Culinary delights ...

er

Yes, so I had the brilliant idea of trying my hand at making that greatest of all Sarf Effrican delicacies (no, not biltong ... blech) ... that's it folks ... ye olde koeksuster.

Syrup with cinnamon sticks

 I have to say that these thingies are NOT as easy as I thought they would be.  The only problem with my first attempt was I didn't allow most of them to sit in the syrup long enough - I actually thought my syrup was too thick but having watched another couple of hundred videos on the Yoob* I saw that in fact my syrup was most fine.  I should just have let the little plaits sit in the sticky stuff a little longer, then they would have been soaked to the core with syrup.  Everyone who had one (or six) didn't complain though and they were, by and large, a success.  I've discovered that if I put some Creme of Tartare in the mixture (syrup), then the koeksisters keep their shiny surface.

This Friday I'm going to make another batch so my Sarf Effrican family can taste and give their critiques.  If all is well, then maybe we will start a little cottage industry - selling koeksusters, melk terts ... we (Hayzel and I) have already identified plenty of local outlets to sell them in.  This past weekend, in fact, there was the first ever Long Stratton Farmer's Market held at Faye's school. There were women there selling koeks, muffins etc. etc. and we bought some really good quality meat direct from the farmer. There was a fishmonger from Lowestoft there as well, his fish looked brilliantly fresh, so will maybe buy from him at the next market.  We were able to buy locally produced eggs, bread, cider, wines, cheeses, meat (from a variety of farmers and butchers), jewellery, chocolates ... loads of stuff and the prices for the meat (in particular) wasn't bad at all. I will try and find out this week how much it costs to have a stand. 

I've even come up with a name for the tuisnywerheid business ... how about, 'The Three Tannies"
(No, seriously).

Anyway, today we had to take in a potato dressed up in one of Ewan's favourite characters from a book.  We thought about this over the weekend and orders varied from Obi-Wan-Kenobi to Darth Maul and Garth Vader ...  I decided that it might be an easier challenge to go with his supreme holiness, Master Yoda.   Having located an image of 'Mashter Yoda' on the internet (a plastic Disneyland memento type toy that you can buy there), I had a go using ear-buds, paint and kitchen paper  ... 

There were some really cute ones at school this morning- Angry Birds was a popular choice and of course most of the girls dressed their potatoes up as Rapunzel or the Frozen princess.  Anyway, I think Mashter Yoda is fairly good - Ewan thought it was awesome and so did some of his friends - so we'll see if he wins a prize (I don't think so,  because these things are all very clique-y but like Hayzel said, we did win the Christmas hamper, so you never know!)

*YouTube to the rest of you.