Evil, foul smelling cabbage

This week Monali launched her new website, promoting her delicious, delicious food. Eventually she’ll become a restaurant but for now, drooling has to be limited to the digital.

Monali’s website

Nothing so gorgeous here at home. In fact, I had a bit of a failure in the food department. After the success of my fermented veg and daily kefir creation, I had high hopes for my first batch of sauerkraut.

Today I took the lid off. I then rapidly replaced it. The smell was overpoweringly disgusting. It all looked fine if somewhat super bubbly but the smell was…evil is the only word I can think of. But I wasn’t giving up.

I held my nose, opened the jar again and poured the contents into a strainer, running cold water over the shredded cabbage and swishing it about with my hands. Gradually the smell vanished (as my keys filled up rather than by any other method, I’m sure) and I dared myself to taste some. This was a mistake.

I can’t really describe the taste except to say it was very similar to the smell. I threw it all away and will start again. I think I know where I went wrong. Fortunately we still have some shop bought sauerkraut left.

The other crazy thing I did today was plant the twelve hyacinths we bought at Chawton House on Sunday. I say ‘crazy’ because they were frozen into their small pots. The only way I could move them from pot to earth was by breaking apart the plastic pots. Fortunately this was very easy.

The ground could have been a right frozen annoyance but, because I was planting them in the woodland walk area, it’s quite sheltered from the general weather conditions. It was also already turned over from when I planted the grape hyacinths last week. In fact, apart from a whole load of split apart pots, it was all quite easy.

Not so easy was getting water for them. Both water butts were frozen solid and the tap and hose outside the house were likewise unmoving. I thought I’d have to get water from the house but then happened upon the red watering can. I’d used it on the grape hyacinths last week and it still held a third of it’s capacity. Okay, so quite a bit of this was solid ice but there was enough to just douse the new plants.

Frozen water feature

Of course we went to the park, suitably rugged up of course, and the girls enjoyed it as usual. Emma even managed to be nice to a few dogs who came close to her rather than run away which is something she’s started doing of late. The other thing that Emma did today was discover the joys of snow.

I was Skyping with mum and, on the top step leading up to the terrace, Emma and Freya were investigating the white stuff laying about. Emma, for reasons that shall forever remain a mystery, thought it would be a good idea to rub her cheeks in it.

This was something that Carmen loved doing. Every time there was snow, she’d be like Mr Plough, pushing her face either side along the snow drifts. It seems that Emma was quite keen as well. It was very funny watching her reaction. Freya tried it but wasn’t quite as enamoured although she was a bit madly joyful about the stuff in general, spending most of the morning running and jumping around in it.

Sadly, the freesias out the front were a little less than happy with the snow. They looked so good the other day but now are a bit droopy and downbeat.

Too soon!

The snow started falling in the late afternoon and very quickly the terrace was covered. The pristine whiteness was not long in remaining as two little puppies decided it was great to run across just for the sheer hell of it.

Puppy tracks

At around lunchtime I had a phone call from Tony at Talking Newspaper advising me that the recording sessions for this week had been cancelled because of the weather. I was down to present the Farnham edition. I was happy enough because it means I can go to the gym and not be away from the girls for as long.

I did wonder why but figured it’s because the vast majority of the volunteers drive to the studio and the roads will be quite treacherous tomorrow…so they say. It’s the first time I remember it being cancelled.