When I die I want to go to tetris heaven

I know it's terminally uncool to love tetris, but I used to be a big fan and this version by Gud magazine is a delight for anyone who's ever dreamed of better 2D spatial co-ords. Back in the day, when I was a trying to be a convincing Computer Science student, wrestling with queuing algorithms while trying to find the "on" switch, I found tetris a fantastic escape. All the cool kids were playing first person shooter or empire building games that called for cunning strategy and more cunning finger contortions, but I was impervious to their scorn of my tetris devotion. Some things are just too enjoyable to give up for coolness sake.

A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to an xkcd cartoon which made me smile in recognition. The perfectly shaped tetris segment falling from the sky. An interventionist god of small things. Whimsical, charming, ironic, what could be better? An actual working version, it seems, inspired by the cartoon, implemented by the clever folks at Gud magazine. If you've ever loved tetris, you have to give it a spin. I couldn't help belly laughing every time the sonorous chord of heavenly favour sounded and a misshapen block floated down.

Long live tetris in all its hallowed forms.

http://www.gudmagazine.com/games/heaven/

Bunny time

Today is Good Friday and it just seemed like making homemade hot cross buns was called for. I found a recipe on deliaonline.com and got to it, hoping that my buns would not be worse for wear for being made with yeast that expired 3 years ago.

I love kneading dough - a simple pleasure I've only recently discovered - so really enjoyed making these little guys. I didn't have any mixed spice so whooshed together some ground cloves, ginger and nutmeg and then crushed some cinnamon sticks in my mortar and pestle and whacked the grounds into the mix. I'm not a natural baker, precision not being my forte, so I daringly added extra fruit and fortunately, this recipe seems robust enough to accommodate my cavalier attitude to candied peel.

After waiting for an hour for the mixture to double in size, sitting on a window ledge outside, out of reach of hairy dog snouts, I joyously pummelled it into submission and divided it up into bunlike portions. The crosses were made with water and flour and a lot more pummelling and rolling. After about 25 minutes for bun rising, I popped them into the oven and drummed my fingers for 15 minutes until I could whip them out. They emerged golden and everything you could want from a bun, which in my case, is quite a lot. Piping hot, with the daintiest slathering of butter. Blissful spiciness!

Vampire drips and plastic skin

I am alive and I have plastic skin. It's true and it's awesome. They spray it on using an aerosol can and you generally need a wound of some sort to warrant this synthetic epidermis. I have two such petite wounds incurred in the name of investigative (all good) surgery and once the doctor mentioned plastic skin as a dressing option I made sure the nurses didn't give me the gauzy plaster ensemble.

The last time I was in hospital for some kind of procedure involving a general anaesthetic was as a teenager when I had my wisdom teeth removed. Staring down the barrel of elective unconsciousness a few (ahem) years down the line, was pretty nerve wracking for a control freak like myself. It was with a sense of fatalistic doom that I checked into Kingsbury, Pat very respectful of my resigned state, by my side, and climbed into the lift with the porter. Normally I would have insisted on the stairs, but why bother entertaining your lesser phobias when you're about to have your lights knocked out and your insides oggled.

After nearly losing it when the sister asked me whether it was alright for them to incinerate any bits that might be removed during the operation or whether I would prefer to take these home and making clear that my religious position on blood transfusions was “Give me the frikkin blood, I believe in Science”, I managed to keep it together enough for the theatre nurse to comment on how calm I seemed without a premed. If I am going to face a life threatening situation, I need to be alert dammit! To hell with common sense.

Arriving in theatre I tried to be as dewy, delightful and charming as is possible in a lurid green theatre gown, so that my anaesthetist and surgeon would be emotionally manipulated into doing their best to keep me alive during this minor procedure. My charm offensive worked and I woke up groggy and disorientated with Noxolu, the angelic recovery nurse, urging me to cough. Nothing beats the cough of the recently unconscious to let you know you're alive.

A few minutes later I was drooling at Pat, feeling like hell, but supremely chuffed to have made it. Someone appeared and asked whether I wanted supper and after toying with the indignant reply of, “Lady, seriously, I have just come round from major surgery, do you think I want to worry about food right now?” I said, “Yes, I'm starving!” A mince pancake, some sloppy ice-cream and a pint of saline later and I was feeling remarkably human.

Later that night, after refusing a sleeping pill (must be alert!) I found myself wandering to the loo at midnight with my trusty squeaky-wheeled drip. As I emerged from the dim ward into the fluorescent corridor, I noticed that coiled on top of my hand and running up to the drip switch which was hanging below a desiccated bag of saline, was a plastic tube filled with my blood. Phew. I'm not a big one for bodily fluid flowing external to my body and had to steady myself against the basin before hightailing it to the nurses station and presenting the night sister with my vampire drip. “Don't worry, lovey (term of endearment a result of the broad based charm offensive), it's just your blood, it will flow right back,” she assured me as she plugged another bag of saline into the suction plug. Somewhat soothed and with the cooling saline pumping into my hand, I went back to bed. Without the sleeping pill, sleep was fitful and I woke up regularly and pinched my skin, like the guy who cut off his arm in 127 hours, to check my dehydration levels.

My vigilance paid off and I made it through the night to be rewarded with a thumbs up from the doc and some plastic skin. Now, that I'm home, I just need to mentally wrestle with the prescribed sleeping pills which come with the helpful warning, “Might cause drowsiness.”

The feast of San Robinho

I was visiting my friend Robyn and her hubby Charles in their lovely home in East London recently, when over a feast, lovingly prepared, she chastised me for not updating my blog. “I still check it regularly, but am about to give up hope of seeing a new posting” she scolded.

A year of work and study frenzy has left little time for ponderings about life’s more indulgent pleasures, but as I sat enjoying five fabulous courses, drinking wonderful wine and relaxing with old friends, I realised the old adage about too much work and not enough play making Jacqui a dull girl was resonating pretty keenly.

Well, if anything was going to propel me out of a stupor of stoic austerity, it was going to be Robyn’s hospitality. After all, here is someone who when she is not cooking up five course Sunday lunches and making beautiful homemade gifts for friends, helps people become parents and brings babies into the world at all hours of the night. If Robs, this domestic goddess who knows her way around a speculum, manages some form of work/life balance, there is hope for us all. And if, in between concocting buerre blanc sauces and snipping umbilical cords, she hopes to find a new blog entry by her mate in the Cape, well, then, by Nigella, she should! So, the feast of San Robinho (yes, Brazil won the Confed Cup that evening) shall be the inspiration behind my reentry into the world of blogdom.

Besides the sheer splendour of the meal, I was dazzled by the amount of time and effort that was represented by the myriad courses. Where I would happily serve up mushroom risotto as a meal, this was the starch of the feast’s main course. Before I could come to grips with the time implications of risotto as a side dish, we’d already enjoyed a soup and a starter!

We sat down to homemade broccoli and gorgonzola soup at a table blinking with silverware and crystal. Chicken parmesan followed and then the fillet, which had been sauce-soaked for hours, was served pink and perfect on top of a creamy blob of risotto. All the while, Kleine Zalze Cabernet Sauvignon had our cheeks glowing and kept flowing well past the impossibly decadent chocolate pot garnished with a mini vanilla crème pavlova. Gorgonzola dominated the cheese plate and I dominated the gorgonzola and then espresso cups replaced wine glasses and we battled greedily to fit in a litany of truffles.

Indulgent, over the top, decadent, delightful. The feast of San Robinho was all these things. It was also an act of love and a charmed space in the midst of life’s busyness. Long may you wave your sparkly wand, Robs!

Puppy love

The loaf of the Irish

I fell in love with sourdough bread when I worked in Dublin a few years ago, so the leprechauns in my happy gland did a dance of joy when I found Collette Comins’ super easy recipe while paging through her cookbook, The Farm Kitchen. The book is full of wonderful dishes like French Potato Pie, Home-made Pork Sausages and Fig Tarte Tatin, and the photographs are droolicious.

Back to the bread. Normally, sourdough bread requires nurturing a starter of flour and water and letting natural yeasts develop and mature over a week or so, but this is the instant gratification version. No freaky living organism in the fridge is needed for this loaf and after making it a few times with a dodgy oven, I can pronounce the recipe robust and rewarding.

I’m greedy and love hot bread, so usually whip off a bit of crust as it comes out the oven and have it with butter and honey. If you can manage to resist quaffing the whole loaf in a day, it lasts quite well – it’s good for at least 3 days. When not pilfering from the loaf, I store it in my wooden bread bin wrapped in a clean cotton kitchen towel.

500g cake flour
5ml salt
5ml bicarbonate of soda
400ml buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 230 degrees Celsius (450 degrees Fahrenheit, Gas Mark 8).
Sift the dry ingredients and make a well in the centre.
Pour in the liquid and using one hand, mix in the flour from the sides of the bowl to form a ball.
Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for a second to tidy it up.
Place on a floured baking sheet and cut a cross in the top.
Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F, Gas Mark 6) and bake for further 30 minutes until golden brown and hollow when tapped.

Bread, wine and a meal fit for angels

This week I attended a bread and wine tasting at Stellenzicht, a farm known more for the quality of its wines than its swish hospitality offering. There’s no art gallery, deli or signature restaurant to distract from the core business of this farm - producing good wine – but when winemaker Guy Webber wants to share his wines with guests, no effort is spared.

Although the farm is more about production than gloss and glamour, the tasting room is warm and friendly. An old chemical store off the production area has been converted for small functions and wooden staves suspended from the ceiling ensure that wine is the décor focus. For our tasting, this cosy space was filled by two large circular tables laden with bread, wine glasses and an abundance of dipping goodies.

Guy is an avid breadmaker and thought the idea of pairing his wines with bread from trendy Cape Town bakery, Knead, a novel way of showcasing their nuanced flavours and aromas. Evan Faull from Knead devised the pairing combinations and all considerations of low carb diets fell by the wayside as wine flowed freely and loaves were torn, sliced and dipped.

The wine was mainly from the farm’s accessible Golden Triangle range, but we were also treated to the rather lovely Semillon Reserve 2004, paired with brioche. The Semillon’s heady, intensely fragrant nose follows through with red apple on the palate and having spent 9 months in oak, has all the good wood characteristics and none of the bad. The buttery brioche, more cake than bread, was a perfect partner for this Audrey Hepburn of a wine.

The Golden Triangle Shiraz 2004 with buttermilk rye was also yummy, the Golden Triangle Pinotage 2006 charming and dignified the Golden Triangle Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 the type of wine you want to save for a wintery day when you’re curled up on the couch in front of the fire and can really give it the attention it deserves. Come to think of it, for that kind of fireside brooding, I’d also like a bottle of the farm’s award winning Syrah.

The sacramental theme of “bread and wine” spilled over into a lunch of authentic Middle Eastern dishes. Tabbouleh in poppadoms with mozzarella fingers and bulgar wheat mixed with aromatic herbs was followed by Laban Immu, an ancient Lebanese lamb dish served with cous cous, vegetable moussaka and greens. Made from lamb, yoghurt, thyme, lemon juice, garlic and mint, Laban Immu is rumoured to have been the dish Abraham offered his angelic visitors in Genesis 18:1-8. It certainly tasted divine and if that’s not enough reason to ferret out a recipe on the internet, the dish has medicinal properties. Researchers reckon soured milk as a dietary staple protected ancient nomadic tribes from bovine tuberculosis.

Clattering over the dirt road back onto the R44, I left Stellenzicht hooped up on wine related anti-oxidants and shielded from cow TB, daydreaming about yoghurty meat dishes and Semillon packed with waxy apples.