Geek in the Low Lands

Forgive the truly awful pictures and the fact that there are almost no pictures. This is what I get for doing this so late. The original plan for today was to make chili con carne and the first recipe for my one bowl baking project, cornbread. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to get enough cornmeal for the muffins, so I turned to something else I had wanted to make for a long time: calzones! I only realized all this fairly late, so dinner was going to be late, though we've definitely eaten later. First step was pulling out a dough recipe. I went with Cook's Illustrated for their calzone recipe. I ignored the filling but I did follow their instructions for the dough. So the dough started rising around 7pm, and would need at least an hour and a half before I could start even thinking about eating. After that, it was time to divide up the dough into balls, let it rest a further 15 minutes and prepare the ingredients I was going to be shoving in them. Both would get some ri...

So, like many home chefs, I have a number of cookbooks at home. I do use them occasionally, but there are some that I haven't tried a single recipe from. I'm hoping to whittle down my entire library soon, and that will include my cookbooks, but I don't want to get rid of a cookbook I haven't tried even once. Another thing I want to do is bake and cook more, I particularly want to bake more. (I mean, I do end up cooking pretty much every night, even if it's not always something new and exciting.) Thus, this project was born. I'll try and document it as I bake my way through some of my books. I'm starting with One Bowl Baking by Yvonne Ruperti, which is a neat book I received from my sister. I'm setting an easy goal for myself of one new recipe a week. I'm hoping to do more than that, otherwise this will take forever, but I'm trying to be honest about my ability to set aside the time and gather the will power. The book contains about 112 recipes...

I'm sorry, huge void of the internet. I am apparently unable to get myself to sit down and write even one substantive post for my blog. I've considered many things, including snapping shots of the food I'm cooking to at least make a recipe post, but obviously I haven't managed to do that. Some of it is that I'm still not sure what the theme of this blog will be. So I have unlimited choices, and that means I have too many options. Sometimes that's a good thing, but when it comes to down to me having to motivate myself, I think I kind of burn out. There are so many options, so many possibilities, that I spend too much time thinking about it, and not enough time actually picking one and doing it. I have no doubt that I am not the only person who does this. However, it is still extremely irritating to deal with. I think, however, I know a project that I'd like to do. I'm going to start with working on a translation of Stories from the Táin . It's ...

I haven't been much of a blogger. I'm afraid I am often unsure about what I want to write about. What should my blog focus on? This is my struggle everytime I sit in front of the blinking cursor icon on a white screen. I become plagued with self-doubt. The same is true when I attempt to write anything else, such as short stories or books. Somewhere along the way I lost my confidence in the value of my words. However, recently I've been without something to do, and I think it would be good for me to try again. I'm making no promises, but I would like to post at least one substantive post once a week. I'm trying for an easier goal than the 5 times a week I usually try to convince myself to do. So, by substantive I mean that I'll have either done some research or some translation or something more than whiling away on my thoughts (which means this post doesn't count). It will probably be on subjects like history or linguistics, but food is a possibility. ...

At least today. I'm sorry I didn't post yesterday, and I don't feel like I have anything thoughtful to write about today. So I think I'll post some of the 'cookery' stuff I've listed in my description. I still have to figure out if I do want to take the step of photographing things I make and posting recipes of that sort. We'll see. Yesterday, I baked some bread. I made the Milk Bread  from the Joy of Cooking . During the 2nd rising, I accidentally let it over-rise, and only just caught it before some of my dough escaped to the bottom of my oven¹. Luckily, it was saved with some extra kneading and a half hour of rising. Even though I'm reasonably new to bread baking, I'm really enjoying it so far. There is something really nice about it, relaxing even. Otherwise, I don't know, here are the last 5 recipes I thought looked interesting and I'd like to try some day, so I bookmarked. Irish Beef Stew : With St. Patrick's Day coming u...

Or why I love having books on my phone. So the last few nights, I've been naughty. I've been staying up very late, reading books on my phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy SII with Moon+ Reader Pro on it, which gets very dark so I don't disturb my TD too much while he is trying to sleep. It wouldn't be so bad, but I keep reading kind of cheesy horror novels.  During the night from March 10th to March 11th, I read Ten by Gretchen McNeil . It's about a group of ten teens who are invited to a party on an island under false pretenses. Yes, in reality they are lured there to be killed off one by one. The premise isn't all that original, but I thought the writing was entertaining, and it was enough to get my brain a-ticking. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this, but I had a little trouble falling asleep after I finished the book. The descriptions of the corpses in this novel were very good, and my brain went and ran with it. Never mind that it invoked a bi...