13 November, 2005

This has been quite a fun long weekend really. One of experimentation. I have done what I hope is the last lot of distilling for the year and we are now well prepared for Christmas presents. I also had my first go at making bagels setting the dough up in the breadmaker and then boiling and baking. They came out alright and all. A few more goes and they should be perfectly breakfasty. The less successful experiment with dandelion coffee was also a feature of the weekend. After hearing from a friend that you can make a coffee substitute out of dandelion root and us with an excess of dandelions I rushed off to the internet and found some recipes. Turns out dandelions only have decent roots when you think of them as weeds, soon as you need them they produce the most pathetic little roots you can imagine. Still, I found enough to make a decent go of it, sliced the roots and started roasting. All was going well until I took my eye off them and burned the roots slighty. I crushed them anyway to see what would happen and the result was a slightly burned coffee taste which I’ll take as a positive sign. I’m also not dead a day later which I also take as a positive sign. The actual taste (underlying the charcoal) was actually pretty decent.

Went and saw Serenity last night. After being put onto the series recently by a friend and getting completely hooked I was looking forward to the movie and wasn’t disappointed. The series was excellent and the movie picked up and ran with it finally showing us those Reaver critters and doing a nice job of explaining some things. Anytime you end up with a great western where the cowboys use spaceships you’ve got a winner in my mind. In a world where we have endless repetition of mindless television programmes it’s not surprising this one didn’t fly but at least in the theatre you knew you were surrounded by people who had enjoyed the series and probably got it from the internet. My kind of people.