Countryside Caper: Raise Shed; episode 2

Fortified by a night of Sharukh Khan (the man's growing on me... like a fungus!) wine, courgette and pnpc, Vinod and I make tracks for the summer house where plan B awaits; ignore next instructions in diagram book, and attack the door. We've got all the parts accounted for, but the sheet that pretends to be the door is missing some critical holes. Daal mein definitely khuch kaala hain! The vapid instruction book fails to show any illuminating pictures of a powerdrill at this stage, but much manhandling later, we come to the inescapable conclusion that several holes are going to have to be drilled before the horizontal patra turns from coyly swaying hula skirt to defendable door. Damn!

Back to Plan A 6.545. The sun mocks down on us, a day too late, as we hammer and screw into place the rest of the walls (!). Right. It's time for the damned roof. Logic gives way to lateral thinking, and we poke, prod, shove, bend, manipulate and swear..... all in vain. The Aussies have fucked up. It's either getting the middle right, or the ends. We interupt the session for some more ice-cream and the drafting of a strongly worded letter of complaint to Treco for their appalling kit. Plan A 16.794 and we're laying the last of the patra overhead, and I wave forlornly as both Vinod and the sun disappear from view, and I'm left to screw on the last of the bolts. But wait! Down under strikes again, and now we have a sunroof!! One overlap too many with no place to screw it down. How difficult can it be for a manufacturer of sheds to punch holes in the right places and cut tin to the right sizes???? Manufactured in Germany in strict conformity to Australian standards... GAH! This is what happens when you give a bunch of prisoners the right to vote.

Right. We have a lean to. With a sunroof and minus a door, and holes that have to be blocked.... but hey! It's a lean to! Imported city girl cheap menial labour has done as much as she can do, and is rewarded by a tour of the Doctor's SERIOUS power tools (petrol/diesel run).... and a promise to let her wield them à la Jason (or was it Freddie??) on the hedges in the not so distant future. God, this man is just so hot! Hefting the chainsaw makes me forget the crick in my neck, the stabbing protest of the muscles in my lower back and the pained begging of mercy of my knees, and I'm all smiles over the farewell cup of tea and chocolate biscuits. Jan pithily points out the the summer house has an extension, while the main house is still languishing, waiting for 2010 to roll around... such is life.

Hot of the press! Welton, Melton & Wauldby News

My knowing big city smirk at the sight of the Welton Hairstylists on the August 2009 issue transmogrifies into hand wringing hysteria. This quaint little part of Yorkshire with it's one pub and no post office is a hive of criminal activity!! My perusal of the glowing success of the Gardens Open Day and a rather strange essay entitled 'I was a police officer' is marred by the shocking news that 6 crimes were reported in the period May-June in our area. 2 burglaries from commercial premises, criminal damage (of a minor variety) to 2 commercial premises, a theft from a motor vehicle and 1 incident of being in possession of a controlled drug (Class B amphetamine), and leaves me deeply disturbed. Vinod insists that it's all happening over in Melton at the industrial estate, which would explain the emphasis on the commercial premises, but leaves me even more dubious about the seedy nature of crime in Welton!

The horoscope does little to give me confidence and I entertain grave suspicion about the Welton & Melton Ladies' Wednesday Club (2008-2009 programme was ended with all the members meeting for a strawberries and cream evening...HAH!) and am convinced that oregano (dried) in the Greek Lamb and Potatoes recipe is subliminally in inverted commas. How else could one possibly explain the other essay entitled 'Memories of Hull''???? Just as I am about to despair, my eyes alight upon the highlights from the 1926 minutes of the Welton Women's Institute, and I cannot but quote from it, "An objection was raised about the charge by Mrs Shearer of 1/- per evening for hot water. Mrs Oliver kindly offered to boil the water for tea at the monthly meetings."

My faith in village life restored, I let the Miss Marple in me take over, and take great pleasure in the note from Elaine (yours in Christ) of the St. Helen's church, "Finally another thank you - this time to Elaine Y and bob from the club - for wading in (literally!) to save the day when some one left a selection of unusual items on the island in the pond recently. As a wedding was about to start their quick response meant the items were cleared just in time for the couple to leave the church". Christie was so knowing in her depiction of the utter depravity of village England! A selection of unusual items... Indeed!

I wonder if I can persuade the boys to let me stay in the chalet during summer. Welton society begs a closer look........

A few good men

Mimi's catatonic with rage as the indefatigable one blithely dismisses homosexuality with a waved away, 'It's unnatural..'. 'No it's not!! What if one of us was gay??' she yells. Unperturbed, the woman that spawned us both retorts with equanimity, 'Then you'd be unnatural and I'd disown you'. The little git is rendered to goldfish out of water mode, ineffectually gasping for breath at this outrage. I try and contain my sniggers in a valiant effort not to further inflame the conflagration, as the war continues, all of Mim's righteous outbursts impotent against the muttered undertone of 'it's unnatural'.

The Hungarian and I have lightly moaned about the loss to womankind in Vinod, but given we've both had good men of our own, it seemed less of a tragedy. However, as a single, footloose and fancy free girl about town, I do feel rather resentful about the whole question of sexual orientation!!! It's is thoroughly unfair to have a perfectly wonderful man lost to the inane argument of 'Why are all the good men either married, gay or taken?' Penny philosophy off a tin badge, but the bloody man grows his own mega huge courgettes; bakes bread; wields power tools with the ease of a lumberjack; jhatkos with the best of Bollywood; is a GP; has a beautiful body; is prepring to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro; laughs like a loon and adores Jan!!! The only reason I'm not in the queue of women ready to kill for this, is because I love 'em both....., but Ma's right. This is wrong!!!

Marrow Mayhem

This weekend offered a glimpse into what must have surely been the reason for Mr. Poirot settling down to grow prize vegetable marrows in England. I gape with unrestrained awe as Farmer Menon enters the kitchen, laden with the most humongous courgettes I have ever laid eyes on. Granted, I do not lay my eyes on many courgettes as a matter of course, but I have come across a few in my life. These ones however, would not have been out of place in an akkhada, negligently being swung in ever menacing circles by the resident pehlwan. Apparently, courgettes can grow endlessly, morphing into other sorts of marrows....!!!

He had me at lunch. Scrumptious courgette soup accompanied by generous slices of toasted courgette bread....but the gauntlet was down. 'Make something with the courgette for dinner' and we stomped off to build the shed..... tea break, and we were treated to the sight of a diligent Jan chopping, assembling, reviewing recipes, protectively hovering over his pots and pans.... hmmm, this should be interesting....

A hot shower and I emerge smelling of fruit. I always smell of fruit in that house. My stomach nudges me down the stairs, and my senses are assailed by the exotic scent of spices. My flabber is absolutely gasted as the Chef elucidates;

* Courgette Daal
* Courgette Bharta with green chillies
* Courgette Curry
* Courgette Fry with Bengal gram

The gauntlet flung back with a careless flourish as Vinod and I goggle at Jan's mastery over the courgettes. The ruthless German efficiency decimating the once plump vegetables into objets d'art for our amusement. The fried courgette (which didn't turn out as it was meant to allegedly) with it's flavours of Bengal, waking the sleeping tiger in me (what can I say.... food bestows poetic license!!) is my favourite, followed by the zingy kick in the curry. I insist on full disclosure, and am rewarded for being such a cheap and easy house guest with 3 sheets of recipes and a hand picked, hand washed, organically home grown courgette to play with. Yes, you may think what you will..... I am going to have fun!!

Usually, I only ever put up recipes for stuff that I've actually tried, but how wrong can I get this one?? (and I have tried it!!)

Creamy Courgette and Dolcelatte soup (as shared by Dr. Menon)

Ingredients: 30 ml Olive oil * 15 gm butter * 1 medium onion, roughly chopped * 900 gm courgettes, trimmed and sliced (what's the deal with the 900 gm??? why not take the plunge and do a kilo??) * 600 ml vegetable stock * 115 gm dolcelatte cheese, diced * 300 ml single cream * 1 tsp dried oregano * salt and black pepper to taste

Method: Heat oil and butter in a large pan until foaming. Add chopped onion and gently cook till onion is soft but not brown, about 5 min. Add courgettes, oregano, salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat for 10 min. stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Keep stirring! Lower the heat, half cover the pan and simmer for about 30 min, stirring occasionally. Add the dolcelatte, and stir till it melts in. Process the soup in a blender till smooth, and if you're super fussy, press through a sieve into a clean pan, otherwise, like me, ignore this bit and move on. Add 2/3rds of the cream and stir over a low heat till heated through, but not boiling. If it's too thick, add some more stock. Pour into bowls, swirl in the rest of the cream and garnish with fresh oregano and more crumbled dolcelatte if you have the patience ;-)

Dr. Paschkowski's handiwork to follow.....

Countryside Caper: Raise Shed; episode I

The illustrations are crap. The parts unlabelled. My consternation at the demand for 'above average DIY skills' on the packaging, somewhat appeased by the sight of the Vinod's toolkits. Each one more impressive than his work kit! Lovingly lined with lush foam, nestling spanners, bolt tighteners in 17 sizes, screwdrivers, wrenches, nails, pliers, sandpaper, scissors, nail gun, wireless power screwdriver (power tools without mains are apparently worthless..), whatsits, thingymabobs, whatchamacallits..... a veritable rogues gallery of bank job essentials. Oh yeah, the Doctor is IN the house!!

A few hours later, we have half the inventory checked off, rain on the horizon, an unsatisfying base to the shed, a loaf of bread and an empty stomach. This is going to be more of a challenge than anticipated. We decide to move our endeavours from the garage to the chalet (what was meant to be the shed, but instead is a summer house, a sexy log cabin, with parquet flooring, double glazed continential windows and japanese blinds made of handmade paper and bamboo...!!!) and discuss installing a hammock there and renting it out for £100/week to jaded Londoners.

The label touting 'made to conform to Australian standards' brings to mind your kinara carpenters rush job, and we heap abuse on their shoddily inferior quality as sharp edges pierce skins, and refuse to align, slide, overlay, slot into place as they should! Still, we are determined to at least get the bleeding frame up, and improvise along the way. It's flimsy and unimpressive, and I'm appalled. I wouldn't leave my cat in there... Vinod assures me, it'll be sturdy once it's done and screwed down. I humour him, and we screw our way through a change in instruction and what seems to be missing and wrong bits, ruthlessly turning in the X18's and X20's. Something isn't right.... the mid-support for the sides are upside down. Given how much we bitched about the sharp edges, and the fucking useless Aussies, it's illuminating that it didn't occur to us sooner..... I'm beginning to think we should call the Poles or at least drag Jan out to suffer alongside.

Back to the drawing board and the Builders tea break (weak, white and sweet.....ugh!) is forgone for a bowl of Green & Blacks chocolate ice cream (really, do I look like I do menial labour???). The rain starts hammering down, but we continue to viciously unscrew and rescrew the support struts and then latch on to the sides, refusing to surrender to the inclement weather. Et Voilà! We have a, non-wobbling in the rain, structure. Unimpressive to the naked eye, but given the Aussie's ineptitue in manufacturing a quality shed, we're highly impressed with our handiwork, and the jaunt back to the house is a victorious, if rapid one. Time for our builders bottoms to get stuck under a HOT shower.

Countryside Caper: Bake Bread

My body quivers with excitement as Vinod assembles the dry stuff for the bread. Flour (the bread kind, not the other kind…??), yeast and whatnot and chucks it into the bread maker. A bucket of shredded courgette follows, with generous dollops of pumpkin seed and linseed, a splash of oil and we’re ready to roll. I’m glued to the whumpa whumpa of the bread machine and am even allowed to watch it with the lid raised. My open mouthed wonder at watching the mass starting to pull together to resemble a human brain elicits a rather rude ‘good house guest, cheap and easy entertainment for the weekend’ from Jan, but I don’t care. It’s fascinating watching it come together as the machine kneads it, accompanied by Vinod’s educative lecture on the release of CO2 that makes the dough rise. The chemistry of it is as fascinating as watching the mixture spin around. My naive question about the consistency makes the chef frown into the machine, swear and fetch some more flour. I do like his panache.

The little bits that are still stuck to the side bother me, and I ask if I can poke at it…. Jan sniggers in the background, as Vinod gives me the go ahead. It’s all in the wrist action (which brings to mind some other less than appropriate application, but that’s another story) and soon, the sides of the machine are smooth, the brain morphing into a ball, frantically knocking around like a child in a padded cell. I assess the dimensions of the bread maker and debate the pros and cons, of carrying it back to India, with the Master. Given that one can buy bread of the freshly baked variety in Bombay, I’m cautiously optimistic that sourcing ‘bread’ flour is achievable, but the fundamental downside is inescapable. I will start to resemble a pachyderm if I begin to bake my own bread. The wispy fingers of the aroma of fresh bread crooking at you, wrapping itself around you, pulling you towards the fridge for that butter… ….. I need a plan B.

Apparently, the dough won’t rise any faster if I hover around watching it….. I bow to Vinod's vastly superior knowledge on the subject and allow myself to be led away from the kitchen, to the real reason for my boarding the 6 am train to the sticks. The inventory check of the Treco lean-to is frustrating, and we spent our time fruitfully cursing the damn Australians for their inability to do anything remotely Swedish with their component parts or instructions. Before you know it, it’s time to check on the dough. As promised, it’s doubled in size, and Vinod plonks it down on the baking tray moulding it into a round loaf. Another rising, somewhere warm, which in this country would mean the oven. He cunningly sprays on some cooking spray to keep it moist (tip: moist tea towels stick to the dough and only work for Suzie Homemaker) and we’re good to go. Just before we’re done, he flips it over and sprays the bottom much to my horror….. now we will have a loaf of bread that’s crusty all over. Is there no end to his craftiness??? I’m reluctantly led away in the direction of the garage where unintelligible diagrams of a lean to await me, so the bread can cool unhindered for the next few hours…..

Eureka!! Plan B!!! I know. I’ll get one for Farsheed and watch it destroy his life as I pop by for breakfast every now and again..... Bwaaahahaahaaaa!!!!

Countryside Caper

Jan graciously ignores my abnormal chirpiness as we get down to breakfast. Vinod, healthy to the last, compiles a bowl of cereal while Jan and I attack the butter, nutella, cheese and ham with vigorous abandon. The plan is to raise a shed in the garden for Vinod's lawnmower, and he's gone the outsourcing route, cheap Indian labour from London. For those experiencing symptoms of scepticism, my CV is littered with DIY assistant type roles (perhaps, littered is too strong a word, and perhaps most of it was pre-1985).....

I'm fascinated by Farmer Menon's green thumb (no prizes here!!), and my ooohs and aaahs over his home made courgette bread (yes, courgette. Relative of marrow. Long, green vegetable with seeds) and he decides to indulge me. Before we raise the shed, we're gonna bake bread!! Yay!!!