Unethical Distractions

One thing I definitely noticed whilst writing up was how my blog posting seemed to increase exponentially during that four to five month period. That's all well and truly over, but with my now stiff and sore fingers and wrists, and pins and needles (soon to be corrected by carpal tunnel release - anatomists out there, check out that term in any good text book!), I've got a couple of papers to start writing and so of course, here I am once again ... isn't it funny how if you give yourself lots of time to do a task, you tend to waste much of that time and still leave things until the last minute?? That said, the less time you have, the more efficiently you use it. Even more interesting are the different possible vehicles for procrastination or de-stressing oneself. A few years ago, a couple of workmates revealed that when they get stressed, they cook. A lot. At the time, I more or less didn't cook at all, but now that I do, I'm beginning to understand where they're coming from.

Since Easter's coming up, my mum's already starting to think of what we'll eat when the family gets together on Easter Sunday. A few years ago, she bought a book full of old school Jewish recipes ranging from how to make goulash to their sweet bread, halwa. When my grandma was still cooking a lot, she used to make some truly delicious jam doughnuts, and to this day, my uncle still thinks that nothing anywhere else compares to them. She was such a natural in the kitchen that sadly for us, she never wrote down any of her recipes. Even now when I follow my grandpa around his kitchen when he's teaching me stuff, it's still "a bit of this" and "a bit of that".

Anyway, yesterday mum and I decided to attempt some doughnuts according to a recipe by Peter Singer, the ethicist and academic. Funnily enough, the doughnuts are referred to as "ethical" since you don't use regular milk, but soy instead, and the eggs have to be free range etc. So we followed the directions religiously but much to our chagrin (and my grandpa's amusement), the dough failed to rise during the 2 hour period where you have to keep it in a warm place to let it grow. Later in the evening, we tried again, changing things around slightly, but to no avail. So (after some negative comments about Peter Singer) I jokingly suggested to mum that maybe the trick would be to make some "unethical" doughnuts, using regular milk instead (the eggs are still free range though). Happily, as I write this, the dough is expanding before our eyes as it sits on the kitchen window sill, soaking up the sun. Thanks REV!