needled

A few weeks ago, Mr B made mead. Now, I am suspicious of mead. My only experience of it is a riotous new year some years ago at Belle’s. Having run out of booze in the early hours, we raided the prop supplies of Mr B’s younger brother, who at that time liked to spend his weekends re-enacting medieval battles. We found mead. We drank mead. It was not a pleasant experience. Thus the re-enactors lost their props, and we gained terrible ‘govas.

Anyway, I am assured that *this* mead will taste nothing like the hideous, gloopy concoction we drank that new year. This mead will be light and sparkling and refreshing. It will resemble nothing less than champagne. It will be a beverage revelation. I remain to be convinced. But it does, it has to be said, look rather lovely in the bottles into which we put it yesterday:

It contains elderflowers, lemongrass, and raspberries, hence the pleasing pink colour.

One of the reasons Mr B is so enthusiastic about this mead is because of Charlie Papazian, by whom it was inspired. For those of you who do not know, Papazian is some kind of home-brewing god, and his brewing bible, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing (yes, I know) contains a long, and very animated, section on home-made mead. The mead about which Papazian is most rapturous is made with prickly pears (none of those here, unfortunately), and he has a novel method of bottle-aging. He buries it near the summit of one of his favourite mountains and, at carefully chosen intervals, ascends the mountain to uncover, and sample his creation. I quote:

“In October 1992, two friends and I had the privilege of enjoying a bottle of prickly pear mead that had been aged on a mountaintop. Among the clouds swirling around us, threatening rain and snow, we opened one well-aged bottle, and cautiously sipped. There never has been nectar tasting as close to godliness as that mead. Without any exaggeration, I must confide that we all agreed that this mead, on this day, on Mead Mountain, was unanimously ‘the best drink we ever had.’”
(Complete Joy of Homebrewing, 3rd ed., p.341)

Can you guess what happens next?

Yesterday we went up our own mead mountain, and buried the mead. This was a precise and careful operation. There was much discussion about the most appropriate location. Having settled on this, we ascended mead mountain at dusk with trowel and bottle. A hole was dug close to the summit, and the mead placed ceremoniously inside.

And we made extra sure we would be able to find the mead’s location again, by placing a virtual flag on the spot with Mr B’s GPS device.

The mead will wait for us until Winter on mead mountain.

On Christmas morning, we intend to ascend mead mountain, to sample the mead. I am full of expectation already. Has anyone else done anything similar with their home brew? If so, I’d be really interested to know.

Monday evening brewing for a messy Tuesday. Mr B has devised a beer that should (if it works!) taste like one of my favourite ales, Cairngorm Brewery’s Trade Winds.

Calculations . . .

. . . mash temperature . . .

. . . blending the hop tea (with secret ingredient) . . .

. . . with a watering can?

testing . . .

. . . gravity

thankfully things have moved on a bit since 1973 . . .

generating steam heat . . .

and chilling . . .

finally, there remains only the waiting.

The postie has been bringing me a right bag of treats lately. Here’s a selection.

Big thanks to Lara, Felix, Jesse, Annushka, and Philippa!

The top pic shows some absolutely delicious Oxford Kitchen Yarn’s sock yarn in the plum colourway. The colour (which is not quite true in the photo) has a precise and very evocative childhood association for me — of blackcurrant jam mixed into rice pudding (thanks so much, L!) You see here also lovely buttons, badges and ribbons, as well as the Fantastical Reality Radio Show activity booklet which has brought me untold joy over the past few days. It has also made me strangely — nay, not a little obsessively — aware of ordinary household sounds. Mr B was bemused to discover me with a dictaphone, recording the sounds of making a pot of tea. And you’ll see from the last photo that I’m already putting Philippa’s red grossgrain to good use. More of this later.

Meanwhile, miscellaneous weekend things.
A sunday lunch of bread and beer:

I made the bread (unusual, this, as I don’t bake much) but not the beer. It is a dark mild - much lighter and more refreshing than it looks in that picture - delicious.

Also, I made a keyring with a bee in it. Just because I could.

did you know you can get a bag of blank keyrings for around 3p each on ebay? well you can . . .

Finally, something to see and something to avoid from the past couple of days.

ONE TO SEE: The Writing in The Sand, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Amber Films (1991).
Having frequented the Side Gallery, cinema and cafe in Newcastle, and admiring the work of the Amber collective, I was looking forward to this DVD immensely, and it did not disappoint. Built out of of Konttinen’s fabulous photographs of the beaches and people of the North East, The Writing on the Sand is a miracle of editing: narrative-driven and highly cinematic. I am fond of British documentaries about leisure, and particularly seaside-associated leisure, but am often troubled by how treatments of this theme patronise their subjects. Lindsay Anderson’s O! Dreamland is a case in point (much as I love Lindsay Anderson). Written in the Sand, though, is a frank and affectionate, exuberant and celebratory portrait of people enjoying themselves outside. It’s really a great piece of work. And, as well as being a stunning document of the changeable and well-loved beaches and climate of the North East over the past 20 years; and providing an evocative, poetic critique of the effects of marine pollution, this short film also also conveys a very powerful message about the importance of public (and particularly recreational) space, and the threat to it from the wholescale privatisation of the British landscape — our beaches in particular. Eat that, Donald Trump (together with your plans for turning the dunes of Balmedie into golfing-hell)

I’m now very tempted to buy this book of Konttinen’s original photographs.

ONE TO AVOID:
Why, when I read the blurb (Michael Jackson connects with Marilyn Monroe on a Scottish island retreat for celebrity impersonators) did I think it might be a good idea to go and see Mister Lonely? Why, having disliked with a passion every other film I’ve seen by Harmony Korine did I still go and see it? I suspect the presence of Samantha Morton swung it for me, but that was two hours of my life I will never get back again. If I start going on about just how bad a film this was I’ll never stop . . .but it was seriously vacuous twaddle, made all the worse the worse for thinking that it actually had something to say. I soon got bored of noticing James Fox and David Blaine, or wondering what on earth Werner Herzog was doing there &c &c, and had to divert myself for the last hour and a half of the film (groan) by thinking about the design and construction of the lacy cardigan worn by the Shirley Temple impersonator. One final thing, though: by anybody’s standards, Diego Luna makes a terrible Michael Jackson.

Here is some miscellaneous Good Stuff from the past few days.

First, some delayed stuff for a messy tuesday. We finally bottled the winter lager, which has been cold-stored for the past few months. There was some satisfying mess-making:

. . . an even more satisfactory tasting. . .

. . . and finally, the beer-drone (i.e. me) applied the bottle caps.

Next: having so far stuck to my pledge not to buy any new clothes in 2008 (those who know me will testify that this is a remarkable feat), I somehow felt I should congratulate myself with the purchase of a necklace made by Bronwen Deane, a Newcastle-based jewellery designer.

Deane’s work features cranes, high rises and factories, reproducing these familiar images and icons of industrial Tyneside in a new and unexpected context. On her website, Deane writes that “combining these images of brutal architecture with the delicacy and preciousness of jewellery encourages the viewer to examine these familiar landmarks and reconsider them.” I really love her work, and am very pleased indeed with my new necklace.

Finally, some really Good Stuff arrived in the post from the wonderful Felix

A whole bundle of treats from the Missability palace of dreams. This is a fantastic project and I urge everyone who hasn’t done so to check out the website, which includes details of the fabulous second knitted walking stick cosy competition, closing on May 1st.

Thanks Felix x

For several months now, I’ve been going into the bathroom and discovering sights like this:

And strange things like this have been appearing in the kitchen:

These objects are signs that our flat has now fully realised its second function as a brewery. At first this transformation caused me some concern. For example, when Mr B said he was bringing home a mash tun, I envisaged an enormous vat in which I would be forced to spend evenings of unbearable heat and grueling physical toil, relentlessly treading malt grain. Then he turned up with an innocuous vessel that resembled a picnic basket and all was well.

In any case, I am completely reconciled to the year-round supplies of (very) tasty beer and my drone-like role in the process. For my lowly task is to apply the bottle caps. Here are the fruits of yesterday’s labours:

A delicious red ale using Irish yeast.

As well as the beer in its nice brown bottles I have another brown thing to show. A while ago now, I started making Mr B a vest for the cross country season. He runs for a club whose ethos embraces the idiosyncratic and handmade. Their colour is brown and in my vest he fits right in. I finally finished off the neck and armhole edging yesterday, and am very pleased with the results. Here he is obligingly modelling said vest this morning, together with the number of a race he ran a couple of weeks ago:

And here is the vest from the back. (Yes, I have become completely obsessed with duotone)

I think it has a hokey, yet dashing Chariots of Fire air about it. But only a knitter would appreciate the ludicrous contradictions of this vest — being, as it is, a utility garment fashioned from a rather luxe yarn. For it is made of Rowan Calmer and has a satisfying spring and cashmere-like softness. I knitted it in the round to the armholes, then divided for front and back, and kind of made up the racer style armholes as I went along. The curve could have been a bit less severe across the back but I quite like the airy effect the edging has produced. He’s off trying it out this morning at Jedburgh.