Archives for category: Social Network

bully fairy and mouse

Mouse used to be Devil‘s confidant. But since he started his new job he doesn’t have much time for her. She didn’t mind too much as she was so engaged with Artists’s survival cookbook. She didn’t even notice they were drifting apart. All of a sudden she realised that it was difficult to have a decent conversation with him. And since he wasn’t forthcoming with any info Mouse turned to Fairy Godmother, who has been chatting a lot with Devil lately.

“Do you know what’s up with Devil?” Mouse asked her bluntly. Fairy Godmother rolled her eyes, “I think he is loosing it” she said, and held both her hands up as if she wanted to say don’t go there. “He tells me stories” she continued. “They can’t possibly have happened. It sounds like his colleague is Machiavelli and our friend Devil is a wallflower. He surely must be exaggerating.” Mouse looked at her in surprise. That didn’t sound anything like the Devil she knew. “You know, Devil is actually very caring. Some people only think ill of him because he doesn’t blindly side with them. He always calls a spade a spade.”

“I’m telling you he’s loosing it!” repeated Fairy Godmother.

“Just give me an example” begged Mouse.

“It seems there is one colleague, Top Dog, who has it in for him” said Fairy Godmother. “But I can’t tell you any details. He has told me so much that it’s all become a bit blurred.”

bully devil

Mouse was shocked when she heard Devil had been bullied in his new job. The two of them had done so much together and worked really well as a team, like when they ran the Super Dede competition at Christmas two years ago. Then Devil lost his daytime job and in the aftermath he became a little withdrawn.  Mouse wanted to help, but Devil begged her to leave him alone. As a good friend she respected his request and put it down to his grief, but kept an eye on him. Normally, Dedes get over set-backs in no time at all and sure enough, it didn’t take long before Devil found a new job. Everyone was excited and confident that once he found his feet in the new job, he will be back to his old self – It never happened!

Yesterday Mouse finally went to Devil and asked, “I hear you have a hard time at work. Philosopher says you get bullied”

Devil, who is very confident and assertive, looked at her for a while. “I am not sure whether you can call it that” he finally said. “Bullying is such a blanket excuse. A lot of people throw it in the ring simply because they don’t get their own way. And that is the end of any discussion, isn’t it.”

“But you have certainly lost your humour” Mouse remarked.

“Ah well, I have to get to the bottom of it somehow” sighed Devil “and that means a lot of hard, honest soul searching”

 

 

 

Well, well, Devil is angry with me again. He’s the one who always reminds me I should look after the Dedes. After all, he was the spokesperson for the Dedes for a long time and knows how important it is to keep in people’s minds. Mind you, in the end he got sacked because he did a poor job. To be honest, he is not very well connected and all he did was jog me along, rather than opening up new avenues. Sadly, this is exactly the one trait Devil and I have in common… we are not very public.

Now, Devil didn’t need to remind me of my obligations to the Dedes. Believe you me, I have constantly been thinking about them. I just didn’t have time to write my blog or continue on the Artist’s survival cookbook. Real life devils have their demands on me as well – Real life still wins, every time!

Devil got particularly angry when I took some time last week to make a non-Dede related stop-motion film with Son. Son is a Vietnamese student who is currently staying with us. He wanted to bake a birthday cake for his ex-girlfriend who is living in Australia. The story was complicated enough to grab my attention. So, on a rainy Sunday we went to the supermarket, got all the ingredients and spent the afternoon having fun making the cake. He uploaded the finished work to youtube and promised me the link to put up on my blog. By the way the cake tasted delicious. But, I’m still waiting for the link.  I reminded Son at least four times about the link. Finally it occurred to me that maybe he didn’t get the desired reaction and deleted it off youtube. So I stripped all the lovely messages for the girlfriend out and here is my version of it.

Why am I showing this film of unreciprocated love? My involvement in the film wasn’t entirely selfless. At the moment I am pondering how I can promote the Artist’s survival cookbook. One of my ideas is to put a “Pledge me” campaign together. Pledge me is a New Zealand crowd-funding platform and I think a book is perfectly suited to crowd funding. In fact it’s not much more than pre-selling the book, is it? To create a campaign I have to make a new movie. I wanted to explore what baking looks like in stop-motion. I quite liked the result of the cake, now I only have to add the Dedes somehow. The little buggers don’t want to get their mittens dirty.

The central problem remains: I am not well-connected and if the campaign flops, will I do more damage to the Dedes than good? What do you think?

 

dinosaur

The Dedes have a day off today, so I take the chance to introduce this little monster. I know, it has nothing in common with my creations, except being a puppet. Unlike my Dedes, Mama Dinosaur is cute, soft and cuddly. I met her in class today. My students are currently working on a comic strip and it looks like one of them is following in my footsteps. She is hand stitching a series of animal characters to subsequently take photographs and invent a story of their adventure. I am certainly looking forward to the story!

 

td muzzleI am really in a pickle now. Flip’s Top Dog Training Centre has come forward to rescue the abandoned Dede Top Dog, who had been sent – for good reasons I might add – to Beach Haven Siberia (which is my windy and wet backyard). Pavlova, the lab rat, and I were keen to study his demise. So far we have only observed his resistance, his strong will not to give in to our harsh treatment. On the bus home from work I realised how bizarre the whole situation is. One could even claim the story has a blasphemic undertone. I apologise profoundly, it certainly was not intended. In the picture yesterday, Top Dog indeed looks crucified and coincidentally it is the week of Easter. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Mea culpa.

Anyway, to make it clear, a week or so ago I decided to cut Top Dog loose as he is permanently interfering with the hard work the other Dedes do. As the Dedes want to move forward, Top Dog definitely has to go. He is simply incapable of  co-existing peacefully with the rest of the team. Since I always wanted to know how long the Dedes could brave the elements without breaking down (I want to enter a semi-permanent Dede sculpture in an outdoor art exhibition) this seemed to be a good opportunity, and the perfect job, for Top Dog. I did not reckon with how brutal it must appear to my readers, who of course only know half the story and have to make up the rest!

Anyway, while on the bus, I decided my weather experiment can safely come to a conclusion. I know enough. After five days of really heavy rain showers alternating with sunshine, Top Dog is still as hard as a rock and smiling. This gives me the confidence that any Dede sculpture should survive two weeks of outdoor exhibition. Happy with what I found out, I sent a text to the Dedes to take Top Dog down and get him back into the house. At first they were very relieved and commended me for my change of heart and leniency. Funnily enough, by the time I arrived home Top Dog was sitting in the corner, wearing a dog leash and a muzzle. Pavolva reported he was so full of himself again and couldn’t stop boasting about his toughness. The Dedes were exhausted and had heard enough.

It occured to me that mabye it is us who make Top Dog play up. Maybe we make him feel inadequate and he has to constantly re-assure himself of his greatness. The comments on the blog proved he has indeed real friends who like him. Just not us! All of us here are convinced a bit of dog training wouldn’t go amiss. So, if Flip’s Top Dog Training Centre is still prepared to take him on, he is ready to move on to a good home.  Han de Vere might enjoy a companion, but don’t blame me if it goes haywire, you were warned! Top Dog is very big headed, he is twice the size of Han. So watch out! But then you are the professionals.

 

 

top dog scare

This is no good. It is more than a month since I have written on my blog. Honestly, the Artist’s survival cookbook is progressing. Not fast, but it is moving forward. It is currently at the design stage. The Dedes had millions of boring meetings to figure out how they should publish it.  You know, those kind of meetings where the discussion goes round and round in circles. Then the meeting is declared over without a tenable outcome and a new meeting has to be called another time. And very quickly a week, then a month, passes by.

You might find it hard to believe, but the Dedes are usually good decision makers. Even though they banter a lot, they know each other’s strength and weaknesses and trust the next Dede implicitly. But then there is Top Dog. Top Dog entered the scene sometime last year and never fitted in. He is adamant he is the best, knows everything better and is not interested in anybody’s opinion unless it coincides with his own. He loves to manage but not in a co-operative kind of way, more like a despot. In short, he wants to run the show and is not interested in what others with arguably more expererience can contribute – unless he directs them to do so. The Dedes quickly figured out his cocksure behaviour was to cover up his own inadequacies. They avoided saying anything that could be construed as disagreement.  When he has the feeling he is being criticised he gets extremely aggressive and loses the plot. Ultimately, the Dedes keep to themselves as they don’t like unnecessary arguments, so they let him do his own thing and he could feel important in front of the mirror. It’s by no means the first time they have had to deal with a difficult compatriot. Though usually the difficult ones come round once they realise the Dedes are a knowledgeable and peaceful bunch who work towards building a comfortable,  non-threatening environment.  Top Dog, however, hasn’t settled. Instead he constantly complains about how he isn’t respected enough. Well, as Philosopher always says: “Respect can’t be demanded, it has to be earned.”

There is a point when even the most patient Dedes has to say “enough is enough”. So, the other day the core team of Dedes, Mouse, Devil and Witch, along with a handful of others got together to discuss what on earth they could do. They realised the presence of Top Dog undermines their work. Their plans have slowed to a near stand – still and the only way to get back on track is if he goes. As it happens, tomorrow is the Scarecrow in the Garden competition here in Beach Haven and Mouse, the keen gardener, suggested to nominate Top Dog to become their representative in the competition. That will make him feel very important, but of course, as it will rain on and off tomorrow, the weather will see to his demise very quickly.

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Today a little interlude. The Dedes said good bye to a dear friend yesterday: a boat called Traumtanz. They are so used to her, as she has been in the garden all their lives.  All three years of it (of course, everybody who knows us personally, knows the boat has been in the garden for much longer, but we won’t tell the Dedes.)

Anyway, yesterday was the big day. She was loaded onto a truck and made the trip to the beach, where she was assembled. Traumtanz is a Wharram catamaran. One of the features is that the two hulls are only lashed together rather than being connected by nuts and bolts. Yes, it is safe and works well. She was built by hubby and we sailed her for many years before she came back to the house for an overhaul. Unfortunately, the overhaul took much longer than intended, due to all the little things life throws at you. Anywway, she is back and we are so looking forward to some great adventures.

 

quiche mouse

Evan G List, the vegan Dede, complained to Cash Cow that most of the recipes have dairy products in them. It’s either butter, milk or both. He doesn’t eat that stuff. Cash Cow said she was raised on it and she wouldn’t like to miss it, though she herself is vegetarian. Then Mouse came along carrying a plate and said that while she doesn’t eat much she does eat everything. That is just her nature. Evan G looked at her in disgust. Mouse explained she comes from a long line of church mice. Her family was so poor they had to eat what they could find. She still appreciates food and is grateful for what she gets. “It’s lucky if you have a choice” she added. “But but you know, if you don’t want to eat dairy, you can make a short pastry with oil instead of butter. I’ve just tried it and here is the result.” She pointed at a slice of quiche on her plate.

It did look delicious. “What’s on it?” Evan G asked suspiciously.

“Left overs from last night’s dinner again. We had mashed potatoes with garden vegetables. But there wasn’t enough left over, so I put sliced tomato on top of the left overs, added two eggs and sprinkled grated cheese over it.”

“Here we go again” said Evan G. “There is cheese and egg on it. No, not for me, thank you.”

“I mean, the base is vegan” said Mouse. “You can choose your own topping. Whatever you like to eat.”

Ingredients

1 cup of flour, 1/4 cup of oil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt (optional), cold water.

1 tart baking tray. The dough is enough for a 12cm x 35cm rectangular tray.

Method

Preheat the oven to 200oC

Place the flour on a flat surface, mix in the salt if you use salt. Pour in oil little by little and work into the flour with your fingertips. It will look like fine semolina when you are done. Add a little cold water and knead. Add only as much water needed to make the dough stick together nicely. Let it rest in the fridge for half an hour or so.

Note: Mouse made the dough after breakfast and left it in the fridge till lunch time. An oil-based dough doesn’t go as hard as one made with butter when it is left longer in the fridge.

Roll out the dough and place on the tart baking tray. Press the dough up the sides to get a bit of a lip at the edge. This prevents the filling from seeping out. Add your choice of filling.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

 

monkey pancake

“Can I have pancakes now?” whined Monkey.

“No you can’t!” said Devil quickly, before Mouse could say yes. Obviously Devil had a bone to pick with Monkey. “Why not?” asked Monkey bewildered.

“Did Judy really say she can’t make pancakes?” Devil asked and looked directly into Monkey’s eyes. Monkey looked at Mouse and then to the floor. It seemed as if he was shrinking a little.

“No, she didn’t, did she?” Devil answered instead and Monkey knew he had been found out. “Did you actually talk to her? Or did you just use her name to put more weight behind your demand?”

Monkey continued looking at the floor and quietly said “maybe.”

The whole story didn’t sit right with Devil and he had figured out, when you are 350 years old, of course you must know how to make pancakes, particularly if you have such a fine pan.

“And worse,” Devil continued “you then called her racist!” Monkey looked up, eyes wide open. “I did not!” he cried defensively.

“You know” Devil said emphatically and wagged his finger right in Monkey’s face “we cannot condone this.”

“But I didn’t, honestly!” Monkey whimpered.

“Shush! It is such an old trick, when you don’t get your way: Just blame it on obvious differences and then call the other one a racist. That kills any discussion.”

“But I didn’t!” Monkey repeated. Mouse, who had listened to the conversation nodded, put her mitten on Devil’s arm and corroborated. “No, he didn’t! He said, as long as it is not motivated by racism, he can live with it.”

“But he still told us a fib to get his way” Devil said adamantly. “I can’t tolerate this either!”

“So, what shall we do?” Mouse asked.

Devil looked in the air for a while thinking about a punishment, then he said “Okay, Monkey has to apologise to Judy for using her well-known name to gain an advantage!”

“I apologise!” Monkey called out instantly. “And I didn’t call her racist. At least I didn’t mean to!”

Devil relaxed a little, but wasn’t entirely convinced it was good enough.

“Can I have a pancake now?” Monkey asked timidly. Devil didn’t answer but Mouse came round. “It’s good enough for me.  Fun, Peace and Pancakes, what else do you need?”

Ingredients

2 cups of flour, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of water or milk or a mixture of both, salt (optional). Butter for the pan

Method

Pour flour in a bowl, add salt, mix in half the liquid with a wooden spoon. Do this little by little, thoroughly stirring to avoid lumps. Add the egg. Stir continuously until the egg is well integrated and then mix in the rest of the water. It should be a thin and runny batter. Add more water if need be.

In a pan heat up the butter with a medium heat until it melts and just starts to brown, then scoop a ladle full of batter into the pan. Tilt the pan around so that the bottom is well covered with the batter. Then wait until it dries from the underside. Flip the pancake over and bake for a further two minutes or so until it is golden brown.

Even though Monkey got his wish, he wasn’t happy eating the pancakes. We are not sure whether the recipe was too basic or because he was told off.

 

 

L'artiste pizza2

While they all loved L’Artiste’s pizza bread, it is not the same as a pizza. They begged him to come back the next day and run a pizza making workshop.

The first thing they learned is that people have different preferences when it comes to their pizza base. There is no right or wrong, just different likes. L’Artiste favours a thin and crunchy crust, as do most of the Dedes. If you like it more spongy, simply allow the dough to rise longer between kneading.

It takes L’Artiste exactly one hour from entering the kitchen to having the pizza on the table. So it’s not really a quick dinner, but time flies as the process is broken up into different tasks. He also considers pizza making a social event and loves having other people help chop up toppings while they chat away.

The dough is exactly the same as for the pizza bread yesterday, but because it is covered with juicy sauce and toppings it will need 20 minutes to bake. Once the pizza is in the oven there is plenty of time to clean the kitchen, throw together a nice side salad or simply have a glass of wine in anticipation. And when the kitchen is nice and tidy, the evening can begin!

Ingredients for one tray of pizza (two large or 4 small slices)

2 cups of flour, a scant teaspoon of dry yeast, 3/4 cup of warm water. Various toppings and grated cheese.

Method

Put the flour in the bowl and add half of the water and the yeast. Now you can do other chores for 15 minutes while the yeast becomes active. When the yeast is foamy, mix it with the flour, add the rest of the water and knead to an elastic dough. Let it rest to rise.

Switch the oven on to 2000C and attend to the sauce that goes on top of the base. L’Artiste usually fries some diced onions in olive oil and adds a can of diced tomatoes (yes, a can! He read somewhere that canned tomatoes have more lycopene than fresh tomatoes, but watch out for the salt content of the canned ones!). Then he adds the mediterranean selection of herbs… rosmary, sage, oregano, thyme..

While the sauce reduces, he chops the toppings everyone wants, or else whatever he can find in the fridge (at least a red pepper, onions and garlic). If he has helpers he just supervises this task and someone has to grate the cheese. He prefers a combination of edam cheese and goat cheese. But either or will do, though the correct cheese topping for a pizza is mozzarella. Fresh mozzarella is hard to come by where the Dedes live. The wonderful thing about pizza is that anything goes. If you like it, put it on!

After the chopping and grating is done, knead the dough again, roll it out to its final size and place it on the baking tray dusted with flour. Pour the sauce on, spreading it around. Then distribute the various toppings. Lastly, put the cheese on top. If the pizza is shared, and it mostly is, L’Artiste adds what everyone wants to different sections (There is always someone who doesn’t like olives, while the next one doesn’t like salami). He then cuts the pizza before it goes in the oven, which makes it easier to divide up once it is baked.

Bake for 20 minutes at 2000C.