It's all gone a bit alchemy

Dear follower. Are you still there?

Never mind. My previous bread (& other stuff) blog foundered for want of a better word. Partly because of aggro hackers spam and my thinking whats the damn point.

My twitter friends Joanne at Zeb_Bakes and Debs at DebsLegge and her hubby Carl at CarlLegge who are far further down the road of self sufficiency and using nature's bounty than I could ever hope to be provided me with kefir grains. With what?

To get to my time of life (watch it!) and discover that there is a free and nutritious food within the scope of all of us is at the same time uplifting and a little disquieting as I have obviously not read in the right places. I shan't begin to explain what kefir is or how to prepare it as my benefactors have more than enough information to satisfy your (hopefully) inquisitive instincts.

I have previously made plenty of average bread and occasionally some good stuff. I am my own biggest critic which makes things hard really. I have dabbled with "sourdough" with some success (measured mostly by sons' consumption) but found my loaves a tad too "sour" for me mostly. It's a long story but I trouble to find a good resting/proving site in this house as  we need to keep a cool to cold house temperature for medical reasons (Urgh). Don't.

I set my kefir grains "working" in full fat Yeo Valley Organic milk at (cool) room temperature and after 24 hours there was a slight buttermilk flavour and nose to it. Not unpleasant but you wouldn't want to drink pints of it. Around 15 hours later there was something afoot. Some separation was apparent and a slight cheesy sourdough-like acidic aroma present. Not easy to describe but I knew there was fermentation going on. I strained the grains and used 200 ml of the "milk" in the kefir bread recipe as follows.

This was new ground for me and I referred continually to Joanne's wonderful site which has kefir recipes and also Cecilia's site who has experimented also with this culture.

I set a pre-ferment going with 

180g plain flour
200g kefir "milk"
100ml warm water
1 large heaped tbsp organic honey 

Stirred this several times over 24 hours. It was active and bubbling after 24 hrs but seemed to be separating a little so I fed 100g  (half a cup) of very strong bread flour and stirred.

Left overnight (a second night)  it was separating slightly and bubbling had subsided. Smelt like sourdough.

Added :

3 cups of very strong flour (probably around 400g)
1.5 tsps salt
tiny bit extra water

worked to a coherent mixture which was more jagged and spiky than bread dough and quite wet and sticky.
Emptied into very oily bread tin and baked for around 20 mins on 230 C and 20 on 200 C.

And it was like this :- 

Sorry not the best photo but it was around midnight and I was already counting sheep.

The added sesame seeds are my own particular obsession and not necessary.

Taste quite hard to describe but let's say light soft crumb thin crust like a milk loaf but with a slightly deeper taste akin to sourdough but not sour more like cottage cheese. Very popular in our house (who eat bread for England) and wonderful toasted.
Dead chuffed and will try this again.

To Blog or Not To Blog

That is a question I have agonised over many times and I bet you have too.

This last 4-6 months has been different to any similar period in my life and though tempted to say "difficult" I am aware that difficult is when you have trouble putting food on the table or paying the mortgage.

I left my employer in April and continued with my self employed venture as a bookkeeper. However it has been tough getting new clients as a facet of the recession is that firms are loathe to take risks with their money e.g switch to another bookkeeper. Therefore clients have been few and currently have dried up completely.

I busied myself through the terrific summer with fresh-air activity and then did some volunteering with CAB to keep my mind active and also do something worthwhile.

I haven't had the mojo to blog but maybe the dark nights and colder temperatires are galvanising me into a little action (steady on!)

OK I am making this mark in the (wet) sand and will endeavour to blog more over the coming weeks/months. I hope you want to read it.

Helicopter

He had always been such a “big” man. Big “boned” my mum used to say of us too when others said we were chubby or my teacher started calling me “slim”.

My dad was big-hearted big on kindness and sensitive, and definitely big on appetite. He was strong as an ox and well into his 70s thought nothing of re-pointing the house on staging or relaying the patio.

To see a mere caricature of the man I had grown up with and because of was the saddest sight of all.

We had been called in as the staff nurse said she thought “it was his time”. This was no swansong. Dad’s time was years earlier when he was still fit and had a thirst for laughs and work and beer in equal measures. That man had gone some time before and we had this immobile body lying peacefully for once free of all the blessed connections and pipes and cables.

I could not take my eyes from the wide putty coloured eyes which could see no longer and would never see again. Or his bruised and shiny arms which had done such labours but recently wore the signs of warfarin and an onslaught of blood tests. Or from his mouth stretched unnaturally to elicit every last cubic centilitre of oxygen it could take in. 

My mum was looking out over the rooftops talking about the air ambulance which seemed to be nearby. And how Dad had never seen it take off or land in his time in hospital. More’s the pity. He loved aircraft.

His laboured breathing paused for a moment and a slight almost imperceptible gasp escaped his mouth. And he was gone. He left the world much as he found it with no pretensions or handouts and without drama.

I felt his hand and neck and though not a man of medicine I knew that his pulse had now gone forever and a cool clammy feel came to him within only a few seconds.

As the sound of the rotor blades continued to intensify Mum gestured towards the helicopter landing and just maybe (as hearing is the last sense to go) my Dad heard the helicopter coming in just before he left us. He would’ve liked that.

The Last Day

It had to come of course. I have been here before 5 times in actual fact. Apart from my protracted employ with a large Telecoms company which lasted 23 years my average in 4 further posts is about 4 years each.

My current role ends today after nearly 8 years and the familiar feelings of "escape" and euphoria are here but also the pang of turning another page and being unsure precisely what is written overleaf.

It may be blindingly obvious to all of you (both, eek) that life is all about people friends family but people. From time to time it IS about mortgages or sleepless nights or buying cars but when the dust settles and it does eventually it is people that define us all and make us who we are. We need them like they need us.

So on this final day I will look back kindly on those who have helped and guided me who have been friendly cooperative and generous in time and spirit and deliberately exclude those who have never fitted that template.

8am - arrived in office puts kettle on and checks I have a little milk in cold bag. Check. My little bijou office is around 16 degrees C and already feels a bit warmer than I like. Turns radiator down.

8.30am checks drawers and cabinets to see if there is any more I can make waste or more importantly anything personal I need to liberate for the last time.

The office is looking very bare as I have been removing and taking home those little things that have made this my home from home for nearly 8 years. The kettle the calendar and wall clock appear to be the key remaining items. Then I spot the PC speakers and a multi-coloured eraser my son gave me around 15 years ago. The bleached photos have already gone home to an uncertain future but they served their purpose in dark times when I was feeling at my wits end.

9am thinking of bacon now and a large bap with brown sauce and maybe a hash brown. Wanders around. Not many staff around. Easter hols. Will make the departure easier. Quicker. Had said expressly to boss that I did not want any ceremony drama or presentation just to get the hell out with least fuss. He isn't around not sure what will ensue. Bacon certainly.

continues...

Yes there WAS bacon and 2 sausages and a huge bap the size of the Isle of Wight. Two bites in there's a knock on the door. Senior manager came to tell me my boss WOULD be in later and apologized for interrupting my drowning in bap and meat products.

1pm decided to go for the "hot" lunch option. Something of a departure from crisps & sandwich I have survived on previously. Now sleep looks likely. Warm office full stomach. More cupboards to scour and files to archive delete or nab. So little time.

For the umpteenth time someone has visited and said "you MUST come and see me to say goodbye before you leave" and I lied and said I would. But I won't. My appointment with boss approaches and I'm sure he is more troubled by the prospect than me. Still I can't stop thinking I might collapse in tears and beg to be reinstated. No that won't happen. This is one of those (few) times in life you have to steel yourself and you just get through it. Somehow. Like root canal work, childbirth or prison. Not that I have experienced either of the latter. 

3pm after 2nd coffee (now twitching like Jack Douglas) boss bursts in full of apologies and after shave. Come and see a few people... we've had a little collection. Yea right so that would be a presentation in front of about 50 people speeches and all and what I expressly said was not on. Well it did. I was brief humble lacking melodrama and choked as is my way.

Packed up my adequate Lowundai with various ancillary items and shipped out never to return certainly not in this lifetime. Turns page...

Leaving now ...

I've experienced before the glowing euphoria and sense of being maybe not quite immortal then certainly fairly indestructible.

It comes when you hand in your notice and start to serve out that notice period at your employment.

The colleagues you like ask earnestly what you intend to do and how you will make ends meet. The ones you have got on less well with ask also but through a sardonic smile or gritted off-whites. Not quite believing that someone who they held in the utmost disinterest has had the balls to give it all up and get the hell out. They are too much part of the "system" to contemplate such a course of action but then there's no harm in eliciting a few facts for the future should the lunatics seriously begin to look like taking over the asylum.

The senior managers try to avoid eye contact but when pressed are at pains to ask what plans you have. I have not quite got to the "f*ck it all" state of mind so do not reply with "the priesthood or maybe hunger strike.." For someone to leave who has always been peripheral to their day to day planning and thoughts it must be hellish difficult to find the energy to even ask let alone contort their face into a benevolent demeanour.

And then there's your line manager. He genuinely cares about what will become of you. He also is worrying desperately over who will do what you did yesterday in 3 weeks time. He can't replace you of course but has to "redistribute" the grief to others already over-burdened with clack and bumf. He also bears the pained expression partly hearfelt but also for himself for his budgetary constraints his targets his staff. One less. How long can this persist?

Bless her the cleaner breezes in as ever when I am in mid phone call. Crashes the door open bangs my litter bin against the radiator trying to dislodge the foil yoghurt lid. "Heard you're leaving love?...don't blame you.. they're all bloody swines here. And that new boss well I don't know really I don't.."

Says it all really.

Short break away

Not been away for sometime due to financial 
 "constraints". Well you know what I mean.

Just popped down to the New Forest to a lovely little cottage my wife spotted in a brochure just outside Brockenhurst. Hope to get some fresh air and rid myself of this never-ending cough/cold. More soon.

Cont...

Sadly the cough/cold is still with me or rather IS me as my personality seems to have been subsumed by the dark and toxic power of this lurgy. Get to the ponies...

Oh sorry yes the New Forest is a delightful and peaceful area of great beauty inhabited by roving wild ponies who all look desperately unhappy and under-appreciated. Perhaps they caught it from me. They are I guess suffering from the very same SADS which I thought was now lifting with the arrival of lighter days. The New Forest dark damp and shrouded with mist is a forboding place of great character and atmosphere and you can sometimes catch glimpses of the Hound of the Baskervilles in the swirling soup.

It was great but back home and back at work and stuff the enchanted forest seems gazilions of light years away..

Tuesday is the start of the week

Well nobody in their right mind would count Monday would they?

I always rise early at some forgotten hour in darkness. I am anxious about the weekly weigh in to chart my progress as a weight watcher. Before you reach for the "unfollow" button or "get me outta here" link let me just say quickly I am making slow and steady progress to reduce this over sized mass into something more tenable. OK that's that you still here? Phew thanks.

Tuesday is important to me for several reasons. I have a small space to carry out the vital functions of "waking up" and "drinking tea". In my experience neither of these should be neglected otherwise your day can go pear-shaped before it ever gets off the ground. How's that for mixing your whatever they are?

My youngest son Merlot has been ordering in a number of parcels in the last week. Vin de Table has had the misfortune to take delivery of these at all hours between 10am and 4pm and wonders how he has managed to cope with the interrupted sleep. The truth became clearer last evening when Merlot said he was about to load the operating system and for the first time I saw this monstrous PC case with more fans than the cross channel hovercraft which sadly no longer "hovers". It has glowing blue LEDs and a rich red heart visible through the glass side. It is a thing of beauty in a house of mediocrity. He nonchalantly inserts the CD and I wait for the beeps to indicate that the mother-load is not connected to the thigh-bone thrusters...but nothing. A spin here and wisp of fan there and Windows 7 is indeed being loaded.

Being a parent is a rewarding activity interspersed with crises and drama. Children are an essential ingredient and my son who seemed not long ago incapable of tying his shoe-laces had built his own PC.

I glowed with pride. Not quite as brightly as the PC but then it's not as old as I am. My work here may not be done quite but it is becoming more and more inconsequential.

Have a good day.

New Beginning

I have decided to launch this blog again after several weak attempts thwarted by writer's block or inept website husbandry which lost all my precious collection. Anyway today is another day and you have to start somewhere...

I gaze out over a bright and sunny landscape in South Gloucestershire which looks welcoming but is chilled by the seasonal wind which demands three layers or more. I feel positive about things going on in my life some of which are not so welcome (employment front) but the lengthening days promise sunshine and beauty in the coming months. I am a soul who really should live in warm climes through the winter as I am drastically inhibited in every way so see Spring as a time of renewal and renaissance each time it comes around.

Some of you will know that I love my family Preston North End and making bread. It isn't quite THAT simple but that's enough to be going on with.

I am tempted almost to say something like "wish me well on my journey.." but if anyone uses that cliche (journey) again on our TV I may not be responsible for my actions. You will soon gather that as a grumpy old git I DO have my favourite things to moan about. Let's call use of the crass expression JOURNEY as number 1.

I hope you come and visit again.