Otherwise I'll forget

I made some focaccia bread yesterday, on a beautiful saturday afternoon. My dad learned the recipe from The Bread Book, but has since perfected it. I took notes as I baked, and have documented the process below, so I don't forget.
My dad's recipe is purely volumetric (no mass required!), which means I didn't have to worry about yeast densities and metric volume conversions of tablespoons as the book recipe used things like "mg" and "ounces," in a kitchen without scales...

Into a cup add:

1 (flat) tablespoon of dried granule yeast

1/3 teaspoon of sugar (too much and it will be very fluffy)

250ml of human-warm water (35-39˚C)

Leave to bubble for 15min or so the granules become 'lumpy' on top

Into a blender add:

4 cups of plain flour

2 teaspoons of salt

Some rosemary leaves

and pour the yeast/water in when it's done

Blend together!

As it blends, pour in 9 'glugs' of oil from an upturned bottle

(I had to add some extra water as well so the dough would knit)

Take it out and form a ball shape

Place into a bowl covered with something like a plastic bag

And leave to rise for an hour

Take out the dough and kneed it for a few minutes

Then spread it out into a flat shape on an oven tray

Poke some holes in it for later!

Cover it again with the plastic bag and leave for half and hour

Drizzle with oil and spread all over the surface of the bread

Chop up some black olives and sprinkle artistically

Sprinkle a bit of rock salt on top as well

Put in a pre-heated oven at 180-200˚C

Keep it in until it looks yum!

 Ding!

Eat warm or later

with inspiration from some other poetic recipes.

The Garden's Perspective

The Boutique at Stop 7782

Adding to the collection of bus stops ...

Wellington

I decided to walk home a different way this evening, and I found a pleasant surprise.

I remembered seeing this house before, but I couldn't remember where, maybe in a magazine, or in a lecture, but I had never realised it was just around the corner...
It's rather incredible in it's immediacy. In the other direction across the street is a magnificent vista across Wellington Harbour, yet it chooses to have these giant concrete panels like a shield. My mind wandered back to thermal conductivity and periodic heat oscillations... Or maybe it's what I'm always reading - about framing and revealing views. I think my previous lecturer would talk about 'caves' and 'nests' a lot here.

What is interesting is the dichotomy between itself and it's neighbour, a historic villa built romantically of wooden panels and neat symmetry. But they share similarities too, like in their relative mass, as can be seen from behind:

There's a strange conversation between these two that I enjoy. I think on reflection too, the villa is probably more 'closed' than the concrete house, with fewer and smaller windows compared with vast walls of glazing. I do wonder what it would be like to live in though.

Venice

Approaching Venice, I was surprised to pass through worn out industrial settings, contained in the greater area surrounding the old city on the mainland, the Provincia di Venezia. It was only crossing the long road bridge to the 'island,' and taking a ferry to Piazza San Marco that the fantasy Venice that I had seen in paintings came to life.

Piazza San Marco with the Basilica (1730) by Canaletto

Piazza San Marco with the Basilica (2011) by Nick (and Canon)

It was incredible how little the city had changed.

Nighttime Procession in Piazza San Marco (1758) by Guardi

We took a tour through the sometimes incredibly narrow canals by gondola, where our guide would artfully sail us around corners with millimeter precision, giving a gentle kick off the wall to set us down another path in the labyrinth.

Because Venice is like a maze. The only way through Venice is by foot or gondola, and the streets are narrower than the canals. Our tour manager gave us a map but then laughed and told us to not worry about using it. Instead we relied on the intermittent signs that would point either to 'Piazza San Marco' or 'Ponte di Rialto,' being the Rialto Bridge. Only you had to often guess for the five intersecting paths between each one. I managed to head from San Marco following the Rialto signs only to find myself back at San Marco! I took a breath, and tried again...

This time it worked!

View from Ponte di Rialto

On Ponte di Rialto

During a phase of 20th century development in the waterways, Venice began to sink. It has possibly stopped now after drilling in the lagoon was banned, but it has still left much of Venice at risk of high tides, and has forced some dwellings to raise their ground floor.

Sometimes I didn't know how Venice was still standing, following the stone and brick facades crumbling into the water.

And yet somehow this simply complimented the romance the city is famous for. Drifting away again, I felt like Venice would continue to remain in it's own time, ageless.

tiny galactic flowers

Found in the Milky Way Galaxy