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I cleaned out one of the kitchen cupboard shelves the other day, and had to throw out the last of the junket tablets as way out of date. It's a pity I didn't get to use them up. A back-of-the-cupboard type thing.

I think every country person of my era grew up eating junket as cows were aplenty and therefore milk was abundant. How easy to make a dessert with a couple of cups of milk, a junket tablet and some sugar? Easy, mostly healthy, cheap.

Surprisingly, supermarkets still stock junket tablets. Junket is a little like custard, a little like flan filling, a little like sweet tofu, but it is none of these. It is a milk-based dessert, made with vegetable rennet, usually sweetened and flavoured. In this pic I topped it with macerated strawberries and passionfruit.

Did you know that junket actually used be served to the sick in hospitals? It is nutritious and also easy to digest, so it was perfect hospital food. Back in the days hospitals actually served healthy food.

The name of junket comes from the fact that it used to be made in a rush basket, the Medieval Latin word for which is iuncāta, the French jonquette and the Middle English jonket.

Predecessors of junket were made as early as Medieval times where a cream-and-rennet mixture, sweetened and flavoured with rosewater, sugar, and spices, was an upper-class food, served to those among noble ranks. Since then it has fallen in and out of favour.

"It’s about time junket made a come back, for it’s a delicious, cheap dessert, with a fantastic texture. Junket can be flavoured with a variety of spices, eg cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom, or allspice, ginger, and mace. It can be made with any type of milk, be it cow, goat or sheep. And it can be spike with cream or spirits to make a more celebratory dessert." – David Asher.

Catching lightning in a bottle.

That night I couldn’t sleep. Since the sky was open, I set out to the beach in hopes of photographing star trails. I was in #PuertoPadre, #Cuba and light pollution was virtually zero, so I had high hopes.

I hadn’t the faintest clue as to how long exposure had to be, but I figured an hour would be a good estimate. Since the only lens I had at that time was a #Canon EF 28-135 IS USM, I couldn’t include the Polestar if I also wanted to have the #sea in the foreground. However I included a desolated cabin (a hut really) in the frame which I would light paint with my flash.

About halfway through the exposure a first lightning flash. Although I had no way of knowing how it would result, I didn’t stop the exposure thinking it could add some extra panache to the resulting photo. Before long the storm built up and the sky was filled with lightning bolts.

Rain starting was my cue to stop exposure and collect everything and leave. When I arrived at the lodge I was soaking wet enveloped by showers of rain I never experienced before (and since.) More seriously, I hadn’t been able to keep my camera dry which was dripping wet also (it didn’t survive and died a couple of months later. The lens on the other hand was unharmed, still functioning normally when I sold it a couple of years later.)

Of course, I was curious at the result, although I halfheartedly expected nothing from it. Turned out it was my best lucky shot I ever made. Even the star trails are visible. Only downside is the cabin: even after a quadruple scan of the negative and some heavy lifting in #captureone (I tried other software as well) there’s no detail to be had and it remains a black square. I could do a retouch to clone it away, but I decided to leave it as it is, since it adds something to the story.

#throwbackthursday #nature #naturephotography #lightning #lightningbolts #canoneos620 #fuji #fujifilm #editedincaptureone #fromthearchives #2001

Roasted Eggplant with Special Miso Sauce

The thing about #SpecialMisoSauce* is that it is rich and dark and almost overwhelming in its deep flavours, so it is perfect for dishes in which you want the sort of umami that things like fish sauce or anchovies usually provide. Not that it tastes the same but it does have that same affinity for certain ingredients.

And we all know just how well miso pairs with eggplant anyway – it is a classic combination in the miso-loving parts of the world. So in this dish we brought together eggplants and the Special Miso Sauce for wonderful results and a very simple dish.

*Click on the hashtag link to see where to get the recipe.

The best time to freeze ginger or make Ginger or Ginger-Garlic Paste is Late Summer or Early to Mid Autumn. Ginger and garlic are plentiful then, good quality, local and cheap. You can often get young ginger at this time – it is gentler in flavour and delicious.

A good strategy for Autumn is to make a couple of jars of Garlic Paste and Ginger Paste (or Ginger-Garlic Paste), freeze 1 or 2 kgs of garlic, broken into cloves, to supplement the paste, and freeze some ginger root. Adjust the amounts to suit your family’s consumption of garlic and garlic.

These pastes are fairly common in parts of India, with households making it every morning. Traditionally ground by hand, it is now most commonly ground in electric wet-dry grinders.

Outside of India it is made in the food processor or spice grinder, but the texture is a little different. It keeps well in the fridge and much longer in the freezer, so make some when garlic and ginger are at their peak of quality and are cheapest in price. Grind with salt, and sometimes I add a little vinegar to boost the preservation qualities.

You can make ginger, garlic, ginger-garlic and chilli pastes the same way. Ditto turmeric and galangal pastes.

For longer lasting paste, avoid any use of water. My trick is to take whole cloves of garlic and roughly chopped ginger and break it down with my hand-held immersion blender. Then I transfer it to the small processor in two batches to produce a nice creamy paste without any water.

There is some concern about the safety of storing garlic. Please do your research and make up your own mind. Keep all pastes refrigerated at all times. You can also freeze any paste that you are not going to use quickly. It is good to freeze it in icecube trays, then store the cubes in ziplock bags. The cubes are conveniently sized for adding to dishes.

Saffron Rasayana for the Weary

Are you weary? Stressed? In need of some relaxation? I have a rasayana for you – saffron in milk with honey and ghee. Always use less honey than ghee in the recipe. Amazingly, this drink relaxes and destresses. You feel your breath ease and deepen and worries vanish.

The art and science of #rasayana is about lengthening the lifespan, and individual rasayana recipes can be considered as tonics or something that enhances well being. Rasayanas not only include food but behaviours and practices.

Für den #schiffssamstag
( for #shipsaturday )

A few days ago I had a chat here and we talked about the wonderfully poor color reproduction of the old Kodak VR films, I dived deep into my archive and found this old maritime night photography, which I took on March 2007 with the #Minolta #Dynax700si on (exoired) #KodakVR400:

Look, @roguemusiclab: xtra for you! :wink:


#maritimephotography #nightexposure #nachtaufnahme #KodakVR400plus #35mmfilm #MinoltaDynax #LateAtNight #35mmphotography #filmisnotdead #photography #analogphotography #grainisgood #FilmIsMoreFun

Remembering Korchnoi.

Shout out to Viktor Korchnoi who would have turned 94 today and which is considered to be the strongest player never becoming world champion (although he is the only player to have won or drawn—in individual game(s)—against every reigning World Chess Champion.

Still have fond memories of when I played my strongest opponent in a #simul in #Ostend, #Belgium in 2004. Needless to say, I lost gracefully. That day, already well into his seventies, he didn’t loose one game (IIRC 38 - 2 - 0!)

#fromthearchives #monochrome #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography #korchnoi #viktorkorchnoi #chess #canoneos #editedincaptureone

Amaranth Leaves are the leaves of the varieties of edible amaranth plants. They are very easy to grow, and come up year after year, so keen gardeners are never without this vegetable in their gardens. The leaves can vary from green to red, and you will often see bunches in Asian green groceries.

The leaves and the grain are exceptionally high in protein as well as amino acids, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese, copper, and zinc - a vegetarian's dream plant.

I cook them in Indian dishes, as the leaves are quite common in India so there is a great variety of recipes. Amaranth varieties are used in Asian cooking too. Known as Chinese Sinach or Een choi, it is often sold as whole plants with roots.

Apricots are another fruit with both sweet and savoury uses. They are best home-grown - shop-bought ones have terrible flavour and texture. Home grown are out of this world.

With their fresh fruity flavour they add a lightness and great colour contrast to salads and fruit salads. They bake and poach well and pair surprisingly well with vegetables like okra.

Dried apricots also have numerous applications in the kitchen, either pureed or soaked and cooked.

We keep store-bought apricots for cooked dishes. When we have the delight of a gift of home-grown apricots, they are eaten as-is and in salads.

19 février 2014 - Il y a 11 ans jour pour jour, j’ai atterri de nouveau à Kyiv pour couvrir les derniers jours de la révolution ukrainienne. J’ai retrouvé la Sotnia que je suivais un mois plus tôt et j’ai passé la soirée sur les dernières barricades au milieu de la place.

Et puis ma carte mémoire de travail a lâché. Depuis, impossible de la monter pour la lire. Il me fallait donc trouver une boîte qui puisse extraire la puce mémoire et la lire et voir si les photos étaient toujours là, sans que ça me coûte un rein ou l’âme de mon premier né.

J’ai fini par trouver, et j’ai fini par envoyer la carte et oui, elles étaient bien là.
Je pensais en avoir perdu 300 ; près du double ont été retrouvées. Je les avais quasi toutes oubliées.

Les roses dans les cocktails molotov, les visages harassés, Ihor et Sasha, la main sur le cœur, l’infirmerie et Ihor le Sotnik, blessé, son pistolet dans un holster...

1/...

15 years apart.

Truth be told, whenever I lack inspiration, I go to #Dinant. It may be not the most eciting city to visit in Belgium, but it more than makes up for it with it’s fairytale-like atmosphere.

The time before, it was raining cats and dogs and I settled for a quick-quick #panorama, so the last time I visited the #citadel of Dinant I had to redo it and this time with a little more effort. Both are +/- 120* vertical.

It’s also proof that in #Belgium, it doesn’t rain all the time (although it certainly feels that way.)

Photo #1: 10/2018 7 photos stitched #Olympus E-30
Photo #2: 5/2023 30 photos stitched #Pentax K1

#throwbacktuesday #belgie #belgique #thisisbelgium #travel #travelphotography #landscape #landscapephotography #fromthearchives #Pentaxk1 #editedincaptureone

Glazed apples are delicious and endlessly versatile. They can be used to top porridge and any pudding, syrupy cakes or endless desserts. Sit atop some junket, for example. Or over icecream, with grilled banana, on top of a fruit salad, topping a bowl of yoghurt. Any way you like.

Here I've topped some yoghurt with the apples and added blueberries.

Bill Grainger in his book #SydneyFood has a recipe for glazed apples with Banana Porridge. It really is delicious, and so Australian! We like to add passionfruit. It is a very Australian thing, and the sour notes of the passionfruit cut through the sweetness of the apples and porridge.