Dreams that make you question your own sanity

[luckydog]

Hehehe..


Could be worse...


You might have dreamt of being a golden egg laying goose ...


only to find out the next morning that your bout of constipation is now gone!

No golden eggs or geese..........

but I do avoid fire-hydrants in my dreams.....

 

[deKoven]

A slab of rich, dark fruit cake with a mug of steaming tea for breakfast...........mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Make mine coffee instead;

I used to make fruitcake each year; no one who ever tasted mine turned it down.

You get yesself 12 (count 'em, 12) bottles of booze. Two of sherry, two of brandy and one each of the rest of the liquor store's shelf. Buy the very best dried fruit you can find; not those little boxes of gawrsh knows what, but real dried fruit. Raisins, currants, cherries, orange and lemon peel, etc., etc. Soak them in associated booze for at least 12 and better 24 hours, i.e., currants in current booze, raisins in sherry, etc. Then make a cake batter and here just a bit of insider knowledge from a former baker. The batter doesn't matter TOO much. Any batter from a fruitcake recipe will do but for this I needed enough batter for 4 tube pans, 3 loaf pans and 6 muffin tins. Whomp up that batter, drain and flour the each type of fruit (I forgot to mention the walnuts, dang) and combine with the batter. Bake for the std time and take out and let cool for an hour or so. Then take a full jigger of brandy and anoint each cake with one. Wrap in cheesecloth and foil and put in yer pantry, bearing in mind that for the first 6 weeks you need to take it out and pour another jigger of brandy or sherry (alternating) on each one. After that, each month you take them out and repeat the liquor pour, rewrapping and storing in between. At the end, you'll have only brandy to pour over them, the sherry being gone because of soaking the fruit in some of it.

Meanwhile, you've taken out the cake you made LAST year and you use that to serve your guests. You DID make it last year, did you not ?? Yer gonna have people standin' in line for a smallish slice of that cake and by the time the winter season is over the cake is also. I NEVER had any trouble with getting people to eat it, particularly anyone that had ever tried it before.

Found the recipe over 40 yrs ago at the library; it's called "Fruitcake of the Twelve Spirits". Lost it in a move a few yrs ago and can not find the book here in the library. Must be long gone. Sighs all 'round.

 

[nigel richards]

Make mine coffee instead;

I used to make fruitcake each year; no one who ever tasted mine turned it down.

You get yesself 12 (count 'em, 12) bottles of booze. Two of sherry, two of brandy and one each of the rest of the liquor store's shelf. Buy the very best dried fruit you can find; not those little boxes of gawrsh knows what, but real dried fruit. Raisins, currants, cherries, orange and lemon peel, etc., etc. Soak them in associated booze for at least 12 and better 24 hours, i.e., currants in current booze, raisins in sherry, etc. Then make a cake batter and here just a bit of insider knowledge from a former baker. The batter doesn't matter TOO much. Any batter from a fruitcake recipe will do but for this I needed enough batter for 4 tube pans, 3 loaf pans and 6 muffin tins. Whomp up that batter, drain and flour the each type of fruit (I forgot to mention the walnuts, dang) and combine with the batter. Bake for the std time and take out and let cool for an hour or so. Then take a full jigger of brandy and anoint each cake with one. Wrap in cheesecloth and foil and put in yer pantry, bearing in mind that for the first 6 weeks you need to take it out and pour another jigger of brandy or sherry (alternating) on each one. After that, each month you take them out and repeat the liquor pour, rewrapping and storing in between. At the end, you'll have only brandy to pour over them, the sherry being gone because of soaking the fruit in some of it.

Meanwhile, you've taken out the cake you made LAST year and you use that to serve your guests. You DID make it last year, did you not ?? Yer gonna have people standin' in line for a smallish slice of that cake and by the time the winter season is over the cake is also. I NEVER had any trouble with getting people to eat it, particularly anyone that had ever tried it before.

Found the recipe over 40 yrs ago at the library; it's called "Fruitcake of the Twelve Spirits". Lost it in a move a few yrs ago and can not find the book here in the library. Must be long gone. Sighs all 'round.

Now here's a Gentleman who knows his way around the kitchen; I bet there's plenty of dark brown sugar and sticky treacle and REAL dairy butter going into this awesome mix too Sir!

 

[deKoven]

Now here's a Gentleman who knows his way around the kitchen; I bet there's plenty of dark brown sugar and sticky treacle and REAL dairy butter going into this awesome mix too Sir!

Was indeed; I can NOT figure why people wanna skimp on the real niceties. When ya make sumpin' like a Xmas fruitcake fer gawshsakes make the very best ya can. It's like people making turkey dinner and substituting gravy Lite for real gravy. Mashed taters lite for the real thing, made with cream and real butter. Biscuits, real ones, not those things outta the grocery store.

I was for 8 yrs or so a real baker (in my youth) and acquired a taste for REAL bread. There's nothing like a real loaf of bread, hot from the oven, and bust out the REAL butter. In the bakery where I worked we made french bread on Fri afternoon. There was always a little bit of dough left after scaling the stuff. We'd take that bit and work it with one of the scaled loaves. When baked all us bakers would gather round, bring out the butter from the walk-in and bust that thing open the long way, slather it with bread and you would not BELIEVE how fast it would disappear.

 

[nigel richards]

Was indeed; I can NOT figure why people wanna skimp on the real niceties. When ya make sumpin' like a Xmas fruitcake fer gawshsakes make the very best ya can. It's like people making turkey dinner and substituting gravy Lite for real gravy. Mashed taters lite for the real thing, made with cream and real butter. Biscuits, real ones, not those things outta the grocery store.

I was for 8 yrs or so a real baker (in my youth) and acquired a taste for REAL bread. There's nothing like a real loaf of bread, hot from the oven, and bust out the REAL butter. In the bakery where I worked we made french bread on Fri afternoon. There was always a little bit of dough left after scaling the stuff. We'd take that bit and work it with one of the scaled loaves. When baked all us bakers would gather round, bring out the butter from the walk-in and bust that thing open the long way, slather it with bread and you would not BELIEVE how fast it would disappear.

I love the way you describe the good, wholesome and pure things in life Sir!

No skimpin' - no cutting the corners- honest to goodness philosophy for REAL living.
And it all makes sense too.

It's a sad truth that people are actually spending way more on 'oven-ready and 'instant'' food products than they would on the real thing.

Folk these days are missing out on so much.

Reckon Sir, its time to start a new thread around here on getting us all back on track!

Back to basics!