damn fine coffee

[freckles_and_doubt]

Oops. I just gave free reign to self-indulgence and bought myself the boxed set of the complete Twin Peaks TV series for Christmas. Possibly this is because my will-power is doing its usual thing, which is to curl up in a small, fluffy ball somewhere in my backbrain and decline to be stirred; alternatively, the fact that I've been fighting off Sid the Sinus Headache for two days may have caused me to feel entitled. New Year's Resolution: books, CDs and DVDs will be confined to a R200 per month budget for the duration of 2009. Unless, of course, they're necessary for academic wossnames, such as the complete works of Anne Radcliffe which arrived a few days ago (there's this Masters thesis I have to mark ...). Academia is a cloak under which I can conceal a multitude of crimes, in the manner of the Far Side cartoon with the gentleman smuggling a grand piano under his coat.

The rampagings of Sid have made the last couple of days a bit surreal, particularly since I'm still trying to finish the last few curriculum reports for work - a task made the more difficult not just because of the pounding head, but because the campus database has been having fainting fits all weekend. The last of the headache finally vanished this afternoon, something I'm inclined to attribute to the consumption of the French hot chocolate at the Kirstenbosch tearoom. It's a dark, thick, creamy sludge, bitter rather than sweet, not only perfectly suited to Cape Town's day of musing, retrospective rain but productive of a serious endorphin rush clearly sufficient to see off the persistently sadistic gnomes of sinus. I should see if my nice doctor will write me a prescription.

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I have an offtopic culinary question for you: is the butter that you use in Malva salted or not?

PS: the email address that I have for you bounced back to me.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I tend to take no notice of whether butter is salted or not. Mostly I buy salted, because I like to leave it out on the counter so it's soft, and the salted doesn't go rancid (or not nearly as fast, at any rate). Generally speaking you want unsalted butter for sweet baked goods, but I don't think it makes a huge difference unless it's something butter-heavy and subtle-flavoured like shortbread. You'll never notice the difference in Malva Pudding because the other flavours are so heavy.

If you're using the melisant@iafrica one, of course it is, it's been dead for over a year. Use firstname@firstnamelastname.org. If that bounces, aargh. It shouldn't. Although it has been giving me full mailbox notices, which is ridiculous as I clear the box several times a day. You could also try firstname.lastname@gmail.com.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

It was the iAfrica one, I haven't had to send you email for over a year.


PS: we tried making a dairy-free Malva last night. With coconut milk and margarine. This sounded like sheer lunacy to me, but short_mort insisted, and I was forced to agree that it was edible lunacy. You may be thinking that this is heresy, but quite the reverse, it's kosher.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

How... perverse. The whole point of malva pudding is to be deeply unhealthy and full of dairy and fat. The coconut flavour probably worked quite well, though.

[origamitiger.livejournal.com]

The unfortunate thing of cooking it for Jewish people is that we have to forgo the dairy. This is sad but pleasing.