Sandworm - A Halloween Fun Food

I am updating the post with photos of the baked Sandworm.  Other than that, the post is still the same.

Halloween will be on Tuesday this year.   That means that a lot of Halloween parties were held this Friday and Saturday.   Although I was not going to a party or having a party, I was going to a Dungeons and Dragons game.  We normally bring food because the game starts at 6 pm.  Since it was so close to Halloween, I wanted to make something special.  This year I decided to make a Sandworm, a fictional creature from a Science Fiction series called Dune.

Many Dungeons and Dragons players are fond of fantasy and science fiction genres.  The Dune series written by Frank Herbert is not only a book, but a motion picture.  In Dune, there is a product called Melange, generally referred to as "spice".  Melange is said to improve general health, give long life, and also give some prescient abilities.  It is rare, and the most valuable commodity in the inter-stellar community.  The spice is said to look and taste something like cinnamon.  It is mined on Arrakis.  The mining of the spice attracts sandworms; huge creatures that are native to the planet.  The series has many complex plot lines, but every reader is going to be familiar with the sandworms. 

At one time I used to have a science fiction themed food potluck party.  People were invited to bring food made to look like foods in one of three categories:  foods shown in science fiction films, foods made to look like something in a science fiction film (example a cake that looks like a space ship),  or for those not that familiar with science fiction just something about science in general (example:  a salad laid out to look like Saturn and its rings.  I had this recipe for the Sandworm from that time, but had never made it.  It looked like  a lot of work.  As it turned out, it was.  But, I'm glad I made it because it turned out to be a real hit with the our players.

Rather than go into the whole recipe here, which is quite lengthy, I am including a link to the recipe.  kitchenoverlord.com/dune-week-spice-filled-sandworm/
The recipe is basically a recipe for cinnamon buns, but with a twist.  It also has some Garam Masala in it.  Garam Masala is a mixture of ground spices: cumin and coriander seeds,  peppercorns, cardomen pods, cloves cinnamon stick and nutmeg.The flavor of cinnamon is there, but with another flavor that is hard to describe; somewhat peppery, somewhat sweet, somewhat savory.  In the Dune series the flavor of "spice" varies from one time to the next.  The unusual flavor of Garam Masala leaves the taster with a sense of mystery; cinnamon, but something else as well.

Anyway, I made the recipe.  I took some pictures of it before it was baked, but in the rush to get finished and out the door I never took pictures of it once it was baked.  The photo shows it with aluminum foil stuffed in the mouth.  That helps to keep the mouth open so that it has a gaping maw to show off the rows of teeth.  Once I arrived at the game, one of the players took some pictures with his phone, but has not yet sent them to me, so I do not have photos of my finished product.  However, on the link above, there are photos of a baked sandworm.

I do have a couple of comments on the recipe.  First off, the teeth, made of slivered almonds were brittle.  They tended to break apart while they were being inserted into the dough.  The teeth also tended to brown quickly and can burn.  It might be worthwhile to cover that area for a few minutes to help keep the almonds whiter.

The other comment was on baking time.  My sandworm turned out to be shorter and fatter than the one shown in the link above.  The length and thickness of the sandworm will affect the baking time.  I have made cinnamon buns before and had the center come out still wet and doughy if I only cooked by the recommended time.  I used an instant read thermometer to check to make sure that the center of the bread was done.  Generally, bread is done by 200 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit (93.33 to 98.88 C).  If I had pulled this loaf at the suggested time, it would not have been done in the center.

In case you don't often make bread, you should know that this recipe takes a long time because yeast breads have to rise.  In this case, the bread has to rise twice.  Generally an hour to an hour and a half for the first rise, and another thirty minutes for the second rise.  So plan on having a considerable amount of time available if you want to make this recipe. It was a fun food for Halloween, but it took the better part of a day to make it.

A somewhat shorter and fatter sandworm turned out to look really great.  When the bread baked, it really looked like it had folds in its skin.  In the Dune series, the mouth of the sandworm was said to be eighty meters across.  A fatter sandworm seemed to give that impression of the huge.  I will post pictures of the baked sandworm if I get the them.  In the mean time, I only have the unbaked pictures.

Check back for the latest on my craft projects next blog post.

Cabin Trip and Photos from the Road - October 2017

On the road in the rain.

Once again, we are heading to the cabin in the rain.  I am not sad about this.  We have had a very dry period up here.  We needed the rain.  Everything has been very dusty.  It just seems that every time we head up there that it has rained.    At least the rain had cleared by the time we reached the mountains.

New hay in the barn.

We were up at the cabin for a week.  October is a wonderful time to be at the cabin.  The daytime weather is still fairly warm and the nights are cool.  You can really tell that the climate change is happening though.  It used to be that the second week in October was the height of leaf color up there.  Everyone wanted to be up there then.  This year there is very little color so far.  The leaves are still green.  They seem to be turning from green to brown and then just dropping.  Even the sugar maples, which drop their leaves sooner than some of the other species, still have some leaves on them.

Cloudy sky.

On our last trip up, the apples were not quite ready to pick.  This trip many of the apples were on the ground.  There were still plenty to pick though.  I brought home two crates of apples.  This year the apples were smaller than usual.  I think the dry conditions had a lot to do with that.  Although some  states have been dealing with hurricanes, record breaking rainfall and flooding some areas of Virginia have been dealing with a dry spell.  We went twenty days without any rain; and in areas where it did rain, it was only a brief sprinkle.  This clearly affected the size of the apples. 

The cow statue is still there.

The apple tree had hundreds of apples on it. Some of them were so high up that we could not reach them even with the apple picking basket on a tall stick.   It is amazing how much fruit just one tree can produce.  The ground under the tree was so thick with fallen and rotting apples that it was difficult to walk among them. The decaying apples attracted yellow jackets.  I had to rake up the downed apples and move them before we could begin to pick.  I raked them into a long line and then started shoveling them into the wheel barrow.  It took six barrow loads to get all the apples under just half the tree.  Fortunately, the yellow jackets were so drunk on the fermenting fruit that they were very docile.  They weren't in a mood to fight and would just move off while I was raking up the apples.

Very little color in the trees yet.

There were yellow jackets down below as well.  We took a day off from our labors and went to the Wine and Garlic festival.  I had not yellow jackets flying around at the festival before.  Just to check and make sure memory was not misleading me  I asked my husband whether this was a trick of memory and he agreed with me that the yellow jackets were not usual in this number and that we had not seen previously them in the festival area before.  Usually, it is a little cooler this time of year.  We normally are in a long sleeve shirt or are wearing a fleece, but this year everyone was in short sleeves.

Old barn is still standing.

The festival was wonderful as usual: good wine, good food, and good music, and of course lots of garlic.  Garlic samples are served raw.  You can go from booth to  booth and sample many different types of garlic and garlic flavored products. Some garlic is mild, some hot and peppery.  Some people sample to buy for home use, others are there to purchase bulbs for planting.  Eating raw garlic is part of the fun of this festival.  There is a reason that the slogan for this festival is "It's chic to reek."  Yes, you had better like garlic if you want to come to this festival, or at least plan on eating some in self defense.  My neighbor once said that when his relatives returned from the festival and got out of the car that he could smell the garlic coming off of them from a quarter of an acre away.

This year they were serving samples of black garlic.  I had not seen it there before.  Black garlic is an interesting product.  It is made by heating bulbs of garlic in humidity controlled conditions for up to forty days.  The garlic is heated between 140 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit (60 to 77 C.)  Over time, it turns black.  Although it is sometimes referred to as fermented, it is not a true microbial action.  The process is a Maillard reaction, the same action that gives flavor to meat by browning it.  (Information source: Wikipedia).  The result of this process is a bulb of black garlic.  The taste that is somewhat sweet and carame-like with a slight under taste of charcoal.  At least this is my impression of it. 

After the festival, we spent our week working at the cabin.  Although there are still lots of leaves on the trees, the yard needed to be raked.  When I was a child, I used to love playing in piles of leaves.  Now it is one of those chores that I don't look forward to anymore; raking up tarp after tarp full of leaves.  By the time we are done, we are bone weary.  On some level, I am sure that it is good for us to work so hard, but it does not seem that way while we are doing it.  Especially since we are up there for such a limited amount of time.  We feel the pressure of a deadline of trying to get the task completed before we have to leave.  It makes us work harder and faster.

I'd like to say that we are closing in on improvements to the cabin, but somehow I think there is always going to be some project on the horizon.  This trip my husband removed all the peeling drywall tape in the attic, replaced it, plastered it and sanded it.  When the plaster was dry, he painted the ceiling.  This was an even bigger task than it sounds.  First off, the ceiling slopes down from the high point down to a knee wall.  He can only stand in the very center of the space.  There is also furniture up there as well as cabinets storing all sorts of small items that are needed at the cabin:  nails and plumbing parts and all that sort of stuff.   All of that had to be moved from side to side as he worked on the ceiling.  Even though it was covered, the furniture had to be cleaned up afterwards because of all the sanding dust. Now that this task has been finished, the attic is now ready for new flooring to go in over the plywood underlayment.  That won't be happening until next spring.  

When we left, we drained the plumbing in preparation for winter.  We hope to make one more trip up before the cabin is closed for the winter.  However, you can't trust the weather up there.  There have already been freeze warnings issued for that area of the state.  We don't want to have the weather change and have a hard freeze happen before we get a chance to get there.  My husband's next vacation days won't be until the week of Thanksgiving and it is very possible that there could be a hard freeze before that.  One year we went up planning to stay for a week a little before Thanksgiving and the temperature was forecast to drop to minus five degrees F (-20.55 C).  After all the work we have done on the cabin, we don't want to risk having a plumbing problem.  We will have to drain the plumbing again if we make another trip.  

I have added a few of our photos taken from the road.  Even though there are only a couple of routes to take to the cabin, the scenes are always changing.  We look for some landmarks that are like old friends.  The fiberglass cow that stands in front of a cattle farm is one of those landmarks.  I think that one time the cow was up for sale, but it is still standing there.  Perhaps they changed their minds or perhaps they found that some things don't sell very well.  Enjoy the photos.




 

My Latest Halloween Collectible

Long time readers know that I am very fond of my Halloween collection.  I try to add something to it every year.  Some items have been purchased, and some items I made myself.  I try to add something to my collection every year.  There are plenty of Halloween objects out there,  but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  These days, I tend to try to only purchase something that is really a work of art in and of itself. 

This year I found such a really fascinating object.  It is a resin replica of two skeletons.  It is also a shelf sitter.  The lower legs of one of the skeletons are "jointed" with metal rings so that the legs will move.  There are many skeletons out there, but this one has an incredible amount of detail.  I don't generally see skeletons of this quality.  Once I saw it, I had to have it; although, it did come close to the boundary of the limit I allow myself to spend on a collectible. 

To a certain extent, collecting is waste of money.  If I had to sell them, no one will ever want to pay what they are worth.  Everyone wants a bargain.  So collecting is really not about the money or even the item itself.   It is about the chase; the search for the next illusive item.  It keeps life
interesting. 

If you collect Halloween items, don't be discouraged or turned off by cheap, disposable objects.  Because these objects are ephemeral, there will be few left years down the road.  If you have kept one of these disposable items for a long time, they could be worth some money.  I have a replica of a small Halloween lantern that I had in the 1960s.  If I had kept that little lantern, it would be worth about $45.00 today ($38.36 Euros).   That is not a fortune, but it is much more than the dollar or two that it cost back in the day.

This is a photo of one of the bookcases in the house.  It has some of my favorite pieces on it.  Halloween items have taken over nearly every room. I have made twelve Halloween dolls, a Halloween themed quilt, and a quilted wall hanging, as well as a couple of handmade masks, rattles and a couple of paintings.  Halloween stuff is everywhere. 

Anyway, I just thought I would introduce my newest piece.  I will be blogging about a few more of my pieces throughout October. 

A Painting for Halloween

It's the first of October, and that means I am gearing up for Halloween.  I have an extensive Halloween collection and I can't wait to get it out.  This year I did not made a new Halloween item.  At the end of September, I decided that time was so close that I would do a painting instead.  Well, sort of a painting....  The background and moon are painted, and the lettering and witch are stenciled.  I used a round lid to draw on the moon.  The paint was so translucent that it would not cover up the light pencil drawing.  Trying to cover it up was just making things worse, so I decided to quit while I was ahead.

I made my own stencils.  The witch stencil was created by tracing a small wooden witch from the craft store onto a piece of manila file folder.  I used letter stencils to create the words.  All of the forms were cut  out using a craft knife with a sharp blade. 

I used the cut out portion of the witch to help me determine where to place the witch on the moon.   To make the witch stick to the canvas, I used a piece of painters tape rolled over on itself so that both sides were sticky.  Once I had the placement where I wanted it, I placed the stencil over the witch and made some small registration marks on the stencil so I could line it up once the witch was removed.

When I finished the background and moon, I was almost hesitant to put on the stencils.  I have had trouble in the past with paint bleeding under the stencil no matter how carefully I painted.  I was particularly worried about the witch because she had small cut outs that might be prone to moving around.  I found some craft advice that worked.  In some magazine long ago, I read a suggestion to spray the back of the stencil with craft adhesive and let it tack up for three to four minutes.  I used Elmer's Spray Adhesive and let it sit up as directed.  It worked well.  The adhesive was tacky enough to stick and keep the paint from infiltrating under the stencil, but was dried enough that the stencil came off without leaving residue. 

Originally, I was planning on adding Oct. 31 above the words, "All Hallows Eve", but it made the paining look crowded.  Overcrowding also took away from the background.  I really liked the background and decided I would rather have more of that rather than have more words.  I guess people will figure out what day it is from the painting.

This year has flown by so fast.  I can hardly believe that Autumn is here.  The trees are already dropping their leaves.  At this point, the leaves are just starting to turn color.  Some of the dogwoods have already turned red.  The Forsythia in the yard, have turned a deep burgundy, but the cool morning and warm afternoon weather is tricking them into thinking it is spring.  Many of the bushes  are turning purple and blooming with bright yellow flowers.  I guess I can relate to the Forsythia.  I am not quite ready to let go of summer either.