We had intended to make Chai yesterday, to provide us with some caffeine to stimulate our cleaning-and-organizing activities on Charlie’s last full day here at Skootamatta. We forgot to even consider beverages – hot or cold – until most of the day’s tasks had been completed, including the overwhelming majority of the physical activity. We got most of the tasks that directly benefit from daylight – chopping and bringing in firewood, fetching lake water (Charlie had to chop ice with an axe), and setting up the heating system for Tarrandus, my truck (her cabin-heating system is broken due to a jammed-in-the-cold-position blend door, so I used a small space heater that runs off household 125v alternating current to pre-heat her before today’s 2.5 hour drive to Ottawa International). Thus we felt we wouldn’t need a caffeine fix at 5:00pm and opted for an alcoholic choice, instead (wine!).
Also, we’re
pretty frickin’ Canadian around here.
No photo
again, because, again, I forgot to take any while Chai was being prepared. The
recipe is basically “add milk to brewed tea” plus some spices – though we
didn’t have any cardamom so that was omitted. The hot, sugary (sweetened
condensed milk accounts for about 1/9 of the total dairy in this recipe) tea
went into a big thermos we had with us and we drank it as we drove down Ontario
Highway 417 eastwards into Ottawa. It was, once again, really, really good.
***
Charlie
provided me with an Excel file that includes all 634 recipes in the 2006
edition of the Betty Crocker Cookbook. So this cup of tea represents six down,
628 to go. Clearly, I need to increase my average rate to around two recipes /
day if I’m going to complete this project in one year. Charlie convinced me
this time limit should be my goal, because if I allow the project to drag out
longer from the outset, I greatly increase the risk of never actually finishing
it. A deadline is a useful thing for focusing my mind, and I’m already
pondering options for completing some of the more ambitious recipes that
require techniques I’ve never tried before such as deep-frying and candy-making
as well as what to do with the tremendous amounts of food that some recipes
will generate – there are three recipes that are built around whole turkeys
(one involves a turkey-swallowing, propane-powered deep fryer), for example, plus half a chapter of
casseroles. Not to mention the cakes, pies, batches of cookies, and general
make-supper-for-your-whole-family recipes that form the backbone of this book.
I will be
buying some non-food items to support this project, obviously. First on the
list is a chest freezer, an item I’ve wanted ever since I gave my old one to a
friend-of-a-friend when I left Saskatchewan. Other things I’ll be searching for
include a candy thermometer, more plastic storage containers (to put in the
freezer), and a waffle iron – I’ll be browsing the local thrift shops for this
and a few other items, with Walmart and its ilk as my backup plan. I’m pretty
sure I’m not allowed to have a BBQ at my apartment, so either I’ll be using a
friend’s (helping with the what-to-do-with-all-this-food problem) or buying one
for a friend, and visiting often.
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