Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Rice pudding nostalgia


My mum was a plain cook, but everything she made was delicious. It was when Dad got involved in the cooking that things turned for the worse. I will never forget the aroma of simmering piccalilli (a disgusting concoction of vegetable and spice relish inspired by Indian cuisine) that pervaded the house for days when Dad turned experimental. He and Mum loved it, along with the pickled onions that are of the Devil. And his baked beans that were subsequently preserved did not suit my discerning taste buds either. To his credit, he took to canning with a vengeance when we moved to New Zealand, and I have many fond memories of helping to peel boxes and boxes of apples, peaches, and pears that were then preserved using the overflow method. Somehow, we didn't die from eating them, in spite of what the FDA would have us believe.

Mum's soups were hearty and tasty, as were her cakes and trifles. She wasn't one to learn new tricks, however, so I was the family bread baker while still in my teens. And as the Kiwi repertoire of ethnic foods expanded, it was left up to me to introduce such delights as pizza, which I made from a magazine recipe. Dad was not impressed, so I guess we were even!

Mum's rice puddings were consistently delectable. To the best of my knowledge, she never followed a recipe, but her method was tried and true. Slow cooking and short-grain rice (she called it "pearled rice") were the secret. This kind of rice absorbs lots of liquid but still maintains a hearty texture. And she probably, as do I, used the same dish each time she made it, so measuring was unnecessary.

After I got married, I followed Mum's instructions and, using a lovely Temuka pottery casserole dish that my sister donated to my "glory box", recreated the pudding. It is this pudding that I put in the oven when I went into labour with Bethany, thinking it would be a nourishing snack for us all, only we didn't remember it until after the delivery. By that time it was rather solid and brown. Sad.

Jeff has never been too keen on it, but the children all seem to have the same fond memories that I have of my childhood bowls of rice pudding. Bethany has found her own version of the dish, while Jon, Annie, and Sam (who very lovingly learned how to make it for Charlie) are all following Mum's method. Jon told me that he made it on Sunday, only he fell asleep while he was supposed to be stirring it and three hours later it was burnt. Consider yourselves warned.

And here it is, very loosely, if you want to try it.
The proportions might seem off, but trust me if you want it to turn out. Jon disbelieved me the first time he made it and he added twice as much rice. It was not pretty.
  • In an oven-proof dish that is at least 3 quarts, put about half-a-gallon of whole milk. What the heck, substitute some half-and-half if you want. The last two times I made it, I poured in a bottle of this lovely stuff (which I got at Safeway for about 25 cents each) and it was perfect.
  • Add one cup of short-grain white rice. Don't be blasphemous and use brown rice. Or, if you do, don't tell me about it, 'kay? 
  • Add a scoop of sugar, less than 1/2 a cup, and sprinkle cinnamon on top. I used to use nutmeg, which is traditional, but I prefer cinnamon now. Must be the American in me!
  • If I am in a hurry, I warm it all up in the microwave first. Otherwise, I put it in the oven and turn it to 350 degrees. Stir every fifteen minutes or so, so that the rice doesn't stick and any skin gets submerged. 
  • When the milk starts to foam up and get bubbly, turn the oven down to 300 degrees. Continue to stir every 15 to 30 minutes. As the rice absorbs the milk, it should start to look creamy. This is where you use your eyes and taste-buds. If it gets dry-looking and the rice isn't tender yet, add a little more milk. Add sugar to taste. After two or three hours, it should be perfect. I am often doctoring it up until the moment I put it into my new favourite Middle Kingdom porcelain bowl.  

My bowl of rice pudding and I enjoyed a perfectly harmonious hour this evening, watching a missed episode of Lark Rise to Candleford on Hulu Plus.

Tell me, what dishes make you nostalgic?

Sunday, March 9, 2014

A conflagration of cousins

Yes, I know it's not really a conflagration, but you should see these boys when they get together.
You would say "conflagration" too!

Daniel came to spend the night on Friday.
We introduced him to the pleasures of Merlin, which you can watch on Netflix.
He also requested that Thomy and Jeff come over to play the next morning.

I told the boys how lucky they are to have cousins who live so close by. I told them that I really only had one cousin that I knew when I was a girl, and we didn't get to see her very often, even though we loved her to pieces. And then, when we moved to New Zealand, we didn't see her again for years and years.

Things were pretty quiet when it was just the three of them. Legos reigned supreme for an hour or so, then it was on to Battleships and the labyrinth box. I told the boys that, when I was young, my friends had some Legos, only there weren't any special pieces, just blocks and things like windows and doors. 
"What, no weapons?"
"Nope, no weapons or figures or boats or trees or dragons."
"Wow."
Another proof of my extreme antiquity.


Then Josh arrived with his mom.
"Don't smile," I said.


Because, you know, that's the best way to get a good smile out of 'em.


Sunday, March 2, 2014

DIY

I do not enjoy home improvement projects, especially when it involves a Sawzall and scraping old materials off the floor.
This is just to remind myself.


Here it is, midway through the project, which took a ridiculous length of time, almost a month from start to finish. The snow was partly to blame, and the norovirus, and other time factors. But we gradually made some sense of it.
Here, the new floor.


The shower is installed.
The studs and back wall had to be built out, as the shower was a tad smaller than the old one, and mortar added underneath it.


I was inordinately happy when I finally got to hang the new shower rod and curtain and finish the painting.


It's not fancy, but it is crisp and clean and new, and I like it.
And we no longer have a shower door.
Hooray!


Our friends really came through for us on this one. I put out a couple of pleas on facebook and within a short time, Sandor delivered his Sawzall and drywall cutter to our door. When we needed a belt sander a few days later, friend John brought his over. And, of course, we hired our friend Randy to do the tricky installation of the stall and also the floor. He is worth his weight in gold.

I thought to myself, halfway through the project, that it's just as well we have two bathrooms, else what would we have done for the month without one? I suppose you would have to time everything to the hour, so as not to be without a toilet or a shower for more than a day, but I'm glad we didn't have to do that.

I am often grateful for indoor plumbing, aren't you?

Friday, February 28, 2014

Number eleven

Why, yes I did spend a lovely three whole days with grandchild number eleven. 
In spite of windy Denver.
It has been almost six months since I have seen London and she is nine months old now, so I was surprised when she smiled at me as I sat next to her in the car, and it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. The child is a delight, sunny and good-natured. And she loves me!

We ate at Burger Fi the first night. 
London enjoyed the lemon I ordered for my drink.


And she demolished the hashbrowns off my Breakfast All Day Burger.


I don't know.
Hashbrowns on a burger just doesn't seem right.

London has a bath at 7:30 every night, which is a good thing because she wears a lot of her food by then. 
She is a true water baby and loves it.


On Sunday evening, we took a little walk and Charlie worked on scent-training Wrangler. The puppy is now 98 pounds and is a force of nature.


The boy loves his dog.


London sat snugly in her stroller, while Nana froze her bones. The wind had kicked up and I wasn't quite prepared for Texas to be cold.


The mealtime ritual is that Wrangler hovers around the high chair and snaps up anything that hits the floor. He also licks London's fingers and anything else that is within range. And then, after she has gone, he does a thorough job of cleaning up anything that she has missed.


And sometimes, Nana catches him with his tongue out.
Silly dog.


Sam and I did a lot of cooking while I was there. One time, I heard Wrangler making a slurping sound, and I thought to myself, Wait a minute, his water bowl isn't in here! and when I walked around the island, he was eating an egg that had fallen on the floor, shell and all!
Nothing gets past this boy.


On Monday evening, we walked around downtown Wylie and visited this park. 
London had her first swing ride.


And then a slide with Daddy.


Before I knew it, it was time to go back home.
But first, I took some photos of London looking at the books that Aunty Jenny sent.
The girl loves her books, especially when they make noise.


And then I came home and it all seems like a dream.
But I have photos.
Lots of them!

Art at the airport (Dallas Love Field)


Last Friday, I was supposed to fly to Dallas to see Charlie, Sam, and little London. 
I was foiled by high winds in Denver. 
After being dropped at the Beaverton MAX station by a friend and riding the light rail for an hour to the airport, I was told that they could not get me to Dallas that day. 
Bah, humbug.
So I sat around at the airport for a couple of hours, using their free, crappy wi-fi, rode MAX back to Beaverton, caught a bus that was just leaving to Tigard, and met Bethany at the transit station.
Just how I wanted to spend my Friday.

Jeff and I arose at 4 a.m. the next morning and I was on my way. 

I flew on Southwest, which is my second-favourite airline. 
Jet Blue might lose it's first place if it doesn't add some more destinations.

We flew into Dallas Love Field Airport. Southwest has a field day making puns on the name. I tried to do the crossword puzzle in Spirit magazine onboard, and could not figure out the catch. Turns out that many of the clues were answered with the word "love", only backwards. 

Here are some interesting facts about Love Field.

It is owned by Southwest and, so far, Southwest is the only airline flying in and out. It is also their corporate headquarters.
Love Field was originally an Army airfield, built in 1917 to train pilots for World War I.
It is named after First Lieutenant Moss L. Love, who died in a plane crash in 1913. He was the tenth fatality in Army aviation.
The airport was bought by the city of Dallas in 1927 for civilian use.
JFK flew into Love Field on his fateful last trip.

There has been a lot of rivalry between Dallas/Fort Worth and Love Field, but Love Field takes the prize, in my opinion. It is a lovely little airport with some fantastic art.
The first one I saw was this, suspended from the roof.


This mural caught my eye as I passed the security area. I covers one large wall and is a tile mosaic. These photos are extreme close-ups.


A door leading outside takes one to this sculpture, which made me feel sad.
The bronze depiction of a pilot's helmet, gloves, coat and goggles, placed on a chair with the monogram MLL (for Moss L. Love) is titled "Back in a Moment". The chair sits under the artist's trademark crepe myrtle trees.


I had a little time to wander on my return trip, and I found a room that told the story of all of the art works at the airport, including smaller versions of the actual art.

These are taken from a small section of the hanging sculpture.


A painting of the tile mosaic.
I love it.


I enjoy art wherever I find it.
Unless it like the piece of orange fabric on a that I saw at the local Cultural Center today, with a price tag of $35,000.
Apparently, it was serious.
I don't know. See what you think. Makoto Fujimura.
His most expensive piece was $150,000.
I don't understand.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Orts

The snow, oh, the snow. It came in on Thursday night and by Friday night it had pretty much shut everything down. We in western Oregon are not equipped with things like snow shovels and snow ploughs, so we hunker down and live on hot chocolate and Netflix, which isn't completely a bad thing.
Except for the twenty pounds of red fingerling potatoes that I naively left in the shed, half of which froze and had to be eaten promptly. Can I just say that frozen/thawed/raw potatoes are not a nice thing. They ooze potato juice over everything, so that even when they are cooked deliciously, all you can think about is the black ooze.

But there was this:


And everything was delightfully white and pristine for about three days until the weather warmed.


A couple of weeks earlier, we were out at the Ranch and things were very frozen.
We never get tired of this view.


And a couple of weeks before that, we took Thomy and Jeff to see one of Josh's basketball games. Jeff was happily clicking away with his camera.
This is one of my favourite shots of McKenzie.


We laugh every time we look at this one, Josh looks so graceful. I always knew he would be a good dancer, if only his dad would consider the idea of dance lessons.


And how are the bathroom renovations going? 
Why, thank you for asking.
It should all be finished tomorrow, barring painting around the shower. 
We are very glad that we hired out the shower installation, as the new one was slightly smaller than the old one, necessitating a slight building up of the walls behind it. 
It occurred to me yesterday that I am grateful that we have two bathrooms. Not sure what we would have done without a toilet and shower for two weeks. 
First world problems.


As for me, I am flying out tomorrow, Texas bound. Hopefully, Jeff will have the taxes done by the time I get home next week!
Ha! I get Texas, he gets taxes!
Get it?
Stay tuned for grandbaby photos.