May 5, 2016

I did not realise that I have not posted anything for over a month.  What with swimming most mornings now, it is difficult to find the time.  I used to do my posting before breakfast, but now that time slot is filled with swimming, so I have to reorganise my day.

Some friends from Holland brought me some silicone bakeware, so I have been baking like a demon. The ready made baked goods here are terrible even though the ingredients are very good.  It is just the combination of the ingredients that is bad.  I have been baking so much that my power bill has gone up by over LKR.1000 which is a lot.  I really need to get a gas oven.  Here are some of my successes:

Scones made the traditional round loaf way with raisins.

Scone covered with some nice strawberry jam.  The next step is to make my own clotted cream, or to get my friend Annette to get a cream separator so I can get some from her.

One pan cinni buns made in my new silicone cake pan.  This recipe calls for way too much butter.  When I make it again, I will be cutting the butter and the sugar by more than half.

The other thing that I am getting sick of paying for is tobasco sauce, so I have started to make my own hot sauce as well.  The first batch was made from dried red chilis and turned out quite well.  Using chilis, vinegar and salt makes it easy, economical and easy to control the taste.  I am in the process of brewing some green hot sauce from green habanero peppers at the moment.  Now that will be a real hottttttttt sauce.  My next sauce project will be HP Sauce.  Another favourite that costs the earth but is quite easy to make.  After that comes worcestershire sauce.

Veenitha squeezing the sauce out of the seeds and skins.  Nothing goes to waste.  The seeds and skins make great topping for pizza.

Here is our output.  The little bottle of tabasco costs LKR.400, about C$4.  For about C$2, we got all you see here.

The weather has broken somewhat in that we have been getting some rain at least two or three times a week.  Mostly thunder storms.  The other day, a fork of lightning hit in the paddy field right in front of the house.  The thunder clap scared the shit out of me.  Funnily enough, it did not trip the power breaker.  Sometime later, the power breaker did trip even though there was no evidence of lightning.  No making any sense of Sri Lankan power.

The cat got caught in the downpour and came in like a drowned rat.  Most unusual for her.  She usually has places she can slink through without getting wet.  She has been hanging close anyway, but even more so now.

Sleeping in my arms in bed.

A group of us made a lunch trip to Ena da Silva's craft centre in Matale.  Ena was responsible for the establishment of the modern batik cottage industry in Sri Lanka.  She established a big craft centre in Matale, where she also lived in the latter part of her life.  There were batik, embroidery, and brass workshops during her lifetime, putting out a wide variety of product.  Since her death in 2015, things have gone decidedly downhill.  There are only 2 workshops left with very few people working in them.  Even the product they have for sale is in very short supply and ridiculously expensive.  Many of the women have either established their own businesses or have gone to work for Baba Batiks which is on the main road just before the turn off to Ena's.

The whole operation was shoddy and dirty.  If the lunch had not been prearranged, we would probably have walked out.  The food was traditional Sri Lankan rice and curry and was tasty.  Although there was an overhead  fan where the food was set up (no fan where we were eating though, and it was stinking hot), they refused to turn it on, so an old lady stood fanning the flies off the food with a tiny hand fan.  I do not recommend the place.

This is the entry to Baba Batiks.  They have preserved the frangipani in the hall.  The place is spotless and very well supplied with clothing as well as table linens and decorative pieces.  The only problem is that it is 3 to 4 times more expensive than elsewhere.  I guess they figure the tourists don't know the difference.

The owners live next door to the shop in a lovely old walawa.  We had a brief chat with lady who says they have done nothing to the building but maintain it well for the over 100 years of its life.  They have obviously redone the gardens fairly recently.  Just goes to show what can be done with some care and attention.

On the way home, we stopped at the Noritake factory shop in Matale.  They have an impressive selection of patterns as well as seconds.  Needless to say, I don't need any more china except for a few of pieces of my Portmeirion that have broken over the years.  I only got some tiny bowls for serving salt and pepper at the dinner table.  It was tempting though.

We got everything prepared for a lovely Sri Lankan lunch for the Dutch visitors, but in the end, they stood me up.  Ava, Veenitha and I had the nice food with lots left over.  Their loss was our gain.

In between the usual cooking and house cleaning, I have been organising my 2TBs of movies and tv shows.  It has taken a long time to get them sorted in some kind of order, but it has given me an opportunity to weed out what I no longer wanted and to start downloading what I am missing and/or the new seasons that are coming out.  Never short of entertainment.  Between the videos and the books, I am never bored.

Just as I was wavering about going to the dentist to have my thrice-yearly cleaning, one of my wisdom teeth broke.  That tooth has broken before, and I suspect that it is in fact the filling that has fallen out.  So it is off to the dentist tomorrow to get it repaired and to have the cleaning done at last.