Tiroler Kirchtagskrapfen

“Tyrolean (sweet) church fair pasty” is as close to a translation as I could get. This is also one of my favourite things from my home district. A fried pasty thing with a filling of poppyseed and pears (and rum). And yes, this is the right amount of poppyseed. ;)

Ingredients:

– Dough:

400g wheat flour

salt

50g butter, melted

2 eggs

1 tablespoon rum

water (lukewarm)

– Filling:

300g dried pears

1/8 l milk

50g butter (or margarine)

120g sugar

150g ground poppyseed

grated lemon zest

ground cinnamon

ground cloves

1 shot rum

For the filling, simmer the dried pears until soft, then mince. Boil the milk with added butter and sugar, add the poppyseed and let steep a little. Add spices and rum, mix to form a creamy paste.

Combine dough ingredients to form a soft dough. Knead well, until it is silky and smooth. Cover with a dish towel and let rest for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface. The dough should be quite thin (like for cut-out cookies). Cut out circles (e.g. with the help of a big mug or small cereal bowl), put a spoonful of filling in the centre of the circles, then fold into half-moons and pinch the edges shut.

Fry in hot oil until both sides are golden brown, then drain on tissue paper. Serve with a dusting of castor sugar.

DISCLAIMER FOR VEGAN READERS OF MY BLOG: I have yet to try replacing the eggs in this recipe. I might give commercial egg replacer a try. Please bear with me until I have tested this – and forgive the non-vegan post for a change. If you have suggestions that might work, feel free to comment. I’m always grateful for an exchange of ideas.

(Picture nicked from wipptalblog.tirol – where they use a recipe that also has Powidl, an Austrian jam made from prunes.)

Deep State and the Future of Theatre

My article on China Miéville’s 2012 film collaboration with Karen Mirza and Brad Butler has been published by Alluvium Journal. You can read it here. And here is a translated version of the Egyptian Activists’ Action Plan, or “How to Protest Intelligently” (featured in the film and mentioned in my article).

 

 

Review: In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle

This time I got a unicorn book to review: In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle. Surprisingly (?) this lovely novella is not a secondary-world fantasy, which may imply that the unicorns in the plot are metaphors (or that you or I could come across one too, who knows). In any case it was the nicest read, and it was the first book in ages – and definitely the first book I read for a review – that actually managed to make me cry. You can read my review here.

 

Review: Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

If you need a book that’s an enjoyable read, that acknowledges and references a lot of international SF, mythology and folklore, and that is first and foremost about culture as change, about diversity, coexistence, acceptance and mutual enrichment, give this one a try.

“Central Station, that vast space port which rises over the twin cityscapes of Arab Jaffa, Jewish Tel Aviv” (p. 6): this is the main setting in Lavie Tidhar’s eponymous novel—or, rather, his interconnected collection of episodic short stories—and it’s big enough to have its own miniature weather system. Built by immigrant workers from all nations, it is described as “a miniature mall-nation, to which neither Tel Aviv nor Jaffa could lay complete claim” (p. 42), working as a sort of buffer zone as well as a cultural melting pot that offers everything from snack food to religion and/or body modification… (read more)

 

Review: The Arrival of Missives by Aliya Whiteley

It took me a while to decide whether I liked this book or not. Find out why I think it’s totally worth reading (including some meta-observations about the genre of Weird Fiction and also SFF in general) in my review for Strange Horizons.

 

The Vitamix Experiments #5: Coconut Butter

When I read this post on Oh She Glows, I knew I had to give this a try. And it’s true: making your own coconut butter in a Vitamix is super easy. It only took the S 30 about 8 minutes, and while the result isn’t exactly making me squee, I guess this too can be modified with various flavours, and I think it’s another great feature of a high speed blender I wouldn’t have thought of by myself. Besides, I haven’t used coconut butter in baking yet, and I love baking with coconut milk, so I’ll have to give this a try soon.

All in all, the little S 30 seems to be a keeper so far. I’ll experiment some more with hummus and pasta sauces and salad dressings and smoothies, and if I come across something surprising and marvellous, I’ll let you know. And if the S 30 doesn’t suddenly and unexpectedly act up, it can stay (and will probably be named after something from a Jack Vance novel, since it comes from the future and makes nice food).

 

The Vitamix Experiments #4: Strawberry Sorbet

Of course I had to try it! Unfortunately, I can’t freeze bananas right now, since the unpredictable Fridge from Hell might find random ways of destroying them if I tried. But I can get frozen berries from the supermarket. So I threw a packet of frozen strawberries in the S 30 and turned them into sorbet. Just like that!

The motor got a little hot (I could smell it – but nothing alarming), but it didn’t switch itself off or do anything weird, and then I had strawberry sorbet.

It’s nice, and/but having tried it, I can easily see how you could modify it by adding yogurt, coconut milk etc. to make it into even better ice cream. And the Vitamix might prefer that too.