Dad’s courgette plants are producing in overdrive and we have courgettes coming out of our ears at the moment. We’ve been searching for new ways to cook courgettes (and marrows, as the courgettes are maturing to their marrow stage faster than we can eat them). This soup was really easy to make and one of the most (unexpectedly) flavoursome I’ve had in a while.

serves 5-6

For the spice mixture (to be ground with mortar & pestle):

2/3 tsp cumin seeds
2/3 tsp coriander seeds
2/3 tsp black peppercorns
1 1/3 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder (or to taste)
1/4 tsp ground white pepper (optional)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/5 tsp anis seeds
2 cloves

(or cheat and use 2 tbsp curry powder and chili to taste — won’t be as good, though)

For the yoghurt mixture:

1 pot of greek style yoghurt (approx 2 tbsp).
4 tbsp mango chutney (I used the “Patak’s” brand).

The main ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
2 medium sized onions, chopped coarsely
2 medium-large marrows, peeled and largely diced
500 – 750ml vegetable stock (depending on how thick you want your soup — save some of it and add later if necessary)
a few handfuls of fresh spinach (optional, adds depth of flavour)

The onions are sautéed in the oil and spices until they’ve softened*. Then the stock is added with the diced marrow (with salt to taste), and it’s left to simmer for 20 minutes**.

Then the spinach is added (if you have it) and left for another 10 minutes. Then the whole thing is blended smooth and the yoghurt mixture is stirred in.

*If the spices mop up too much of the oil and the pan becomes dry… add more oil!

**If, during the previous stage, there are spices clinging to the pan, you can loosen them with a dash of vinegar.

Adapted from this recipe (whose portion sizes are very mean; I doubled most things and it was about the same number of servings, in my opinion).

Like the rest of my watercolour sketches so far, this is a scene depicting rural Santa Margalida. I ought to make the most of my environment here and practice more in the coming days, because I’m off to Belgium on the 29th.

This one’s a bit messy… clumsy… Not very pleased with it. I had the sun on my back and was sat on a rock. Lesson learned: paint in the shade. And think about getting a tripod seat!

And a bag for my digital drawing tablet, from the same material.

They’re both made of the same material (a durable shopping bag), except the digital tablet bag is padded with a thick black felt lining.

See the entire post below for more pictures.

I wish I had the creative fire burning under me at the moment that Joan Armatrading seems still to command:

Before I can begin work on any album, I have to observe an important ritual: cleaning. It clears my head. Everything in the studio must be cleaned, dusted and tidied. It takes as long as it takes – sometimes even two days.

Then I check my recording software, select my guitars, ensuring they have new strings, and set up the computer ready to record. I play everything myself – guitar, keyboards, mandolin, mouth organ, whatever, and record on to Apple’s Logic Pro 8 software, which is much easier than the old analogue tape recording. Before starting the actual writing, I unwind with a cup of hot water with nothing in it, not even a slice of lemon – I’ve never drunk alcohol.

I can typically work from 6am and finish at 8am the following morning. I have to be completely alone when working – other people only get involved when it comes to mixing the album. Such solitary existence means no one prompts me to do normal things like eating, drinking and sleeping. It is only when I’m about to keel over that I remember to rest and refuel.

I used to work like that on animations: wake up, and jump on to the computer to finish the work that I abandoned the previous night at the point of exhaustion. I never knew I was capable of such concentration and passion before I got into that hobby. Time dissolves!

More from Joan’s diary entry at FT.com.

Daily
Mum and I go on walks
for exercise,

though we scarcely exert.
I give my hand
to her.

COLD HANDS, she says.
Circulation perhaps,
we say.

I WANT TO MAKE PAPER,
I say,
BUT I DON’T HAVE…

*

Later,
Dad made me a framed sieve
from wood and mesh.

Finishing up,
he said:
I’M FREEZING MY BALLS OFF.

He left to light the fire,
pour a whiskey,
and smoke.

I stayed in the garage
making paper,
heart warm.

Hurray, I’m now a Cambridge certified EFL teacher! And for the moment I have a much more relaxed schedule, so my blog will see more love than it has in past weeks. Starting with this fantastic creature, Japan’s Giant Salamander.

But impressive it certainly is: about 1.7m (5ft 6in) long, covered in a leathery skin that speaks of many decades passed, with a massive gnarled head covered in tubercles whose presumed sensitivity to motion probably helped it catch fish by the thousand over its lifetime.

If local legend is to be believed, though, this specimen is a mere tadpole compared with the biggest ever seen around Maniwa.

A 17th Century tale, related to us by cultural heritage officer Takashi Sakata, tells of a salamander (or hanzaki, in local parlance) 10m long that marauded its way across the countryside chomping cows and horses in its tracks.

It’s referred to as a “living fossil” because its skeleton still resembles closely that of 30 million year old examples (see right).

The full article describes the creature’s highly unusual manner of (external) fertilization. It sounds almost as alien as slug sex. It really is from another world: see the video and accompanying article @ BBC News.

Photo by wikipedia user Haplochromis.

A debt of gratitude is owed to Mother Beaton for this recipe (I must get my experimental streak from her), whose secret is in the milk.

I’m aware that almond milk and goats milk are not exactly common in most parts of the world. Well, neither is the best porridge (ever).

I referred in a previous post to a mysterious bite which caused my forearm to swell up and make me look like Popeye. Well, the swelling is gone now but my arm is weaker than before.

My interest piqued, I began Googling around to see if the bite may have somehow caused a degeneration of muscle tissue in my arm, whereupon I found many instances of this lovely word: envenomation, which according to dictionary.com is “The injection of a poisonous material by sting, spine, bite, or other similar means.”

Local and systemic skeletal muscle degeneration is a common consequence of envenomations due to snakebites and mass bee attacks. Phospholipases A2 (PLA2) are important myotoxic components in these venoms, inducing a similar pattern of degenerative events in muscle cells. Myotoxic PLA2s bind to acceptors in the plasma membrane, which might be lipids or proteins and which may differ in their affinity for the PLA2s. Upon binding, myotoxic PLA2s disrupt the integrity of the plasma membrane by catalytically dependent or independent mechanisms, provoking a pronounced Ca2+ influx which, in turn, initiates a complex series of degenerative events associated with hypercontraction, activation of calpains and cytosolic Ca2+-dependent PLA2s, and mitochondrial Ca2+ overload.

So maybe it is possible that the bite is to blame for my “muscle necrosis”. The above quote is from an article at Science Direct.

A second experiment in stop motion. The soundtrack is First Light by Brian Eno and Harold Budd, with added samples from the film The Quiet Earth.

Something bit me on the arm when I was in that tree and now my forearm is swollen and looks like a club. I’d be ok with that if I were happier with the video.

I just got a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch. It’s small, ergonomic and beautiful. And i’ll probably be doing a lot more drawing and animating as a result.

Above is an unfinished sketch of the local landscape here. Features are missing. I will probably do different versions of this scene, as it changes with the light, fog, weather, etc.

Below is a portrait that I gave up on, unsatisfied. But I’ve come to believe that it’s better to do lots of quick sketches than to chase individual ones around until I get frustrated and demotivated.

Click for larger.

I think the reason I’m not completely satisfied with it is because I started drawing it before I really knew what I wanted to do with it. It’s helpful, with anything, to know what you want before you begin.

If my joy is depleted –
from wondering if I ought to be wondering,
and getting ready to wait again –
there is still a backup,
like in A&E.

Eyes, ears, dusty solar panels to collect:
The music released from a cabbage,
when split with a large kitchen knife;
Sunset light shone low through a cock’s comb,
radiating at x lumens per wattle;
And glassy, blue light,
exploded by the chaff of suspended dust particles in my room,
where the telephone won’t ring.

I thought it would be nice to make a list — almost like a restaurant menu — of the items in my culinary repertoire, so as to make it easy to plan meals and keep track of new recipes I find/create.

Then it occurred to me that somebody must have already devised a system expressly for this purpose. It turns out they did, and one more advanced than the one I had in mind. The most promising, free recipe organizer that I’ve found so far online is we gotta eat.

There are three things that make it highly attractive for my purposes:

Above: categorization of ‘pasta e fagioli’ soup.

There are other fun (what?) gadgets too, like a shopping list manager. Check it out: wegottaeat.