Do yourself a favour

I'm not saying I reinvented the wheel or anything but last week I developed a toasted sandwich that was pretty damn good. Maybe other people have already been making it. I don't know. All I know is that an idea popped into my head and I could not rest until it was in my mouth. And once it had been in my mouth I could not rest until I'd found its best iteration. 

I call it the apple pie toastie. It's like eating apple pie but without all the effort and I guess without so much sugar or fat. It's basically a simple, not too unhealthy sweet treat and I just think if you're into these flavours you may as well give it a go. This is the best way to do it: grate a green apple, mix that with a little sugar and cinnamon to taste (me, I go heavy on the cinnamon) put it in some white bread, butter the outside and sprinkle a little sugar on top to get a nice caramel crust. Toast it in a sandwich maker. Eat it.

I just have one question (PM)

Well now I feel really bad because my version of iPhone has had the second, fuglier font as the notes font all along! Which is why I very rarely use the notes function. I was going to say I only use it when I really really really need to remember something, or when I am drunk, but then I looked at the notes I have stored in my phone and I think maybe I only use it when I am drunk. Consider:

F all of YI:
Salmon stack, popular: this is quite a long note I took when the chefs at TOYS were talking about ther food. I thought it would help us write our TOYS blog post but none of it makes any sense nor triggers any memories.
Hotrod: That's all that note says. Hotrod. I have no idea why I wrote it or what it means. It was written in September though, during the AFL finals series, so maybe I was referring to Jimmy Bartel?
Why isn't Brendan Fraser...: The full text of that note reads: Why isn't Brendan Fraser in more stuff?
While I don't remember writing it, it's the only note that makes sense to me. Why isn't Brendan Fraser in more stuff? I love that guy!

I just have one question (AM)

Most of what I have heard about Steve Jobs is all that general stuff you hear about guys like that. Things that come from nowhere and everywhere I guess. He was: a perfectionist; a genius; a tyrant; great to work for; awful to work for; (insert whatever other generic genius CEO thing you like here).But then I heard an interview with his biographer and all those things were kind of fleshed out a bit.

This guy, Walter Isaacson, told a couple of stories that I think, in light of what I want to talk about, highlight the real mystery of Jobs. One thing he talked about was that Steve Jobs' dad really instilled a sense of the importance of perfection and aesthetics whether things were visible or not, so that when Apple made its first computers even the insides of those cute little babies were neater than any mother(board) you'd seen before, chips were lined up and screws chosen for their finish. I mean, dude wanted things just so. Apple is no doubt a producer of beautiful products. Right?!

Another story was about how when Steve had been kicked out of Apple in the eighties the company added arrow keys to the keyboard so people didn't always have to use a mouse. But Steve thought this was bullshit, that people should always use a mouse. And one time, when he was back at the top of the Apple tree, someone asked him to autograph an Apple keyboard and Jobs just ripped those arrow keys off it. Sheesh! You know what? I love arrow keys! Using a mouse all the time is bullshit. That is what is bullshit!

Anyway, I am just telling you this to highlight that, yeah, he was a perfectionist, an aesthete and a guy that wanted things his way. Even though I love arrow keys, I totally think that Apple is great. No doubt. That is why I am so goddamn confused as to how a thing like this was allowed to happen on his watch:

Do you see that font? That font used for the Notes on iPhone? It's disgusting. Here you have this attractive, functional little machine and if you want to write a note it looks like that! Ever since iPhone entered my life this has been tearing at my insides but I kept it to myself. But everything became too much when I saw the font used on iPad2 Notes. Yep, someone thought the font needed a little tweaking. But for some unknown reason instead of making it better they made it worse. You thought it wasn't possible? You were wrong!

Whinge disguised as help

So I just wanted to talk about that time I made apple jelly. It was a few weeks ago now but I've been thinking about how the recipe could have been a bit more helpful.

I was making David Lebovitz’z apple jelly. You know, I was kind of worried about it. Thinking, really I just add sugar to apple juice and it makes jelly? I read all the comments just in case there were any other hints (of course there weren’t and it was just a useless bunch of “oooh, David, that looks amaaaaazing”) and then set about making it. The recipe looked so simple (as you can see for yourself) and in some ways it is. You do just chop apples and let them drain in some cheese cloth over night. You do just put the juice in a pot with some sugar and lemon juice, boil to 104°C and check if it sets by putting a drop in the freezer and voilà, apple jelly. But it is all the details that are missing that could have made this so much less anxiety producing. And you know what, it made me really appreciate Deb again. Sure Smitten Kitchen is not what it used to be, but if Deb has an issue in the kitchen she lets you know about it so that you won’t have that problem. And I really, really needed that yesterday.

The Perfect Scoop pretty much changed my ice cream making life, and I am in no way coming down on DL, but I realised I don’t think that I’ve ever cooked from his website before and I don’t know if all his recipes on the site are like this, but I felt a little tricked by this simple recipe.I'm all for cutting the bullshit, but a little more exposition really would have helped.

Firstly, he tells you not to press on the apples while they are draining because you will get a cloudy jelly. But Mate, when the juice is all drained IT’S CLOUDY! . It was cloudy and there was nothing I could have done about that, but just a little note to assure one that cloudy is normal and your jelly will clear up would have made me feel better going into it.

Secondly, did you know that to heat juice and sugar to 104°C it is going to bubble the shit out if itself? He says use a large stock pot but, dude, that pot needs to be double the size of the liquid amount because it really just bubbles like a bastard. Moreover did you know that to get juice and sugar to 104°C you really need to keep the flame high? Real high and that if your pot isn’t big enough that shit will spill everywhere? Well it’s true.

Just a few simple notes like this and I think that the whole process would have been so much quicker and smoother. But as it was I had to change pots and keep turning the heat down then up because of the bubble factor and it meant that I didn’t think I would ever get to 104°C or that the jelly would ever jelly up. It was stressful. But eventually when I got it in the giant pot and could keep that flame up the jelly became the beautiful jelly DL promises.

And yet, the annoyance did not end there. Because right towards the end of jarring up one of the jars broke right into the jelly! I was holding the jars over the jelly because of the spillage factor and a jar just broke. The heat I guess. And while it was the cleanest break I have ever seen (seriously, when you put the broken piece back against the jar you can’t even tell it has been broken) I felt like I could not keep jarring up in case there was a sliver in there and the jelly had to go. It was only one jar worth really, maybe two, but what a total drag.

Well, I hope this hasn’t been too much of a downer, at least if you ever try to make apple jelly perhaps you will have a better experience. On the upside I did get to use my lovely new measuring spoons.


And I learnt some valuable lessens.