kittyfain – Page 2 – Kitty's Blog

What I did today: My New Pet.

Our local supermarket has been selling fresh yeast having run out of stocks of dried yeast before the start of lockdown. When I was a child my mum used to buy fresh yeast to use for baking. It came wrapped in brown paper and was sold in the village pet shop which now seems a little strange but after my experiences this week, I am starting to think a pet shop is probably the right place to buy fresh yeast.

The supermarket yeast was sold from the dairy fridge in clear plastic bags. A helpful assistant advised us to “Keep it cold and keep in mind it will probably die after a couple of days.” Not the best sales patter but if the shop that used to sell us our son’s goldfish had been as honest an awful lot of heartache and lolly stick grave markers could have been avoided.

So my new pet made it safely home and into the fridge. The following morning I made some bread. You have to use twice the amount of fresh yeast to dried yeast and it needs to be activated using sugar and lukewarm water.

The biggest problem I had was I only had plain flour. The dough took twice as long to knead as dough made with bread flour but I got a good rise and the bread tasted fine.

Bread made with plain flour and fresh yeast

Day 2 and my new pet was starting to look a bit worse for wear. It had broken down into small crumbs and looked quite dry. I wasn’t sure if it was still alive. However, a meal of sugar and water revived it and it was soon bubbling away.

“I think I’ll make a ginger beer plant.” I said to my husband. His reaction was not completely favourable and based on past experience.; “So you are going to use that yeast that you’ve worried and fussed over for two days to create something that is going to cause you even more worry and stress?”

Actually I ended up with two lively little pot pets. I used the last of the yeast to make a ginger beer starter.

Yeast, sugar, ground ginger, a few raisins and water.

It will need feeding once a day with ground ginger and sugar for a week. It can then be used to make ginger beer.

So what about my other little pot pet? It is possible to make a ginger beer plant without using yeast. If the ingredients and the conditions are right wild yeast spores will settle onto your plant and start to ferment. I have tried this countless times and never had any success. I did quite a bit of research and found a recipe that uses fresh ginger* I tried it and it worked! The only thing I would say is I added a few raisins which might be cheating slightly.

Freshly grated ginger, lemon juice, sugar and a few raisins.

This one will need feeding with fresh ginger and sugar once a day and is ready to use after four days.

So today I boiled up more fresh ginger in 2 litres of water and also added 4 lemongrass stalks. I added sugar, lemon juice and another 2 litres of water. I then strained in the liquid from my ginger beer plant, stirred and covered. I will leave this for about two weeks then bottle.

I have put the little pot pet into hibernation in the fridge for a few weeks but when I am ready to create a new recipe I’ll take it out and start feeding it again.

The little pet I bought from the supermarket might only have lived for two days but for that brief time the kitchen was filled with the aroma of baking bread and the popping and fizzing sounds of fermenting yeast and I am left with the promise of a summer’s supply of homemade ginger beer.

* Check out Judy Gowan’s amazing website where I found the no-yeast ginger beer plant recipe.

GINGER BUG – THE EASY STARTER FOR HOMEMADE GINGER BEER & FIZZY DRINKS

Serious Sunday: Where do you go to my lovely?

As part of its Corona Virus coverage The Guardian newspaper has posted a series of short films on its website one of which is about an hotel in Shrewsbury that has opened its doors to some of the city’s homeless for the duration of Lockdown. It is, for the most part, an uplifting story. The guests talk about recovering their dignity, feeling safe and being in the rare position of being able to plan for the future. Both staff and guests describe the shared sense of family. The local residents and businesses have shown their support by donating food and clothes with the exception of a few whose behaviour and attitudes towards the hotel’s new guests are described by the manager as “discrimination”.

The first homeless person I ever knew was a schoolfriend. Not homeless in the sense that she was wandering the streets with her possessions in a backpack but homeless in the sense that she hadn’t the security of having one place she could call home.. She could not get on with her mum’s partner. He gave an ultimatum “It’s me or her!” and, well, it wasn’t my school friend. She moved in with her gran which was OK. Except at weekends Gran’s boyfriend would stay over and they wanted the house to themselves. So where did my friend go at weekends? To other friend’s houses where she slept on the sofa. One friend’s parents let her sleep in their shed if the weather would allow.

Twenty years forward in time and one of my students was living with her aunt having been removed from the care of her mum who refused to ditch her violent partner. My student regularly absconded from her aunt’s to be brought back by the police after a couple of night’s rough sleeping. Her aunt tired of this and said she could not cope with the responsibility of caring for her niece any longer. So where did my student go? To council-approved bed and breakfast accommodation. A temporary solution until more suitable accommodation for a 16 year old girl could be found but she was still there six months later.

About a year ago two guys were rough-sleeping in the multi-story car park I use for work. It was relentlessly cold and draughty but, I guess, safer and more private than a shop doorway or subway. One of them told me his girlfriend had thrown him out and until his benefits claim went through he had no choice but to sleep rough. I promised them a couple of sleeping bags but the next day they were gone; moved on following complaints from other car park users. Where did they go ? Maybe somewhere that wasn’t as safe as the car park.

Last night as we left the supermarket a young man with a dog stopped us. His first words to us; “Please don’t judge me on what you see now. I’m not really like this”. He told us he was trying to get together enough money for accommodation for the next two nights . For £15 a night he would get bed and breakfast at this one particular place he described and they accepted dogs. When we drove past him he was smoking a cig and chatting to one of the guys from the supermarket. They looked about the same age. Maybe they went to school together. Where did he go that lovely young man? Did he use the money he was given for his two-nights’ accomodation? If he did where will he go on Monday night?

One of the things that came out strongly in the story of the homeless at the hotel was a sense of optimism about the future. Two of the guys were planning to apply for jobs at the hotel and there was an overwhelming sense that, for the hotel staff and their guests, whatever happens, they will always look on each other as family.

There is much debate now about our lives post- lockdown, how things will never be quite the same and that we will have to adjust to “ a new normal”. The guests at the hotel are already living “a new normal” having put down shallow roots there and invested in their temporary home by carrying out odd jobs and helping with chores. Will their inevitable departure merely signal a return to their “old normal” and where will they go?

Check out the Shrewsbury hotel story here.

What I did today: Saturday Night Fake-Away

During lockdown Paul and I have set ourselves the challenge to reproduce a take-away meal each Saturday night.

We’ve had a passable Indian, a great Chinese and a suspect Mexican. (Couldn’t get re-fried beans so used mushy peas.)

This Saturday just gone, with the weather set fair, we decided we wanted something that we could cook on the barbecue and, after a few minor disagreements, settled on shish-ish kebabs.

In an earlier blog post I mentioned using a hot ginger sauce to spice up a vegan glow bowl. This truly amazing product is one of a range of sauces, chutneys and jams made by a local, family-run company, Hannah’s Country Kitchen.

I have had the sauce drizzled over stir fries, salads and avocado on toast but have been thinking about other ways it could be used so, last Saturday, I added it to a marinade for the kebabs.

If you are lucky enough to get your hands on a bottle of this wonderful stuff you should definitely give these a try.

Olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, cumin and hot ginger sauce.

And I didn’t stop there!

Sweet pineapple kebab brushed with hot ginger sauce ready for the barbecue

And the best news of all another order from HCKChutney arrived today giving us plenty of time to plan next Saturday night’s Fake-Away!

Check out HCKChutney’s Facebook page

Serious Sunday: Death in the time of Corona virus

Sunt lacrimae rerum

There are tears at the heart of things in these times when everything seems tinged with sorrow.

For me some of the saddest stories are those of lonely deaths. A little boy dying in hospital with mum and dad not able to be there to comfort him in his last hours. The elderly and vulnerable passing away in care homes distanced in every way from their families. A married couple, he with a terminal illness, making the decision that, should either contract Covid 19, they would not be separated but face death together.

It is also heartrending to think about families faced with not only having to organize a funeral but to have to make a choice about who can attend. As a society we no longer ritualize death in the ways that our predecessors did and in many respects a funeral is the only opportunity for family and friends to collectively mourn the passing of a loved one.

My mum died suddenly in September of last year. The days, weeks and months since have, for me, passed with the discomfort of having blurred inner vision. I find myself having to gaze intently, both inwardly and outwardly, at almost everything. Nothing about this new life without mum seems to be the right shape. The details of this new life don’t always make sense.

However, I never thought that I would look back on mum’s death and think how lucky we were; myself, my dad, my brother, my husband and my son but lucky we were.

We were lucky that, the week before she died, Mum was able to go on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham which was,
I think, her favourite place on earth.

We were lucky that she died so suddenly and peacefully with my brother at her side.

We were lucky that we had a last two precious hours to spend with mum after her passing.

We were lucky that we were able to hold a service of thanksgiving for her life at the church she had attended all her life.

We were lucky that so many of her friends and family were at the funeral and that her cousin was able to serve on the altar at her funeral mass.

For anyone who has lost a loved one during the time of Corona virus there are, indeed, tears at the heart of things.

My mum, Stella, on the left, with her cousin Vera in the gardens of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham September 2019

What I did today: The Trouble with Tribbles

A strange thing happened the other evening. We got back from a quick trip to the shops and there was a ball of black hair on the lawn.

My husband pointed towards it, said “Tribble!” and promptly forgot all about it.

I, however, brooded over and worried about this mysterious object all that evening and most of the following day.

I found myself going to the window to check if it was still there and, at one point, made an excuse not to take out the rubbish as I didn’t want to have to go past the ball of hair that was now bouncing lightly around the lawn in the evening breeze.

Where had it come from? When I was a child someone had an ancient armchair from which the stuffing was gradually escaping. The stuffing looked like hair and I used to think that a woman with long black hair had been stuffed into the chair.

Maybe the ball of hair on the lawn was stuffing out of an old chair. Who had carefully rolled it into a ball though and why had they placed it on our lawn?

By the next morning the ball of hair had disappeared. Did someone come and retrieve it during the night?

I wondered and worried about the significance of the sudden appearance and then disappearance of a ball of hair on the lawn most of yesterday and, as a result, forgot it was Earth Day* which I was going to blog about.

I finally mentioned what had become unmentionable in our house and my husband said “It was fur from next door’s poodle. I saw them brushing it in the back garden.”

* I felt bad that I was distracted by a ball of black hair and forgot Earth Day so I planted a witch hazel.

What I did today: Party Plan

In the middle of a conversation with my brother yesterday he asked me if you could still buy Arctic Roll. I don’t know the answer to that question but I hope it’s “yes”.

It did get me thinking about a 70s themed buffet party. Who knows when it will happen but for me the best thing about a party is the plan.

I’m not really into fancy dress but you would have to have a heart of stone to turn away anyone who turned up in baggy flares and a star jumper.

So thinking about food and drink I guess people were made of tougher stuff in the 70s and could cope with chowing down half -cooked sausages in pigs in blankets, double-dipping into bowls of crisps and cheesy Wotsits and knocking back weapons-grade punch.

I’m thinking anything and everything on sticks, vol au vents, celery bites filled with cream cheese, devilled eggs, Ritz crackers topped with piped cream cheese and, providing some method of self- control re: double-dipping can be exercised, bowls of crisps and snacks.

To finish? Cheese, celery, grapes and more Ritz crackers, Black Forest Gateau and hopefully Arctic Roll and a couple of Bird’s Trifles.

A vintage soda-stream will provide the cream soda and cherryade but guests will also be able to enjoy snowballs and sample a range of cocktails with Blue Curaçao, Grenadine or Galliano as their base.

If ever there was a reason to look forward to the end of lockdown surely this is it!

Serious Sunday: We Real Cool.

I teach in F.E. More specifically I work with 16 to 18 year olds with social, emotional and behavioural issues.
I have done this for 20 years and, honestly, my learners are some of my favourite people in all the world!

I have been thinking about them a lot whilst in Lockdown and worry how the current situation will impact on their already limited opportunities.

I think about M, a “child prostitute” who, at fifteen, was trafficked to the UK 6 months pregnant with a baby whose father could have been any of the men who abused her.

I think about D who, with cripplingly low self-esteem, when I asked him to write his name on his class file wrote “The fat one”.

I think about J, desperate to escape a toxic relationship but whose mother secretly gives J’s new numbers to her ex. Why? Boredom I think. The inability to cope unless life is lived in chaos.

For M education was her chance to escape her horrific past and make a good life for herself and her son. By the age of 18 She was in a relationship with a much older man and pregnant with her second child. Why was no one looking out for her? Well, who was there?

For D education has been a disaster. Rather than address the relentless bullying he endured; his school suggested “home schooling.” So no GCSEs, no lessons in developing resilience and transferable skills but plenty in delivering pre emptive strikes in anticipation of the next blow.

For J education has offered up opportunities which some would say she has squandered. In reality if something isn’t recognised as an opportunity then it isn’t an opportunity.

J is one of many young people I have taught who have developed a brittle veneer of protection against the idea that other people might view them as failing themselves. This veneer is a marvellous construct of defensive deception. So for their own peer group:

“ He got kicked out of school for head butting a teacher. Cool!”

“Ha Ha she didn’t turn up for her work placement so they’ve sacked her off. Cool!”

“ He smokes weed every day. Cool!”

“She’s got kicked out of her house so the council are going to find her a flat. Cool!”

“He’s in court next week. He reckons he’ll get sent down but he’ll be OK he’s got loads of mates inside. Cool”!

I’m reminded of a project I was reading about, “The Favorite Poem Project”, led by Boston University, where people of all ages and backgrounds made and uploaded films about their chosen poem.

One of these was a young man called John Ulrich and his choice was one of my own favourites.

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

It makes me think of and makes me scared for some of my favourite people in all the world.

Check out John Ulrich’s contribution to the Favorite Poem Project.

What I did today: Fairy Lights

I made a fairy jar lantern and it made me think about the vessels we use to hold and nurture light so that it always looks its best. I love lamps and lanterns and I always think of the phrase “naked light” and how we “dress” light to make it even more beautiful.

I’m a bit over candles at the minute. Maybe because summer is on its way but also because they can end up looking a bit messy. I have two green glass lanterns that used to contain candles but I wanted to do something different with them. I experimented with a few different ideas but, in the end, made them into fairy light lanterns.

Nothing though can compare with the ornate beauty of a Victorian oil lamp. Shapely as a corseted female form.

What I did today: Green Magic

we often take a short break in Haworth in North Yorkshire. It has some amazing shops and I always find something interesting to buy.
Last year there was a wood carving shop (sadly no longer there).

I bought a carving of a Green Man and he now has his place watching over the stream that runs through our garden. I let nettles run a bit wild there and plan to make some nettle beer with them later in the summer. There is also lemon balm that has escaped its pot.

On our last trip to Haworth I bought a book on Green Magic. It has some interesting recipes for flower and berry cordials and I will definitely be experimenting with those.

So today I spent some time in the garden marvelling that, while we humans are currently at a standstill, the garden is growing and thriving with busy insects and a visiting hedgehog. I also think I’ve located the perfect spot for a beehive.

“The Golden Girls” is 35 years old! It is rapidly acquiring cult status thanks to Instagram accounts such as Golden Girls Daily. Sophia’s comfy cardies have never seemed more appropriate!

What I did today: Glow Bowl

I made a veggie glow bowl. I got the recipe from a great foodie blog, apinchofyum.com. I added feta cheese but you could leave this out if you want to make it vegan. There is an interesting looking recipe for no – knead bread on there. As soon as I can get hold of some yeast I will give it a try.

What made it extra special was a drizzle of Hot Ginger Sauce. I bought this amazing stuff from a colleague of mine. She makes and sells a range of chutneys, sauces and jams and they are seriously out of this world!!!

I planted three gooseberry bushes in my garden this winter. I am already looking for interesting recipes for what I’m hoping will be a bumper crop. Gooseberry and Elderflower cordial might be good but I have got an idea for a gooseberry flavoured gin. Watch this space!!