Category: Chocolate

A Cake Is A Cake Is A Cake Is A Cake Is A

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Tim and I have been studying the sometimes-unapproachable poetry of Gertrude Stein in our American Lit class. I didn’t know an awful lot about her before this, apart from the fact that she was namechecked in (a) an Anastasia Krupnik novel and (b) the La Vie Boheme number from Rent. (Interestingly, Langston Hughes, who we will be discussing in our next lecture, also had a glass raised to him in this song.) It would be pretty cruel of me to write this post to write this post in the style of Gertrude Stein, if I were to write this in the style if I were, if I were, if I were to write the style of, if I were to, would it, if I were, in the style, in the in the in the Gertrude Stein if I were, if I were to, would you if I were, would you throw your computer out the window and send me hate mail?

And would I even be writing in the style of Gertrude Stein or in fact of the publisher who archly rejected her? “Hardly one copy should sell here. Hardly one. Hardly one.”

Anyhoodle, enough highbrow literary references – on with the cake!

I’ve made Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake from Feast before, and her Chocolate Fudge Cake from Nigella Bites, and this cake above, the Chocolate Sour Cream Cake from How To Be A Domestic Goddess is in fact somewhere in the middle of the two. It disappeared quickly and is, like the others in the tripartite, a rather perfect cake. It’s not overly rich, but moist and cocoa-y, and has lots of lovely, creamy icing which softly sandwiches the two layers together. It’s also simple to make, the sort of thing you can knock together on the spur of the moment – as I did. A rose is a rose, but a cake is not just a cake, it brings joy – well, maybe the making of it only brings happiness to a food nerd like me, but the eating of it is something else altogether.

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake (slightly adapted because Nigella seems to like using lots of bowls, which is all very well and good if you actually have a dishwasher)

200g butter
200g sugar
2 large eggs
40g best cocoa
150mls sour cream
200g plain flour
3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1 1/2 t best vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 C, and butter and line two 20cm cake tins. Beat the butter and sugar together thoroughly, add the eggs, cocoa, and fold in the flour, raising agents and sour cream. For some reason the mixture was a little too stiff (hee) for me, I’m sure adding a tablespoon or so of milk won’t harm anything. Spread between the two tins – and it will be stiff stuff – and bake for 30 minutes, allowing the cakes to cool thoroughly after. They will look woefully flat, but once sandwiched thickly with icing it will appear more pleasingly majestic.

Icing

150g dark chocolate
80g butter
125g sour cream
1 T golden syrup
Icing sugar

Melt the butter and chocolate together, and let it cool a little. Stir in the syrup and sour cream, and enough sifted icing sugar to create a deliciously spreadable mixture. Use it to sandwich an ice the two cakes, and then…lick the bowl.

Rather uncharacteristically, it was a two-cake week. Wherefore? Well, the local Glengarry bottle shop had a fire a while back and had only just re-opened…on a whim Tim and I went in for a look, I have to say the people that work there are always very polite to us and answer our questions very seriously (even if we’re wearing those grey trackpants with elasticated ankles…both of us…) Before I knew it Tim had purchased some Guinness and implored me to make Nigella’s world-famous-in-our-flat Chocolate Guinness Cake. I can’t say no to a request like that.

I’ve made this before, several times in fact, and it is always astounding. The combination of dark, bitter beer and chocolate cake may sound like some kind of fusion-nightmare, but it is a ridiculously, rapturously good pairing. It has just occured to me that while I’ve blogged about this cake many times, I’ve never posted a recipe for it, I might as well change that right now. This page in Feast has become smudged with cocoa and smeared with batter; when I open the book a small dust-cloud of flour rises. Therefore it is with no small recommendation that I give you this recipe.

Chocolate Guinness Cake

By the way, I didn’t mistype the amount of sugar. Yes, it’s a scary amount, but…it’s a big cake. And it’s not overpoweringly sweet in the slightest.

250mls Guinness
250g butter
75g cocoa
400g sugar
145mls sour cream (one of those little yoghurt-tub sized, er, tubs)
2 eggs
1 T real vanilla extract
275g plain flour
2 1/2 t baking soda

Okay. So, set your oven to 180 C and butter/line a 23cm springform tin. First of all you want to get a big ‘ol pan, pour in the Guinness and add the butter – cut into small pieces – and gently heat it so the butter melts. It shouldn’t bubble, keep the heat low. Now, simply stir in the rest of the ingredients – I use a spatula – and pour into your tin. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on your oven. The kitchen will smell heavenly, I promise you.

Once cool, ice with a mixture of 200g cream cheese (NOT low-fat), 125mls whipped cream, and 150g icing sugar folded together.

This, like Dame Helen Mirren, only gets better with time. I would find myself making excuses to go to the kitchen to shave off thin slices…and I wasn’t the only one, the cake swiftly shrank, chunk by chunk, getting denser and tastier and intensely more delicious with each day.

What’s that noise? Oh yeah. It’s your conscience, saying “mmmmaaaa-aaa-aake the chocolate Guinness cake…”

And finally, because like cakes, not all cookies are created equal, I bring you, erm, cookies.

These also make a very regular appearance, in fact I hardly even photograph them these days. However there was actually something resembling natural light outside yesterday (hey, it is Winter) after I pulled these out of the oven so I quickly started snapping. These cookies are amazing, as I said I make them lots, but the best thing about the recipe is that it’s so forgiving, and…it contains oats. Much like lentils, oats have a special place in my heart (perhaps near the arteries, holding a cool, soothing hand to whatever their feverish forehead would be) and I love incorporating them into my food wherever possible.

This particular batch of cookies contain shards of intense, 80% cocoa dark chocolate, ground linseeds, poppy seeds and – oh yes I did go there – quinoa flakes. I realise this makes them sound like Little Patties of Earnest Nastiness, but they taste exactly like chocolate chunk cookies ought to, because all the extras just sort of melt into them. They are in fact, my favourite permutation of these cookies, and trust me there have been several varations on this theme.

And they’re practically healthy. I mean quinoa. It even owns lentils in terms of greatness and lets face it, a few nutty flakes of quinoa are more appealing in a cookie than a paste of cooked lentils.

“Sell Out, With Me Oh Yeah!”

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I never thought I’d have reason to quote the one-hit ska-punk band Reel Big Fish on my blog but life takes you to some funny places. You may have noticed a new feature of my sidebar, if not, may I subtly direct your attention to it? I’ve been aware for a long time that it’s possible to advertise stuff on one’s blog, but I resisted, because of some would-be righteous “it ain’t me” attitude I suppose, (although the idea of being submerged Daltrey-style in a bathtub of baked beans is engaging)…however I figured if I can gain some revenue off this site then I have no reason not to try at least.

I admit, Fishpond is a little expensive but let me state my case; for kiwis, most things are cheaper on Trademe, but this site has access to all sorts of difficult-to-find texts (including Idina Menzel’s gorgeous but not-released-here album I Stand – if you like slightly overproduced MOR, buy it and she might finally come tour New Zealand!*) which you could never find in Whitcoulls let alone on Trademe, and if you are from America or Britain or elsewhere, as I know several of my readers are, why not give Amazon a miss for once and play the Fun Exchange Rate Game? Buy a book for NZ$50 and it will only cost you about three pounds or ten US dollars! Minutes of pleasure to be gained, I tells ye. And to cap it off any moolah I gain is going towards Tim’s and my savings fund. Like I said, there’s no harm in trying…and watch out for subliminal messages throughout the post…

BUY STUFF OFF FISHPOND BY CLICKING THE ICON ON THE RIGHT

Okay, that was veering on the side of super-liminal. I don’t want to coerce people in any way, this is a place of food, and Nigella-worship, and self-indulgent pop culture references, not some kind of mercenary avaricious…um, I’m losing steam here. What I’m saying is, no pressure, nothing ventured nothing gained, and time for ham.


Above: So I made Nigella’s Ham in Coca Cola the other night, and it was behaving worse than the most petulant hamster on ANTM, that is, it was very difficult to get a decent shot. I had to resort to using the flash button to get any kind of photo at all. Much to Tim’s horror, I professed my love of the the cola/pork simmering liquid, and only dug myself further into a hole of shame when I tried to explain how I wasn’t eating the pork fat, just the pork attached to the fat…Oh dear. Before I put you off forever, this is a truly delicious recipe, the Coca Cola imbuing the ham with a beguiling, addictive spicy sweetness. In England, you would buy gammon, in New Zealand, pickled pork, and it is merely simmered in a potful of sinisterly bubbling fizz (with a bobbing onion for added flavour) before being briefly flashed in the oven with a treacly, mustardy glaze. Trashy as it sounds, this is one of the very nicest things you could possibly have the good fortune to eat…


Above: A slightly more sedate, less carnal-tastic photo. We managed to make this last THREE meals, even though we could have happily snarfed the entire 1.5kilos by the fistful on day one. I made a surprisingly lovely parsnip orzotto the next day, into which I stirred some diced leftover ham, and then we finished the ham, sliced as above, with a salad the day after that.


Above: This is one of those meals that comes about after scanning your cupboards and fridge and trying to make things fit together coherently…I roasted diced pumpkin, a whole red chilli, a bulb (yes, a whole bulb, what can I say, I like it) of garlic and once everything was done I left the pumpkin to cool a little while I vented any frustrations I might have had on the garlic and chilli in my pestle and mortar, adding cinnamon, sea salt, and olive oil. I don’t know what made me go for cinnamon, I was thinking nutmegnutmegnutmeg as you often do when dealing with pumpkin but made the last minute switch and it was really good – the warmth of the cinnamon reflected the muted heat of the roasted chilli rather pleasingly. So, where was I…I poured the dressing over the pumpkin and added a drained can of borlotti beans, mixing it gently, and finally sprinkled over gorgeously nutty poppy seeds. The only real bad thing about this was…I got the wrong beans. Cannelini beans are great for diabetics, lots of slow-release carbs and little sugar. Borlotti beans have about as much carbs as a steak. So Tim had to have some toast after this. This salad could, if you ate enough of it, make a decent lunch in its entirety as well as being an out-of-the-ordinary side dish which is how we had it. And as you can imagine, it’s even better the next day when the dressing has really steeped into everything.


Above: And of course, there have been noodles. I have eaten so much noodle-based stuff lately, mostly soba or udon floating snakily in broth, but there was also this marvelous stirfry, inspired by a post on the stunning stunning stunning Use Real Butter blog. Sometimes I don’t even photograph the noodle-food (foodle?) we eat in case you become weary of overexposure towards it…actually, and I digress violently and suddenly, I have noticed on my travels that I am one of the only bloggers who talks about more than one meal per post. I don’t see many other bloggers attempting to fashion their titles out of song lyrics or obscure puns either. I don’t know how you do it, to be honest. I salute you for your ability to be concise, regular with your posting, and lucid with your titles. Hopefully my method isn’t too confusing.


Above: Back to the noodles. For all that the stir fry conjures up images of a swift, healthy, crisp dinner, I find that it’s very easy to get wrong, greasy, over and undercooked at the same time, and boring. Somehow though, in my hamfisted way, I cobbled together a really nearly perfect one and true to form, didn’t write down what I did. There were lots of capsicums, and I simmered the carrots and parsnips in with the noodles. The oyster sauce that I added was the thing that made it special I think, along with the miso in the ginger-carrot emulsion (adapted from the recipe on Use Real Butter) that I stirred through. Not just plain salty, but complex and savoury and richly flavoursome. The ginger-carrot thing was supposed to be a salad dressing but something about the combination of ingredients made me think they’d work in a stir fry, and oh, how they did.

It just occured to me recently that I should give credit to Marc, he of the elegant No Recipes blog, for the idea of using green tea as a broth for noodles, he mentioned it on his blog and I tried (and loved) it and wrote about it a post or two ago, and should have known I couldn’t have come up with something as nifty as that on my own…Perfect for after sweating it out after a Bikram Yoga class (and inevitably one gets stuck next to the hairy, flatulent guy who wants to get in touch with more than just his chakras) or indeed any time you want your comfort food to be light but nourishing. I have this quite often, but as I mentioned just before, have spared you many bog-standard shots of it in my white soup bowls…




New Zealand is such a funny little country. I had been working at my current job for about a year when I found out that the receptionist, Kerry, is related to me. In hindsight it makes so much sense, despite our differences there is a kinship between us – fostered, I believe, by a love of the ridiculous and the beautiful – that makes me think “well how could I not have known that he and I were family.” Ah, New Zealand. Probably the only place where your mother taught the guy you just met at the bar, or your gyneacologist lived down the road from you and paid you to mow their lawns as a child, or your dentist is Peter Jackson’s aunty. Possibly even the Garden of Eden had more degrees of separation.

Where am I going with this? Nowhere, to be honest. But anyway, across the road from where we work is a small, but perfectly formed, Belgian chocolate shop. I had resisted it for some time, for the obvious reasons – money – but Kerry one day surprised me with THREE chocolates from this shop – Melting Perfection – and I was utterly smitten with them. In the picture above is the White Chocolate Champagne Truffle, the Maple Cream, and the Poire William, which I bought on a whim today after nearly going insane – you think I’m exaggerating – from hours of dealing with invoices. These chocolates are some of the very, very best I’ve ever tasted. The Champagne Truffle was just ridiculous – the touch of alcohol providing that elusive note of flavour that somehow made the white chocolate taste butterier, creamier, but also lighter and not in any way cloying or over-sweet. The chocolates are beautiful, handmade, and taste like they were made by someone who knows what they were doing. If you are ever in Wellington you should absolutely go to their Featherston Street shop (#109, on the way to the railway station) and if you are not in Wellington, then friend, it’s worth the pilgrimage. For loving photography and a list of the imaginative chocolates they sell (and yes, there’s even something there for the sea-salt and caramel kids out there) visit their website: Melting Perfection. Mention my name when you visit their store and recieve a bewildered look!

 

*To clarify – from what I’ve managed to hear online I actually really like Idina Menzel’s new album (of course I do!) but it definitely falls into the realms of that category I dread – Adult Contemporary. It is a lot more polished and less kooky than her earlier pop efforts, probably because she wants to you know, shift some actual units, but is also a heck of a lot better and more real than any other misery-inducing music being put out these days in that bracket. Obviously her personality helps, as well as her unmistakeable voice, but the songs absolutely grew on me, and truly, I don’t listen to any music that I don’t genuinely love (life’s far too short.) I hope she collaborates with Jamie Cullum for the next one, they both have that confessional style of writing, and he knows his way round a likeable tune. Anyway, this album isn’t released for sale in New Zealand, (I’ve recieved many a funny look by asking for it at the counter at CD shops) and so if enough people buy it off a New Zealand site mayhaps her record company will want to send her out here for some kind of promotional tour (probably after I’ve scraped together just enough money from shilling her album to head overseas…)

“I Am A Synonym Bun”

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Intrigued? Mais oui, I pretend to hear you say.

I’m afraid I can’t tell you about this peanut butter chocolate slice that I made (recipe care of Nigella, natch) because…it is appearing in a magazine this month and you should all go out and buy that instead! I am published! Okay, it’s not quite Cuisine, or Gourmet Traveller, but Tearaway is one of the better teen magazine in New Zealand and is particularly brilliant because they genuinely welcome contribution from young writers. I grew up reading Tearaway back when it was a newsprint broadsheet (now it is A4 and distinctly shinier) and even though I’m really not sure if cooking is what the kids are into these days, I’ve managed to get in there with my humble food column. Whether it becomes a regular gig remains to be seen, but still, it’s a foot in the door. As Burns would say, “Patience, Monty, climb the ladder…”

*Update 9/6/08 – Just got sent a copy of the magazine in the mail today with a cheque for $30! I didn’t even realise they were going to pay me so as you can guess this was a more than pleasant surprise. I feel like Anne Shirley, or Jo March, or *implodes suddenly from geekiness* I can put the money into our savings account and as for the magazine…”That’s going straight to the poolroom.”
Here’s something I can actually elaborate on:


Above: Long-time readers should know I am friend of the beetroot, particularly when roasted. I’d never heard of making chips out of them, until I found this post on Adaptations, wherein fine slices of beetroot are baked in a low oven till they sort of dehydrate and crisp up and become SO much more delicious than this description would suggest. Of course it does sound like the sort of too-worthy, unnecessary, overcompensatingly healthy recipe that would have you running for the sour cream and chive Pringles. But these are truly delicious in their own right – and beautiful too, like dried rose petals – with a delicate smoky crunch to them that is very moreish. I only made a small amount, because I wasn’t sure if it would work out or not, but I’d definitely commit to making this with lots of beetroot again. They’d make quite a grown-up nibble with drinks…

To augment this I chopped up some carrot sticks and made a quick dip out of Greek yoghurt, the salvageable remains of a disappointing avocado (and a disappointing avocado really stings), sea salt, lemon juice and sumac. Simple enough, but the creamy tang of the yoghurt and the earthy, lemony sumac provided intriguing flavours as they were scooped up by the vegetables.


Above: To offset that very healthy starter, I did a culinary 180 degree turn and served buttery pasta for dinner…it was something I came up with on the spot but I was impressed with how elegant it all turned out to be. I didn’t really measure anything but you hardly need a recipe for something like this. I put fettucine into a pan of boiling, salted water, and while it was cooking I melted a good amount of butter in another pot, letting a garlic clove brown in it which I binned afterwards (that’s to say: I ate it) allowing the butter to really get dark and nutty. Into this I tumbled some chopped walnuts, then turned off the heat while they gently toasted in the residual warmth. Finally I drained the now-cooked pasta, biffed it in with the butter, and added a handful of shredded beetroot leaves (you could easily use spinach) which wilted instantly. Pa-dah. Very, very delicious.

Above: Speaking of very delicious, I give you Shnecken (gesundheit!) or more literally, cinnamon buns. Now Nigella is generally fairly enthusiastic about food, one of the things I adore in her writing. But when she says uncompromisingly, of these buttery, walnutty, caramelly yeasted buns: “God I love them” – then you know, before even commencing, that you are onto something quite promising.

She speaketh the truth. Schnecken = love. These buns are ridiculously wonderful, as delicious as Nigella says and then some, and come from that fabulous book How To Be A Domestic Goddess. I honestly can’t be bothered typing out the recipe (well, methods involving yeast are just so lengthy) but I found a copy here, unfortunately it’s in American, but if anyone outside the US wants to make it (do!!) you need one sachet of dried yeast, some form of brown sugar for the magical, magical syrup and half a cup of butter (how do you measure butter in a half-cup??) is about 125g. Maybe it would have been quicker to type out…

Above: You know that scene in Spiceworld? Where they are all superheroes with a special power? And then Posh Spice appears and she doesn’t even have a power, she just stands there looking gorgeous? (I think she points and winks too, as was the style of the time) That’s what these buns are like. They just sit there, looking fabulous, and you think it’s almost enough just to look at them, until you take a bite…oh my gosh they are nice. The brioche-like dough, the brown sugar with the cinnamon and walnuts…the butter. These are something special. The title of this post came courtesy of Paul, by the way, and worryingly, I can’t remember the context of our conversation but it made me laugh, and I feel that it’s a succinct description of myself, so what better reason to elect it to head of the post?
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Above: Mmmm, food pr0n.


Speaking of porn, I saw Sex and The City on Thursday, and I’m not talking about the titular sex here (as it were), I’m talking clothes – this film was a veritable orgy of fashion. I’m no Stacey McGill, but by my calculations they changed outfits roughly every 3.5 seconds. I was feeling a little cynical about it beforehand (although 2-for-1 cosmopolitans at the bar helped put me in the mood) but it really is a good movie, if you like the TV show. In spite of myself I was excited about what these women had done with their lives and yes – about what Carrie would be wearing. They looked noticeably older – which is nice, considering how they were actually supposed to have aged in the film – and gorgeous, seriously if I have Kim Cattrall’s body when I’m her age I’m going to become a nudist. Mr Big’s constant, childish “ooh I can’t commit” attitude got wearisome, and it did feel as though some plotlines were skated over, but on the whole, very enjoyable, indulgent montages and all. I realise that I referenced the Spice Girls AND The Baby Sitters Club in this post, (what next, po-mo Power Rangers quotes?) A new low, or indeed, high, depending on your view of pop culture.
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Tim and I are, as you might know, trying to save to get back over to England (where we met, three years ago, on our respective Gap years.) We’ve been saving since 2006, and have a fairly tidy sum considering we really had NO money till last year, but we need so much more and so, have started making some serious decisions in the last month or two. For me, it means having rolled oats for breakfast instead of buttered toast (truly, I have it every day: rolled oats, softened briefly in water, with or without the addition of bran, linseeds, wheatgerm- how am I not size 0?); having miso soup for lunch at work; not buying fun ingredients willy-nilly; less meat and more lentils, being strong around cookbook sales and not getting Anthony Rapp’s autobiography and The Rent Book imported at great expense… For Tim it is not buying fizzy drinks and Instant Kiwi tickets; having porridge instead of eggs on toast for breakfast; putting up with the lentil onslaught; and for both of us it means not going out drinking much and not buying DVDs recklessly. Both our bank accounts have become genuinely plumper with all of these corners cut, and our savings account is impressive for two poor students, but really, the only way we’ll get over to England next year is if we win the lottery (and then hopefully we can pay for Tim’s root canal too…but don’t get me started on that.) Any tips on how to save or make money without resorting to eating Pot Noodles 24/7?

“Reasons/To Justify Each Move…”

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I have a bad habit of telling Tim about things I was going to, but didn’t. Like, “oh Tim, I was going to buy you No Country For Old Men on DVD for you but I didn’t because it was too expensive,” or, “I was going to photocopy that Raconteurs interview I found in a magazine at work but then I ran out of time,” or, “I was going to hang out the washing but…I didn’t.” I sort of justify it by saying, hopefully, “it’s the thought that counts?”
A bit like how I justify my complaining by saying to him “if I didn’t complain, you wouldn’t know how I feel!” (and then inevitably find out that he has had a mercilessly sore tooth for three days and not said a word.)
Today I found myself in the changing room at Portmans with some cardigan despite trying to save money – I don’t even like Portmans, I was in town to buy the book American Psycho for uni! But if I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t know…
I’ve made these gluten-free brownies before, and had a hankering to make them again, brought on partly out of necessity – the bananas in the freezer were taking up too much room and needed to be dealt with. Oh, and although blackened, overripe bananas are often said to be the best for baking, no-one ever mentions how disgusting they are to handle. There’s something unbelievably nasty about their softly slippery texture, and the creepy oozy liquid left behind from the skins. (Still feel like brownies?) Sorry, but someone had to say it. No matter, once incorporated into the mix, they are nothing but delicious.
I won’t repeat the recipe because you can just click the link above, but I added a spoonful of golden syrup this time, and cooked it for slightly less – 25 minutes at 180, then 10 minutes at 150. Don’t know why, it just instinctively felt right.
And ohhh how delicious they tasted, emitting cries of “but they don’t even taste gluten-free!” from those who tried them. I realise it’s easy for me, a red-blooded gluten-muncher, to say, but for all that I’m thankful for advances in technology I love gluten-free baking where you don’t have to go purchasing forty different bags of various flours and pastes to make the whole thing stick together. These brownies are tenderly bound with the magical alchemy of peanut butter, bananas, cocoa, and eggs, and somehow come together to taste squidgy and densely chocolatey, and not at all like some kind of sawdusty substitute.
That’s not all I baked. At work yesterday, I was flipping through a magazine and no sooner had I snidely commented “You know, I’m never really inspired by the food section of the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, there’s something so dull and prosaic about their recipes…” than I found myself contritely scribbling down TWO recipes onto post-it notes because I wanted to try them myself. To the NZWW: I apologise. The following recipe is brilliant…
I was very taken with the idea of this chewy slice, containing some of my favourite things – caramelly dates, walnuts, dark chocolate (I threw in some pumpkin seeds)…and there’s no butter in it which sort of keeps costs down (of course, once you’ve bought walnuts and chocolate it’s hardly cheap, but c’est la vie). The recipe itself called for a 400g pack of dates which I thought would swamp the delicate mixture, so I used about 300g. Oh and it asked for vanilla essence, for shame! Use vanilla extract or vanilla sugar, but don’t ruin your gorgeous ingredients with essence, please….

Chewy Date, Walnut and Chocolate Slice
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup self-raising flour
Dates, chopped, between 300 – 400g as you see fit
Chopped walnuts (they ask for a cup, I just threw in a handful willy-nilly)

Dark chocolate, chopped, I used about 100g

 

Turn your oven to 160 C. Beat eggs and sugar together like mad for about five minutes, till pale, thick and moussy. Use a whisk, it’s good arm excercise and means you can eat more slice later. Oh and try not to do what I did, which was dribble batter onto the bench, then accidentally hit the whisk’s handle so it flings batter all over the stove top and onto my face and clothes…gently, gently, fold in the flour, then the extra bits, and spread into a baking-paper lined medium sized brownie tin. I use a big piece of paper which overlaps at the edges so I can lift it out in one go afterwards for slicing. Bake for 35 minutes, and I recommend leaving it for a bit before you slice it. Nonetheless, this is easy and quick enough to whip up should company unexpectedly arrive demanding tea and cakes (without actually saying so, of course.)
Above: Paul and I were the only ones home when I made this so donned our tester hats, (I made him vow that if it turned out to be a disastrous mess we’d bin it and pretend I’d never baked anything in the first place). Luckily, it was fabulous, the moussy eggs and sugar baked into a light casing for the delicious fillings, and as I bit in I never knew if my teeth were going to hit buttery walnuts, chewy dates, or soft, melting chocolate…It cracks a bit on top as you cut it, but this isn’t really a problem unless you’re making it for the sort of person for whom aesthetic issues like this are a problem, but as I try not to associate with people like that I think things will work out nicely. I can definitely see myself making this again and again in the future.
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I mentioned quite a while ago that Rent is closing on Broadway – juuuust too soon for me to consider actually going there to see it (well, we have to get to England first, let alone New York) but the original cast are going to appear at the 2008 Tony Awards sometime this month, so hopefully some bright spark puts it on Youtube asap. Speaking of Youtube and Rent, there was recently a benefit concert of Chess with Idina Menzel and Adam Pascal (I know!) Although I was lucky enough to see many musicals as a youth I never caught Chess, but after watching a couple of clips on Youtube, wow! “Nobody’s Side” is one heck of a song, the sort you want to start again as soon as it finished. And I did. It made so much sense when I found out that the two B components of ABBA were behind the writing of the music…

"I’m As Free As A Bird Now…"

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“and this bird you cannot change…ohhhhhh….*twelve minute guitar solo*….” ahem. Don’t mind me, I’m just practically floating due to the enormous weight lifted from my shoulders – to wit – my last photography class was today. Hence why I’ve been humming Freebird (a song that will forever remind me of my parents dancing at their 25th wedding anniversary party four years ago…and yes, there’s much more to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Sweet Home Alabama for those of you who only have the Forest Gump soundtrack…)

Because I’m feeling so darn sweet I’ve decided to stick to pudding photos tonight…dinner can wait for another day. Last night I was in a sort of crazy limbo zone – I’d submitted my final assignment for photography but I still had today’s class to get through. However after all the many hours of my life that had gone into it (let me tell you, it’s not fun walking home through the red light district in torrential rain at 9.30pm and knowing you have to go back again tomorrow to wrangle photoshop) I decided that a small pudding would be appropriate. So; crumble for two.


Above: I didn’t follow Nigella’s recipe at all (I’m talking about the Jumbleberry Crumble from Nigella Express) apart from cooking times, but I definitely credit her with the inspiration. I mean, I didn’t have anything resembling “jumbleberries” and I always just make up my own crumble toppings…but I wouldn’t have thought to make it had I not been flicking through this book.

My version ended up having a base of canned peaches and a sliced apple. Low-rent, sure, but I love canned peaches, and I have a bit of a nostalgic view of them (well, as nostalgic as someone who only turned 22 last month can possibly be) since quite a few of the puddings I had as a child involved canned peaches…Peach crumble, for one thing, but also peach sponge-topped pudding, peaches and ice cream, peaches, cornflakes and evaporated milk…I tend to make a lot of crumble topping – even for two smallish ramekins – out of foresight, because there’s no use pretending I won’t eat half of it before it gets sprinkled on the fruit. Have you ever tried raw crumble topping? There’s something incredible about that combo of butter, brown sugar, flour…I also craftily added a large spoonful of custard powder which gave a certain creaminess to the crumble mixture, and made the fruit somehow saucier. Anyway before your arteries start throbbing in sympathy I added rolled oats to this as well which means that the butter barely even counts. These were so delicious – I don’t make crumble that much, but every time I do it feels like the perfect, unimprovable pudding and I wonder why the heck I ever make anything else.


Above: Buddino Di Cioccolata, half done. I knew I was going to want something rather ridiculous for pudding tonight to celebrate. What could be more ridiculous than this silky, silky chocolate pudding? (also from Nigella Express)

I used some of my Donovan’s 80% dark chocolate purchased from the Wellington Food Show. I only tried the milk (which is 50%) at the show, so I couldn’t resist having a nibble of this…I was very impressed, it was smooth and dark and slightly bitter but rounded (not sure if I’m describing this properly here) and perfect to counter the richness of this pudding. No recipe this time because I just can’t be bothered but I found a copy of it here (sorry it’s in American measurements though!)


Above: I took this photo on top of our washing machine. The cup was part of a Living Kitchen set that my flatmates got me for my 21st last year and as you can see, doesn’t just have to be used for measuring…This chocolate pudding was just so silky, I realise that’s the third time I’ve used the word but I just can’t think of a more pertinent synonym right now. Seriously, the texture is amazing, and provided you have fairly decent cocoa and chocolate, so is the flavour. Tim, Paul and I ate this while watching Scrubs tonight (that show has managed not to jump the shark yet, am I right? Mind you, there was that musical episode…) and all agreed that yes, Nigella is high priestess of the universe. What better way to celebrate never having to stress about photog again than with chocolate?
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Speaking of amazing women…I’m sorry to keep bothering you with Idina Menzel videos (*voice offstage* “you’re not sorry at all!”) but truly, I am continually astounded by Youtube. (and her, obvs.) Just when I think there can’t be much left to find, a video will pop up that I’ve never seen before. Tim, bless him, keeps pretending to be interested when I relay this information to him. Tonight I discovered what is allegedly Idina’s first performance of Over The Moon from when Rent moved to Broadway. Even if it’s not, it’s the only video of this song that I’ve seen from that era – 1996! – and it’s an amazing piece of history…
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Thank you deeply for the ongoing well-wishing during my photography class, I hope I didn’t come across as too petulant (even though most of the time I probably was being petulant) because I did get a lot out of the class and also appreciate all your kind words! Here’s hoping next term isn’t quite so stressful. If I sound a little manic in this post, well, you already know why. I still have two exams to get through but it’s amazing how much lighter my brain feels already. Oh, and funnily enough all this business with my photography assignment hasn’t put me off Tetris. In the Guinness Book of Records Gamers Edition (yes, such things exist), I found that the record score was 9,999,999. I think I’ve got it in me to challenge that…

“I’ve Said It Once Before But It Bears Repeating”

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To liberally paraphrase Elton John, Saturday night’s alright for writing essays. It has to be. I shouldn’t even be here, but I’ve allowed myself a break from wrangling Renaissance English. It’s not a good sign when I can’t even understand any of the essay questions…I can’t be hating on this though, even when it means I’m stuck behind the computer typing feverishly all weekend. How could you possibly dislike a play (Jonson’s The Alchemist) which contains the phrase: “Thou look’st like Antichrist, in that lewd hat?” (which makes me long to find something fitting the description of a lewd hat.) Of course you couldn’t. But still, 2500 pithy, succinct, brilliant words need to be produced asap.
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Don’t even get me started (truly, I said plenty enough in the last post) on the interim photographs I’m supposed to present on Wednesday for my next photog assignment, which is, just for kicks, worth 20 percent of the final grade of said assignment. Who knows when I’ll have time to do them, between classes, essays and work – perhaps if, Yorkshireman-style, I get up half an hour before I go to bed and work for 29 hours, I might just get it done.

Now, I know using the microwave to actually, y’know, cook, basically means you forfeit your right to consider yourself a decent human being in some circles. Oh, I won’t lie, I don’t think the microwave is that brilliant as a sole means of producing meals. It sure helps though.
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When I was younger – maybe ten? – there was a lengthy stretch of time where we didn’t have an oven for some reason and we cooked all our meals with an electric frypan and the microwave. I still remember this amazingly good “feather pudding” that Mum used to whip up occasionally, golden syrup on the bottom and sponge on top…anyway, snapping out of that radioactive haze of reminiscence, surely a microwave can’t be that bad if it managed to produce something like the chocolate pudding pictured above. This pudding is just stupidly chocolatey and rich. And it cooks in 5 minutes…literally.


Above: The batter is magically delicious too. Don’t lose a finger (or your tongue!) on the processor blades.

Microwave Chocolate Pudding (from Nigella’s How To Eat)

  • 120g butter
  • 250g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
  • 100g light brown sugar
  • 1t vanilla extract (if it’s essence then don’t bother)
  • 125ml cream (yes, cream)
  • 40g plain flour
  • 1/2 t baking powder
  • 3 eggs

Butter a 1 litre bowl generously. In the food processor, whizz up the chocolate till it is in rubbly, small chunks. I’m warning you, this will make the most unholy sound, so be ready. Don’t make this beside a sleeping baby or in a monastery or something. Add the butter, whizzing again, and the sugar, and then the rest of the ingredients. Scrape into the bowl, cover tightly with microwave safe clingfilm. Cook on high for 5 minutes, or until set – it might take an extra minute or so as ovens vary, don’t put it in for too long though or it could turn to delicious rubber. Remove from the oven, pierce the clingfilm and then cover the bowl with a plate and sit for ten minutes. I don’t know why, this is just what Nigella says. Who am I to argue. Serve. Feel your thighs expanding with every mouthful.

 


Above: Once more, with feeling.

I was obviously seriously frazzled while writing my last post as I didn’t even add a “Lentil Power” tag to it though we had demonstrably consumed lentils. We haven’t had any since, but I did make another dish from Jill Dupleix’ Lighten Up. This book has proven to be very useful, I mean, I wasn’t that fussed when I first flicked through it at the bookshop but I have used it heaps so far.


Above: Not a great photo sorry, but it was getting cold and I couldn’t seem to get rid of my own shadow!

This is a very, very simple lamb tagine. On Thursday morning Tim and I went to the store to spend a grocery voucher I got given for my birthday (thanks Mum and Dad! We’d be eating dust otherwise…”zoom in on my empty wallet.”) We took a calculator to make sure we didn’t go over and were very discerning and frugal, but I found some stewing lamb for very cheap so bought a heap of it to make various slow-cooked things over winter. This recipe involved sauteeing an onion, carrot, and lamb with various spices – ginger, tumeric, paprika, saffron – before stirring in honey, dates and dried apricots. I didn’t have the apricots, and I added some spinach at the very end, but I think it doesn’t matter too much. I served it over an earnest pile of brown rice and it was delicious. Not terribly innovative – I daresay I could have come up with this on my own eventually – but a simple, unfussy combination of flavours that take care of themselves and taste reliably good together.


Above: While we are in vaguely North African mode, I give you Pasta with Sauce A-la-Marrakesh, from The Accidental Vegetarian by Simon Rimmer. I soaked the chickpeas on Thursday night (proactive lady is proactive) and simmered them as soon as I got home from work on Friday. The spaghetti sauce is made up of all sorts of good things – tomatoes, (tinned in my case), a shake of cumin, cinnamon and tumeric – I added a diced carrot but completely forgot the flipping flaked almonds even though I knew that I had some. Welcome to my brain.

So the production of Rent in Palmerston North (two hours from here by bus/train) got a positive if disappointingly vague review, and I gotta say that I feel honour-bound to see it, if only because it’s there, you know? How it will pan out I don’t know. I am a little concerned that from the promotional picture I saw, Collins looks rather old and white and Mark appears to be balding (Levin 1, PN 0) but…maybe it was badly lit or something. “We’ll see, boys!”

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In other news, Paul managed to come within pit-spitting distance of my Tetris score (he got to level 41, I got level 45) proving once again that the Vincent genes are pure, distilled excellence. Tetris has become so entrenched in our routine that I composed WWF-style stage names for us: Paul “The Suth” Sutherland, Laura “Two Hands” Vincent, and Timothy “Tim” Herbert. Aw, I need to get out more. Can’t though, because of all these essays and assignments…which brings me full circle. Have a good weekend!

PS: 10,000 hits! I’m a real blogger!

“And Wednesday, don’t mention Wednesday…”

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Yesterday was a bad day for me. Oh sure, a decent enough day in a global sense but, on my own terms it was pretty rough. .

I had Photography. This was all well and good until we had to display our assignment photos (that we’d handed in on Tuesday) and get critiqued, one at a time, by the teacher. The teacher told me that my photos were completely unsuccessful, in front of the entire class, and now I guess I’m just waiting to see if I failed or not. I wasn’t the only one, she didn’t seem to like anyone’s efforts, which made for an incredibly uncomfortable three hours. After all the time I put into the photos it was all I could do not to burst into tears (which I am wont to do at inopportune moments) and run screaming from the class. Mercifully I held it together, but really what do you say to someone when they tell you that your photos are terrible? Are you supposed to say “thankyou so much for that valuable insight! Now I’m all fired up for the next project!” The point is, she may well have been right – the photos probably weren’t that great – it is a bloody beginner paper after all- but her opinion counts because she’s doing the marking.

Catharsis over! On the upside I was pleased enough with my Media essay that I handed in yesterday (managed to slip in “the subordination of women” although didn’t find a place for “juxtaposed”) and I saw the Magic Dog on my way back to the flat. The magic dog is this snowy white Samoyed that lives down the road from us and Tim and I get a bit worked up when we see it. Trust me, it’s one majestic beast. Tim and I decided this dog was magic and assigned it properties as such – you know, if it sniffs you, you will never die from drowning, where it urinates shall spring forth an ancient oak tree, that sort of thing.

When I was a lot younger I had this nightmare about the Donny and Marie Show, which is odd because I’ve never in my life seen an episode. They starting singing I’m a Little Bit Country and A Little Bit Rock’n’Roll. Marie then sang “I’m a little bit crunchy,” turned into a giant Crunchie bar and Donny bit her head off. It was this that I reminisced still-nervously about as I made homespun Crunchie bars.

By the way – oh the irony! – the above is a very special photo for me because it’s the first one ever where I’ve managed to manually do that sharp-foreground-blurry-background thing that has so long eluded me. Hello macro button! I’ve finally found you! No more complaining about it, I promise. Thanks for all the advice, too 🙂 If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have known that the macro button was capable of such wizardry.

This recipe is so easy yet so rewarding. First of all, the kitchen smells like caramel while the sugar is cooking. Then you get to watch the mixture whoosh up when you add the baking powder. It’s fun, and stress-releasing, to bash the finished product into shards and chunks with a rolling pin. It tastes amazing. Oh, and there’s only three ingredients…

Cinder Toffee (Nigella’s words, not mine) from How To Be A Domestic Goddess

200g caster sugar (I used regular to no obvious ill effect)
4 T golden syrup
1 T baking soda


Above: does making this for a Type-1 diabetic with sore teeth make me a bad person?

Liberally butter a 21cm square tin, although this will fit into whatever you’ve got around that size to be honest. Mix the golden syrup and sugar to a granular paste in a heavy bottomed saucepan, and then cook it over a low heat. This takes a wee while but it is fun to watch the sugar go all melty and ripply like in the picture above. Simmer gently for about 3 minutes, it will darken but you don’t want it to be too dark. Once it has bubbled away for a while take it off the heat and using a fork or something stir in your tablespoon of baking soda. It’s a bore, but it might pay to sift the soda into a small bowl first so you don’t end up with lumps. The caramel will foam up awesomely. Quickly spread into your tin and leave it to set, which will take at least an hour. Tip out of the tin, bash with a rolling pin (don’t even try to slice it!) and dip or drizzle with chocolate as desired.


Above: It tastes so good, just like proper Crunchie bars. Which I happen to love.

But I had this idea that folding some honeycomb into the batter for one of those self-saucing puddings (or as I knew it as a child, “Chocolate Floating Pudding”) might be kinda cool. It wasn’t, I have to admit, entirely successful – I think I had unnattainable dreams of a butterscotchy sauce with chunks of still-crunchy honeycomb in the finished product – but it still tasted rather good.

Mmm, gooey. I had planned to make a pudding last night as a “Yay Wednesday’s Over For Another Week” kind of thing but was too exhausted in the end. Mayhaps tonight…Oh and just in case you’re worried I’ve been spending the last couple of days cleaning my teeth with muscovado and washing my hair with treacle: We have been having worthy, healthy dinners. Not quite soul food, but definitely brain food.


Above: This lentil and pumpkin take on shepherd’s pie came from Jill Dupleix’ Lighten Up, and while it can’t replace the real thing, it was very pleasant and warming and just stupidly healthy. It had five vegetables in it. And if lentils weren’t enough…I’m a little ashamed to admit this…I added a handful of rolled oats to the mixture. Well, they sort of disappear, so it’s not like I was being insanely militant. The good thing about this dish was that between the lentils, the pumpkin, and the oats, there were more than enough long lasting carbs for Tim so I didn’t have to boil up some rice or anything. We had this with roasted cauliflower, just to bring another vegetable to the party.

Speaking of roasted cauliflower, the next night I repeated the Orzotto for dinner – barley being cheap and superhealthy – and managed to cram in spinach, capsicum, and carrots to the mixture. It looked so depressingly earnest that I didn’t even bother to get photographic evidence, but it tasted pretty good.

By the time I got home last night I knew I wanted pasta and had decided on carbonara until I realised we had no cream. So instead I used the rest of the bacon that I splashed out on for my birthday, and fried it in butter till crispy. I then added a generous slosh of Marsala, more butter and served it over spaghetti to which I’d added some peas. Alongside was roasted beetroot and broccoli, and it was…just what I wanted.


Above: I find pasta SO comforting. I suppose nothing beats a bowl of buttery mashed potatoes, but for low effort, quick balm to the soul, pasta is my carb of choice.

It’s not all dire as far as my education goes though. I got an A- for an English essay I did…and if nothing else my photography assignment has introduced me to the awesomeness that is Richard Maxted whose work I was inspired by. Don’t try and google him – he has a lamentably low profile on the internet. In a moment of “why the heck not” I sent him an email using the contact address on his site…and he replied, was incredibly nice, and even answered some questions to provide quotes for my assignment. Seriously, he’s kind of a big deal in the photography world (though he has no Wikipedia page!) so for him to actually reply was very exciting. If you feel like looking at ridiculously good photography go to his website and wait for the red asterisk to turn fuzzy (you then click on it to enter the site.) I had planned on uploading a couple of my own photos here but now I’m far too disillusioned so I’ll leave you with one of Maxted’s rather more reliable works instead.


Above: Guess what this is a photo of.
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Toothpicks. Clever, yes? Hopefully his help can save my grade…*update* 9/5/08 – Thanks for the kind words! but I’d just like to make clear that (having had a sense of the-teacher-is-always-right instilled into me at an early age by my mother, who teaches) it’s not exactly being told I was rubbish that I object to (it sucks! but if they’re technically bad photos then that’s that) it’s the fact that it was done in front of the whole class for three hours. I am sure there was a less heartbreaking way to do it. Didn’t want to make it seem like I was on some kind of woe-is-me, heat-of-the-moment vitriolic rampage (heck, I’d cooled off thoroughly by this stage. Can you imagine how worked up I was at the time?) But yeah, the teacher was of course well within her rights to give me her unadulterated opinion. Cheers 🙂

A Sentimental Journey…

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For those of you lurching on tenterhooks (I know you’re out there…right?) you can breathe a sweet, sweet sigh of relief. Tim and I went to Levin, got back safely, and the show was excellent- well worth the enormous effort it took to get there. I can’t tell you how exciting it was to finally see Rent on stage – truly, I can’t express it. Some blogger I am. Unbelievably, this performance has no review (at least online) so I shall offer my own thoughts on it – at the end of this post. It’s very long, it’s repetitive (there are only so many adjectives for “nice”) and it’s only my opinion, but for what it’s worth, keep reading. For those of you who are sick of my fangirl dribblings, you can just read the foodie bits that follow tout de suite.


Above: Today is ANZAC day in New Zealand and Australia, which commemmorates the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought in WWI. I won’t give you a massive rundown of what it is about, as I’ll just be pasting large chunks from Wikipedia, but it is quite a special day for New Zealand. In 2005 I spent some time exploring the battlefields of Northern France and Belgium, and I was struck with the rows upon rows of white crosses or gravestones everywhere we went. There were enormous memorials enscribed with unfathomable lists of names of the fallen soldiers. Not only was it sobering, it was chilling, horrifying even – what on earth is worth that much loss? And of course, it didn’t stop at WWI…

We left Levin at 5.30am today, and once I got back to the flat (after leaving Tim at Starbucks to start work) and fortified myself with a cup of tea, I decided to make ANZAC biscuits. Oaty, golden syrupy, and chewy with tradition, these biscuits have been made for generations in New Zealand but were first shipped out to the troops in battle by caring mothers because they were economical and travelled well. I used a recipe of the redoubtable, late aunt-of-the-nation Aunt Daisy’s, bolstered by comparisons with Alison Holst’s (because I was too lazy to translate from old fashioned ounces and such into metric.)

ANZAC Biscuits

100g butter
2 T golden syrup
1 cup sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup dessicated coconut
1 t baking soda, dissolved in 1 T boiling water.

Melt the butter and golden syrup gently together. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir carefully till it coheres. Roll into balls and place onto baking paper lined trays, allowing for some spreading. Bake at 170 C for 10-15 minutes. I got two trays out of this, there would have been more but I have to admit I did eat an awful lot of the mixture. It’s pretty seductive in its oaty way…


Above: Now for something completely different: pasta salad. From the same Meditteranean Vegetarian cookbook as the baked tomato pasta, and entirely addictive, in spite of – perhaps because of – the unorthodox (well, to me) inclusion of chopped dates in the recipe. I didn’t have all the ingredients but I did have dates, so I improvised on the rest and this is what I came up with.

Meditteranean Pasta Salad

250g penne or short pasta
3 T pine nuts
2 T pumpkin seeds
2 T salt-packed capers, rinsed
1 red capsicum, diced finely
1/3 cup dates (I didn’t really measure this, just grabbed a small handful) chopped
2 T olive oil
1 T lemon juice

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta till tender. While this is happening, dry-fry the nuts and seeds carefully in a pan till browned and waftingly fragrant. Drain the pasta and run cold water over it. Toss with all the other ingredients, and blanket with chopped mint and parsely. I couldn’t get this effect because I only have a few valiant shoots of each respective herb, but I think it would be good with more, frankly. Also more nuts wouldn’t go amiss – the recipe in the book recommends pecans, which I think would be delish. This serves two generously, but simply increase proportions to feed more.


Above: I was going to make some rice paper rolls using a recipe from my new Jill Dupleix book, but I had almost none of the required ingredients (apart from, of course, rice paper sheets themselves.) So I kinda improvised with carrot, cucumber and grapefruit. The grapefruit was a schmeer bitter for my liking, but once they had been liberally doused in dipping sauce (fish sauce, lemon juice, palm sugar, sesame oil, maybe something else, it was a couple of days ago now) they tasted lovely, fresh and healthy. Which I’ve learned can be a good thing…


Above: Our giant bag of feijoas from Hawkes Bay was starting to get all bruisy and soft so, after checking out Linda’s blog, I swiped her recipe for Chocolate Feijoa Cake. If you have a glut of this marvelous fruit, by all means see the recipe on her page.

This cake has an intriguing flavour, and the chocolate really complements the feijoas, the inclusion of which keeps everything dense and moist. I can imagine this being really, really good with vanilla ice cream…

Tonight’s dinner – fish and chips from the new chippy down the road. Tim’s reward for going to see Rent. Well, not “reward” as such, he’s not four years old (thank goodness) but an incentive to make nice, anyway – we never get take-out (not because I’m a miser, but because I get really grumpy if my dinner-cooking duties are usurped.)

Which leads us into – my thoughts on last night’s show, put on by the Levin Performing Arts Society. Anyone truly not interested, this is your cue to exit (perhaps stopping by the comments box to spit irately “I thought this was a food blog!”) First of all I’d like to point out that Tim did enjoy himself, and not only did he concede that the character of Collins gets to sing “wicked” parts, he even mooed during “Over The Moon”! (the audience is supposed to moo, so this was a good sign, O uninitiated ones.) However when asked today what he thought of it, he only cagily said that it was “exponentially beneficial” to his wellbeing. Hmph. I think he enjoyed it more than he’d like to admit.

The Levin Performing Arts Centre is seriously charming – instead of being in cold rows of fold-down seats, we were sat at tables, cafe-style. Tim and I had a table for two near the front, and there was quite a decent crowd, you know, for a Thursday night showing of Rent in Levin. Tim and I admired their dedication- there were “eviction” notices plastered on the walls, along with “Roger Davis at CBGBs” posters everywhere. Someone obviously knew what they were doing. All the front-of-house people were very friendly and welcoming, and the wine and beer was laughably cheap.

They began the musical with “Seasons of Love,” as the film version does, which is quite a good idea in my opinion – it is such a wonderful song, everyone is on stage and it sets up various themes, as well as making you think “holy heck this is going to be amazing if the rest of the musical is anything like this song.” The ensemble sounded incredible together – really beautifully harmonised, with excellent soloists. Seriously, my heart did a big damned flutter at hearing and seeing this song live.

The characters: Thank goodness, nobody was balding.

Mark Cohen: Nick O’Brien did a great job of evoking Mark and his awkwardness. He had a decent voice (though I’m hardly in a position to judge) and was likable but not smarmy – there’s nothing worse than a smarmy Mark (I’m looking at you, Joey Fatone! Don’t ask me how that got past the powers that be.) According to the programme it was his first time on stage – what a debut! My only real gripe – and it is a picky one – I think they could have got a better scarf for him. There, I said it. I didn’t like his scarf.

Roger: Well with his throaty, Jon Bon Jovi-esque voice, (and I hope I’m not insulting him with the comparison) it’s clear how Aaron James Henry got the role of Roger. Although he didn’t seem to hit all the notes he looked great and played the part with real depth. He was highly impressive in the more emotional songs (which seem to be everything that Roger is in come to think of it!) I was impressed with his guitar playing, too, but then I have two left hands…

Mimi: Sera Devcich performed this role with aplomb, and had a wonderfully sweet voice which contrasted well with Roger’s more gritty one. I personally think that “Out Tonight” could have benefited from using more of the original stage choreography, at times it seemed like what she was singing about and what she was doing were heading in two different directions…She definitely had energy though, and in slower songs like “Without You” her voice really shone and the fragility of the character came through.

Collins: Tim and I both agreed that Jordan Hudson was a really, really good Collins. He was likeable, which is important, and he had a fantastic voice. Great chemistry with Angel – with everyone in fact, and of course I am always impressed by that pole-twirly move in “Santa Fe.” In “I’ll Cover You” (the reprise) – he was amazing – seriously moving.

Angel: Obviously a challenging role – to be a believable drag queen – but Cliff Thompson was not only charming and hilarious, he could sing beautifully, too, and made the character more than just a camp characature. As soon as “You Okay Honey?” began I was relieved that they had cast someone that was going to do the part well. He was also very impressive in “Contact” although I was intrigued as to why everyone else had a backing track…

Maureen: As soon as Darlene Mohekey began singing “Over The Moon,” I was like, well of course people will moo. She’s brilliant! Seriously, the girl has got lungs. Anyone doing a role of Idina Menzel’s has enormous shoes to fill, but she was fantastic, seemed to be having heaps of fun, and “Take Me Or Leave Me” with Joanne was dynamite…Lucky Levin to have her on their team.

Joanne: Fleur Cameron played Joanne and boy does she have a gorgeous voice. Her solo in “Seasons of Love” was just…okay I’m running outta adjectives but you know, it sounded really good. She was fun in numbers like “Tango:Maureen” and “We’re Okay” but also did wonderfully in emotional songs like “I’ll Cover You” (Reprise).

Benny: Mark Peni as Benjamin Coffin III looked fantastic – all smooth and imposing in his trenchcoat – but didn’t seem to have the strongest voice. He did a very convincing job as Benny though, providing a polished and composed contrast to the rest of the characters. I thought he was particularly good in “Happy New Year B,” which has pretty wordy lyrics, he carried it off well and it didn’t lose any impact.

The rest of the company were excellent, always staying in character, clearly enjoying themselves, and filling the minor roles brilliantly. Considering how small Levin is, there is a heck of a lot of talent in this company. Everyone seemed to be having a great time on stage and looked to have researched their roles. The set was effective – I liked the use of shadows for the phone messages and the moving staircases – and the whole shebang was seriously impressive.

There only things I think they could consider improving – bit late now that it’s nearly finished its run – I thought that though the chorus looked great in their coats and hats, but once they were in “La Vie Boheme” there could have been some more effort with the costumes to make them look a bit more Late 80s New York Boho (or whatever…just not halter tops and white skate shoes, you know?) It was fantastic to see “Christmas Bells” on stage – it’s such an amazing song, full of syncopated and contrapuntal singing and while it was good it got a bit muddied towards the end which was disappointing. The programme definitely needed a detailed synopsis – the story can be confusing and not everyone is as sweatily obsessed as I am.

My real beef is – they killed off Mimi at the end! She’s supposed to live! I was so surprised I nearly fell off my chair! I mean, if you went to see Romeo and Juliet and they both lived at the end, what would you think? Now the whole (non Renthead) audience will think that this is the actual story. I’d like to know their reasons for this decision…

Clearly it was a very momentous night for me and the Levin Performing Arts Society did a seriously brilliant job. But oh, how jealous I am of those lucky people who got to see it first time round with the original Broadway cast… Finally, I can wholeheartedly recommend the lovely, friendly Totara Lodge Motel if you ever find yourself needing accommodation in Levin (hey, it happened to me!)

"Today For You, Tomorrow For Me"

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Oh good grief. Why is it that whenever I get to that point in a particular scheme where I can’t back out, things just get more and more difficult?

You may, if you have eyes, have read in previous posts about Rent coming to Levin (or really Levin coming to Rent, it is their local performing arts group doing it.) Well, I booked tickets for Tim and I for tomorrow night. Well it’s Rent, I have to go.

It is times like this that a car would be useful (indeed, a driver’s liscence at all.) Tim has work at 7am on Friday (I know, it’s ANZAC day, way to honour the fallen with frappucinos, Starbucks), and there are no late trains or busses out of Levin on a Thursday night. The Friday night show isn’t an option as Tim has work at 6am the next day, and we have no way of getting to the Saturday night one. We are going to get the commuter train to Levin after I finish work tomorrow, but after the show we have six or so hours to kill until our 5.30am bus back to Wellington. Unfortunately their McDonalds isn’t open 24 hours on a Thursday and I don’t fancy living on the streets for the night so…we have had to book ourselves $90 worth of motel accomodation (the cheapest we could find! There are no hostels!) from after the show till 5.00am.

So, I really, really hope the show is good.

What if the audience is tiny? What if the performers have no chemistry? What if they have an unconvincing Angel? What if nobody starts to moo during Over The Moon?

As you can see I am very nervous about the whole operation especially since I am going to end up spending a week’s pay on it (And Tim’s only there under the “you have to be nice for my birthday” clause.)

On a more culinary note, I have been tagged again! This time by super-blogger Amy, who wants me to post ten of my favourite food photos that I have taken. This is quite good actually because I am far too frazzled to upload the photos of what I made for dinner tonight. Funnily enough, not many come from the fledgeling, badly-lit days of my blog, but if you feel like a chuckle then peruse the archives by all means.


Above: This is actually one of my earlier shots, from October in fact. I made the incredible Rhubarb Vanilla Mincemeat from Nigella’s Feast, and thought a close-up shot would look rather nifty. It kinda does, right? Click *here* to see the link to the original post, and how it all turned out.


Above: This is a vegetable stew – Tunisian if I remember correctly? – again from Feast. Nigella fully opened me up to the magical world of vegetable stews, which are far more delicious than the stringy name would indicate. I made this dish for a family birthday party when Tim and I flew up home for the Muse concert. The light at home seems so much nicer than in the flat. I suspect the fact that our flat is wedged halfway down a valley with a thousand other flats squidged around it might play a part… Click *here* for the original post.


Above: One from our new camera, this home-made Creme Fraiche picture was taken recently (you could scroll down if you like but I’ll give you the link anyway!) This photo is quite important to me as it’s the only photo I’ve managed to get onto Tastespotting, and it ended up being one of the top 25 most popular photos of the week! You would not believe how flipping excited I was about this – well, maybe you would.


Above: This is another one taken with our new camera. I made the Chocolate Guinness Cake from Feast, which has become one of the more popular cakes in the flat. What can I say, it’s an amazing recipe. I liked the light and the colouring in this photo – plus photos of cakes and desserts are always more popular, aren’t they!


Above: This photo is from the Christmas Feast I cooked for the flat last December, and do click *here* for the original post, I’d be most obliged if you’d read about how it unfolded. Because flatmate Emma is celiac, I tried my best to keep the whole meal gluten free but I couldn’t get around Rugelach (again from Feast) which I had been longing to make. Consisting of varying proportions of butter, dough, chocolate and brown sugar, it’s no wonder I loved them. This photo isn’t very well lit but I like the composition and I like that it reminds me of that fun time.

That’s not anywhere near ten photos but it’s all I (and possibly you, dearest reader), have the energy for right now. Isn’t it funny that four of the photos are from Feast? (ooh, try saying that quickly.) I guess it’s just a right place, right time thing. Anyway it’s getting late and I have to pack, and worry, and dither, and all sorts of other time consuming things. As with my previous post, I can’t think of anyone else to tag, but if you feel like having a reconaissance through your favourite photos knock yourself out and say it was at my insistence.

This time tomorrow, we’ll be seeing Rent! I’m nervous, but I’m excited…but I’m nervous…I’m in a glass cage of emotion!

“Crumb By Crumb…”

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I like to spend my Thursdays doing everything I shouldn’t – browsing the internet, reading non-uni literature, (*ahem* Baby Sitters Club books) and baking frivolously. Today was a fairly exemplary Thursday, in that I baked two cakes (one of which I made up!)


Above: Remember this one? At the requests of Tim and Paul, and because there was – surprisingly – an errant can of the stuff in the fridge, I made the Chocolate Guinness Cake from Nigella’s Feast again, after only just having made it a couple of weeks ago for St Patrick’s Day. I have to say, if I were Homer Simpson the sight of the mixture for this cake, which begins as butter melted into the Guinness, would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Indeed, if I was a beer drinker, Guinness with chunks of butter floating in it would probably be my beverage of choice.

You think I’m bluffing, don’t you?


Above: It was as good as ever. Dark, dense, moist, complex, fabulous. What can I say? Go buy Feast! You won’t be sorry!


Above: I had an idea for a Pear and Nutmeg Custard Sponge in the middle of photography class yesterday. I quickly jotted down a rough recipe in my excercise book (and went back to paying attention straight away, don’t worry!) and tried it out today.

Mercifully, it worked! I don’t have the money to triple-test my recipes a la the Australian Woman’s Weekly (obviously I make a special exception for lentil soup) so I need things to work first time round.


Above: It tasted lovely, too – grandmotherly, somehow, with the pear and the nutmeg and the custard-softened crumb of the cake going marvelously well together. As I ate I mentally patted myself on the back for this burst of inspiration.

If you feel like being my test kitchen, I would not mind in the slightest 🙂 the idea of someone actually making my recipe would in fact make me seriously happy.

Pear and Nutmeg Custard Sponge

150g soft butter
150g sugar
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons custard powder
200g flour
2 t baking powder
1 t ground nutmeg
1 pear, diced
3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180 C and butter and line a 21cm springform tin with baking paper. Beat the butter and sugar together till pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and custard powder at the same time, and beat till incorporated together. At this point, sift in the flour and baking powder, and add the nutmeg, diced pear, and milk, folding together gently. Spread into your prepared tin, and if you like, arrange some pear slices across the top like I did. Bake for 50 or so minutes, depending on your oven, till a skewer comes out clean. I found it took an hour in our oven, but they do vary. You may want to put some foil over the top for the last 20, if it is getting too brown. Finally, grate some fresh nutmeg over, or sprinkle over a little pre-ground. Slice into fat, golden wedges and eat with a cup of tea.

It is great fun thinking up recipes. I don’t know how people like Nigella end up with over 100 for their books though. I’ve only come up with about 15 max, and no one is going to want to buy a cookbook that woefully slim!

Today in the paper (in the ‘Life’ section) there was an article about Nigella, entitled “Curvy Goddess or Dumpy Frump: Too Much of A Good Thing?” The article ended up, characteristically, being about nothing much at all. Shame on you, Dominion Post, for having such a tabloid-style title, and for intimating that someone with Nigella’s hourglass figure is “dumpy.” However, thanks for the delicious picture of her. This picture is supposed to be showing how much larger Nigella has become in the last ten or so years, however I say she looks incredible. The article is poorly researched, describing her as a “celebrity chef” and then saying she has had no formal training as a cook. It makes much of her high calorie recipes and ignores the fact that much of her food is packed with vegetables (as I found out when I went through her books, armed with post-it notes)…

In music news (insofar as I can call my opinion news), two gals I am monumentally obsessed with at the moment are April March and Joan As Police Woman. This is all courtesy of Ange who is remarkably commited to ferrying excellent music from her computer to mine and Tim’s via memory sticks.

Check out “Eternal Flame” on Youtube by Joan As Police Woman – this song is seriously beautiful. And April March’s delightfully kooky Chick Habit, an English song off her largely French language album, can be found here – no music video though.

And if you reeeeeeally feel like indulging me, this video from eight years ago of Idina Menzel singing a song from The Wild Party musical, is one of the reasons that I truly love Youtube.

PS – I’m pretty sure I was joking about the butter and beer…but then as I said, I’m not a beer drinker, so who knows? 😉