![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceTomorrow as ever was, we hold our Hogswatch Eve party. If it turns into a remembrance of Terry, well, hey. I'm hoping it won't, because too many people have died this year - hell, too many people have died this week - and I don't really want to slide into that spiral, but the thing is there to do if it seems needful.
If not, then for me - of course! - it's all about the food.
Next year, I swear, I'm going to be so much better about recording what I cook, both visually and recipe-wise, so that when Karen says "I really like that thing you did," I'll know what it was and how to do it again.
Meanwhile, well. This is all I have.
It's Hogswatch; there must be pork pies. Which you cannot buy for love nor money hereabouts, so it is finally essential that I learn to make them well. I tried a couple of times in the UK, and made them poorly; but I had a practice run on Thursday, and I am glad to tell you that (a) I have perfected the pastry; and (b) I have an immaculate jelly. Thursday's problems were that the pastry was too thick and the filling too dry (there being no room for jelly, what with the overthick pastry crowding the muffin tin; there was hardly room for filling, to be honest), but I think I can crack both of those today.
I used to have a couple of pork pie moulds, because raising a pie without a mould is still not within my skillset; but they didn't make it across the pond, and I have been improvising with this and that. But this morning? A package came from England, a month before I expected it. One 4" pork pie mould. K says it's an omen. Wish me luck: I'm going in.
And I'm boiling a ham to glaze, and making Chaz'z Chinese Pork, and roasting a loin to slice cold alongside the ham. And there will be cranberry jelly and mustard, for the better making of sammiches, for which I will bake sesame buns. And I have vindaloo and goulash in the freezer, and I can do bacon-wrapped sossidges because it's a party. That may be enough pork?
[EtA: hee. I was just standing at the stove, and into my left nostril came the steam from the barely-blipping hamwater, with all its savoury aromatics of bay and pepper and stock-veggies; and into my right nostril came the steam from the simmering cranberries with their sweet aromatics of tree-orange juice and port and allspice and cloves and cinnamon. That was a lovely moment. And God bless Allah, who gave me two separate sides to my head...]
If not, then for me - of course! - it's all about the food.
Next year, I swear, I'm going to be so much better about recording what I cook, both visually and recipe-wise, so that when Karen says "I really like that thing you did," I'll know what it was and how to do it again.
Meanwhile, well. This is all I have.
It's Hogswatch; there must be pork pies. Which you cannot buy for love nor money hereabouts, so it is finally essential that I learn to make them well. I tried a couple of times in the UK, and made them poorly; but I had a practice run on Thursday, and I am glad to tell you that (a) I have perfected the pastry; and (b) I have an immaculate jelly. Thursday's problems were that the pastry was too thick and the filling too dry (there being no room for jelly, what with the overthick pastry crowding the muffin tin; there was hardly room for filling, to be honest), but I think I can crack both of those today.
I used to have a couple of pork pie moulds, because raising a pie without a mould is still not within my skillset; but they didn't make it across the pond, and I have been improvising with this and that. But this morning? A package came from England, a month before I expected it. One 4" pork pie mould. K says it's an omen. Wish me luck: I'm going in.
And I'm boiling a ham to glaze, and making Chaz'z Chinese Pork, and roasting a loin to slice cold alongside the ham. And there will be cranberry jelly and mustard, for the better making of sammiches, for which I will bake sesame buns. And I have vindaloo and goulash in the freezer, and I can do bacon-wrapped sossidges because it's a party. That may be enough pork?
[EtA: hee. I was just standing at the stove, and into my left nostril came the steam from the barely-blipping hamwater, with all its savoury aromatics of bay and pepper and stock-veggies; and into my right nostril came the steam from the simmering cranberries with their sweet aromatics of tree-orange juice and port and allspice and cloves and cinnamon. That was a lovely moment. And God bless Allah, who gave me two separate sides to my head...]