NTC 12: A Good Day to Try Hard
Uhhhh friends I am not having a great time
With that out of the way, let’s talk specifics. Specifically, I am not having a great time for two reasons: firstly, I have to go back to the dentist for two terrifying procedures, and secondly I am doing quite badly at university this semester.
“Quite badly” is a relative term. Am I successful in other things? Yeah, a lot of my life is going great, I’m having a nice time… but university is stressful and not fun. This is because university, like any big institution, wants you to function in a certain way. If you go to law school, they want you to memorise lots of rules and be good at arguing. If you go to cookery school, they want you to be good at preparing a lot of food. And if you go to art school, they want you to be creative… up to a point.
For instance, in my current department, one of the students made some inflatable sculptures and filled them with helium. They took off, floated into the airspace above Austria, and were shot down by the Austrian airforce for being a threat to air traffic. One of the lecturers received a visit from a member of the military, and was told that if this happened again the department would be billed for all costs, including aviation fuel. In my department, the sky really is the limit.
Of course, most people aren’t making giant balloons that float into the path of aeroplanes. I might be wrong, I’ve missed a lot of classes this semester. But where this comes back to food is that you’re probably thinking about your fridge wrong. Or, if not wrong, not creatively enough.
above: yeah I made that. It's taken about three years but I'm pretty proud of my bread now
I regularly fill up my fridge when baking bread. Part of the bread making process is a ‘rest’, where the bread relaxes and the gasses from the yeast make the dough get bigger. I do this in our tiny half-size fridge, and in order to make room for two huge boules (the name for round bread, which is the only shape I can bake) I have learned some tricks.
above: everything in this picture is in the wrong place, or it should be thrown out
The first trick, and the most important, is that everything goes in the door. Cheese? Door. Wine bottle? Door. Half an apple? Door! There’s a whole load of room in the door, and you’re probably just using it to store condiments you never eat. The same goes for the vegetable box in the bottom of the fridge. Yes, it will keep your lettuce crispy, but on the other hand if you have a lot of stuff why not keep your chocolate crispy, or your feta cheese. Nobody is judging you, be free.
The second trick is that you can put big boxes in the corners of the shelves. I put a bag of miso paste in the back of the fridge last autumn and I’ve only just pulled it out (to make the fake asian soup I wrote about last time). Rather than clog up your door with weird condiments that Ottolenghi loves, stick them in the back of the fridge.
above: leftovers and fresh bread
Finally, if you are baking bread, you can put things on top of your bread. This tip applies to maybe one person who reads this newsletter. If you’re not making bread you can now keep more stuff in your fridge. Even your eggs, if you want to.
I’m limited in my approach to university because some things won’t fit, like a wedding cake in my tiny wee fridge. But if we move some stuff around, and hide the jar of Kefir Limes, we can fit two large loaves of bread. It’s not cake, but most people don’t want cake every day.
Next time: cake. I’ve been researching using polenta in cakes, and I think I have something to show you. Fingers crossed for NTC 13: spooky entry.
Pete