Archive for June, 2008
So you’ve just finished final sanding and cleanup and you’re ready to apply the finish. You turn the piece over and there is a dent in the surface that wasn’t there a minute ago. You check your bench for stray chips but it’s all clean. You blame the dent fairies and wonder if it can be sanded out.
This is an old trick for recovering without extensive planing or sanding. Many will know it but it’s here for those readers who don’t.
First wet the area with a small pool of water. I usually use spit for this as little water is required for a small dent and spit is usually on hand. You can let this sit for a short while if you’re not in a hurry. The moisture will start to swell the wood fibres where they have been compressed by the fairy’s little hammer. Sometimes with very small dents (and in softer woods) this may be enough for the fibres to swell back into place.
Usually though a little heat is required. This should be enough heat to locally boil the water but not enough to colour the wood. The steam swells the fibres very quickly and the wood expands back to the original surface. The usual method is to use a warm iron for this. A piece of plain paper is placed between the wood and the iron to prevent local over-heating.
I used a soldering iron in this case because it was readily available. (Still haven’t gotten around to adding an iron to my tool chest.) I simply stroke the side of the soldering iron tip across the immediate area of the dent until the water has evaporated.
Wetting and heating can be repeated a number of times if the fibres do not fully recover.
Once the wood is dry re-sand to restore your original finish. (The water will of course raise the grain a little.)
The process is shown for a small (real) dent but the technique works well for quite sizable dents (such as when the fairies swing large sash cramps around with insufficient care).
Try to recover dents as soon as possible after the event. Of course it’s best to keep the dent fairies away in the first place but that trick is for another post.
June 24th, 2008
Well I do love potato cakes! Mixed with salmon or fennel or brussel sprouts or just a sharp cheese - love ‘em! So I couldn’t resist a recipe in a recent edition of my local rag The Canberra Times and it was soooo good I wanted to share with those of you who don’t regularly read my local paper.
These contain feta and parsley and are served with a garlic yoghurt. Yum! The recipe is courtesy of Diana Lampe who writes a column called vegetarian kitchen (but I read it anyway). Her short description reads:
Patato-keftethes, or potato and feta patties, are comforting home-cooked food from Greece. They are easy to make and will disappear quickly. Serve them with yoghurt sauce or tzatziki, hummus, salad and flat bread for a delicious meal.
Patato-keftethes (potato and feta patties)
Makes 12 patties
3 medium (500g) potatoes
extra-virgin olive oil
1 free-range egg, lightly beaten
125g feta cheese, crumbled
3 tbsp chopped dill or flat-leaf parsley
freshly ground black pepper
plain flour
lemon to serve
Yoghurt sauce
250g Greek yoghurt
1 clove garlic, crushed
sea salt and hot paprika or cayenne
Boil the unpeeled potatoes in salted water with a bay leaf until tender. Peel them while hot. Hold each potato with a tea towel as you peel it so you don’t burn your hands. Mash or pass through a ricer. Mix in a tablespoon of olive oil. When cool, add the egg, feta, herbs and pepper and mix well. Prepare the yoghurt sauce by whisking the yoghurt with garlic and seasonings. To make the patties, scoop up the potato mixture with an oiled 1/4 cup measure. Form into round flat cakes or fingers and roll in seasoned flour. Pan-fry in olive oil over medium heat until golden brown. Serve hot with a squeeze of lemon and the yoghurt sauce or tzatziki.
I followed this pretty closely. I used desiree potatoes, lots of fresh-picked parsley and a Bulgarian feta. I used two bay leaves when boiling the potatoes but then I’m always pushing the envelope :-). The oiled measuring cup was bypassed as this doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of potato cakes to me. (If you’re a serious internet foodie you will know that there’s a whole internet sub-culture based around cupcakes - perhaps it’s time for the potato cake revolution!)
We had these with sautéed courgettes, grilled lamb cutlets crusted with whole cumin, the yoghurt and a slice of lemon.
These will be made many more times (and maybe I’ll get some slightly sexier photos in the future).
June 11th, 2008
You know how you hear of something for the first time in your life and then it just keeps popping up in everything you read? Well it happens to me anyway!
I heard of quinoa flour for the first time recently - I think it was on the UK food show Masterchef. Within days I’m browsing the excellent blog La Tartine Gourmande (as much for the inspirational food photography as the recipes) and I discover a tart using quinoa flour.
The tart, Celeriac and Long Pepper Tartlet, Olive Oil and Brown Rice Flour Crust, has a crust of brown rice flour, tapioca flour (arrowroot) and quinoa flour bound with an egg and olive oil and given extra crunch with the addition of poppyseeds. I was tempted to try this and was finally sold when I realised the main flavouring was long pepper.
Long pepper is also something I discovered relatively recently. I found it when putting together the 50 whole spices for my spice sampler. So I have a large bag of the attractive little catkins but had never cooked with them.
Both ingredients were highly successful.
I am not familiar with the Italian washed rind cheese, Taleggio, that Béa used to top the tart (no doubt I will come across it everywhere now!). I used small cubes of Bulgarian feta which worked very well indeed. I omitted the hazelnut flour from the filling.
The pastry is crisp and nutty and a great base for a vegetable tart. (Also handy if I need to cook for any of the growing number of people who exclude gluten from their diet.) However after some consideration I decided the pastry would be better without the poppyseeds. They provide an interesting crunchiness that is not unpleasant but is hard to ignore. On balance for me it distracted from the lusciousness of the tart and I will exclude them next time.
Highly recommended and thanks to Béa for the recipe.
June 9th, 2008
I haven’t got much time to post at the moment but liked these pics I snapped today. I’m building a wall cabinet that I will describe in a later post and taking a few pics along the way.
This is meant to document the cramping arrangement for this quite complex glue-up but turned out to be a neat shot of my hand-work area. This gives the impression of a neat and well organised shop. This is highly deceptive.
Everyone has to have a narrow depth-of-field shot in B&W so here’s mine for today. The material is Tasmanian Blackwood.
June 5th, 2008
So you’ve just finished final sanding and cleanup and you’re ready to apply the finish. You turn the piece over and there is a dent in the surface that wasn’t there a minute ago. You check your bench for stray chips but it’s all clean. You blame the dent fairies and wonder if it can be sanded out.
First wet the area with a small pool of water. I usually use spit for this as little water is required for a small dent and spit is usually on hand. You can let this sit for a short while if you’re not in a hurry. The moisture will start to swell the wood fibres where they have been compressed by the fairy’s little hammer. Sometimes with very small dents (and in softer woods) this may be enough for the fibres to swell back into place.
Usually though a little heat is required. This should be enough heat to locally boil the water but not enough to colour the wood. The steam swells the fibres very quickly and the wood expands back to the original surface. The usual method is to use a warm iron for this. A piece of plain paper is placed between the wood and the iron to prevent local over-heating.
Wetting and heating can be repeated a number of times if the fibres do not fully recover.
