Baking

On Saturday, I got a few pieces of apricot cake from Grandma. Being the pig I am, I ate all four of them although I knew I'll regret later. And I did. I'm not venturing into the fields of TMI (or Too Much Information), let's say that the inner disturbances were somewhat more disturbing and I decided to go really gluten-free.

I haven't mentioned it probably, I'm not coeliac, I just can't stand the gluten thing in larger amounts. Or, well, I won't die but having a nice sandwich or serving of pasta guarantees quality reading time in the bathroom and increased consumption of supersoft toilet paper. No, thanks.

The other day, I got a muffin form, a thing that can serve a dual purpose of baking muffins and feeding ten kittens at a time (not at the same time, obviously), so I took the generic cake dough recipe, substituted wheat flour with lupin flour, threw in a bit of psyllium fibre which gets gooey when wet and glues the thing together. I was also advised to be generous with liquids as the gluten-free flours absorb more of them. The raw dough tasted horrid - try raw legume of your choice and see. I wasn't sure about the whole undertaking so I added two teaspoons of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg each, lots of spices cover up many a botched cooking experiment, formed twelve cups in the muffin form and baked until scorched around the edges (I yet have to refine working with the muffin form). Then I wiped off the scorched bits and poured the baker's cheese-and-sour cream cream into the cups and baked yet for a while until I got bored of waiting. Rest of the dough was mixed with what remained of the cream after my nomming, which made five more yummy thingies.

Yes, yummy thingies. I didn't trust gluten-free baking too much because half of the storebought stuff tasted plastic and the other half was weird and expensive but this was... well, good. The lupin flour dough has nice texture if nothing else.

Problem: I should lose weight. Lots of it. I stopped eating cakes and pastries and stuff because it would make me sick but now I have non-sickening option.

The recipe:
two cups of flour
one cup of sugar
two tablespoons of butter, or more
one egg
one pack of baking powder
some water
fruit or things of one's choice
Mix, if not fluid, add water, pour into a greased baking tray, spread fruits and stuff, bake until done.

The gluten-free version
Two cups of lupin flour
two tablespoons or some such of psyllium fibre
one cup of sugar
two eggs
some butter
one pack of baking powder
some water
whatever topping

Mix until the dough sticks to anything but itself. Force into baking tray, top with topping, bake until done. Could be half an hour at 200°C but it doesn't matter, this is as idiot-proof as it goes in baking.

Pics maybe later, if I catch something not eaten yet.

Wager

The other day, we were sitting on the terrace and ranting about things and other things. My father also coughed, chronic bronchitis is a bitch. And then we were poking fun at each other for being out of shape in many ways and it ended up in a wager:
If I lose 20 kilos before Christmas, my dad will stop smoking

I was immediately in. My father is a chain smoker with a physical dependence on nicotine. I've had enough of unsolicited advice along the lines of People won't ever like and respect you when you're such a fatso. I gave away my stash of chocolate and similar noms and started srsly dieting because workout is not a problem, lousy eating habits are. Two weeks in, I'm 2 kilos less and I've been only sitting, typing and rotting away. I'd add some exercise weren't it for either torrid heat or rainstorms (which means too rainy for cycling and too wet and hot inside for anything but lying and sweating).

We'll see. As the things are going, I'm still ready to get me a bowl of popcorn on the 25th to watch what's going to happen.

(should I post pics of the progress, I wonder?)

I want some sleep

I didn't pull an overnighter, at a certain point, I simply started falling asleep so I dragged my exhausted self to bed, set the alarm clock to six, got up at seven and now I'm getting sleep-deprived, still quite some work to go, and the ever-annoying mother behind my back asks every two hours whether I have already finished.
Well, when I'm finished, I'll fall asleep, thankyouverymuch, and you will notice that.

I'm left to wonder why the hell I bother with this Ph. D. thingy at all. I wanted to go for it because every other idiot has a degree (every first idiot has two) due to pay-and-graduate institution in almost every village while a Ph. D. has maintained a certain level of coolness. I got to a point when I'm strongly doubting it. To be frank, I've been doubting the general purpose of life for quite a few years and the provisional conclusion is that there's no purpose and no reason but if one is cynical enough, it is fun to watch. Sort of, because I don't feel any good about endless writing of something nobody will ever bother to read because it's going to rot away in a shelf, under a layer of dust.

Sigh. Apparently I need more coffee and I'd better go back to work. I might start puking of sheer fatigue and I want to have something done before that.

Paper

If you wondered what I may be up to.
I'm sitting in my den, covered in cat hair, the den, me less so, I change my clothes on occasions while I don't bother cleaning. There're papers spread all over, books piled around my table, I'm drinking unreasonable amounts of coffee and there's an overnighter ahead. I'm about to finish my doctoral thesis and when I need to clear my head, I spin. It's even more mindless than knitting and it doesn't require such a bulk of stuff to handle.
For those curious about the fibres, from left to right:
Wensleydale tops on the spindle
Corriedale in fawn
Shetland in brown
Gotland is the tiny bit of grey, I just wanted to try how the fibre feels (damn good)
Some-or-another stuff I got from a Norwegian Raveller. I have a tag somewhere
Blend of teal mohair and Knitpicks'merino and silk blend
I still need to write something and to put it into some sort of a presentable shape but I've already made plans for the Wensleydale, it will become a two-ply for a lace shawl.

I suspect that the existence of toilet roll cores proves the existence of God, because nothing is so useful for spinners, while being readily available (mostly) for free.

Back to work.

Dignita

The other day, I've wondered about Shiseido's perfume naming strategy. It appears to me that someone picked a word they liked, possibly tweaked it around a bit and here we go, let's stick it onto the bottle, nobody would care anyway. Because... Sourire? To smile? Why not, say, Pour sourir or Une souris?

Same thing with Dignita. It suspiciously reminds me of the good old Latin-derived dignity but none of the languages I'm familiar with uses it in this form. I may be wrong and it means something like Tender Flowers in an extinct dialect of Inner Mongolia.
I however suppose that someone in the marketing department just liked the word. I could imagine the smell of dignity, something between moth balls, old leather, expensive woods and incense. Or some such. The brownish jus and brown and white packaging would also hint something more substantial but Dignita is anything else but moth balls, old leather and the general air of old mansion that could use some redecorating and thorough cleaning.

I did my best to find the notes listed somewhere but I've failed. My smell detection device, which is not the bestest, says that there's a gentle whiff of PVC at the beginning but that doesn't surprise me, many fragrances give out a very chemical odour before the alcohol evaporates. Then, Dignita becomes a really nice floral - there's a whiff of violets, not the alph amethyl ionone sort from violet pastilles (oh, yum) but a greener variety, and then the fragrance evolves into a lovely bouquet of roses, although the first identifiable smell is that of a soap named Green Apple, which we used when I was a child - maybe I should check some bad drugstore which has the less fashionable stuff and I'll find it somewhere. Or it may be some other tart fruit - wild cranberries or white currants; one way or another, it (a) makes me drool (b) reminds me of Dior's Chris 47. Anyhow, tart fruits and armful of roses. Those of the soapy variety, then the lemony Gloria Dei and maybe a whiff of the most extraordinary Mainzer Fastnacht, which was elaborated in another Shiseido's fragrance, Blue Rose (which will be dealt with shortly), and some cut grass.

After the initial multifaceted impression, Dignita remains rather linear. Fruits and roses wear down a bit, revealing a soft resiny and powdery base - elemi and iris, I would say, along a well crafted base of general leafy greenery. And a bucketful of lovely musk, that bright, cheery, clean and soothing type, which is the reason why Dignita lasts rather long but after an hour it quietens to a slightly powdery skin scent that still keeps a bit of tartness.

I have no clue whether Dignita is still produced. Uncle Google found several Russian online retailers that sell it, I scored my bottle in France.

A point about the picture above: The beautiful Old English rose of unknown cultivar just fits to the fragrance. Of slightly indefinable colour between apricot and yellow which fades as the blossoms wilt, it smells faintly of, well, roses of the sweeter variety, with a touch of something incense-y. And it matches colour of the jus. Coouldn't resist the kitsch. I however resisted cutting my last iris despite how it would fit in.

To make the blog more interactive, I'm asking a question, dear readers. What Shiseido fragrance would you want to read about next? Let me know in the comments.

Not yet compost

I need to get more sheets cut for my herbary - I thought 500 would last me an entire season but I'm already running out. I could maybe start numbering the specimens. In fact, I'd welcome some database thingy which would also store the data... but that would be probably too much to expect from life and universe.

Yesterday, M. dropped for dinner. I needed to plant the stuff I brought over from Madeira and which included a fern whose name I forgot, some Viola riviniana or what the hell, Viola odorata ssp. maderensis, and the stuff that arrived just because I left and which was left at M.'s for plant sitting. I heard that cat called Squirrel showed quite a bit of interest in Wassabia but then decided to go on chewing her palm. M. seems to be rather envious of my little yard. I got some useful information, bragged about how I grow my own weeds for my herbary because they have lots of space, M. laughed, held my Fumaria when I picked some other stuff and then he shouted out: Holy shit, what's this?

I'm not telling you what it was before it gets published in an impacted magazine. Let's say that my garden is interesting.

I like weeds. After all, weed is whatever is defined as unwanted so... so what. By not minding them, I make them non-weeds, after all.

And now I need to get back to my serious writing. Then I'll hopefully install the PhotoShop and I'll be back with pictures.

Compost

I should be doing something sensible but it's lunchbreak, people have gone out to get some food while I munched on some ricotta and dried fruit over the keyboard and the tasks require a colleague or some software to be downloaded - I'm still shoulder-deep in the mess caused by the new laptop. A less urgent matter, the dendrology books, which I've downloaded the other day, is sitting at the back of my head and poking me constantly, we seem to be having constant arguments about, say, root system of cherry trees compared to that of apricot trees.

I'm sitting between two laptops, several data storage thingies and in the midst of large cable clump. But in a reasonable time, I'll have a new version of PhotoShop (which will irk the hell out of me because I'm conservative), and maybe I'll even sort out my files in a manner I actually understand. Not that I wouldn't understand the First Available Surface system of filing, and I used to have a rather good idea what the folders named Leftovers, Others, Random, Some stuff and Something else contain. Now, the folders are on several less than neat piles on the external discs and I strongly suspect that something of the more important variety went missing.

The good news is that the current history textbook is being reviewed, proofread, re-reviewed and re-proofread, in other words, getting the finishing touches. When my graphics guy is back from lunch, we're going to start the other one.

Now I need more coffee.