Smokey the Magnificent

The candied bacon ice cream was delicious. The snortlepig and I both thought so, polishing off every tender morsel stuck to the dasher and freezing bowl in no time flat. (”Some?” asked the snortlepig plaintively every time her spoon was empty. “Some?” She is a sweetcheeks. You know what she did this morning? Counted to five. “One two three four five”, like that, while trying to buckle her own carseat. Prodigy Pig, we call her.)

So when Helpdesk Man returned home from singing at a wedding with his marvy young vocal collective (oooo), I accosted him with great delight and force-fed him a large spoonful to prove its deliciousness. He squealed like a girlie, demonstrated tremors of the head and declared it was Weird and He Didn’t Like It. I can’t prove it, but I think he cried a little.

Hmph.

Fortunately there are three other tasters who have yet to vote on the matter. I will let you know.

Poker seems to have gone to Helpdesk Man’s head. Yesterday he came home proudly bearing a brand-new poker set, and taught two of my little sisters to play when they came over to be babysat. (He won, but it was neck-and-neck with the eleven-year-old for a bit. I went bust early and gracefully retired to the kitchen to cook. Beat him three times yesterday though.) Then he was up until 1AM watching the poker World Series on YouTube. Should I be worried. do you think?

In other news, today is Bacon Ice Cream Day. I made a butterscotch ice cream base and have candied the bacon by cooking it on foil with brown sugar sprinkled over it (yummy!). I’m a little nervous about adulterating the lovely butterscotch ice cream with bacon, but these things build character. I also made a French vanilla ice cream with crumbled gingerbread cookies in it, which is ridiculously yummy… and now I have twelve egg whites waiting to be pavlovified. It’s, like, the circle of life.

Tonight Helpdesk Man took it upon himself as the spiritual head of the family to teach me poker. I’d only played once before, a game of Texas Hold’em  during a rather disastrous dinner party, at which I was so distracted with a screaming four-month=old snortlepig that I tried to win a hand with three pair. Tonight was somewhat more successful. We played for beans - literally. Kidney beans. We didn’t have any chips and playing for cash seemed a tad redundant given that we share an account. I won several hands, but no games. The pig sampled our olives, played very professionally with the Jokers and kept hiding our beans in her mouth. Anyway, I liked it. I like the faintly Freemason-slash-Star Trek vibe it has, with the jargon and the rapping on the table and the hats and all. Makes me feel classy. What with this and the olives, I have come a long way from the bumpkin of yore, no?

Remember the snortlepig’s security knickers? Well, she seems to have made a new friend. It is a small bottle of peppermint essence. She fell in love with it at the supermarket when I gave it to her to hold in place of the cream, having spotted at the last second that she had taken the lid off and was about to upend it onto the supermarket floor. That same day I made mint chocolate chip ice cream (not my most successful flavour - that was three weeks ago and we still have some lurking in the freezer), and had to wrest the essence away from a squealing pig with entreaties and promises to give it back. When it was returned to her, sans half a teaspoon, she carried it away in sobbing triumph and promptly hid it under the sofa where my clawing fingers and dodgy housekeeping would never find it.

Then a few days ago, the snortlepig’s tiny aunt discovered it under said sofa while searching for the snortlepig’s small wooden animals. I put it back on the shelf and thought nothing of it until today, when the snortlepig started dancing and pointing and saying “DA!” at the pantry. I picked her up, wondering if she’d developed a sudden taste for dried chickpeas… but nope. She’s been carrying the peppermint essence around again for two solid hours. Freak.

Interestingly, although the peppermint smell cannot be detected outside the bottle and although she almost certainly does not associate the two, the mint chocolate chip ice cream was her favourite flavour. She also eats olives. She’s classier than me.

Incidentally, shikakai? Good stuff. Exceptionally. If this keeps up I might be able to wear my hair down occasionally, although of course I would then have to navigate the perils of giving the snortlepig the milks without sitting on it myself or having said pig twine it round her feet and pull. Madonna never had this problem (the Blessed Virgin I mean, not the singer, although I doubt she did either).

I’m drafting a dress! It is harder than it looks. And invisible zips are evil. I will update you when there is good news: until then, don’t ask.

In other news… hoom. Helpdesk Man ate the first ripe tomato of the summer yesterday and his eyes watered a little. I am babysitting my small sisters on Friday, and we will watch the last 29 minutes of Toy Story 2 and the entirety of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I have an article due in six days that isn’t even remotely written. We watched Season 5 of The Office and are on to Season 6. I’ve been listening, goodness knows why, to wizard rock and have so far sifted only two decent songs from the dross - I Believe in Nargles and Accio Love. Both of which are, quite honestly, rubbish: but I have a small life. Also, the pig’s wet nappy reeks strangely of tuna, which we have not eaten for months. I’d better go change it before worse things happen.

The fenugreek was OK, if anyone was wondering. I did a pretty heavy pre-wash oiling and didn’t use any kind of cleanser, so I’m not sure how much of the moisture and ensuing greasiness was due to the fenugreek and how much was because of the jojoba. It did give my hair some initial slip which ACV notably lacks, but that was mostly gone by morning. Since then I’ve stocked up on catnip, marshmallow root, shikakai and amla and will perform some experiments, which will hopefully make my head smell less curryish.

That paragraph actually makes sense if you’re into natural haircare, by the way. If not, pay it no heed.

Know what I’m doing right now? Caramelising white chocolate. It had never occurred to me one could do this thing until I found David Lebovitz’s blog - he’s the guy who wrote The Perfect Scoop. Incidentally, he has this whole blog post about how he likes his caramel to taste slightly burned, otherwise (according to him) it is sickly and cloying. Which explains a lot. I was hard pressed to restrain myself from leaving a nasty comment. Anyway his caramelised white chocolate ice cream looked so delicious that I had to give it a go: also I am babysitting my little sistren tomorrow night and need to make something to quiet their gaping maws. I am also planning to make his Candied Bacon Ice Cream - it could be divine or repellent, but I don’t want to live my life not knowing. (His butterscotch pudding is entirely underwhelming, though. I find him a bit hit and miss all round, but the success of butterscotch and white chocolate flavours make me tolerant of a few flops.)

Anyway, the white chocolate has been in the oven for 30 minutes and, as promised, has become chalky and cloggy and generally unappealing. Apparently this is a good sign, heralding the transformation to caramelly deliciousness. We shall see.

Guess what I’m nomming off a fork out of an artily tiny dish? Olives. This is something of a triumph. I never used to like ‘em. Neither did Helpdesk Man. This was once a relevant point in a Christmas gift episode which continues to puzzle me. Two years ago, Helpdesk Man’s sister rang me a few weeks before Christmas and asked “Do you like olives?”. “Not really”, quoth I. “Does Helpdesk Man?” she asked. “Nope”, I said. And what did she give us for Christmas? A big honking jar of olives. We get along pretty well, so occasionally in the stilly watches of the night this incident still haunts me. Anyway. A few weeks ago Helpdesk Man inexplicably developed a taste for the little blighters, and with the proselytising enthusiasm of the novice began berating me about my plebeian palate, lack of class and general unworthiness to consider myself any kind of a foodie. “Is it”, I said with a steely sneer, and not to be outdone by a man who spent his entire pre-married life unaware of the existence of non-packet custard, started nibbling at tiny slivers of olive in an effort to acclimatise myself to their taste.

Fascinatingly enough, it worked. I still can’t pop them whole into my mouth without my eyes watering, but eaten in ladylike (well, rodentlike) nibbles off a fork I can schlp them down with the best of them. Take that, Helpdesk Man.

And in order to give you a complete picture of the urbane sophisticatedness of a Smokey, I should probably add that I have a plastic bag over my head. It houses goo. Specifically, fenugreek. I’m fond of fenugreek in curries, but - call me a square if you will - it had not until today occurred to me to soak the seeds in hot water, grind them to a paste and smear them on my hair. Now it has. Mucilage, people. Fenugreek contains mucilage, which gives hair shine and slip and acts more like a commercial conditioner than most herbal conditioning agents such as apple cider vinegar and oils. Good stuff, no? And even if it doesn’t work, I’ll smell… exotic.

Oh, the party? We had it. Eleven people… slightly fewer chairs. Wouldn’t that make a great movie tagline? But we coped. I ended up making five kinds of ice cream: raspberry and white chocolate (schlp!), strawberry ripple (meh), mint chocolate chip (hmm), butterscotch caramel ripple with straciatella (ooo!) and double chocolate ripple (Helpdesk Man insisted). They were enjoyed, but I’ve been trying to palm the leftovers on unsuspecting family members ever since. Something about having five kinds of ice cream in one’s freezer is demoralising to one’s squish.

Say a cleaver was going to fall on thy foot, wouldst thou rather it chopped off all thy toes individually - plip plip plip plip plop - or the whole toe area in one big chunk - thud?

Well, I did my taxes. It was ‘orrible. We will not speak of it. Then today I trundled the snortlepig into town and handed the form to the lady behind the desk, prepared to offer whatever explanations and apologies for my incompetence were deemed necessary, as well as a largeish wodge of money. Fortunately (I guess) both were put on hold, as it turns out they need to go through my form and check it before they officially charge me. In which case, if they’re gonna do it anyway, why did I have to do them??? I beamed at the lady and left before she could discover that the snortlepig had drawn in pencil all over Page 3.

While in town we did a few errands and ended up at the library, where I had a moment of bliss as I discovered both The Joy of Cooking and The Perfect Scoop were available. The latter is considered to be THE ice cream recipe book, containing such dubiously chic items as Red Bean Granita and Olive Oil Ice Cream. Inspired, I read through the whole thing and decided to make butterscotch caramel ripple stracciatella trufitos. Unfortunately my enthusiasm took a downturn when I made the Creamy Caramel Sauce and Helpdesk Man said “It tastes like cough mixture. Ew.” If anything, I undercooked it according to the directions, but it managed to acquire a burned taste nonetheless, and burned caramel is one of the unpleasanter things in life. (It was also one of the few exciting things we did in science class, but what principle it was meant to illuminate I cannot recall. Nothing ice cream related.) I might try again: the texture was gorgeous, anyway.

The next day, back at the ranch:

Ha! Success. Third time lucky. I tried making the sauce again last night - basically, you melt sugar into caramel and then whisk cream in while wearing an oven mitt to protect yourself from searing burns. Unfortunately I got a bit excited trying to get the sugar to melt before the snortlepig woke up, and stirred the caramel more than one is supposed to, thus causing it to clump up and take far longer to melt. And then the baby woke up. So I tipped the toffee onto a greased plate and will make it into praline instead… except it seems to have adhered permanently to the plate. But that’s another challenge for another time.

Anyway, this morning I rose with fire in my eyes and murder in my heart, determined to make said sauce or perish in the attempt. I succeeded. The sauce is velvety, creamy and not at all reminiscent of cough mixture. A large lump of toffee did get stuck to the whisk and refuse to melt back in, but I discarded it rather than risk scorching the batch and all was well.

I have half a mind to write to the author, though. “Wait until the caramel starts to smoke”, forsooth! Who thought that was a bright idea? The kind of guy who considers the acrid tongue-shrivelling taste of burned caramel complex and sophisticated, probably. Like those weedy menus that proudly proclaim “Burned Orange Souffle on a Bed of Wilted Greens and Aged Mushrooms”, trusting your snobbishness will lead you to breathe “How avant-garde!” rather than making pointed remarks about the pig bin.

So Helpdesk Man and I are watching our way through the Harry Potter films. Hermione’s eyebrows notwithstanding, I’m enjoying them more than I expected. The Order of the Phoenix, which we watched last night, was positively arty in a few spots. That bit where Fred and George were consoling Nigel after he’d been using Dolores’ torture quill was actually moving. Also, I’d never before considered the awesomeness of the name Dolores Umbridge. She’s good with names, is JK Rowling.

Here’s the thing, though. The Triwizard Cup. Now, clearly it didn’t matter how the contestants got to the cup through the maze: they were being judged on results, not the wizarding prowess they showed during the process. (Which made their previous accrual of points kinda redundant, which was silly, but never mind.) So if Harry proved himself a one-note wonder, it wouldn’t affect his win. That being the case… why didn’t he go with “Accio Firebolt” again? He could have zoomed over the maze looking for the cup found it in seconds. Better yet… why not “Accio Triwizard Cup“? I can buy that the Cup was maybe enchanted to keep it in place, but the broomstick thing should have worked. Silly Harry.

Also, I like that they didn’t tart Hermione up too much. They de-bushified her hair movies before they were supposed to, and put her in civvies when she still should have been wearing robes: but she wasn’t in crop tops and miniskirts, and that is something. There are Standards left in the world. And hoodies, apparently.

Anyway.

Much to my surprise my one-hour-of-housework-a-day resolution has left me eager and sprightly, so my added challenge for this week is to tie up loose ends. Which sounds like killing my ex-bosses, but it isn’t. I’m fairly fond of most of my ex-bosses, with the exception of Simon the evil manager from Rialto who once spent five minutes castigating me for stealing a piece of company scrap paper to write an amoosing story on to pin up by the freezer. Oddly it wasn’t the story he objected to: it was the stealing. Of the scrap paper. Which never actually left the premises, so technically it would be what, vandalism? Graffiti? Anyway he ended up filching $400 from petty cash, so ha.

Most of said loose ends are fairly routine - I have to fix a few flagged articles at Suite, complete my shopping tote bags and mend a few clothes. Sadly, I also feel morally compelled to do my taxes. Yes, those taxes. The ones that should have been done last March, or whenever it is one traditionally does taxes. Helpdesk Man and I have made a date to stare them in the face tonight, and I am hoping to contract fulminating lupus before then in order to gracefully back out. It’s not the money - I’m pretty sure I owe a paltry amount, plus of course the late fee - it’s the psychology of the thing. Ever watch Black Books? Exactly.

1. When I was in high school, for the four months that I was in high school, I took a Typing elective. This was only the second year my school had had a high school class: it was initially a primary school and when the class above me got to Form Three age, they instituted a Form Three and the next year a Form Four and so on, until the oldest class had graduated. All three of them. My class was the second Form Three the school had ever had, and they hadn’t yet figured out the kinks of, like… education. So our Typing elective consisted of Mavis Beacon on a bunch of enormous clunky computers. The scarring part? The computers didn’t have enough memory or graphics card ability or whatever it is they need (that Typing class was as far as I got in computer studies) to render colours effectively. So instead of being tastefully African-American in skin tone, Mavis was purple. Bright purple. I’m pretty sure this is why I didn’t learn to type for another three years.
2. When I was of a relatively tender age, I was in an antique shop perusing a cabinet full of smeggy old brooches and necklaces. My sister, who has evil and sadistic tendencies, hissed at me “Look up”. And I did. And there was an enormous moosehead directly above me…. looming. I would pinpoint the origin of my moosehead phobia on this day, but I think there was a moosehead at Uncle John and Aunty Betty’s house on the landing when I was even smaller, and I had to creep past it in terror at night to get to bed. And there was another incident at a museum one time with a stuffed elephant that didn’t help either. And another one at school camp with a case full of mounted insects and a stuffed shark. And that time at Te Papa with the reconstructed moa. The point is, I have had a remarkably troubled youth.
3. I mispronounced sachet as “satchet” for years, and for further years after that thought a satchet was still a thing, although it turned out I was thinking of satchels. Which are sort of similar to sachets, kind of.
4. Free Willy.
5. Seeing Mandy Patinkin in Dead Like Me, twenty-off years on from when he was in The Princess Bride.
6. Childbirth. ‘Orrible.
7. Being called a brunette for the first time, after having thought of myself (although with decreasing justification as the years rolled by) as a blonde. Even after two years of hennaing I occasionally identify as blonde and then get a fright when I look in the mirror. Sometimes I get a fright for other reasons, of course. I had a large dab of tinted moisturiser on my nose the other day that I’d forgotten to rub in, and spotted it after I had been entertaining guests for half an hour. They were kind enough not to comment, but haven’t been back.
8. Your face.