Adventures in Domesticity - Bed linen and a new kitchen toy

Home made marshmallows!

Things continue to be hectic.  I have quite a few domestic projects running, and of course need to prepare for my annual holiday in la Bourboule!

I am currently terribly excited about my new kitchen toy - a KitchenAid stand mixer!  I have wanted one for practically forever, but what with a small kitchen and little counter space always vetoed any attempt of my subconscious to sneak one into the house.  Then suddenly two weeks ago something snapped, I threw caution to the wind, and bought one on Evilbay, just like that.  Let's not get into the mechanics of transporting the 11kg item on the bus to DB-Hausen, it involved taxicabs and a mountain climbing rope and several stops along the way for me to recover my strength.

My first serious kitchen toy!  I am keeping it on a tray so I can move it around easily.

Nevertheless I brought it home safely, and after some experimentation found a spot for it.  It is way too heavy to tidy away between uses, so it must remain on the counter at all times.  Did I mention that I have little counter space?  I do have an electric kettle, and had decided to sacrifice it on the altar of my KitchenAid and replace with a stove top one.

I bought the best - so I was told - stove top kettle on the market, a Le Creuset one.  If ever there was a piece of useless junk it was this kettle!  I strained a muscle trying to prise open the lid, and when I tried to fill it via the spout the whistle got in the way.  Plus, if you fill it for just a cup or two the whistle doesn't work - it emits an asthmatic wheeze that remains me of the time before my asthma was diagnosed and I almost died, and it is not a good memory.  Lastly, there is a note on the kettle that you can only fill it half way up - otherwise the water boils over through the spout.  Bad design, worse execution!  I am generally a fan of Le Creuset, but this piece of useless space-hogging garbage was a big disappointment.  So I stuck to my electric kettle after all.  I built it a little shelf on the ledge, not ideal but perfectly serviceable.

The kettle used to be where the KitchenAid is now

Today I finally got to try out my new toy and made marshmallows.  I didn't realise one could make marshmallows at home, and since I am rather fond of them this was a good first project to try out on the new kitchen toy.  It worked a treat!  I especially like the fact that I can just throw everything into the bowl and let the mixer do its thing, while I have a cup of tea and wait for it to finish.  Should have bought one years ago!  I am really looking forward to the Christmas baking season!!!!!

Messy business, making marshmallows!

Another project that requires my attention is the Rumtopf.  In case you don't know what that is, you take a large earthenware crock, and slowly fill it with fruit sugar and rum, starting with strawberries in June and finishing in autumn with grapes.  By the time Christmas comes around all the different fruity flavours will have nicely merged and mellowed, and are the perfect accompaniment to vanilla ice cream.  And the liquid is great for trifle!

Three quarters full already!

I have also been occupied with my bed-linen.  About twenty years ago I bought large numbers of old linen sheets, which I sewed up into duvet covers.  Unfortunately even linen doesn't last forever, especially if it is already sixty years old, and I began to discover little holes and tears in my bed linen.  Something had to be done!  I do have more sheets so can sew more duvet covers, but it takes a long time - I don't have a sewing machine and do them by hand - and it is a better job for long winter evenings, not for the summer when I prefer to frolic about outside.  But the bed linen situation was getting critical!

Thus being betwixt and between, I decided to google for linen duvet covers.  Massively expensive if new!  You can't really get them used, because duvet covers used to be a mainland Europe thing, and linen  more of an Ireland / England thing - they preferred to sleep between two sheets, not duvets.  The best thing I could find in terms of duvet covers was 'Aussteuer Qualitaet' (dowry quality) cotton damask.  I found some cheap unused ones in former East Germany - no one wanted them, because the size is a little different than the standard size now in use.  But this isn't an issue for me, really - I am used to all sorts of different sizes, German, English, American, Irish, new and old - one just has to be a little adaptable.

So I spent half the weekend laundering my newly acquired dowry - well, everyone else's dowry!  It has worked out well, despite some little idiosyncrasies.  For example, a 'set' consists of two duvet covers and four pillow cases - no sheets.  Which is OK since I have loads of sheets.  Also, I quite often just sleep between two duvets - saves having to struggle with the sheet, and easier to air.  And the pillow cases are larger than English style pillows - I'll tuck them in for now, but shall cut off the top and sew a new seam when I get the time, no big deal.  I do have an awful lot of them, oh well, it'll come in handy when I open my bed & breakfast (single small persons only!) when I am retired.

Notice the damask pattern?

I will still sew a few new linen duvet covers, though.  Linen is so nice in really hot weather!

I do love a well-stocked linen cupboard!

Thirteen Years Later - Elderberryport

My all time favourite wine is Elderberryport.  It is hideously expensive and difficult to find.  So you can imagine that I was quite thrilled when I found a recipe for it - thirteen years ago!

If I had read the whole recipe before I started to make my first batch I would have abandoned the enterprise immediately.  But I didn't.  I made not one, but three, demijohns full of the stuff.  Ditto the following years.  After three years I figured the wine should be drinkable, and read the last bit of the recipe to find out about decanting etc.

Sniff & Cry!!!!!  You were supposed to wait for ten  TEN out-of-sight years before you could drink the wine.  Ten years.  I was shattered.  I popped my by now seven demijohns first into the cupboard-underneath-the-stairs, and later, when I needed the space, into the Mouseleum-cum-Lean-To under the table and forgot about them.

Occasionally I remembered they were there, but I never had any bottles handy to decant the stuff into, and anyway I figured it had probably all turned into vinegar by now.

But last week an accommodating colleague gave me three large closable bottles, and I decided to brave the results of my 13-year-long wait.

What can I say.  The stuff is seriously good.  It has reached the giddy heights of perfect goodness   It defines GOODNESS for me from now on.  Words fail me.  Yes, it is that good.

My neighbour was in the garden.  She has been ill recently, so I offered to give her a small bottle.  She wrinkled her nose.  'I don't really like port', she opined.  So I gave her a tiny sip.  Her eyes began to sparkle, her skin glowed, and she said she'd love a bottle!  'Much better than port', she said.

I shall hand this stuff out very sparingly.  After all, who knows what the other batches will be like. You never know with wine.  I will bring a small bottle to work, so everyone can get a taste.  And the colleague who donated the bottles will also get a full one back, of course.  Aside from that, oh well ....

I waited for thirteen years, and it was so worth it!

My Fish Wear Seat Belts!

Prepare for some seriously bad photos ...

The last few years have been hard for me, and things got neglected.  Especially the garden.  Most especially the pond.  So I was not surprised when I finally cleared it out last weekend that I discovered a complete absence of fish.  And tadpoles.  But as usual, a proliferation of mosquito larvae.  Who hatch and bite people.  Small, half naked children, with soft skins and ferocious tempers, who will probably yell all night if they get lots of mosquito bites, and keep me up.

What's a woman to do?  Buy sticklebacks!

On-line, of course - what's the internet for, if not to purchase three-spined tiny fish for a little backyard pool?

The spiel was made, money changed hands - and THEN! they tell me they only deliver during the week, NOT on Saturdays when I am at home.

After some e-mails back and forth I finally told them to deliver to work.  Bad idea!  For I did not know that they used a massive bag for the ten tiny fish I had ordered!

Getting it home was a minor nightmare.  I took a taxi to my coach station in London, and barely managed to carry the bag up the stairs of the double-decker bus.  It must have been traumatising for the little ones, and I fear they learned some very bad language from me.  Upstairs I had to put them up on the seat by the small end down, that's the only way they could fit.  I barely managed to put a seat-belt around them, bag and all.

Once home all was forgotten of course.  I floated them on the pond in their bag for a while, to get used to their new neighbourhood, and then slowly decanted them into the watery waste.

I figure my pond is a vast improvement to their concrete breeding tank, but my efforts have not been rewarded so far - they all disappeared and I am none the  wiser whether they are still alive or have met with an untimely end in the stomach of some enterprising hedgehog or dragonfly larvae.

Well, at least they'll polish off the mosquito larvae!

The bag on top of my washing machine - isn't it huge?

All the fish fit into a little corner of the bag

Bag resting on the pond

Other end of the secret escape tunnel for frogs from my pond

Pond end of the escape tunnel

I have been doing some serious cutting back ...

Compost heap: 2mx2mx3m (formerly known as The Hedge)