Bill's Crackers (but you knew that)

This story begins with a bucket of yogurt. I've had reasonable success freezing and thawing yogurt for later use, but I've learned that success may vary with different brands. It always separates to some extent, but stirring generally does the trick. Not with this latest purchase however. Lovely and creamy when new, but not only did it separate but the solid part was grainy and Bill couldn't cope with this. 

So I strained it overnight, putting a double fold of linen towel into a strainer suspended over a bowl. The result was a jar of whey which I will put into some muffins and a tub of 'yogurt cheese'. I knew I could put garlic, herbs and salt into this to make a kind of dip but before I did that I asked Bill for ideas. His response was to make some cream crackers. I think they should be illegal. 

On the other hand, this is in keeping with the recommendation Michael Pollen makes in his book, In Defense of Food. If you want unhealthy snack food, don't buy it at the store, make it yourself. This will limit the number of times you'll eat it. Not that crackers are terribly unhealthy, they're just terrible. Because we eat them, not just with yogurt cheese but with peanut butter or regular butter. The carbohydrate and the crunch combined with something fattening is almost irresistible. I think this is the recipe he used. 

Whey.

So I'd best fight back by making those muffins, right?

Putting a Mask on It

I've been absent the last couple of posting days. On Tuesday last week the neighbours (the ones from which we are 'semi-detached') began a major overhaul of their kitchen / dining / utility room by taking out a wall and putting a door to the outside where a window once was. This is the second wall they've removed and Bill teased me that their house was going to fall down and take ours with it. I didn't find that in the least funny. I'm hoping they aren't creating an echo chamber next door as we already hear far too much of their lives as it is. However, it's out of my hands and I try not to worry about things I can't do anything about.

I had the bad timing on Tuesday to have a migraine about the time the hammering and drilling began. I took some ibuprofen and went to find refuge in the back seat of our car. After a couple of hours I felt well enough to finish the post I'd started but that was all I could manage on my Writing Day. And strangely enough I forgot all about this blog over the weekend. So while the plasterers and electricians carry on their work today, I'm very pleased to say I have no headache.

On the inside. You can see how the wire bends over Bill's nose.

A couple of weeks ago, Bill had asked me to make him a mask. I've been going through all the fabric stash in my craft room and pulling out what I thought were suitable cottons, zigzagging the edges and putting them through the wash. I expect I could make a couple hundred masks if I needed to, but I think half a dozen for each of us should be ample, particularly since we largely stay at home. I went into the post office last Monday to send off my US tax returns (because I'm married to a foreigner and filing separately I'm not allowed to file my taxes online). It was fairly scary but I think I may have got away with it. Bill just went into a small local DIY store this morning, having scoped it out at the weekend. He chose it because a) they are a local one-off shop and b) they hardly have any customers in ordinary times. We have groceries delivered or Bill goes to shops or cafes that serve at their front doors. We have no plans to visit any pubs, restaurants or supermarkets for the foreseeable future. We both feel very fortunate that we are able to stay safe at home most of the time.

So I wasn't in any hurry to make him a mask, but I finally did. Out of Winnie-the-Pooh fabric.

From the outside. 

I chose a pattern by a German lady named Iris Luckhaus, who was a professional pattern drafter at one time. She reviewed a lot of different patterns for masks, decided they all had shortcomings and then drafted her own. She explains it all here. I will make this again, I think, only I may try to figure out how to put a filter between the two cotton layers. It's a pretty straightforward pattern using two 8" squares and two small rectangles and two lengths of elastic. It also has a channel in the top for a piece of wire which can be removed for washing. I used florist wire. The hardest part was figuring out the pleats - I've never made anything with pleats in my life - but I eventually got there. She has quite a few diagrams and I finally found the one that clicked with my somewhat deficient brain. 

I put the elastic through the tubes made by the small rectangles and then had Bill put it on. I tied the elastic behind each ear and adjusted the fit per his instructions, tying a double knot on each side. Then I tightened the knots, trimmed the excess elastic and pulled the knots into the tubes on each side to keep them out of the way.

Sadly, you can't tell it's Winnie the Pooh fabric, but I have a number of other children's cotton prints that I put aside for Bill. Those of you who know him will likely agree this is entirely suitable.