UKCruiseJeff

🙂 Don’t be fickle, make some ficelle.

I do like it when you talk dirty! 🙂 When my wife catches me watching bread stuff on Youtube (yes I know it’s sad) she says “Have I caught you watching that smut again!” I have a 11 day light malted ficelle for tomorrow. I like rehydrating dried fried onion and adding it. We have a very old established Salmon smoker in the UK called Formans. We buy their London Cure and I have a pack. https://www.formans.co.uk/our-story/london-cure/ I have to make a few batches of dough tomorrow as I’ve been a bit lazy. When I add a touch of malt with a white and rye mix (80/20) and add a fair dose of steam in the bake it tastes fairly close to a traditional bagel without all of the palaver. Jeff ps. They were nigella seeds!

I so hope my post didn’t put you off balance in any way. It was my general observation. For what it is worth, I think (I know) you are on the right track and suggest you push on and enjoy things. Your main obligation is to enjoy yourself. Just drink a bit more and worry an awful lot less. It’d be great if you posted back about your experience.

I’m bewildered by the obsession by how angry people get about what others are wearing. There is enough to compromise holiday enjoyment without fretting about what other people are wearing. And trajectory is with me. Everything that everybody has said is currently correct for themselves but isn’t sensibly sustainable. The reason why all this debate is heading for an obvious implosion is simply this. Halfway through the last century when I was a toddler, mumsy imposed on me everyday what I must wear. As I progressed in life, I took over those choices and in the end I was sufficiently confident, irritating and empowered to decide on any given day what I would wear. Except for school uniform when I submitted and gave up for a few years until I was thankfully expelled. After this I decided where and what I might wear and spend my money on and what I might eat. So when eating out and when not going on an over-priced ship with extremely disappointing food I sort of left it at the point that others would wear what they want and I would never be too perturbed by what they were wearing but simply enjoyed that what cemented us all together in common food suffering and what we commonly enjoyed at the moment was the meal we were all eating. I would never “tut” or judge others unless they smelt of something. I liked that we were all happy in our own way and laughing and being happy and getting to know each other. And at the same time I ensured as best I could that I wouldn’t smell of anything ie perfume or anything bodily. So why on earth going forward should sensible people claim that the enjoyment of their meal on a ship has been compromised by someone else who isn’t wearing a tie on a table somewhere away from them. If I like them dressed up as a Christmas tree then why should they object to me being unsmelly and casually lovely as I always am. Everyone can rationalise why I am wrong but what they might better need to confront is that it might better to shrug and accept the trajectory of life. If the response to this opinion is anger .. well so be it. But if I’m an ill-informed idiot and you wish to educate me then be kind and explain. Jeff

Fletch, I so loved your post. To expect inevitable daily disappointings but to be completely blindsided by the unexpected positive surprise is like banging your head against the wall and then enjoying the experience of stopping. To truly experience the full “Austrians” your Gruner Veltliner must be in a mug. A big mug. And it must be bottomless. A bit like ‘er indoors. Your description of your meal today is the first time for a long while I have read of an SS meal and wished I’d tied the napkin around my neck and been at the table. Knife and fork akimbo. Did you by any chance left a morsel for us two? Jeff

Good Afternoon Coolers, particularly those in the “Sleepy Do” sub-committee! 🙂 It is a sad example of how low my life has sunk that I have been looking forward to this small box of 10 day “sleepy dough” in the fridge that I made into today’s light lunch ficelle . To explain ficelle is simply a much thinner baguette and is our favourite bread. it’s less crumb and more crunchy crust. It is a glorious bread and seems to be overlooked by many who would love it. So today was a bottle of house white with previously mentioned ficelle and live TV of two KC’s on the Post Office enquiry live feed taking bits out of each other. I’ve enclosed a picture of the dough to hopefully show how it’s time rather than kneading that gives sublime open texture. It ended up as a Milanese salami ficelle with tomato and mayo. The confusing thing to me and has always been how simple peasant eatings often offer so much more pleasure than so called “sophisticated” eatings. Jeff

WWfT, Great looking loaves. I bet they’re fragrant. Are they soft and sweet? S, If you prefer sourdough can keep for between 3 days and a week or so - helped if you add a little olive oil do it doesn’t dry too quickly. Hope you post some piccies. Jeff

Lola, I now "turn-in" at roughly 4am. I cannot make sense of it but it improves slightly with some Absolut Vanilia. Sleep is a really weird thing. You have a greatest day. Jeff

Thanks WWfT - that is a great precis of pragmatism and I enjoyed it. Forgive me being a clutz with multi-quote but more and more technical stuff seems to defeat me. But you'll get my reply I'm sure to both of your bits I'm sure. I so wish I had chickens. My life would be a touch more complete. We get fresh eggs every few days or week or so and my wife's first decision is to dump whatever I had planned for supper but to have a lightly boiled egg and have some bread. I do not begrudge that. They are fresh Burford Browns. And she must what she wishes. 🙂 My own overall personal direction is to continue to simplify. If there is anything remotely like the words " ...... with a twist ...." then I develop a twitch and go back to simplicity. This is true of stuff like the orange cake and my bread. What I want is the taste of orange and almonds - so that is what I distil down to a cake. As you might detect I need not too much of an excuse to add the effluence of incohol to anything, but I'm trying to relearn. So I eat the cake and drink the incohol. I'm so pleased to read of your dough journey. I think that bread is sort of visceral and prime-evil. If you think about it, there has never been a moment in our worldly development that all of us need to find common ground. And if I had to pick one thin it is "our daily bread". Rice cements less people. So does potato. But "give us our daily bread" is the largest common denominator. If I was calling a peace summit for those in conflict I'd invite them for breakfast and give them some bread and talk about bread for a while. 99.999% of the world that make and eat bread have got on for thousands of years and probably none of them have ever looked at a bread recipe book. Because it is actually simple. the other 00.0001% (I think!) consult clever peoples recipes and mess it up. Hence my backward journey to first principles. Anyway. I'm always going backwards and it is what keeps me going forward. WWfT, do you actually make Tiramisu? How about some pictures of that and what else you make? Jeff

Phew …. ! All I’ll say is “Mayport Shrimp” Jeff

Good Grief ….. I must have inadvertently switch on Cooler invisible mode! 😬 Jeff

There cannot be anything worse than losing one’s identity and nothing sweeter than getting it back again. Jazz is sweet. 🙂 Jefff

Chundered chowder.

Where do they get their entertainers from? Maplin!

Lirio, Such a shame to hear about the cancellation. Reading what happened it sounds like you have had a narrow escape to what sounds like almost certain disappointment Those platters are impressive particularly with the cheese knife set and is that walnut loaf … with a touch of honey perhaps? Tonight’s supper was Mortadella and salad with mayo in focaccia panini and a mug of house white.