Personal

Been resuming the woodwork stuff over the summer. This was one of the more complex pieces, larch and sapele laundry basket.

Autumn harvest time. Bit later than usual as I've been away for a few weeks. Have some now 7-8 yr old hop plants that are doing pretty well. It's a bit of a process but you basically take them down, chop them up, strip, dry, vac pack and freeze them. I get about a 1-1.5kg of dry hops from them, enough for 100 litres or so of beer.

Garden Snails. Yup. You can eat them, you might even enjoy it. Done 4 batches now, so can share some experience. Some of the thinking points on this project are: 1.

Excellent, if slightly messy penultimate day in Santiago de Compostela hanging at the market in the afternoon eating gooseneck barnacles, razor clams and scallops, and rather a lot of ablariño (Galician white wine). Great food, wonderful company and a fantastic end to the camino Português.

More waste meat stuff. The average butcher throws away most of their pork bones and will be happy to give you a bag or two for free, happier if you buy some other stuff from them. Beef and chicken tend to be more in demand, and you'll sometimes pay a little for them. Making the broth is a little more involved than chicken bone broth, but worth the effort. Pressure cooker I'd say is a must, 18hr stove time is reduced to 3.

Tonkotsu ramen last night. Didn't go the whole 9 yards but some 6 or 7 of them. 5 hr pressure cooker pork shoulder and hock bone broth. About 4kgs of bones with 4 litres of water the final result, so 1:1 dilution was fine, it was quite concentrated. Reheated, added to some chicken stock I had, and blended to make emulsion (white colour).