Stuff

Ok, so I didn't do so well with the amine test. It was fun while it lasted though.
Good luck to the Fiddle Club members who are playing at The MadAss Folk Club (at The Muddy Farmer) Thursday night. I'm sure you'll be a huge hit.
Also, good luck for that last little bit of school term to all those teachers who are writing reports, doing make-up lessons etc. You're nearly there!

The Recipe

Thought I'd share the joy...
I modified some recipes I found on the internet to come up with
CHOCOLATE BROWNIES (gluten and dairy free)
125g dairy-free margarine
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
125g dark (dairy-free) chocolate, chopped (I follow the rule that any ingredient should be of a good enough quality to eat by itself, so I used Lindt 70%.)
3 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup gluten-free all purpose flour (Orgran is good. Do you have any idea how hard it's been to get here?!)
1/3 cup cornflour (Lots of other recipes suggested cocoa powder, which I neither have nor like, so I substituted cornflour.)
1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
1 cup cashews (or other nuts or none! Cashews are the only nuts with low salicylate though.)

Heat oven to 180 degrees.
Grease a cake tin and line with baking paper.
Put butter, sugar and chocolate in a microwave-proof bowl and heat in microwave on medium high for 1 minute. Stir.
Repeat for up to 4 minutes or until ingredients are melted and combined, stirring after every minute.
Stir flours and baking powder into chocolate mixture until well combined.
Add beaten eggs.
Add nuts (if using).
Pour mixture into prepared tin.
Bake for 35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. (Unless you're using a dodgey student-type oven in which case it may take half the recommended time or double the recommended time, but certainly nowhere near the recommended time!)
Allow to cool on wire rack before slicing.
I iced my brownies with (call the heart foundation!!!) an icing I made by melting more chocolate and margarine and combining with pure icing sugar. I have no idea of amounts because I was doing experimental chemistry. I did need to add hot water though to make it a spreadable consistency.
Enjoy.
Oh, by the way, there does seem to be a direct correlation between the amount of chocolate I'm consuming and the, um, curviness of my figure...

OMG

This week I'm doing a food test. It's to test my reaction to amines, a chemical the occurs through protein breakdown. Amines are in foods such as cured and smoked meats and fish, fresh salmon, tuna and sardines, bananas and some other fruit and vegetables...and CHOCOLATE. The test involves eating 2 bananas and 60 - 100 grams of chocolate per day and seeing what happens. (Yes Lisa, I'm rivaling your chockie consumption!) As many of you know I haven't eating chocolate for about 15 years, so it's quite a revelation.

Yesterday I had some dark chocolate (it's dairy free). It's got such a strong flavour; I could taste it for hours!

Today I felt the need to experiment. So I made brownies with a block of Lindt chocolate...

I HAVE NO WORDS!!!! I see why everyone says 'You don't eat chocolate?! I'm so sorry. Poor you.' etc etc.

Now let's see if anything happens...

Concert

Last night I was the Guest Artiste in a concert. My friend Chris conducts the choir at Heddon On The Wall (about 20 minutes west of Newcastle) and invited me to do some solos in their summer concert. (It was a lovely day: the temperature got up to the low 20s!)
The choir sang beautifully. And I did very well too. I played a very diverse repertoire, from Bach to The Mission, with Scottish and Australian traditional tunes as well.
And I won a prize in the raffle!
Afterwards, we (including some of the other PhD students from Chris's course) went back to Chris's place for supper. It was a really lovely evening. And I really enjoyed performing, which is a relief because I've done a couple of fairly average masterclass performances recently. (Could I be reverting to my less than positive undergrad experiences?!)
Anyway, it's all good again and I can't wait for the recital in September.

Fiddle Band Tour

I spent the weekend in the Scottish Borders on a Fiddle Band tour. FIddle band is the group run by Catriona at uni. It's a non-compulsory group for fiddlers from all years of the course. We meet once a week for rehearsal (and cake).
On Friday evening we all went up to Denholm where we rehearsed until 11:30, and then again the next morning. During the afternoon we witnessed the Denholm Rideout. This is a festival that started in the Victorian era when the common lands were checked. It involves a very large group of horses and riders visiting various villages in the district over 5 weeks. The procession is lead by the Cornet a young unmarried man who has various duties for the year, and the Cornet's Lasses who also have various other duties. It is a huge honour to be chosen in these roles. (Apparently, it's so huge, that there are many young couples who put off weddings so they are in the running to be chosen.)
Off course, I took my camera. And left it in my bag all weekend! Oops...
Saturday evening we drove to Thropton, back across the border, for a concert organised by Alistair Anderson. We did two halves of a mix of fiddle band and solos (yes, I did a solo which went quite well) and small groups. There was even some Lancashire clogging. It was a very enjoyable concert.
After a small petrol crisis (!) we headed back to Denholm. As we reached the crest of the hill of the border we saw a beautiful red sunset - at 11pm! All arrived safely back in Denholm, where some of us even slept.
On Sunday we went to the Coldstream Gaithering, a festival/ workshop weekend in Coldstream a small town in the Borders, closer to the coast. Some of us went there early to attend Liz Doherty's lecture on Cape Breton music. (Liz is one of my heros and it was just great to see her again.) The fiddle band then played in the second half of the workshops concert.
It was a great weekend in gorgeous surrounds and next time I promise to get my camera out!