Such a joyful time of year – surrounding oneself with family and frems, buoyed by the spring-neap phase of the lunar tidal cycle, the bracing dehiscence of enlightenment certainties and liberal institutions; I often find myself deeply moved. And so it was today, walking the leafy streets of armädalé, in the blistering heat, inhaling the fungal spores bequeathed by the wind-pollinated trees that dot the landscape of post-climate straya, when a man, presumably from the local Mensa branch, took a notion to get out the leaf blower in order, one assumes, to “fuck shit up”. Condemned, like my fellow homo loquens to breathe and speak from the same space, and also condemned, unlike my fellow homo lumpens, to recognise danger when it presents itself and often when it doesn’t, i raced for the nearest wellness hub, closed my mouth and sheltered in place. (Incidentally, my companion, who had stopped to admire a piece of soiled cardboard in a nearby derelict garden, was so absorbed that my temporary absence went entirely unnoticed).
The affair was reminder, if any were needed, that it is no more plausible to pour from an empty cup than it is to pour from a cup that it is too full. Foolhardy, both. Instead, I advocate, as I always have and always will, for moderation. Sure, its fine to enjoy a tin of Danish butter cookies or, say, an entire box of magnum almundssons from time to time. But, if our eastern neighbours have taught us anything, it is surely that balance is key and that a blind horse always frightens itself. And so, in the spirit of equine blindness and blind equine-imity, i offer a humble side salad : may your chakaras align, may your menstrual and/or bipolar cycles synchronise with the lunar tides and may the centre/your camping chair continue to hold.
Uponst hearing the formulation “slaw summer” you might (like a member of my medical team following a recent knockout rhetorical move) “feel a problematic corollary coming”; some of you might further feel the coming of that unmistakeable fog and seizure-like demusculation which accompanies unprogrammed cell death. If you are in the latter category, I suggest you assume the sideways recovery position and recite the chants (unorthodox but, based on my years of experience on the ground, unfailing). Those in the former, i invite you to explore the many features of your new practice management software (i assume your cancellation on 26/4 means you have already dipped your toe in the client birthday reminder function!).
Look, its like i always say, you cant make an omelette without spilling some milk; you cant pluck a chin hair without being open to facial contusions, you can no more sell a house than you can carry it away or put it in your car. All told – herewith – Ziotttolenghi’s slaw, followed by some schleps themes and variations.
Tumeric your cashews
2 tbsp brown sug
2.5 tsp olive oil
3/4 tsp tumeric
200g roasted salted cashews
2 tsp cumin seeds
Oven to 160 and line bak tray with papier
Put the sugar, oil, turmeric and 2 tablespoons of water in saucepan. Bring to the boil on a medium heat, stirring often, then add the cashews and cumin.
Cook for another 3–4 minutes, stirring constantly, til coated in a sticky glaze. Transfer to your , using a spatula to spread the nuts out. Bake for 14 minutes, stirring once at 7 min. then let kewl. There they are, bottom left!
Curry leaf (sunset) oil
1 red chilli thinly sliced seeds n all
3 tbsp olive oil
20 curry leaves
Put chilli and oil into a small frying pan, on a medium heat and cook for 7 minutes, or until the chilli starts to develop a shine, then add the curry leaves and cook for 2–3 minutes more, stirring often, til leaves turn translucent.
Lime dressing
70 ml lime juice
2 tsp dijon
2 garlic cloves crushed
1 tbsp poppy seeds (i only had black sesame which i used for optics)
1/4 tsp salt
75ml olive oil
Put lime juice, mustard, garlic, poppy seeds and ¼ teaspoon of salt into bowl and whisk to combine. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil til incorporated. (I forgot to slow drizzle and just added him in with the rest. so it be. so it is).
Slaw herself
1/4 white cabbage
2 carrottes
1 red onion thinly sliced or ask CC if you can borrow his mandoline
salt n peps
Then just salt these stingy lads up and pour over dressing. let soften for 15 mins.
Then pour over your curry oil, add your cashews and have at him. If this doesnt inspire you, can i interest you in one of our other side salads? Praps our sweet corn slaw number?
Welcome to another very powerful encyclical, likely to be retraumatising (but therapeutically so) for most. Sandwiched as some of us are, generationally speaking, betwixt the twin pillories of birth and death, the precarity of life on either end of that delicious sandwich can, at times, send an (essential) tremor down the spine (cf. life, oh life etc). So, to celebrate the going-on-being/going-on-coffee-cup rattling of all the schleps frems, i present to you a stratified coffee cake.
Before we proceed tho, a note on the interstice. Heretofore you can behold the seam, suturing top to bottom:
C_saff avers that when applying the final layer of cake atop the cinnamon/coffee/brown sugar strewn strata, the latter will not move.
Reader, it moved (what does the memeification of the problem of address say about post post modern subjectivity? Let us know in the comments!). This teaching/annoying moment alerts us to the impossibility of overcoming structural lack (also, presumably, alerts some of you deviants to the erotics of pedagogy, the erotics of saying stuff on youtube and being as wrong as you are unaccountable, and relatedly, to the crisis of legitimation in the age of content creation/contested periodisation). At the end of the day, when its all said and done and the final nail is breaking the camels back, all I’m saying is that it is something of which to be mindful – that is, it explains some of the things about my premiership, it doesn’t explain all of the things. In other words, just mind ‘ow you go (and obviously also be sure to give im a go; (cf. those who have a go, get a go)).
Another word of warning, it’s a bowl cake, which is to say, you will use every bowl in your house. (well done the perspicacious among you who were able to spot the non bowl in the trick mirror below. it’s a salt tidy, thank you so much for asking).
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom (cinnamon if youre of a timorous disposition)
1/4 tsp salt
113g butter, cubed, cut into pieces, at room temperature
Many takehomes from this weeks but to sum it up, i will hand over to the peoples president
Cake itself
455g flour
2.5 tsp bak pow
1.5 tsp sal
2/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup strongly brewed coffee
1 tbsp instant coffee
2 tsp vanill
170g butter at room temp
1/4 cup veg oil
200g granulated surar
150g brown sugar
4 large eggs
Oven to 175 degrees, butter 9×13 inch baking ban
(For those of you feeling a little overwhelmed, heres the promising young woman herself – your reward if you just put in the work and then lock in/up your gains/loved ones):
Method
First make your seamstress by simply combining the 3 ingredients in a bowl and mixing. here they are, neeedless to say, pre-mixed
Then make your crumb toppers by mixing all the dries in a bowl and then adding butter, tossing to coat and then rubbing in with fingers til mix is crumbly but holds together when squinched
Finally make the cake: Three bowl skadoo:
Bowl 1: combine your dries (flour, bak pow, salt, bak soda)
Bowl 2: dust your wets (whisk together sour cream, brewed coffee, instant coffee and vanil til smooth)
Bowl 3: In stand mixer beat butter, oil, and both sugars til v light and fluffy (5 mins)
Add eggs once at a time.
Add 1/3 of dries and mix to just combine, followed by 1/2 the wet and mix to combine. then next third of dry, then final half of wet and so on and so forth.
Pour half you cake mix into pan.
Cover with your (moving) seamstress:
Then put on finale layer and top w your crumble
Then bake for 40-45 mins til skewer comes out clean and your cake is julian burnishedside
Really not much left to say at this late stage so, by way of reflection on the week that has been and those to come, I will give the final word to the peoples president:
In response to the age old twin conundra – my first is in fur but not in fun/did you buy the linen shirt because of the banana cream pie or did the banana cream pie happen because of the linen shirt – I can offer only the sage ratiocination of the hangry middle aged battle-axe in her moo moo: “I think i just feel how everyone feels which is I have three or four really great folk albums in me”.
And in honour of our Irish contingent Id like to announce a butter pivot – and with it, I would just ask you to reflect on what kind of complacent repetition (bananas) fostered your mindless fealty to western star all these years, when its superiority is (not unlike the sound system) highly questionable and its relative affordability, (chicken) nugatory.
But in any case, I hear the angry protests “get on with the fkn custard”, the weary and plaintive cries of the he/they’s “i want a woman with thin ankles but every night i go home to my wife”, the powerful incantatory chant of the Jews in their camp chairs, still sitting for Palestine: “do better”. I HEAR YOU and, with the aid of cutting edge telephoto lens technology, I also see you. And so it be, on with the show!
For the pastry, Ive also pivoted, shamefully to Phill*pp#s pate brisee:
225 g butter cold n cubed
300g flour
pinch o salt
85 ml iced water
2 tsp lemon juice (i accidentally on purpose “forgot” to use this and no harm, no fowl)
Pulse the butter and flour and salt.
Add water and lemon and pulse til just comes together.
Chill for 30 mins
Preheat oven to 180 (she says 160 fan but thats patently implausible)
Blind bake in 23-25cm tart shell for 10-20 mins, remove beans from bindle and give im another go for 5-10 or til golden. In the custart tart context he isnt going to get any more goes in the oven so you can really have at it, browning wise.
Banana creme component (“ugh, not for me kinderlach, why would you bother? why would an experience other than my own have merit? is it a crime to assume an unattended box of cherries atop a car is fair game? is it a crime to strike a cinema goer? et al)
Thence, fill your void (remember, you simply cannot pour from an empty cup. i cannot stress that enough). i put a thin layer of banana on the bottom
and then, after chilling and medicating, inspiration struck like lightening and i opted for a bruleed top:
For those interested in inter/cross sectionality:
In conclusion, and in anticipation of our international visitors, a reminder that #naarm remains one of the worlds most truly vibrant and exciting urban hubs. Waffling on/munchin and brunchin/fasting at the banquet since 2003, a mere 21 years ago.
As those of you who know me and the site (barely distinguishable at this point!), I am, at root, a simple man, with basic needs and basic faults. Much like Des’ree herself, I’d simply rather have a piece of toast/and watch the evening news.* But as she would now surely acknowledge, in the age of the information superhighway and gluten intolerance, toast and news are as anachronistic as her other pastimes which seem to include hot air ballooning and collecting rabbits’ tails.
Im equally certain (based on research that suggests she is now a highly litigious ceramicist with a passion for naturopathy) that if she were here today she would be swapping the toast for an ancient grain and the evening news for truth social or similarly reliable media outlet. It was with this stunning about face in mind that I proceeded to whip up a quick little lunch al desko featuring aforementioned grain and brown rice, simply adorned in a tangle of sweaty shallots…
followed by some carmelised cauliflower (florets in image are more carmelised than they appear)
And lay it atop a garlic/lemon yog-tahini number
accompanied by a smol side salad.
*this recalls to mind a very early lesson I had in the importance of representation when Leza A professed her favourite ever lyric was: “Put on my PJ’s and hop into bed” from the hit 90s song, You Were Meant for Me, presumably, because Leza A was similarly known, from time to time, to put on her pjs and hop into bed.
First things first, thank you ALL so much for your overwhelming response to my very personal post yesterday. I was deeply touched, moved and held by the support. The hair loss journey im on – as those of you know – is as harrowing as it is revivifying. After much rapid eye movement therapy, aversion therapy (a new modality in which, instead exposing me to frightening stimuli, those people averse to me are asked to withstand my presence in every increasing increments. its going really well according to the logs), deep tissue scalp massage and a brief but invigorating course of ECT, I can now proudly say to those who ask the age old question – are bald women sexy? – a resounding yes! And what better to celebrate my arrival at radical baldness and self acceptance than with an apple cake?! None better way. A special thanks, also, goes to the Grande Dame herself for the suggestion that I make my content more discoverable and user-friendly. Ive entombed it in the suggestion box, along with the rest of the “feedback” I receive.
Didnt you say something about an apple cake? cries the handsome woman in the camping chair. Calm yourself iago. There will be cake. But first, a masterclass in creaming. Merger fantasy gets thrown around a lot but when you want butter and sugar to become one (ie. when you want to prepare yourself a nice after school snack as a young 13 year old pre-diabetic), suddenly the fantasist isnt looking so bad. That is to say, you have to Do The Work. See below for pictorial process notes.
125g butter sofTened
220g sugar
1 egg plus vanill
250g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon (og recipe also calls for grated lemon zest but you just, as they say, not)
1/2 tsp salt
750g granny smith peeled choped into 1 cm guys
Preheat oven to 170. Butter and flour 24cm cake tin.
Cream butter and sug. Add egg and vanill.
Add in flour, bak pow, cinnamon (lemon if youre a nark) and mix til combined. (concerns about gluten development have been raised and they have also been entombed in the suggestion box)
Put 2/3 of the mix into tin, evenly covering base and ensuring it comes 2/3rds way up the side making sure the base is evenly covered and it comes 2/3 up the side of the cake tin.
Tumble in your apples and “crumble” the 1/3 remaining “pastry” over top.
Bake 1 hour.
Tired of the fools gambit/queens errand of trying to inch the dough-cum-cake mix-cum-pastry up the side of the tin, i attempted a new technique. First it went well. Then it started falling over. then it fell over. But if its a crime to try something new, to think outside the box, to dare to be different, to lean into and uponto my neurodivergence, then LOCK ME UP!
Here she is in her burnished glory. truth be told i fucked it on a number of levels but a picture tells a thousand multitudes of sin. Enjoy babes!! xox
ps. dont forget to tune into the livestream from st johnswort youtube channel wherein i will be running a masterclass (another one!) on the dangers H. perforatum poses to livestock and balding women.
Among the questions that have long dogged philosophers – Is Mrs Peabody home? (unlikely, she can usually be found at the dentist); Why are there choc tops in the freezer (ask your mother); Who do you love more (redacted); Who is the angel of shabbos? (you, you are the angel of shabbos); What is a woman? (maddening!); Is Jordy still sitting and learning on a camp chair on the South lawn (not clear), et al – can you over-soften butter? is surely chieftan among them. Pushing the epistemological envelope up a hill even further up the garden path without a paddle is another: can you make macadamia white choc cookies great again?
Please find attached the results of my investigation thereinto, in a simple infographic even the most low IQ among you can understand:
The recipe, i just noticed is printed on the golden notebook above so I willnt bother transcribing it here. Get it into photoshop and use the rotate function, as Fran Reedy would have wanted. Feel free to go ahead and use the zoom function too; in fact, just have a play around, see what inspires you!
Look at that foot! Like something monsieur maillard brought down from craggle mountain.
short one today lads as i am just popping off to the dentist/gym/ward and really, what is there to say in the face of consciousness’ mocking, relentless continuation? So please find, herewith and tofore, encore plus cruel optimism, a brief, chocaletey effulgence in an otherwise dying fire. Bonne continuation!
135g choc (70% minimum please, it shouldnt even has to be said)
85g egg yolks
25g caster
250g egg whites
60g caster sugar
Melt choc (dont be a square, do it in the microwave. if god wanted chocolate to seize he would have stopped at the invention of the double boiler)
whisk egg yolks and sugar til EXTREMELY thick and pale (ribbon consistency)
Mix (with a spatula just til combined) the cooled melted choc and egg yolk/sugar mixture
whisk egg whites with sugar til stiff peaks
fold them guys in thirds into the choc and chill in fridge til set
I tried, lord knows i tried, to upload a vid but neolib enclosure meant that to do so would entail an “upgrade” to “premium”; and as per aforementioned indifference-despair nexus, i would prefer not to. so please enjoy this glowing ember/last butterfly.
also look out for updates about my upcoming series – ‘who moved my lunch salad’, ‘why youre more likely to die eating spinach than in severe sudden turbulence’, and – an exciting guest series – ‘my camping chair and I: my journey sitting (and learning while sitting) for Palestine as a doctor of emotions, the holocaust and doing better’.
Oh, hi there! Thanks so much all for coming out on this misty saturday morning. Im both moved and touched. As is custom I begin with an acknowledgement that I am writing from recently ceded territory (also, coincidentally, seeded territory; which brings me to my first PSA – do not go scattering linseeds and other assorted seeds on a terrazzo benchtop. the resultant confusional anxiety will be extreme and abiding). Now where was i? Yes, correct, recently ceded land – i can assure you it was all very legal m’lud! Of course, in a broader sense, its neither ceded nor legal – a subject about which you can learn at sundry teach-ins and sit-downs up and down swanston st. Pull up a camp chair and do the “sitting and sharing” for which the Jewish community, in particular, is famed.
In any and all cases, i have opted today to dispense with the injunction to sit and share and be (in places of learning and connection); I have also dispensed with the over and under arching schleps objective (to make the lions roar and to make a heavy institution levitate); I’ve opted, instead, for a lighter levity – specifically a french apple cake. a frapple cake. an applench cake. Another #epicfail #facepalm, which was greeted with “yeah. its good” and “it just doesnt blow my hair back”. its just your basic tea cake so in fact not blowing your hair back is precisely the point. basically designed to be enjoyed with a cup of tea. Of course, having extensively reviewed the range of kettles currently on the market, and despite extreme coercive pressure, i have decided to wait until the next tranche of kettle tech is released and as a result, there is and will be no tea to speak of.
This recipe was taken from Adam Liaw – Strayas last great public intellectual.
Ingredients
25g butter, for greasing
2 eggs
150g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
125ml vegetable oil
150g flour
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
4 apples, peeled and cored, cut into 2cm pieces
2 tbsp demerara sugar
Heat oven to 170C
Grease a 1.2-litre loaf tin with butter n flour. Reserve any leftover butter.
In a bowl, lightly whisk together the eggs and sugar, then whisk in the vanilla and the oil
Fold in flour, salt and baking powder to form a batter.
Stir the apples through the batter and pour into the tin.
Dot reserved butter on top and scatter with the demerara sugar.
Bake for 1 hour
A little too close. Look, if i had my time again, Id opt for a frapple cake of yore such as this guy
or even this ital number
and/but/which brings me to my titular point, if it is to be said, so it be and so it very much is/always was/will be/again.
In closing, had a lot of requests for recommendations – and, it being a space of sittting and sharing, here’s a book I recently ready that really helped me, as i hope it does you
canelé i hardly knew you. the most easily overlooked, deceptively unpromising young women of the patisserie world. it takes a big, chonky man to admit when theyre wrong and i/xir, am they/them/that man. how wrong i was. these ridged burnished beauties are the apex. Recipe below but i warn you, its nqr and i will (wont) revisit in the fullness of time. for now, i offer only a humble apology and a reminder that false friends, not unlike leaves, are indeed found everywhere.
INGREDIENTS
75g Unsalted Butter
750g Milk
1 Vanilla Pod
370g Caster Sugar
225g Strong Bread Flour
5g Salt
100g Egg Yolk
80g Bourbon/dark rum/whatveer you have
METHOD
Heat milk with split & scraped vanil pod in smol saucepan to just below a simmer. Allow to infuse for 30 mins.
Then add the butter. Allow the butter to melt completely remove from the heat and let it cool to body temp.
Combine the sugar, flour and salt in a large bowl and whisk together. Add the egg yolks and bourbon to the milk mixture and beat in.
Now gradually whisk the liquid into the dry mix until smooth. mine went lumpy af and was strained many times. Remove the vanilla pod and discard. Cover and fridge and let rest overnight.
Preheat the oven to 230°C.
Get batter out of the fridge and whisk to reincorporate any solids that might have sunk. i strained again. brush your moulds with melted butter.
Pour your batter into the prepared moulds, roughly 4/5ths full. Slide into the oven DMs and bake for 15 minutes. Turn oven down to 190°C and bake for a further 45 mins until deeply caramelised. Apparently you cant cook them too much (though ive also read contrary advice) so you can give em another 10-15 if you must.
Fasting at the banquet 