capuchin colonic; coromandel, rubicon

Today's meaningless chanting is brought to you by the letter C (to the tune of Don McLean's Vincent, an earworm of such longstanding it has rent protection and all the privileges of a citizen).

In other news, I have decided to stop worrying and learn to love the feeling as we slide ever further down the razor blade of life.*

In pursuit of which, this is what I'm doing for Hogswatch tomorrow:

slow-roasted shoulder of pork, marinated overnight in garlic and rosemary and such;

chestnut-apple stuffing, as a loaf (because I am not boning out the shoulder, no);

warm fingerling potatoes in a mustard vinaigrette;

roasted carrots, maybe (if there's room in my supersized utterly inadequate oven; if not, tarragon butter carrots maybe);

green salad;

sesame buns for sammiches (for those who want to watch Hogfather while munching, instead of dining civilly at the clubhouse table);

pannetone if I remember to start it off tonight;

sossidges in bacon (because Americans seem not to know this panacea of all things);

persimmon bread (and this time I'll weigh everything as I go, and post a recipe);

- and the cynosure of all eyes, the piece of probable resistance, a whole roasted pig's head. I know I said I'd do soused pig's face, but I can't find the book and I'm a tad stressed and so forth (see above, under razor blade, and ask yourself when I last slept past five am) so I'm going for the easy option**.

The pig's head is currently relaxing in a nice warm bath, his snout poking out like a periscope, wreathed in steam. White Cat has already come to pay a social call, but I had to turn him away; Mr Head does not receive visitors in his bath.


*Yeah, right.

**Yeah, right.

Liveblogging: almost dedd

Holy cow sow, am I tired. And really I've barely begun.

So far today I have:

cleaned the bathroom
tested the candied-peel Hogsgifts (they're okay, dunked in vanilla sugar - but too soft. I like my peels al dente, a bit of resistance to the bite)
shopped from El Camino to the farmers' market, and borne my plunders home
defrosted the pig's head
baked the persimmon cake
shopped Lucky's
put the sourdough in the oven

Now I must make the marinade for the pork shoulder, and decide what to do with the head.

Persimmon bread

[This is my take on David Lebovitz'z take on James Beard's original, so.]

I weighed and measured everything this time, in order to be able to tell you that you need:


250g plain flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
200g sugar
110g melted unsalted butter
2 large eggs, beaten
80g brandy
275g persimmon puree*
125g toasted pecans
150g Medjool dates, destoned and cut into chunks


[*Note: you need hachiya persimmons, the heart-sized heart-shaped ones; and you need them so squishily ripe they feel like water balloons. Two might be enough, whizzed up in a food processor; you might need three; you'll probably want somewhere between the two. But if you find ripe hachiya persimmons, your best bet is to buy a lot, puree 'em all and freeze what you don't use for later consumption. We are blessed with a friend with a tree, and even so I am backfilling my freezer. The season is short, but art is longing**.]


Oil or butter a loaf tin (I use almond oil for preference for all sweet baking).

Preheat the oven to 350/180/gas mark 4.

Sift the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the butter, eggs, brandy and puree; mix those in, then fold in the nuts and the dates.

Pour the batter into the ready tin, stand it on a baking tray for fear of overspill and slide it into the mid/top of the oven. Check it after an hour; I find it needs ten minutes more than that, until a metal skewer comes out clean. (Don't rely on the touch-the-skewer-to-your-lip-and-it's-ready-when-it-burns-you trick; it won't actually get that hot.)

Cool in the tin. It keeps well if it's well wrapped in tinfoil; it should also freeze well.


**Persimmon puree is my Thing of the Moment. I put it in everything from ground beef curry to salad dressings. More to come.

Eppur si muove

I will probably be too busy/distracted to catch the moment, but for those of you able and interested to pay attention, the actual solstice occurs tomorrow at 3.03pm our time, as the northern hemisphere begins its slow grudging trudge towards a distant summer. There is insufficient difference here in California in the length of days, but even so the occasion should be marked. And remarked upon. 3.03, people. (When I was a kid, that was a rifle. There must be some allusion to be drawn between spinning and rifling and so forth, but I'm too tired to do all the work around here.)

The Last Post (of the night)

So: the persimmon bread is decanted, and the sourdough is done. I have peeled back the skin from the lower half of the pork joint (this pig really does now have wings) and slathered the exposed meat with a marinade of onion and garlic and rosemary and fennel seed and chilli flakes and salt and pepper; that's all clingfilmed over and will sit all night, before being flipped over to lie skin-side up on a bed of rosemary sprigs and mead, where it will roast very slowly for hours'n'hours. Oh, and I also sharpened my big knife in order to score the skin through and through, for crispy crunchy purposes; even very good knives need a bit of maintenance now and then.

Oh, and speaking of crispy crunchy, I addressed the pig's head with a kettleful of boiling water, in the way that the Chinese do with ducks, in hopes of crisping that up also. And speaking of Chinese, I think I might rub the skin over with five-spice powder in the morning, just to see what comes of it. If I have any five-spice powder. Hmm... *checks* Yup. Not much, mind - but I won't need much. Just about that much.

Meanwhile, Karen has taken pity on me and/or despaired of getting anything useful out of me tonight, and has ordered pizza. I nearly had an attack of the Sheldons - "But it's not Friday! We have pizza on Fridays!" - but resisted manfully, on account of being too weary to be obnoxious, if you can believe it.