Tulitha King

Tag: Food

  • Mulberries

    The Mulberries are in season in Young and we have been gorging ourselves daily. I can never understand those fad diets that exclude fruit. I mean…look at this! A tree bursting with fruit just cries out to be eaten. It is just plain common sense. I have been a fruit eater all my life and fruit is good. I have a healthy appreciation for all things fruit. Mm, Yum.

    Eating fruit straight from the tree is a simple pleasure that is one of life’s luxuries. I am so thankful to my in-laws for planting these rows of fruit trees, they had a thought to the future and we are the benefactors.

    This was a happy moment in our day, the kind of moment I relish as a family. I love being together but not…if you know what I mean. We are together enjoying some things, say the outdoors, the weather, food but we are also separately, happily interdependently, enjoying our own things. Sophia munching mulberries, Gunther having an outside bath and hubby and I watching and delighting/working on the bus. All happy, all together, but also enjoying the world around us, the kids gaining independence and learning to enjoy their own company, which is so important.

    On the bus side of things we have made much tangible progress. Three bathroom walls are in, still wrapped in plastic (we can’t wait for the great unveiling and hope the colours all work together), and not shown here, one of the kid’s bunk walls are in along with the bottom bunk’s framing.

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  • Pulla

    I made Pulla.

    Sadly, I never make Pulla.  Being gluten intolerant has its drawbacks and I do miss baking…though, on the bright side it keeps the waistline trim!

    Well, I made some and I broke my increasingly strict gluten-free diet to eat some.

    Pulla absolutely must be eaten fresh-baked with coffee in order to get the full pulla experience. After that it is still tasty, just not as.

    Pulla Korvapuusti0001

    Pulla:

    250ml milk

    75g sugar

    Warm this until the sugar has dissolved.

    Add in:

    1 egg

    And whisk! Set aside.

    In a large bowl place:

    1 tsp ground cardamom

    1/2 tsp salt

    450g plain flour

    3 tsp dry yeast

    Gradually add the wet ingredients and knead lightly with your hands. (Some people like to knead and knead and knead, but I don’t like to do this too much, I feel as though the dough can get ‘tough’ if this is done too much so I like to knead lightly for just a few minutes, until slightly stretchy.)

    Add in:

    100g melted butter (This helps to keep it moist. Pulla can dry out a bit I find.) Knead this in until it has disappeared into the dough.

    Leave it to rise for about an hour in a floured bowl with a wet cloth over the top.

     

    Now. Punch the air out. Knead a little til it forms a ball. Break it in half.

    Roll each ball into a thin rectangle.

    Spread with:

    Butter

    Sprinkle on a light coating of:

    Sugar

    Cinnamon

    Then roll the rectangle up, lengthways, as if you were making a scroll cake.

    Cut the roll into about 5cm pieces and place, upright into a pan, with a little room between each piece to grow!

    Leave to rise, covered, for another hour.

    Make an eggwash out of:

    1 egg

    2 Tbs milk

    Whisked together.

    Brush this over the top of the Pulla just before baking.

    Place into a 180C oven for about 25mins or until lightly browned.

    Eat warm!

    Pulla Korvapuusti0002

    It really is delicious! One of my very favourite things which I miss eating all of the time!

  • Grocery Lives

    Sometimes, when I am waiting in line at the Supermarket checkout, I stare, dully, at the groceries of whoever is ahead of me, and because I am a sticky-beak I put the story all together in my mind. A story which is full of questions. I wonder how much you can tell of somebody by their groceries.

    There is the older woman, she must be a pensioner, she buys the barest of essential ingredients. Milk. Tinned fish. Rice. Pasta. Tinned tomatoes. Onions. Bread. A few cup-o-soups. They are all home brand. I wonder if she has children, how old they are, if they live near her, if she has grandchildren, what has happened to bring her to this point where affording the simplest of groceries is difficult. Maybe, though, she is quite wealthy and saving even the smallest amounts of money on her food is strangely satisfying to her, a way she can feel in control of her life, of her expenses. Perhaps money is something to be squirreled away instead of spent on living.

    A shiny woman in her thirties. Her hair is voluminous & well cut, she is about a size 18-20.  Her clothes look expensive, but she is bulging out of them.  There are two types of women in this category.  Those who buy cake and those who buy diet soft drinks.  One doesn’t care, loves her size, flaunts it and enjoys her food; the other one is really trying…but not really.  I’ve been in the overweight camp after each of my pregnancies, and it is hard to lose it, so I sympathise.

    The trendy looking couple, with fair trade everything.  Checking the back of every label.

    I like to note how many fresh ingredients I see in peoples trolleys. Sometimes it is hugely encouraging, seeing the clearly competent and confident mums with trolleys full of greens, other times a sad commentary on the state of our food system, with near everything in said trolley in a plastic bag or a brightly coloured box with brand names screaming loudly.

    Well.

    Food has forever been a centrifugal force in relationships and storytelling.  So many stories converge in a supermarket. People passing like trolleys in the aisle, words unspoken, but the contents of trolleys speaking volumes, uttering a myriad of questions, stating simple facts about this increasingly complex world. Supermarkets are an icon of lost community, where even getting food is done without any need for relationship, especially with the introduction of self-serve checkouts, before these however ‘checkout chicks’ were merely human machines, just another cog.

    This is the 20th century version of foraging. With the 21st century still in its infancy I wonder what they’ll think of next. I wonder if I will like it.