Something is Rotten in the Month of July

I want to return the second half of July for a refund. Where do I apply? At least to roll it back a few weeks.

For instance, to when bellinghman and bellinghwoman and dduane and myself were all sitting in Freiburg at the wine festival, sipping South German (Kaiserstuhl) red, something unlikely to be seen or tasted outside the region because output is so small it's hardly ever exported: so the local producers drink almost the entire production of their local wine - and enjoy it immensely!

Because since coming back from there...

A - my best friend's father died. I hope it wasn’t as unexpected as it seems, otherwise C was on holiday in France with his family, facing a drive home that I don't even want to imagine.

B - I got hit by one of those damned cleg-flies on Thursday, and because of my allergic reaction the heel of my right hand (and of course I'm right-handed) is still as of this moment (Sunday afternoon) itching and aching like buggery, beside being swollen to about the size of the yolk of a hard-fried egg.

C - Our friend David Gemmell died on Friday morning, and we only found out about it by accident on Friday night – so late in fact that Diane had already gone to bed and got the jolly news when she woke up. This information, from his Wikipedia entry, just makes me angry:

A heavy smoker ... in his words "I tried to quit smoking and found that the years of polluting my brain with nicotine meant that I couldn't string a reasonable sentence together without filling my lungs with smoke. I went three months without a drag, took a good look at the crap I was writing and lit up."
He died due to graft blockage secondary to advanced coronary artery disease, 2 weeks after a coronary artery bypass operation. According to friends, he had continued to smoke after the surgery. (my emphasis)

I knew he smoked like a bloody chimney, but the last time we spoke he said that he'd given up again and this time was able to stick with it, but apparently not. Poor Dave: one more to chalk up against the drug-pushers of the cigarette industry. Sooner or later they will get what's coming to them.

D - And finally, I biked down to the village last night to pick up some buttermilk so that D could take a stab at my Mum’s “Health Loaf”. It’s really really healthy, full of fibre, roughage etc. and makes great toast – just don’t drop it on your foot – and she’s made enough of them for various charity sales, church fêtes etc. over the past thirty years that if gathered together, they’d look like Hadrian’s Wall.

All well and good, except that on the way back, a car made a wobble across from its side of the road and came close enough that my only option was the ditch – which of course had the demesne wall alongside it. I have no skin on my left knuckles, left cheekbone and right knee, the bike’s headlamp is in fragments somewhere between here and Grangecon, and I don’t even have the satisfaction of a registration number: try reading a car’s front plate between high-beam headlamps, and see how well you do.

When I called Diane to tell her what had happened, and as I pushed the front-blind bike home, I was convinced that wobble had been for fun to see what the bikie would do. I’m feeling a bit (just a bit) more generous today and thinking it was the result of a driver unfamiliar with that road coming unexpectedly on the 90-degree left hand turn at the bottom of it. Of course he was going too fast, everybody I’ve seen going up and down that hill goes too fast, and the corner has already killed one person whose car went straight through the curve and into the demesne gatepost. (As did he, via his windscreen. No seatbelt, naturally.)

The buttermilk, however, got home intact, and I've just turned out two loaves – the first bread I've ever baked in my life. They look good, they smell good, and they've risen properly so they'll probably taste good.

Recipe to follow - just remember the warning: loaf, foot, drop, don’t.

Able Baker calling

Here's the recipe for...

My Mum's Health Loaf

Ingredients:

8 oz / 225 g plain flour
10 oz / 285 g coarse wheaten meal
1 heaped tsp / 5ml sp baking-soda
1 level tsp / 5 ml sp salt
2 oz / 55 g castor sugar
2 oz / 55 g hard margarine (or butter)
2 oz / 55 g "Kellogg’s All-Bran"
2 oz / 55 g "Grant’s Porage Oats" (or other dry porridge cereal)
2 oz / 55 g pinhead oatmeal ("coarse steel-cut oats")
1 pint / 550 ml buttermilk
sweet milk to moisten

Method:

1) Pre-heat oven to 200˚C / 390˚F. If using a fan oven requiring a slight reduction in temperature, do so.

2) Sieve flour, meal, baking-soda, salt and sugar together.

3) Cut margarine (or butter) in small pieces and rub into dry ingredients until they become like coarse breadcrumbs.

4) Add remaining dry ingredients and mix well.

5) Gradually add buttermilk and mix well with spoon or spatula; when buttermilk is absorbed add a little sweet milk. Dough should be moist, sticky and "slack" (like thick, but not solid, honey.)

6) Divide dough between 2 loaf tins (recipe should fill 2 x 1-lb / 500g tins) and bake for about 30 mins; after first 10 mins, reduce temperature by 20˚C / 70˚F for remaining time. When done, a skewer will pierce and withdraw clean. Top of loaf should be browned and "toasty"; if necessary increase heat and bake for a further 5 mins.

7) Turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool. Excellent with butter and jam or honey as a tea bread; also makes great toast.

(There are some variants on this which we're going to try: a couple are logical, as in the addition of dried fruit or chopped nuts; others are slightly strange, like leaving out the sugar but adding chopped fried onions, garlic and smoked bacon.

Using chillis is probably heretical, but we've successfully made jalapeño soda farls before now, which caused my mum to Raise Her Eyebrows - and this from a woman who takes a slice of Health Loaf, puts extra-mature cheddar cheese on it then tops the whole thing off with a spoonful of marmalade!)