revival

I walked through a carpet of purple flowers this morning. It's been raining since last night and the winds blew down half the flowers on the trees.

So this is my new project/ revitalized dormant project: to cook properly.

It started yesterday, really. I made mayonnaise from scratch, using a hand whisk. And it was good. See there's this site with pictures of food that link you to individual blogs. One of the pictures brought me to a blog where the author had made mayonnaise. I had everything the recipe called for at hand, time to kill, and besides, I'd wanted to make mayonnaise for yonks now. It had always intimidated me though - stories of the mixture curdling and separating put me off. I don't like the prospect of failure.

But this, this seemed easy. And it was! Piece of cake. I only had Cobram Estate's EV olive oil in the cupboard so the mayo has a strong bite to it; peppery and fruity. It is also really thick. Like pudding. Could have thinned it out but I got a kick out of seeing it jiggle. My mayo has character. Hah.

A third of it got turned into aioli, the rest was unadulterated. Dolloped onto smoked ham and sandwiched between toast for dinner. Yum. Now I've got to use it up within a week but that shouldn't be hard. Now I've got to try making hollandaise to go with poached eggs (picked up a little metal egg poacher in Melbourne. It is shaped like an old-fashioned bathtub with legs. Only it has holes in the bottom so it can't hold water. And a stem. Adorable)

Today's project is undetermined.


I'm re-loving my macchinetta

eat

lunch. blanch asparagus. garlic sauteed in olive oil, capers, spaghettini, asparagus, crumble feta, smoked salmon, squeeze lemon. drizzle e.v. olive oil. yum.