Solnushka (Foundation)

At the risk of using these journals as a sort of clippings folder for recipes, I've had a first go at making kulich today, the Russian panacotta-esque bread they make for Easter. It being Orthodox Easter tomorrow, of course. Yes, that is a month after British Easter. Luckily Russians don't go in much for chocolate eggs.

Anyway, I am making the kulich so that the menfolk could go and get them blessed when they go and do alterboy duty this afternoon, this being another Russian tradition. The blessing of the kulich, I mean, not the alterboy bit. Never volunteer is what I say (ha!).

Unfortunately all the recipes I found use dried yeast, rather than fast action yeast, which is all I have time for (note to self, next year, start yesterday). So I am busking a bit.

This rarely works.

750g plain flour
250g butter

Rub the butter intothe flour.

Add I forget how much sugar and the fast action yeast and a pinch of salt.

Separate 5 eggs. Beat the whites until they form stiff peaks. Add to the yolks the rum (I used brandy) which you soaked the raisins I forgot to mention earlier in. Supposedly 100g raisins with 50ml rum, except I think I had more rum (brandy) which is probably a mistake. See below. Add a taspoon of vanilla essence. Add the yols mixture and the whites to the flour and fold in.

That was probably the mistake as you are also supposed to add 350ml of warm milk, but I only got to about half that before the mixture was way to wet and I had to add quite a lot more flour to make the dough firm enough to knead. It's also possible the recipe doesn't need quite that much milk. Or fewer eggs. Or less rum (brandy). But probably next time add more of the milk first.

Knead for ten mins, in the usual manner, let rise for 2 hours in a warm place.

What do people do for warm places without airing cupboards? I had to turn the oven on a bit since the sun wasn;t shining. That can;t be right.

Knock back, add the raisins, add to the custom made kulich pans I don't have, leave to rise again, oven 160-170 degrees celcius for 30-35 mins.

Or at least that's what I will do when the oven warms up.

Kristos voscress, people (now you say 'vieistinu voscress').

... everyone.

Today I had my Last Lesson of the term. I am not much of a one for going down the pub with the students, so I invited themk to bring in some food, took along some classic items of British cuisine, and prepared an British Christmas Music Extravaganza.

I am a bit Christmas musiced out now.

But what do you think I played them?

The criteria is this: I wanted to give them an overview of what a British person would recognize as typical Christmas music, both traditional carols and the pop and rock songs. I also wanted to amuse and entertain them. But I also wanted to reflect my own taste a bit too. But at the same time I also had to consider that the students are intermediate level - neither very strong nor very weak.

So? Any guesses?

I am knocking this on the head. I could keep posting one liners until the 30th, but that's not really the point.

I was hoping the Comet would be back after a few days but she seems to have gone on strike a bit. I think she needs a new deadline. I like playing chicken with deadlines, and I usually win. Until I don't.

Anyway, the good thing about NaJoPoMo and the like is that it gets me writing, and it gets me thinking of things to write. The bad thing is that I don't have time to write the good ideas up properly, so I either do a bit of a rush job or start posting funny anecdotes. Which is cool, but a bit monotonous after a while.

So, how to combine the enforced writing of November with a bit more time for reflection?

I shall commit the Comet to a column in the Post I think. I'm sure Dmitri will be thrilled. In some ways I'd like it to be a proper uni project for the Guide, but the posts would have to be more informative and a tad less anecdotal for that I think, and I don;t think I have the energy to cover the whole of London properly like that. I may try to write one or two things for the Guide along those lines though. A toddler's Guide to museum going, something like that.

Other Guide entries I need to write (it helps to publicly declare this):

Urban fantasy as a genre of writing.

Mummy blogging.

How to celebrate with food Russian style.

How to make borscht and schee.

VDNKh - my favourite place in Moscow

How to collect Soviet medals (with B)

Should I aim for one a month? That's six months writing there already. One a month isn't too extreme.

I also had an idea for a novel - mainly for the whole NaNoWriMo thing I have promised myself to do sometime. I don't write fiction much so that would satisfy the other decision I made this month, which is that I could do with trying to write better rather than just trying to write something, anything at all. Trying new ways of writing would work towards that. Also, it would give me a reading project too, because I even worked out what research I need to do.

Upon mature reflection…

…what with all that and another writing project I want to commit to on t’blog, that’s too much. Time to reach for the SMART targets, as my work would say. No idea what that stands for, but the point is that it’s no good students saying they will read a newspaper everyday if that’s too much for them, timewise, concentrationwise, dauntwise abilitywise, or whatever.

So what can I actually manage? Well, if, in 2013 I get all those Guide entries written, that’s one every two months, that will about double my output for the last ten years, so there, that’s a target I should be proud to aim for. I think I’ll add one more – something deadly serious, for the stretching myself quota.

Dmitri will be thrilled to hear that I am going to write a *bi*-weekly column, and I’ll do the blog thing in the down week. That’s better.

Still not sure where the fiction will come in, but that’s a long shot anyway.

So Daughter has just woken up with a raging temperature and in the same 30 minutes, Son's cough has got the better of him and he has thrown up.

All over his Papa, which makes that 100% record. Papa 100 litres of sick, Mama zero. Result.