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Small World
I should have blogged the start of this story when it happened… I had the dominos, and I had a gas bottle, and I even had some spare flexible gas pipe, but I needed the bits to make it all work.
So I went by the Gas Appliance Centre in Lansdowne Road, with a domino in hand. Girl behind the counter (whom I can totally go in for, except she smokes) takes one look at this, says “yea, you need a hose barb female with a *mumble* thread, they come from the factory with a *mumble-something-else* thread, we have a tap, we can fix it… but we’re out of stock… come back in two days’ time”.
So after checking back a few times they get the fittings into stock (this place is sort of on my way to / from Lansdowne Boards so it’s no hassle). And I buy the two fittings, a T connector, a regulator and a bunch of pipe clamps.
All of this is currently doing duty making the gas dominos work over at the house (there’s still a bit of a leak I need to sort out though).
In the course of this all I spot that they also have cast iron woks, but small ones. Which is a Good Thing, since this was only days after Tanya bought me the Le Creuset. And I spot the corrugated vent pipe they use to vent gas geysers to the outside world. Figuring I could use this to join the miss-applied sewerage pipe to the extractor fan, I ask for a small bit of it. And she says “yea, my brother has off-cuts in the back of the bakkie, I’ll ask him to leave a bit here for you”.
And since then I’ve checked in a few times but the transfer from back of bakkie to under counter had not yet been made.
Which brings us to the other story. I removed four fans, actually, I lie, I removed two fans and the previous owners left us two fans which they removed or never fitted or whatever, from the bedrooms. That still leaves two fans in the house, previous owners were serious fans of… fans. Anyway, stuck the fans on Gumtree. A month or so later this girl phones, says she wants two fans, and she’ll send her cousin or friend or something to collect. No worries, say I, and I stick the fans in the back of the car.
So this morning a fellow pitches, says he’s here for the fans. And he drives a Gas Appliance Centre bakkie. Ahah!
So now I have the bit of corrugated pipe I need to finish the extractor fan installation :-)
Prep bowl
We bought a nice prep bowl at the Muizenberg market.
Then I redesigned the kitchen, and the counter became too narrow for that prep bowl.
Then we started looking for prep bowls to fit the narrow counter, with little success.
Until we went to the Hout Bay craft market, where we found these two bowls:
We both liked the left-hand one more than the right-hand one, but due to the way the clay is fired to get the finish, the right-hand one is slightly smaller.
So we went back home to measure. And I figured that I could make the shiny one fit.
The hole is just inside the cupboard front edge, and it overlaps the batten at the back, but the bowl curves, so it fits, with a centimeter or so to spare.
And then I could fasten the top to the base cupboards, and fit the tap. Yay!
Supper last night was spaghetti Bolognese, Michelle’s recipe via Alosha. And I mixed some speculaas dough, it’s in the fridge, will stick it in the oven tonight.
WordPress meta-geekery
My brother is running a WordPress blog with multiple authors. “Editors”, in WordPress terminology. He actually needs a content management system like E107 or Drupal, but he knows WordPress and it works for him.
But, he wants static pages, one or more per user, and of course each user should only be able to edit his own pages. Strangely enough, there doesn’t seem to be a WordPress plugin for this. Comments welcome, let me know if there is.
The following fix might work, it eliminates the link to edit pages if you’re not the right user. Of course this is low security.
wp-admin/includes/template.php
case ‘title’:
?>
<td><strong>
<?php
$user=wp_get_current_user();
if (get_the_author_ID() == $user->ID) { ?>
<a class=”row-title” href=”page.php?action=edit&post=<?php the_ID(); ?>” title=”<?php echo attribute_escape(sprintf(__(‘Edit “%s”‘), $title)); ?>”>
<?php } ?>
<?php echo $pad; echo $title ?></a></strong>
<?php if (‘private’ == $page->post_status) _e(‘ — <strong> Private</strong>’); ?></td>
<?php
break;<?php
break;
I still need to add an exception so that administrators can edit user pages.
Fun with Excel
I’ve been keeping track of my expenses, and decided to roughly categorize the spending. The total so far is just shy of R200 000, but it does include furniture which we would have had to buy in any case.
It doesn’t look like much…
…but it means one less extension cord to trip over.
The wire runs down through the ceiling behind the Colossal Cupboard, under the Hidden Door, and up along the door frame to the plugpoint.
With hindsight it would have been easier to fit the plugpoint before mounting the bookcase on the other side of the wall.
This is the second-last electrical run required. I still need to extend it to Jessica’s room and to the outside plug point for the washer, dryer and chest freezer. (The last electrical run will be for a plug point for Tamsyn’s computer). Edit : of course I’m lying, we still need plug points in the master bedroom, but for some reason that doesn’t come up on my radar…
The master bathroom’s looking good.
Reverse Risotto
We invited Tanya’s folks over for supper on Saturday. I had to do some tech support for a friend in Somerset West, then went back via Bellville to get an O ring from the hardware store and a bunch of supplies from the Fruit & Veg.
Found a rather large (it was still the smallest on the shelf) hunk of marinated pork loin roast. Which I had to cut in half to get it to fit my black pot.
I also went via the Constantia Aroma (for bubbly) and Pick & Pay, where I found a large bunch of beetroot for R5.99.
Tangent : As a kid, I didn’t understand why my mother liked asparagus from tins or beetroot from jars. Then I met fresh asparagus and beetroot, which both really rawk. I suspect my mother was searching for that taste, the canned stuff being a weak shadow.
So I cooked the beetroot according to the first recipe I googled. Topped and tailed them, rubbed the skin off, sliced and stuck them in the fridge. (First time I used the electric domino, works well).
Back to the roast. I followed a recipezaar recipe I’d used before, except that with the pork being pre-marinaded, I skipped step 3. I also made mustard-roasted potatoes, which were excellent. Persuaded Tanya to steam some veggies, and skipped making the braised sauerkraut (in hindsight, probably a mistake). But nobody noticed, because the pork was excellent. And then some.
I wanted to make gravy from the juice in the pot, but it was very fatty, so we skipped that in favour of the ready-made stuff. And I must say, the Denny brand gravy is excellent.
So, on to the reverse risotto. After the juice cooled down, I removed most of the fat (and threw it away, I should have kept it, but right now space is an issue — I need to get a chest freezer organised). Heated the pot up, and fried rice in the oil, added wine — you know, classic risotto recipe. Except then I added water only, figuring that all the tasty bits were in the pot already.
And they were. My oh my, this is good rice.
Quote of the month
I don’t know what it says about my life that I’ll be able to do 90% of my Christmas shopping at Brownell’s…
— Tamara
Tomato and Beef Kofta, Pita bread, and a bit of bathroom progress
I’ve been browsing through Lex Culinaria, which is not something to do while hungry. The Tomato and Beef Kofta recipe looked good. So I made that (first time I’ve made meatballs, would you believe it?). Also tried my hand at Farmgirl’s pita bread, but slipped up, used too much water, had to add flour, and basically ended up with something closer to naan. No worries, it was great.
It’s easy to lose track of the fact that the house is far from finished when you’re having fun in the kitchen. I suppose I have to start from one side, and since the kids’ rooms are almost there (Jessica has a mirror that still has to go up, and the notwork and computer power points still have to go in) the bathroom’s high on the list.
I don’t know how one is supposed to keep the bath apron in place (note strategic use of batten and screwdriver) but I’m hoping that copious amounts of silicone will do. (I had to cut the tile on the far wall in a curved shape to fit, which is why this took so long. That, and the bath was leaking.)
Chocolate cake
Jessica (the 13 year old) had a friend over, and they wanted to bake. Chocolate cake. So I found a recipe and let them loose in the kitchen.
I had to intervene to explain that 350 degrees was Fahrenheit and our oven works in Celsius/Centigrade, and I had to explain that “baking soda” is probably what we call “bicarb”, but for the rest all went well and nobody got poisoned.
If you found something this colour in the Amazon rain forest, you would do well to avoid it…