Bak-en-Brou kaskenades

On Saturday night, The Dad, Boobah and myself met up with some friends at Primi Piatti at the Stoneridge Centre, where Boobah spent most of the evening in their Kids' section, which may I add, is a fantastic set-up for little kids. They have a section set up where kids can play and learn about making their own pizzas and use cookie-cutters on pizza dough to cut biscuits. A dedicated member of their staff looks after the kids, and then takes their culinary masterpieces to get baked for the little ones to enjoy. Naturally, Boobah had a blast, and because we were some of the only parents with small kids to frequent the venue on Saturday night, he basically had the space, utensils and helping lady to himself. Together, they made a ton of biscuits.

Then, the following couple of days, all he could talk about were koekies bak*. And he told the story to everybody who cared to listen and could decipher what he was saying; he is only still two and a half, after all. This gave me the idea to actually bake some biscuits. We haven't baked them together, ever, and I haven't baked any in a very long time. The problem is though, that I don't particularly own cookbooks. My mum has plenty and so does my Gran, but I have never really bought myself a cookbook. So I spent the whole day Wednesday on the net looking for cookie recipes. But there was a slight catch. I was looking for the recipes in Afrikaans. Not because I don't understand English baking terms, but that was the best way to ensure that all the ingredients we would require, are locally available. American recipes tend to contain a lot of stuff that we can't get here and I didn't want to spend a fortune on locating said ingredients, or finding substitutes. Luckily, when I mentioned to my mum what I was planning, she pulled through, grabbed her Huisgenoot Wenresepte (Book 4, I think), scanned the exact recipe for the biscuits I wanted to bake, but couldn't find ANYWHERE on the interwebs, and promptly mailed it to me. Thanks Muvver, you are my hero!

Boy, did we have a blast last night! Boobah helped me from getting all the ingredients together, to helping me sift the flour, and only ran away once, when I used the Raas-maak-ding (the electric mixer) to cream the eggs, butter and sugar together. He hates that thing and is scared to death of it. He was so excited at the prospect of baking biscuits, that at one stage, he didn't even want to make some space or give me time to roll out the dough on the counter top so that we could ACTUALLY make the biscuits. It was great fun though and we ended up making a whole variety of different biscuits. The recipe states that the dough is enough for 160 biscuits… Goeie genade!** For variety, we made plain biscuits, coconut biscuits, coconut and strawberry jam ones, plain strawberry jam ones, ones with chocolate sprinkles in them (because I couldn't find chocolate chips at the two stores we went to) and chocolate stars biscuits, with peppermint flavor, for a nice Christmassy effect. Although, to be honest, the peppermint flavor didn't come through all that well. Actually, it didn't come through at all. Maybe I put in too little, or it disappeared during the baking process or something. But nevertheless, those stars are my second favorite biscuits out of all the ones we made. The strawberry jam and coconut ones are my favoritest ones!

Here's some photos of my star baker, and the baking process:

Mixing the flour

Making biscuits

(I know the face is dirty, but we did wash hands before we started)

On the baking tray

Jam Biscuits - the best ones

The Dad's lunch biscuits

And here's the recipe, translated from Afrikaans, for anyone else who may be interested in baking nice homemade biscuits this holiday season:

"Outydse Soetkoekies" – Way back when, Old Time Favorite Biscuits, like your Granny used to make them

250g butter or margarine – at room temperature

600g (750ml / 3 cups) sugar

5 large eggs

800g ( 6 x 250ml, measured before you sift it) cake flour

30ml baking powder

10ml powdered nutmeg **ßOptional, I left this one out, because I wanted to make such a variety of flavored biscuits**

2ml salt

Decoration:

1 egg, beaten

25ml milk

Sugar

Cream the butter/margarine, sugar and eggs together in a biggish bowl. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt together, sommer straight on top of the creamed butter mixture in the bowl. Mix everything together until a nice, soft dough forms. Now cover it, and leave it to rest for half an hour. (I'm not sure why, but the recipe says so).

Preheat the oven to 200 °C (400 °F). Coat your baking trays with butter/margarine or spray them liberally with Spray 'n Cook.

At this point, we took handfuls of cookie dough, and started adding all our extra bits and stuff like coconut or chocolate sprinkles or cocoa powder (I don't know how much cocoa powder I used, I just took a big spoon and added heaps of it to the dough until I thought that it looked like enough) and worked it into the dough.

Roll the dough out on a flat surface that was dusted with some more flour, and dust the rolling pin also, it really helps. Keep rolling until the dough is about 5mm thick. Now proceed to use your most interesting cookie cutters to cut really cool shaped cookies and place them spaced evenly on the baking tray. This is not a runny dough, so the shapes hold well, and the chances of them merging on the tray are minimal. Unless, of course, you stack them on top of each other – not a grand idea.

If you're making plain biscuits only, for the decoration bit, mix the beaten egg and milk together in a cup or small bowl, then brush this lightly on top of the biscuits on your tray. Now sprinkle sugar on each biscuit, shove the tray in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden brown. Take them out, leave to cool slightly in the pan, then transfer the biscuits to a cooling rack.

Store biscuits in an airtight container. Get a huge one, because there will be a LOT of biscuits!

Have lots of fun in between J

And oh yes, just a short mention, if you have a double element oven, just use the bottom element to bake these biscuits, or they will burn. And that's yucky, when the outside is burnt, but the inside still half uncooked.

*baking biscuits

**Good Grief!

An Unfortunate event, but an easy decision

Recently, there happened to be an interesting blog post on JoziKids, written by the lovely Laura-Kim about Children and funerals and whether you'd take your child to one. At the time, I read it, took note and then didn't think much of it again, because we weren't planning any deaths in our family (I know, I know, it's not really something that can be planned). That was, until Sunday afternoon.

At about 6 o'clock in the evening, The Dad received a phone call from one of his uncles, informing him that another one of his uncles had passed away earlier that day. This had come as a shock to The Dad, because this particular uncle had been the epitome of a healthy lifestyle. He never smoked, hardly drank, had been eating steamed food (for the health benefits) for the last 3 or 4 years and had been exceptionally fit, as he'd been training for the 94.7 Cycle Challenge. The family all rushed to the home his aunt and uncle had shared during their 35 year marriage, leaving Boobah and myself at home. I didn't feel it was appropriate to go, because I didn't really know the man and he had never even seen my son. Also, I felt that all attention should be bestowed upon the grieving family, and not on a mother entertaining/scolding/shushing/laughing with her son, because his behavior required any of the aforementioned.

Then, last night and this morning, I had asked Boobahs' granddad and grandma if any details for the funeral had been finalized. I would like to know when it is going to be held, so that I can make alternate arrangements for Boobah that day (they look after him during the day, whilst The Dad and I work) to stay with my grandparents, so that they can attend the funeral. I also informed them that I do not want my child to go to the funeral, as I feel it is no place for children to be. Yes, he may be only 2 and a half, and no, he does not understand the concept of death yet, so it won't matter to him if he goes, but I am his mother and it matters to me.

Laura-Kim had ended her piece of writing, by asking What I would do as a parent, and my opinion is this: Unless the person who died was part of your immediate family, like a parent, grandparent or sibling, or your had an exceptional bond with a very close friend, children should not be taken to funerals. Services tend to take hours and when you're a little person, that feels even longer, and you are made to sit still for all that time. Then, as a child, when you get bored you start to fidget and get scolded at. As a parent, you are doing the scolding of your bored, fidgety child and in turn, bug the grieving people around you. Eventually, you take your child to the Mother's Room (Moederskamer) and end up missing half the service any way. And, with family like The Dad's, guaranteed, you will be remembered for disrespecting and disrupting the "event" long after the "event" has been forgotten. Thus, leave the children at home! At least until they are old enough to understand the concept of Death, and can decide for themselves whether they would like to attend a funeral or not.

 

Pay your respects, but do it respectfully.

Please be VERY CAREFUL with your personal details...

**Names have been removed to protect identity**

Good morning,

Please read the below and be aware when people phone you claiming to be from a reputable company. We’re so quick to give our details when asked.

Have a good day.

Txxx

From: Hxxx Txxx
Sent: 06 November 2009 04:32 AM
To: Hxxx Txxx
Subject: gail...please read my tale of disaster

Good morning!

I received this shocking mail from Gail. Please read it and warn everyone you know – lets not fall victim to these fraudsters.

Regards

Hettie

From: Gail Dxxx Wxxx
Sent: 05 November 2009 07:19 PM
To:
Subject: gail...please read my tale of disaster

Dear Friends and Butterflies

Have you tried to call me today …..

You cannot get through on my cell phone or on me land line…

Let me tell you bout my last 48 hours….

Read my story and be warned …. You could be next.

I received a substantial amount of money deposited into my account from some investments that were due. I also received large amounts of cash and deposits as I have had a busy month with Honey. This money of course belongs to Honey and I pay this over to them weekly.

On Tuesday I received a call from vodacom confirming that I wish have my cell phone barred, I of course had not requested this and my alarm was immediately raised.

Vodacom asked me to confirm my account number, id number and physical address for security reasons.

I did this.

I then demanded to know who had requested my account to be barred….this mad me so mad.

I was told they would get back to me.

5 minutes later a lady called from VODACOM FRAUD DEPATEMENT. She asked me to confirm all me details and then gave me a long code. She told me to punch this into my phone . I askes her what this was all about…

• She said it would align up 3 staellite dishes that would then stop the Nigerians from using my cellphone line .

• I wrote the number down as I was driving.

• She gave me her name and contact numbers.

• I immediately became suspicious as the number she gave me was a Bedfordview number.

• I told her I would punch the numbers in my phone and I hung up.

• I then tried to call this Bedfordview number which took me to a motor car spares shop.
• I tried the cell number…..the mail box was full.

• My suspicion was immediately raised.

This woman then called me every 5 minutes to try and encourage me to punch this code in my cell phone.

I called Absa Bank Fraud department as I was racing in my Honey Car to the Bank in Bedford Centre.

I managed to get one lady to help me and I immediately froze all my bank accounts.

When I got to Bedford Bank I saw my personal banker.

She told me this is a known scam and we need to get hold of vodacom not to freeze my ohone.

What the fraudsters do is they divert your cell phone to their number and proceed to empty your bank account by cell phone banking.

We tried all afternoon for some luck with vodacome who kept telling me I was the fraudster as they had the REAL MRS Dxxx Wxxx ON THE OTHER LINE WITH HER BANK DETAILS , ID NUMBER AND THEY WERE GOING TO BAR MY ACCOUNT.

After much hysterics I got vodacom to agreed that they would not freeze my cell account unless it came in writing.

Now almost 5 hours of my day have been lost.

I get on with my days work and Fxxx and I work until after 10h00 catching up on Honey chores.

THURSDAY :

Can you imagine my horror this morning when I receive an sms from Vodacom confirming my service query.

Half an hour later I have no cell phone…it has been barred

I have no home land line ….it us dead.

• I get in my car and race to Vodacom Alberton.
• I tell my story to unbelieving ears.
• I produce my id and my cell account to be told that I am not the real MRS, Dxxx Wxxx.
• They have received a copy of my bank acc , my id and ALL MY HUSBANDS ACCOUNTS TOO AND MY PHONE HAS BEEN BARRED.
• They take another foresic report and will COME BACK TO ME !!!!!
• They will draw all the telephone tapes and revert to me to see if I am the gangster or the owner of this phone.

• I race to Absa Bank….remember I can’t phone from my land line…..

• I storm into my manager office….

And Guess what …

Funds have been cleared from my account….

A huge amount of money has been cashed by cheque. (the corresponding cheque number lies still in my cheque book …how do you like that !!! )

The Bank tell me they have spoken to me on my landline and got positive proof it was be as I gave them the following information :

• My id
• My Husbands ID
• My physical address
• All my 5 banking account numbers
• My 3 credit card numbers
• My mortgage bond account number.
• The only information I could not give was my balance on my mortgage.
• The bank then presumed it was safe to cash this cheque and allowed it to go….

Can you just imagine my horror….

• I have no identity of note with vodacom who don’t believe I am ME
• My money has been fraudulently removed from my bank
• I have no cell phone
• I have no landline

SO…..If you are looking for me…the only way is e mail

I am traumatised, frustrated and mad…..

I will let you know when vodacom are so kind as to reconnect my phone and believe me … !!!!

I have spent hours in the bank trying to save my money…. I have not been in my office as this has taken hours to do….

I am frustrated and mad…..

I am waiting for the next withdrawal from my account by the cell phone banking

And I am bewildered as to how they have cashed a cheque that is still in MY CHEC BOOK!!!!

If you are planning to deposit money into my account…please don’t… I will let you now when it is free again…

If I owe you… I will give you cash as my account is frozen.

If you have left messages on my phone… I don’t have them !!!

AND NONE OF THIS IS MY FAULT.

If you think I have gone mad I have not !!!.

I JUST CANNOT BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING TO ME!!!!

I shall be making use of Nxxx phone…you can sms and call me there 082-xxx-xxxx.

E mail me …with pleasure….

When my phones are working again…. I will sms you.

Clearly this is a fraudulent occurrence from within the bank….I wonder how much they are going to hack out of my account tonight!!!! My cell number has been diverted to their number and vodacom have me on hold !!!

So beware…. I would hate this to happen to you.

My apologies to poor Axxx who was expecting me at her team meeting tonight… I am so sorry Alta…just been fighting for what is rightfully mine !!!

I will make up to you next meeting!!!

Let you know when I am on line and communicating again.

Love a mad Gail

Latest Update

Holy Catfish! I just twigged that I have not updated this since people stopped clapping and Tinkerbell died... You would not believe that my hands were chopped off and I was waiting for bionic ones. Truly!.

I am swilling chardonnay with an awfully big adventure, learning to speak Japanese, just generally being a slave to the secret service, my day often feels wasted from the second star on the right, straight on to well after sun-down. I am looking at rectifying this. maybe tomorrow.

I will try to remember I promised you I will write something that makes sense soon. Truly! Unless of course the pool with the cocktail bar is heated!.

 

If buying shoes were like filling out your tax forms...

The Shoe Salesman's Story
Anonymous

“I’d like to buy a pair of black leather shoes, please.”

“Sir, if only it were that simple. Here’s my card. Letter of introduction and here’s your Statutory Notice.”

“What’s this for?”

“It tells you that I can only talk to you about shoes and allied products sold by this shop. I can’t talk to you about shoes sold by any other shoe shop nor can I give advice on sausages for instance.”

“I see.”

“Probably the best way to proceed is to show you where we fit into the footwear industry. We buy the most of our footwear from the Far East at a fairly modest price and sell them on to the public at a considerably higher price. Of course, out of the mark-up we pay for transportation, import duties, rent and sales, display staff, sales staff, cleaners and administration staff etc., and, of course, the shareholders have to be paid a dividend out of the remaining profits. Not many people think about this when they buy shoes. It may be that even when I have all the facts I may recommend that you do not buy footwear at all. May I proceed?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well how many arms and legs have you got for a start?”

“What have arms got to do with shoes?”

“Well, sir, if for example you had only one arm and I sold you a pair of shoes with laces – it could be construed by BASTARD as bad advice.”

“Who’s Bastard?”

“The Boot and Shoe Trade and Regulatory Directorate.”

“What would they do?”

“Put the boot in. A friend of mine had to leave the industry.”

“What did he do wrong?”

“Sold a pair of carpet slippers.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Turned out the guy didn’t have a carpet. So you see. I need to build up a full profile of you. For example, do you need the shoes for business or pleasure or business and pleasure? How many shoes have you got already? How many are casual, smart, trainers and sandals? How many suits and what colour are they? Do you have athlete’s foot? Can you touch your toes? Any corns or bunions or has your family a history of foot rot? What kind of socks do you wear? How often do you cut your toenails? How much do you earn and what’s your overall budget? Well, thank you for that information … I’ll give it some serious thought and will be able to advise you about the appropriate product in two week’s time.

Two weeks later …

“Ah, good morning sir I’ve given your enquiry serious thought and what you need is a pair of black leather shoes.”

“Isn’t that what I asked for in the first place?”

“With respect sir, you have had the benefit of my professional advice based upon all the relevant facts as provided and you now know with some certainty that you require black leather shoes. All the guesswork’s been taken out of it. Here’s your Risk Analysis – I recommend you buy these leather shoes because they’ll keep your feet dry, match your suits, look smart and you can afford them.”

“Well, I’m glad that’s settled.”

“Right. Please complete this application form. Here’s a quotation for your signature. It shows a complete breakdown of costs and profits and includes my 1.27% commission. The product particulars describe in great detail how the shoes are made and the “key features” are a summary of the product particulars, highlighting the risk factors.

“Risk factors?”

“Yes, for example, if you live too long the shoes may need repairing. On the other hand, if you die before you’ve had your wear out of them, I’m afraid there’ll be no refund, even if they don’t fit another member of the family. So just to recap: you’ve got my card, Letter of Introduction, your Statuary Notice, product particulars, key features, quotation and Risk Analysis. Now please take a seat while we await the letter from my head office advising you that I do in fact work for this company. By the way, there is a cooling off period – you can still return the shoes within 30 days and receive a full refund if you don’t like them for any reason. Incidentally, how are you paying?”

“Cash.”

“Well, sir, we have to consider the possibility of money laundering, so would you mind nipping home for a telephone bill or utility bill, your last tax return with your tax number clearly printed by SARS and a certified copy of your South African Identity document to prove your identity so that I can be sure that you are genuine and not mixed up in some sort of unsavoury financial arrangement? And one last thing, sir, do any of your friends require shoes?”

Behavioral Modification Systems

Goodness, that sounds so daunting, doesn't it? No, no, I'm not putting my sweet little Boobah through serious boot camps or brainwashing his yet-to-fully-develop little mind.. Okay wait, maybe I am brainwashing him, but in no sinister way whatsoever. On Monday I decided it is time to start with the daunting task of Potty Training. That which most moms of two-year olds dread. But I have decided that we will start this process in a fun manner. With Sticker Charts. I googled some ideas and found a couple of sites with the coolest sticker sheets made specially for potty training tots. Fortunately, I also had loads of sticker books (bought on impulse from BidOrBuy more than a year ago) that would assist with this process. After sitting Boobah down and explaining to him how this game works, he took to the idea like a fish to water. We have been having loads of fun running to the potty and making a wee, then wiping the bum, flushing the contents, putting the nappy back on, washing hands and finally, FINALLY sticking the sticker on the pretty colorful sheet that I stuck on the wall just above the potty. Boobah did real good last night, and managed to collect 3 (yes THREE) Spongebob Square Pants stickers for potty business before bed time. At the moment there is no set amount of times he has to go or stickers to collect for a prize or anything. I just told him that at the end of the week, if he got stickers every day, we'll go to the Ice Cream shop and he can choose whatever ice-cream he feels like.

 

Also, before it gets too costly for my pocket, I'll only buy him a big present (big in his eyes) at the end of each month, if he got stickers everyday for the whole month. I know it's only been two days, but so far it seems though this is working out for him. I just hope The Dad's mother follows through on my carefully-thought-out plan. Otherwise she'll just screw my kid up and he will get confused and not like the game anymore.

 

In other news, I got the biggest compliment last night from my blue-eyed wonder…. We were having a bath and I asked him if mommy smells stink. "No". Does mommy smell nice? "No" So what does mommy smell like then? "Tractor Tom" Now, most people probably won't understand why this would be a compliment, but TT is Boobah's favoritest toy/character/thing in the whole wide world (then Lighting McQueen), so to be compared to him is amazing. It means that I rank there, at the top of all things WOW on Boobah's list of Coolest Things in the World.

 

Our latest favorite thing to do is watch TV in bed. Or so Boobah calls it. Actually, what we do is watch whole TV Series' (thanks nerdy neighbor, who set up the wireless connection to your whole home network setup you've got going there, to allow me to copy all kinds of cool stuff you download) on my Mac in bed. We put the heater on in the room, get under the covers and just watch TV. Now and then, if our Vodacom tower is in working order, I'll browse YouTube for classic cartoon episodes (like Bananas in Pajamas, or Animaniacs or something) just for something different.

 

That is currently the bestest times I'm having with my Baby Person, bonding and just being with him.

Howdy Doodie

Okay so, I'm back. I've taken a slightly longer than anticipated sabbatical. I'm sorry. This was also probably due to the fact that I changed jobs – to a company with very VERY limited access to the outside world. And by that I mean the Internet. And everything the internet entails. Yes, I had e-mail, but on an Exchange server, which meant that the IT dept controlled everything. And, unfortunately for me, I wasn't IN that IT department. Not like at the last place I worked. Where I could do what I liked when I liked. So I couldn't even mail in my news.

 

On second thoughts, maybe I could've (but I only found that out shortly before my departure from said jail company) and then I was swamped with creating process documents on that which I actually did.

 

Anyhoodle, I am now working at a new place. Quite fantastic might I mention. I have free access to the internet, although I better be on my best behavior to not abuse that which has been given to me freely. They have someone who checks that…. Also, I'm again not in the IT department, but have rather been made a manager. Ooooh, can you believe it. I am the Customer Relations Manager. I just lurve the sound of that. Me, Boobah's Mom, a manager J
J

 

Speaking of which, Boobah is doing absolutely fantastically well. I will post more about him later though. I just wanted to pop in and say a quick HI. So there, I've said it. If you didn't get it, here it comes again:

 

HI!!!!!