now - after being back for a week - managing to get my reading down to below 1000 posts left to read. It may take a week or so more to catch up to where I'm able to really read at the usual pace.

It's troubling, facing all of this buildup. I've gone in & marked thousands of posts as read, just to have them cleared away, in those categories which are more recreational than personal or educational - so, photos from the Library of Congress? Articles from Mental Floss? Cake Wrecks? That type of thing will just have to come through another day, or perhaps I'll get bored sometime and visit their archives.

How does everybody else out there handle vacations & blog reading?

Pizza, Pasta, Pastry ... and Dumplings.

I think that one of the things I miss most about California is the vegetables. In Glasgow, we can get a few good veggies thanks to Hakim, down the street, who caters to certain ethnic minorities who regard turnips as ... well, not food, but who regard ripe tomatoes as normal (otherwise, tomatoes here tend to crunch).

When we set off to Northern Italy, we thought that we'd be enjoying all manner of fresh salads and veggies. This was not the case. We were on the South side of the Alps, in a region which speaks both German and Italian (plus their own local language, Ladin). The folk there ... are very different from the Italians, except that they tend to drive with the same reckless craving for speed, swearing vehemently until they get an opportunity to pass. Their difference from the rest of Italy stretches into their cuisine, which more closely resembled Swiss fare than anything else, relying very heavily on milk and cheese, shying away from garlic, basil, tomatoes. All in all, it's a strange mix.

We really only splurged once on food while we were there, and that was because we were stuck up the side of a mountain and had two choices: eat at a nice place, or eat at the bar/shack next to the tramway/gondola. We chose the nice place, and ended up with a subtly delicate beetroot dumpling (in cream sauce) and some equally subtle ravioli (in olive oil). The bread was great, the views were stupendous, and the food ... would not have startled an infant.

Most of the trip was largely a matter of trying to cook for ourselves, so that we'd have some hope of eating something other than the ubiquitous pizza. Pizza was truly everywhere, at every meal. To be fair, it was decent pizza, but just a bit wearing after the first few at lunch and dinner. Pasta ... was there, of course, as was pastry, but they were nothing to write home about.

The coffee, though, was uniformly wonderful, as was the chocolate (picture a dark chocolate bar, melted into a cup). We had coffee with a friend the day after we got back, just to confirm that we weren't dreaming. Glasgow coffee is truly as disgusting as we'd remembered.

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In other news, Tanita's book Mare's War launches today! For a chance to win a free copy (or some other goodies), visit her at TanitaSDavis.com/blog.

Shadow Shot Sunday

This is a picture of our airplane's shadow, leaving Amsterdam for Rome, about a week ago. This was a supremely lucky catch (not just because it was sunny in Amsterdam, either)! There will be more shadows from the trip, as they get uploaded. Until then, Happy Shadow Shot Sunday!