June 25, 2016 WARNING THIS POST CONTAINS SNAKES

So I found this in my bathroom the other day and another underneath my bed last night.

This is a Common Krait.  They are very poisonous.  Neither of the ones I found were anywhere this big.  The one in the bathroom was maybe 8" to 10" long and had just shed its skin.  I promptly whacked it with my dustpan brush and threw it out.  Last night's one was about 6" long and not as thick and was found and killed by the cat.  Luckily it was very small and did not have fangs or a mouth big enough to do damage to the cat.  It got thrown out as well.

We also found a tiny brown snake on the veranda yesterday while we were cleaning.  It was hiding behind one of the cabinets.  It was too small to tell what it was.  Veenitha wanted to just sweep it outside, but I did not want it to grow up into something dangerous, so it too went to snake Nirvana.

The rain must be driving the snakes inside.  Need to keep an eye out as most of them are poisonous.

Interestingly, there was a Bo (Bodhi) sapling growing out of the wall outside my bathroom.  I told Veenitha to pull it out before she swept there and she wouldn't do it.  Of course, the Bo is sacred to Buddhists as the Buddha is said to have meditated under a Bo tree and there gained enlightenment.  In fact, there is not a mature Bo that has not been made into a shrine.  Needless to say, I had no qualms as they grow very large and would quickly destroy the house.  So out it came.

June 17, 2016

Time to catch up.

We are into a wonderful post monsoon fruit season.  Avocados, mangosteen, starfruit, jambu, soursop, mango (which I don't like, but there are tons of them), breadfruit and a new fruit I discovered called laulu.  English name is canistel (Pouteria campechiana), it also grows in Mexico and other parts of Latin America.  Apparently it grows profusely in Sri Lanka.  So much so in fact, that people consider it almost a weed.  Eaten by itself it has a sticky quality almost like peanut butter sticking to your teeth and the roof of your mouth, but whipped with cream or even better coconut milk and sugar it is heavenly.  I tried it for the first yesterday at my friend Claire Hemachandra's place.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  I told Veenitha about it this morning and it turns out she has a tree in her yard.  They just throw the fruit away.  No more.  It freezes wonderfully.  I am going to make ice-cream out of it.

The tree

The fruit.  Even the seeds are lovely.

Jambu.  Makes great jam but is a bit runny, so I had to make my own pectin from jambola (pomelo).   Got almost a litre of liquid pectin from the pith of only 2 jambola.

Jambu jam cooling

Star fruit is great in smoothies

Today, we reaped some of the benefit of the avocado and made wonderful guacamole.

Nothing goes to waste.  The tomato juice is being saved for gazpacho.  Lovely fresh cilantro in the guacamole as well.  Made cilantro pesto with the fresh cilantro and cashew nuts.  Very tasty.

I had heard of Claire Hemachandra before.  She is a Swiss woman who married a Sri Lankan years ago, 1972 and has lived here since.  The Hemachandras are famous for their jewellery and silk shops. I met her a couple of weeks ago at the Old Trinitian Sports Club (OTSC).  We went for an early dinner one night with Yoshitha Fernando and Tania De Silva.  It was fabulous.  Of course, you have to an Trinity Old Boy to be a member.  Happily Yoshitha has a good relationship with her ex-husband who signs us in.  I want to convince Amal to join as he is an old boy so we can go any time without relying on Yoshitha's ex.  Anyway, the food was superb.  We each had a cheese omelet made with our cheese I am proud to say.  We shared a calamari done Asian style and some chickpeas.  It was all delectable.  I had a big bottle of Lion Lager and all this for only LKR.1,000 about C$9.  Yoshitha and I have decided that we have to make this a weekly occurrence.  Not only is the food good, but the place is fairly well appointed and overlooks the Trinity cricket pitch.  Plus, we might even meet some old boys that are not totally disgusting.  Ha, Ha!

Me, Tania and Claire at OTSC.  I have to stop wearing white and sitting so close to the camera.

Me, Tania and Yoshitha

Here we are having lunch at Claire's yesterday.  Me, Claire, Yoshitha.  She lives in a huge house overlooking Kandy lake.  Beautiful large yard and a swimming pool and even a proper double garage with automatic door opener.  Must be one of the most desirable properties in Kandy.  Certainly on one of the most fashionable streets.

Still raining every day, so we are still getting all the rain visitors.  This one large snail is becoming a pet.

Apart from all this, still swimming most mornings.  Have made it up to 30 lengths and am now working on my speed.

I see this beautiful tree walking to and from the pool.  This house feeds and waters some neighbourhood cats.  Yet another litter this morning.

June 5, 2016

Somehow it has been hard to get in the mood for blogging.  But now so much time has gone by that I have to get caught up.

It was Vesak right after I posted last on May 21 and 22.  This the most important Buddhist full moon day commemorating the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha.  Here it is celebrated by going to the temple and by putting up lights and lanterns.  For 2 days, the city is beautiful at night and even in the daytime with the streamers of the lanterns waving in the wind.

This is a typical, traditional lantern.  They hang everywhere at Vesak

These are the lanterns that my neighbours hung on the bushes of my garden.  You can see the lights and lanterns at the house across the street as well.

They decorated the stairs leading up to the street as well.

Quite beautiful although very simple.  Just paper and dabs of water colour.  They have candles in them so they are a bit of a fire hazard.  In fact, one of them burnt.  Luckily none of the bushes caught on fire 

Of course, Vesak is another excuse for a holiday.  I am lucky in that Veenitha came two extra days that week only leaving a little early on the Saturday to go to the Maligawa.  

We have been cooking up a storm.  I tried my hand at ciabatta bread.  It is wonderful and turned out well, but what a workout.  First you have to make the biga which is the starter.  That has to be leavened for 24 to 72 hours.  I did it for 48.  Then you make the bread which has to be twice leavened before baking.  The first time for everything is always the hardest, and I expect that when we make it next it will be much easier.

My friend Annette has been making quark which is great.  With my first batch I made cheese cake.  Digestive biscuits served instead of graham crackers and I used lime zest as I still have not found vanilla beans (not available at the moment because of the weather).  They tasted great.

Then it was on to HP Sauce and Worcestershire Sauce.  I had to make the latter in order to make the former.  Both are terribly expensive to buy.  Even some of the ingredients such as the anchovies and prunes cost the earth, but at least I got a lot of it made.  Both are lovely despite the fact that I can't get molasses here.  I used kittul treacle which is tapped locally from the kittul tree.

The cooking week got rounded off with tsatziki, hummus, chickpea salad,  shepard's pie and the pièce de résistance, carrot cake with cream cheese icing using Annette's quark.  All came out pretty well except that I used cashews for the nuts in the carrot cake instead of walnuts.  They are too soft to stand up to the density of the cake, so you don't know they are there.  No matter, it still tastes good.

We had also bought a different type of bitter gourd at the vegetable stand that Veenitha made up into a curry.  

The flesh around the seeds gets to be a lovely orangey red colour when it is ripe.  The other red thing is a tomato.

The outside is hairy like a rambutan with a razor cut.

The rain has abated quite a bit, enough for me to go swimming.  Into my 11th week now.  Still enough rain to bring out the killer snails though.

This one is half the size of the ledge in front of the kitchen window.  It is oozing its way down the wall.

I did a downloading workshop for 8 people last weekend.  I think they actually learned something and we had a great lunch at OZO where they hosted us with their usual aplomb.  Only problem was I talked from 0900 to 1245 and was pooped at the end of it.  So, of course, I drank some wine before lunch and was feeling quite sick by the time I got home.  Falling unconscious on the bed for 3 hours rounded out the rest of the afternoon.  I should know better.

This coming week will be busy.  Tuesday I am going with the Kawaskis to give high tea to the patients at the cancer home.  We start in the morning with sandwich making and then the actual delivery and serving.  Thursday I am going to a new acquaintances house for lunch and to show her how to download.  She could not make it to the workshop.  Friday the art group is going on a field trip to Kurunegala to the Selyn handloom factory and a picnic lunch at Wendura Lake afterwards.  Looking forward to all of it.