26 January 2011

cream (get the money) dollar dollar bills y'all



In case you missed out on the really-exciting-for-us news outlined in my last post, Tim and I are going on holiday in April! To London, Berlin, Krakow, Warsaw, and LA! I've been to the first four of those before but that was many, many years ago, so if you know something good we should do, or if you'd like to be so kind as to extend us a couch for the night on account of how nice we seem (seeming is believing), or just have some insider knowledge like: "there's a new kind of currency!" or "You mean you haven't had your wombat vaccination?" etc, we'd be hugely obliged if you'd share it.

I guess this is a pretty exciting thing in our fairly mellow lives but I'll try to not talk about it to the point where you want to hoof your computer out a window in despair. I realised the other day that because this is our first holiday together and because it's such a big deal to us, we sometimes dope-ily end up projecting our feelings of extreme happiness onto other people, like we're all in this together and every single bank teller and travel-centre person and colleague and email contact are singing and dancing in jaunty formation like one of those TV ads where that sort of thing happens.

But bear with me. Till we actually leave the country we're trying to spend as little money as possible, which means just buying bare minimum stuff (milk, soymilk, eggs, bread, frozen peas, Dust-Bix for Tim, oats for me, butter for twenty...still) and trying to get creative with what already exists in the cupboard. We're really lucky that we live so close to a good vege market so all our greens can come from there for a cheeky tenner. As I said last time, we've done it before, but this time there's something really fun to look forward to at the end.


Not everyone's a food-loving food hoarder like me, so we're definitely going to do okay - considering I'd absentmindedly bought two separate kilo bags of bulghur wheat. For example. I had this bottle of cream that had been leftover from when we had friends over for dinner, and half a bag of blackberries taking up space in the freezer. Neither ingredients are overly expensive but admittedly they're also not necessarily the sort of things you'd always have mooching round waiting to be used. Unless you're like me.
The cream needed using and a pudding - specifically, a Fool - came to mind. While the blackberries themselves could've sat round happily in the freezer more or less forever, the idea of a Fool wasn't leaving my brain. By the way a fool is just a bowl of whipped cream with stuff (usually fruit) folded through it. Then eaten. It's a simple, but bold concept.
This recipe is very, very easy. It uses but three ingredients. And for a moment, you get to pretend you're in one of those TV ads where mixed berries and and a dairy product fly through the air at each other in slow motion to indicate how hardcore-ily fruity and authentic their product is.
Blackberry Fool For Two
1-2 cups frozen blackberries (I specify a vague quantity because I like to walk past the bowl and eat the sugary berries while they wait, so it pays to have back-up...)
1/2 cup sugar
1 300ml bottle chilled cream (or around 1 cup cream plus a splash more)
Place your berries in a bowl with the sugar, and leave for an hour or so - they'll defrost some, and their juices will absorb sugar and create gorgeous dark purple juices and it'll be all good.
Whisk your cream in a good-sized bowl - you can use electric beaters if this is easier for you, but I like to just whisk - until significantly thickened, and when you lift the whisk a peak of cream follows it. You don't want it too whipped though - keep it soft and relaxed of texture.
At this point, grab a spatula and carefully fold the berries and their sugary juice through the cream for a few seconds. You're after a kind of swirled pink and white look, not completely blended. Divide between two bowls, eat with a spoon.

Essentially you're eating a bowl of whipped cream, but the Fool has been around longer than all of us, with its origins in the 1500s (when it was known as 'Foole') and no doubt it'll be round in centuries to come. Probably because it's completely easy, but is still an actual thing that you can serve up with deserved pride. And importantly, it's incredibly delicious. A soft, cool mass of creaminess colliding with sharp, collapsing, superjuicy berries. It makes so much sense.
And, if 'pretty' is what you look for in a pudding, you're in luck. Well, I'd like to think so.
Lucky Tim and I - not only do we have distant exciting things, we also have immediately pending exciting things, in the form of Aloe Blacc's concert in Auckland on Thursday night, and Laneway Wellington next Tuesday. These were things we'd organised before we knew we were going away...beyond this it's nothing but DVD-watching for us so we'll enjoy it while we can (that said, I looooove watching DVDs).
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Title via: Wu-Tang Clan, that many peopled and blazing-of-trail group who dropped their debut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) from which comes C.R.E.A.M back in 1994, and are still creating in various formations and combinations today.
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Music lately:
I left my iPod behind when I went home for Christmas and am still waiting on Mum to send it up...I'm really, really missing the Grey Gardens Off-Broadway Cast Recording, waiting all day to get home from work to listen to it on iTunes (if no-one's home)
St Rupertsberg, Albania - found out about this band on Tumblr from another band, Bear Cat. I like it a lot.
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Next time: I asked whoever was listening on Twitter whether I should make lemon poppyseed cake or lemon poppyseed ice cream. And then, probably the conclusion I would have come to with or without input from others - I made both!

11 comments:

  1. Feel free to talk about your upcoming travel until the cows come home! I shall always be delighted to listen.

    And I totally have a couch here in Canberra with your name on it...

    My lactose intolerant self shies away from the Fool, but I'm might excited about lemon poppyseed fun!

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  2. Mmm, simplicity at its best. I like folding some cyclops greek yoghurt and honey through as well.

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  3. A perfectly formed bowl of summer :) And keep sharing any travel tips for London - I arrive 12 March so I will share mine...on my hit list Ottolenghi & Bourough market for sure!

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  4. Simple, effective & qute pretty! Fools are ideal summer dessert fare. I made a gooseberry fool just after new years, using the five lonely fruit remmaining on our gooseberry bush, sole survivors of the hammering it took from the norwesters during December. I bulked it out with raspberries & added a splash of elderflower cordial. Quick change of subject: have you ever seen the Grey Gardens doco? I've heard about the stage production, but don't know an awful lot about it.

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  5. I love that you used the word 'mooching' referring to berries in the freezer .. This looks rather like the failed-pavlova-turned-eton-mess which was made for dessert recently :-)

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  6. Wow, overseas trip! Exciting! This isn't a bad nosh-up for someone running down their pantry :)

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  7. Made this fool for birthday dessert on Friday night. Went very well. The leftovers have been frozen to live again again as berry ice-cream.

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  8. Trips are waaay too exciting to not talk about. Blindly too. I've no idea if I ever completely turned people off with my mind being consistently stuck on an American road trip. But great things came of it too! People had tips for us, or friends we could stay with and ideas we'd never have thought of on our own. I hope that even if you don't get the song and dance, you'll at least get that much.

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  9. I love your site! Beautiful food and really nice idea with the songs in between.
    I am also such a comment addict - I might borrow your little encouraging 'please comment' statement :)
    Let me know if you need some advice on where to go when you come to London. I am sure you will find some good gigs to go to as well!

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  10. Hannah: Fear not, the poppyseed ice cream is dairy-free! Hooray! Also, thanks and likewise if you're ever in Wellington :D

    Zo: That would be delicious.

    Mairi: I swear, so many people are going round that time. I'm unbelievably keen to track down Ottolenghi's.

    Nigel: Gooseberries! How I love them. And Elderflower cordial is pretty special too. Together they're sublime. I haven't seen the documentary but I want to hunt it down - I suspect I'm becoming a bit obsessed with the two Edith Beales. I haven't seen the musical itself but I know it was pretty incredible, and the cast recording alone is amazing.

    Georgi: Thanks, and yay for eton mess! A bit like trifle, it can cure most pudding failures...

    Hannah: Thanks...yeah, I think we'll do okay with our pantry for a while!

    Mum: yay, both sound awesome.

    Jason: Thanks, good to know! It's always good to put things out there because you never know what knowledge people might have...

    Ute: Thank you, I love your site too, I see it becoming a very useful resource :)

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  11. Late in the day as usual, but your trip sounds fab (as does the fool, but I am trying not to eat my body weight in cream again this year....)and I wanted to suggest trying an underground restaurant in London when you are there. It is top of my hit list, I want to go to Ms MarmiteLovers, but there are plenty to choose from, check out http://supperclubfangroup.ning.com/ for locations :)

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