NLP Practitioner Obs 1

09/04/11

First day back at work after 7 days of intensive NLP training (second instalment of three training segments).  Feeling pretty euphoric.  Bump into a variety of people who tell me I look different - this seems to boil down to a mixture of having been outside a fair bit (in the sun) and looking much more relaxed generally.  Must remember this - it feels good!  Discover that one member of my team uses highly kinesthetic language but  eye position is focussing on the middle distance to my right rather than down.  Subject speaks slowly and resonantly.  Early evening check up on a course buddy who I'd worked with the day before to see how something we'd been working on is going with them - just over 24 hours later what seemed completely stuck is now all resolved already!  Am going to have a go at time lapse photography of nail growing progress.

Homemade Handcream Update

My sister's pregnant (in fact, at the time of writing this she's due to give birth imminently) and had put handcream on her Christmas list this year.

Following the success of the handcream I made for my partner, I investigated suitable essential oils for use in the third semester of pregnancy.  I came up with Rose, Orange and Lavender.  Instead of filtered water, I used rose water (which I got from our wonderful local 'Exotic' Grocer in Parkstone - Makkah - see below).

She really likes the cream and has already put in an order for a second batch once this one runs out.  So's my partner.  I think I've started something ...

MAKKAH
In writing this update, I've discovered that you can shop online at Makkah and they have a delivery service.  This is very exciting!  For one thing, I can learn what some of the unrecognisable leaves and vegetables are.  There's even a recipe section.  I'm going to get browsing immediately!

Strawberry and Vanilla Vodka Update

The recipe for this was set out in an earlier blog and I promised to let people know how it turned out.  In a word, 'delicious'!

The colour came out of the fruit and into the vodka, making it a gorgeous pink colour.  It smells really wonderful too.  I've been pouring it out with the aid of a tea strainer to catch the strawberries, then eating them separately.  I reckon they'd make a really good desert topping mind you.

I still haven't tasted this year's sloe gin, but will get round to it in due course.  The truth is that the strawberry vodka was just more enticing than the sloe gin!

Far Flung Flan

Sat on the covered patio of the first day of our holiday in Morocco, the last thing I expected to be presented with for pudding was Crème Caramel! My brother-in-law comes from neighbouring Algeria, and always returns from visits home with an array of variations of baklava made by his sisters (layers of filo pastry stuffed with chopped nuts soaked in sugar-syrup with rosewater, also a popular dessert in Greece where the sugar-syrup is replaced by honey). So, not knowing too much about Moroccan cuisine I’d expected that a North African pudding would involve bite-sized pieces of sticky sweet pastry concoction. The texture of Crème Caramel couldn’t have been further from my anticipation, but out it came nonetheless.

 Now I’ve travelled in Spain and South America, and come across the ever-present ‘Flan’ in many parts of the world as a result. Flan and Crème Caramel are essentially the same thing, the UK equivalent being ‘Baked Egg Custard’ (although the latter usually comes in a sweet pastry case, is sprinkled with nutmeg and is known as a Custard Tart). The common denominator is a recipe involving milk and/or cream mixed with eggs (whole or just yolks) baked until set, usually in a water bath (‘bain marie’ in French or ‘/baño de María’ in Spanish).

I confess here and now that I don’t like crème caramel and despite having been presented with native versions of it by well-meaning hosts in Spain, Mexico and Ecuador alike, I’ve never taken to the texture. That having been said, my Grandma used to make a mean custard tart and the additional contrasting consistency of pastry makes it one of my first choices when birthday cakes arrive in the office.

On investigation, it turns out that the crème caramel has conquered many parts of the world. Far beyond Europe, variations of the recipe are popular in South America (particularly Mexico), the Caribbean, the Philippines and even Vietnam. Little wonder then, that it’s also crept into the gastronomic psyche of North Africa.

Crème Caramel is quite a basic recipe requiring no sophisticated processed ingredients. It’s all about chemistry. The gentle heating of the mixture causes the proteins in the egg to coagulate and so firm up the liquid to a soft jelly-like consistency. More modern recipes may use the processed form of gelatine to set liquids to a similar form, but gelatine is derived from animal bones and so is unsuitable for vegetarians.

It seems that the recipe originated in Ancient Rome, which is believed to be the first civilisation to domesticate chickens for egg production. The Romans were inventive experimenters in the kitchen and their produce included a condiment sauce known as ‘garum’ or ‘liquamen’ which my pre-teenage step-son delighted in telling me is made of fermented fish guts. During their culinary trials, the Romans also discovered the setting properties of baked egg, making both sweet (with honey) and savoury versions of egg custard (including with eels). The equivalent Ancient Roman dish was known as ‘Tyropatinam’ and consisted of milk, whole eggs, honey, liquamen, cinnamon and pepper, whisked together and cooked over a slow fire until set. The word ‘flan’ comes from the Latin word ‘flado’ which translates as ‘flat cake’.

Flan conquered palates across the spreading Roman Empire and did not recede with the fall of its originators. Instead it became adopted and adapted to suit local tastes and availability of ingredients. In different parts of the world, recipe variations include fruit, vanilla, coconut milk, lemon juice, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and honey.

Back on my Moroccan patio, enjoying my first exclusively grown-ups holiday for many years, I decided to brave the crème caramel and see whether I had got over my childhood revulsion (to be fair, I’m sure my childhood experiences of the dessert always originated from one of those 1970’s cardboard ‘ready-mix’ packets). Not really – the texture still defeated me. However, the surprising geography of the flan has intrigued me sufficiently and I’ll have another go when I travel to Catalonia in the summer. There must be something in it - all those flan-loving civilisations can’t be wrong?!

Prettying the Presents

A few years ago, I ran an internet mail order business selling outdoor clothing.  I used to sell walking shoes amongst other things, which necessitating having a supply of brown paper, being the only thing copious enough to wrap them in.

I STILL have a fairly substantial roll of brown paper left, so rather than going out to buy bright new paper have used it for wrapping Christmas presents.  Not very festive, you might think! 

I had to find a way of brigthening them up, so ventured out into the rainy garden with a pair of scissors.  Here's what I snipped, although anything reasonably robust would do:-

Conifer leaves
Ivy leaves
Ivy berries
Rosemary sprigs
Sisyrinchium leaves

I had top pop them on a cloth on top of the radiator to dry them out a bit before I started.  I trimmed the ivy berries because the heads are round and I wanted them to sit flat in my bundles.

I then arranged all the elements loosely and simply wrapped the ends round and round in green cotton, then tied them in little decorative bunches.  I used nothing more glamorous than sellotape to stick them onto the parcels (using the cotton directly under the tape to get a bit of stick).  I'm sure they would have looked even more artistic with a bit of ribbon or, better still, some good old-fashioned hairy string!

Brandy Butter

This is somewhat last minute, but if you've only ever had custard with your Christmas pudding before, I need to put you right!

Brandy butter is delicious and melts all over your steaming Christmas pudding in the most irresistible way. I would NEVER, NEVER have custard on my pudding if brandy butter were available. It just doesn't seem to ever be on offer at restaurants alongside their standard festive fayre. Don't be lured to rum butter as an alternative either - brandy is by far the best.

RECIPE
3 oz butter (85 g) (leave it out of the fridge beforehand so it's nice and soft)
6 oz icing sugar (170g)
2 tablespoons brandy

Thoroughly mix the soft butter with the icing sugar, then whip in the brandy. If it curdles slightly (which it might well), you can add a little flour.

Pop it into the freezer for a couple of hours to get it nice and firm, then keep it covered in the fridge until immediately before serving. Wonderful!

Homemade Handcream

I've been fascinated by the idea of making homemade cream since a friend of mine told me she'd been on a course about it somewhere in rural North Dorset. This friend is a therapist (reiki, hot stone massage, etc.) who believes in using organic products in her treatments but has trouble sourcing those that she likes.

I did some internet research and came across a variety of recipes, then set about finding where I could buy the necessary ingredients online. I bought beeswax (in blocks) from Paynes Southdown Bee Farms and everything else I needed from The Soap Kitchen. I was quite excited after I'd made the orders, but had to wait two weeks before my Soap Kitchen order arrived (it seems they experience high sales volumes in the lead up to Christmas so I imagine there must be people out there who make handmade creams and cosmetics as presents).

My partner has really dry skin on her hands so I particularly wanted to make something suitable for her, and I didn't want it to smell too flowery. I therefore carefully researched my choices of essential oils and adapted one of the recipes I found to suit.

INGREDIENTS
10g beeswax (I had to grate the blocks)
16g cocoa butter
60ml / 4 tablespoons almond oil
90ml / 6 tablespoons water
20g emulsifying wax
10 drops fennel oil
10 drops rosemary oil

METHOD
You need to use a heatproof bowl which will sit over a saucepan of simmering water (the bowl should sit in the hot water). In that bowl, melt the cocoa butter, beeswax and almond oil.

Measuring out the above ingredients was quite tricky using my digital scales, which didn't cope well with such small quantities. In the end I managed it by taking the weight of what I wanted AWAY from what was on the scales in a heavy bowl, which worked perfectly.

At the same time, warm the 90ml (I used filtered) water with the emulsifying wax in a small microwaveable container. This took somewhere between 30-60 seconds ... and it re-solidifies quite fast as it cools!

Use an electric whisk to mix the melted emulsifying wax mixture into the melted oils mixture until it cools. It's similar to whisking cream in that it thickens (and whitens) as you continue to whisk.

When it's cool, then whisk in the essential oils. My oils were in little bottles with dropper tops, but I discovered they're quite difficult to control so you need to pour them into the mixture slowly and carefully if you're to stand a chance of counting the drops!

You can then put the mixture into jars. The amount above made about 125 ml volume of handcream.

RESULTS
It smells gorgeous and is a good thick consistency. Once decanted into pots, I rushed to find some humans to test it on ... my partner loves it! It definitely seems to be a superior product to any of the handcreams we've bought before, and believe me, my partner's hands are so dry that we've been prepared to spend some serious money on handcreams!