Hiatus
As you can see, palatabiliTEA hasn’t been active in quite awhile. At first it was because I was busy with graduate school applications, then it was because my mother injured herself and needed care, and then I got busy with other projects and had other demands on my time.
Is palatabiliTEA dead? I hope not. I truly love writing this blog. But right now, all I can see is all the work I have yet to do, and it looks insurmountable. I intend to return at some point in the future–after all, it was a private goal of mine to see this blog through for an entire year…and when I have these private goals, I do not quit them–but for now this project is on an indefinite hiatus.
Should I Get Rid of a Kettle?
As many of you know, I have a trusty Proctor-Silex tea kettle. It had been a constant companion of mine for a year, and I was quite happy with it. It wasn’t stylish and the pour wasn’t ideal, but it got the job done and it got it done efficiently.
However, ever since Xine sent me a UtiliTea, ol’ Proctor-Silex has been relegated to the shelf. I don’t think I’ve even touched it in a couple months. The fact is that I don’t need it, so I was thinking of giving it away. The only thing stilling my hand from posting “Free Kettle!” on TeaChat is that it would make me a great work kettle if I do switch jobs. Unfortunately, I’ve been trying to switch jobs for a year now. I apparently suck at life.
Anyway, should I hold on to this thing or not? I have no guarantees that I will need it…but I might. But I don’t want to start down the path of the creepy newspaper-hoarding lady so early in my adulthood. I need more disillusionment first.
If you’ve got a vote, leave it in the comments.
What a Spankin’ Good Idea!
My friend Ido, who runs the blog Divine Tastes, recently brought a great website to my attention. It’s called FreeRice.com, and it has one of the most novel and noble concepts around. You simply answer vocabulary questions. For each one you get right, you ‘earn’ 10 grains of rice. The rice you earn is then used to feed the world’s hungry.
Now, clearly you’re not earning rice off some giant stockpile–you’re earning the equivalent money it would cost to buy 10 grains of rice. When you’re done playing, FreeRice.com turns around and buys the rice with the money they earn from their website advertisers. It’s a not-for-profit venture that was launched on October 7, 2007 with a total of 830 grains on their first day. As of November 17th, they have distributed 2,457,120,420 grains of rice.
So if you’re a vocab nut, an idealistic neohippie, or both, try to spend five minutes a day on this site. The worst thing that can happen is that your vocabulary will increase.
Updates and New Toys!
Alas, updates here might be a little sparse and irregular over the next month. As many of you know I’m in the process of applying to graduate schools and November is the crunch month. I have yet to solidify the list of schools I’m applying to, as well as write some key documents like a personal statement…so my free time this months is mostly spoken for. However, I do plan to put out at least two long over due posts: a review on the Zarafina tea maker that was graciously gifted me a few months ago and a review on Adagio’s anTEAdote line, again a wonderful gift. Until then, I leave you with a tale of new teaware.
As you might recall, when I first started writing down my tea notes I often prepared my teas in the famed “Tetsubin of Awesomeness”–a 3 cup unglazed cast iron tetsubin. I absolutely love my tetsubin, but as my tastes shifted from black teas to oolongs and greens, I found myself using it less and less. Unless I was sharing tea with a friend, it just wasn’t feasible to use such a large pot for something I’d reinfuse many times. So I switched to using a gaiwan (or brew baskets if I was feeling particularly lazy).
Unfortunately, I really missed my tetsubin. I liked it’s heft, I liked its heat retention…I liked the fact that I could drop it a thousand times and never break it. And while I do concede that the gaiwan is a much better tool for when it comes to criticizing a tea, the fact of the matter is that I’m just a casual drinker who occasionally poses as a critic. I’ll sip tea when I’m reading, writing, or studying. I keep a mug around when I clean house or cook dinner. I’ll even bottle iced teas for when I work out. At these times, I couldn’t care less about a refined mouthfeel or floral palate. I just want something that tastes good, and for these teas, I want a vessel that can take some mean abuse. I want my tetsubin.
And now I have a small one, thanks to post-general GREs retail therapy! I was pretty hacked off at my less-than-wunderkind results (they’re fine…just not fine), and eventually found myself gloomily perusing cookware at TJ Maxx. As I calculated the benefits of one box grater over another, a woman tapped me on the shoulder.
“Do you think there’s any Chinese lead in this?” she asked as she handed me a tiny tetsubin. I looked her straight in the eyes and replied, “Most definitely.”
Lying always makes me feel better…and ill-gotten, wonderfully-priced gains even more so!
Yay tea.
At Long Last…The Perfect Scone!
I cook. I cook a lot. I make almost everything completely from scratch, and it’s almost always excellent. There are, however, some things that I hate to make and avoid like the plague. One of them is the scone.
Scones are supposed to be a sort of convenience food–something you whipped together from basic ingredients so that you could have a full stomach with minimal fuss. Unfortunately, every scone recipe I’ve ever come across requires a whole lot of pomp and circumstance–usually beginning with me spending 45 minutes going to and from the grocery to buy the buttermilk or heavy cream, neither of which I consider pantry staples, and ending with me spending another 45 minutes cleaning the too-sticky dough off of all the counters, bowls, mixer attachments, and pans. Add on the baking time and I might as well have made a full lamb dinner for all the time I spent on a ‘convenience food.’
Of course, as an American, I could sail through life without ever having a scone trouble my conscience. Unfortunately, as a girl who can cook well and likes tea, I seem to be expected by friends and acquaintances to provide them with scones and a cuppa at a moment’s notice.
Thankfully, I happened upon this recipe. Not only do I always have all its ingredients on hand, they’re as easy to whip up as biscuits–particularly if I hand form instead of uniformly cut them–yet have that classic ‘scone’ taste and texture. Better yet, the ingredients are basic enough that I can have fun playing with substitutions. Perfect.
The Perfect Scone
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ cup white sugar
1/8 tsp salt
5 Tbs butter (pref. unsalted)
½ cup optional ‘add ins’
½ cup milk
¼ cup sour cream
Egg wash: 1 egg + dash of water/milk
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
- In a large bowl (in my case, my Kitchen Aid mixer’s bowl), combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in cold/semi-soft butter with a pastry blender until mixture is in crumbs (in my case, beat it with the Kitchen Aid for a few seconds).
- If adding dry add ins like dried cranberries, raisins, nuts, etc, add to mixture now.
- Mix together milk and sour cream, then add all at once to the dry ingredients. Stir until just blended. (In my case, removing my bowl from the Kitchen Aid and folding it in by hand. Approximately 45 seconds of blending.)
- If adding ‘wet’ dry ins like fresh fruit–particularly blueberries–gently incorporate into dough now.
- Flour your hands and pat the dough into balls 2 or 3 inches in diameter. Place onto a greased cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Make up an egg wash and brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash. Sprinkle with a little sugar (I like demerara) for decoration if desired. Allow scones to rest for 10 minutes (This lets the baking powder do it’s leavening thing.)
- Bake until tops are golden brown, about 10-15 minutes. (This is a range for people with decent ovens. For me and my terrible one, it took closer to a full half-hour to bake.)
- Slice in half, and serve with butter and jams.
palatabiliTEA 