Cinque – just saw your message – please get well soon. You may have to start wearing a face mask to protect you from germs at this rate.
I’m fasting today.
This topic contains 27,925 replies, has 832 voices, and was last updated by Neilithicman 2 days, 23 hours ago.
Our houseguests of 4 days left around noon today, so I’ve been catching up on emails and catching up on all the interesting posts here. So many topics in just a few days!
But first, Cinque, I hope you’re feeling better by the time you read this. I’m anxious to send summer back to you so you’ll hopefully feel better. It’s gotten very hot again here after a couple weeks of 30 – 33 degree high temps. It was 41 here today and is supposed to be even hotter tomorrow. I don’t like leaving the house when it’s that hot. I hate to see what our electricity bill will be this month. We keep our thermostat around 27 because electricity is expensive in this area.
I have a question about the no-knead breads that Cinque posted the video about. The no knead are mainly light flours, right? LJoyce, the breads with the rye and other heavy grains were kneaded in your mixer? They would seem too heavy to just mix, let sit and ferment and then rise.
Jody, the Lekue silicone bowl. would produce a different type of crust from the bread baked in a coovered Dutch Oven or cast iron pot, wouldn’t it? One thing I like about the Lekue silicone bowl is that it would be rolled up and easily stored when not in use.
Rationing for WWII was over by the time I was born in ’49, but my parents talked about it a lot. LJoyce, my mom was one of 8 kids. They were mostly in their teens and twenties during the war. My dad tried to enlist, but his nearsightedness and glasses, and his job as an electrical inspector kept him out. They met and were married in Wisconsin where I grew up.
Monday is going to be a FD for me. I managed to gain less than a kg these last 4 days but didn’t do very well on the eating today.
I discovered a great new recipe that everyone liked, called Crack Cole Slaw. As you know, I don’t follow recipes too closely and I added canned pineapple chuncks to the recipe and didn’t add the agave syrup. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/253157/weeknight-crack-slaw/ I used a finely chopped jalapeño pepper instead of the chipotle. Tobacco sauce would probably work well too. It’s so quick to prepare. A great NFD meal or possibly even for FD if measured.
Hi Cali – hope you had a good time with your house guests.
It’s Cinque that makes no-knead bread. I never do, I use my Kenwood mixer with a dough hook to knead the dough for about 10 minutes. I use a very small amount of yeast (usually 1/2-3/4 tsp which is 1/4 to 1/3 of the amount in most recipes) and I allow the dough to rise for a long time so the flavour develops. (Because of the low amount of yeast it takes a long time to rise anyway – usually overnight is about right). The trick with heavy doughs that contain either soaked grains, or dried fruits or nuts is to make a slightly wetter dough and to only add those heavy ingredient to the dough after it’s had its first rise. The extra water makes the dough light enough to rise fairly easily, because it only contains flours even though they are high fibre flours made from wholegrains or legumes.
As an example – if I’m making a bread that contains wholemeal spelt flour, soy flour and rye flour and I’m also putting soaked whole barley grains and kibbled rye (whole rye grain broken into pieces) into the bread, I’ll make the dough with everything except the barley & kibbled rye – I’ll leave them soaking (at least 24 hours). Once the dough has proved for the first time I’ll put it back in the mixer and lightly knead for about a minute to incorporate the soaked grains. Sometimes I need to add a little more flour if it’s too wet. Then I shape it for baking and allow to rise again. This method works for me and allows me to use heavy whole grains and still get a bread that’s chewable. With fruit bread or nut bread I leave them out of the first knead, not just because they’ll weight down the dough, but because they are easily minced up in the kneading process and it changes the consistency of the bread in a way that seems to effect its ability to rise and make a nice loaf. I’ve been making bread for over 30 years and I started doing it by hand. I made lots of mistakes over the years but learned what texture I needed for a good bread dough and now I’m confident enough to “go by feel or look” when making bread – I know when a dough texture is right. Judging when it’s cooked is trickier, because a wetter dough and the water that the grains have absorbed mean that the bread needs to cook longer – I’m usually pulling it out of the oven every 5-10 minutes over the last 30 minutes of cooking to check it. This is the drawback of not following standard recipes.
The thing I tried with the last loaf that I hadn’t used before was a dutch oven. Although it’s common to use this as a baking vessel for no-knead bread, you can use it for kneaded dough as well – and mine was definitely kneaded. I’m not sure if I’ll use it again as the bottom crust was burned. If I use it again I would try tipping it onto the oven wire rack to finish baking after the first 30 minutes in the dutch oven.
Hi GDSA,
I’m not sure about the coconut flour as I’ve never used it.
I have used both wm spelt and chickpea flours to make breads, flatbreads and batters and they both work for all of those things. I can’t see why they wouldn’t work for a white sauce as well. Chickpea has a more distinctive flavour, although it is a smooth textured flour so should give you a smooth sauce. Wholemeal spelt has the bran & germ of the grain in the flour which gives it a fibrous texture which you would see in the finished sauce – however it would team very well with the flavour of cheese if you were planning to add that. You could always hedge your bets and use a combination.
Thinatlast. Most town living Brits have never seen a snake. We are possibly more aware of them here because we are very rural and the snakes and wild boar kill a few dogs every year. Watching Brit TV you get the impression that Australia is full of dangerous snakes and spiders and you spend your life avoiding them.
Penguin, because Australia has everything from cool temperate to tropical climates most of the snakes and spiders are regional (there are a lot but you only have a sub-set to deal with). You grow up knowing what to beware of in your region and where they are likely to be hiding. Generally, the more rural the more risk. Where I grew up the only dangerous spider was a red-back and you just had to be careful to look under things like outdoor chairs before you sat on them. We had several varieties of brown snake, copperheads, tiger snakes and red-bellied black snakes. In cold weather you were pretty safe as long as you didn’t lift things that had been lying on the ground for a while (eg old building material left lying around for some time. We also had a large wood heap and you had to check that a sanke wasn’t hibernating under the mallee stumps that you’d just pulled out. In summer you watch where you walk, especially near bushland or tall grass. This is a very old habit and I still find myself watching the ground when I go for a walk. The other thing everyone learned not to do where I lived, was drive with the windows down in summer (probably not an issue these days with car air conditioning). The reason this was necessary is snakes had a habit of crawling out of the bush and lying on the dirt roads to warm up. If you drive over them the ends fling up and the head end of the snake could end up coming through the window – this actually happened to someone driving on the road that I lived on. After a story like that enters local folklore everyone is careful for decades after.
We also had issues with pets and snakes – lost one cat to a snakebite. We had aviaries and had snakes get into them and take some of the birds as well.
One of the closest encounters I had was opening a kitchen cupboard to be confronted by a snake weaving it’s way though mum’s jars of home preserves. I had heard jars rattling and thought it was a mouse. I was just a kid at the time and it was years before I could open that particular cupboard again – even though my dad and spent the weekend after this incident sealing up the bottom of all of the cupboards with concrete.
LJoyce thanks for the flour info. I haven’t used any of the 3 flours I mentioned before as I purchased them a few weeks ago in my bid to move away from white flour. MissD looked at me with horror as I put them in the shopping trolly – OMG mum you’re not going to make cupcakes with those are you!
Penguin I live on the outskirts of a small rural community and my house faces onto bushland. Snakes and spiders are commonplace here unfortunately. As LJoyce mentioned the redback spider is the most common dangerous one here. I was actually surprised this winter to come across many while gardening – even one in a watering can a couple of days ago. Usually they come out in the summer. I have seen some huge ones over the years. We also have white tailed spiders here too and their bite is quite nasty as well. My brother was bitten several years ago and I wont give you the details of the ongoing effects of a bite as its not nice reading.
Brown snakes and tiger snakes are the most common here and weve had many in the house yard over the years. Last year my neighbour lost one of her dogs to a snake bite. Hence why I try to keep the yards weed and clutter free as possible to eliminate possible hiding spots. We have a rule in our house that the post hole shovel is always put back in the same spot after use – leaning against the side gate where it can be easily reached from the front and back yards. Its a long handled shovel and is affectionately named ‘the snake chopper’ for obvious reasons.
Yes LJoyce number one rule in the bush is to never drive over a snake as it will end up on or under the car….not the most friendly hitchhiker indeed!
Haha penguin you are actually right, us rural living Aussies spend our lives living amongst dangerous spiders and snakes and although its not possible to avoid them we do try to eliminate them as best we can! Probably best not to start talking about sharks but as a sailor for 20 plus years I have many stories to tell on that subject too.
I’ve probably put you right off a holiday in Australia now haven’t I penguin ?
GDSA and LJ, you’ve certainly put ME off having a holiday over your way! Billy Connolly once said about Australia that it was a wonder any Australian children ever reached adulthood, there are so many things to kill you here, and added that even the jellyfish come gift wrapped! (Box jellyfish). One of the eeriest sounds I’ve ever heard was a rattlesnake while camping in Mexico. You never forget that sound – have you heard one CalifD?
Despite my fear of snakes, I believe the most dangerous animal is a bee, followed by a mosquito. We have redback spiders here too but they don’t worry me much – I have treated spider bites when I was a hand therapist (O.T.) and that can be a nasty business. So, how is your brother recovering from the RTA GDSA?
Also CalifD, I missed your post that you were having house guests and asked you a question about kefir during that time. I lost the link to a very informative website I’d bookmarked and wondered if you (or anyone) can tell me how to freeze the half of my kefir that I didn’t revive from the fridge when I returned from hols. The half I did revive is going berserk in both in kefir production and in grain multiplication. Do I rinse the grains in water, dry them and place in a ziploc bag and, if so, how do I go about drying them?
GDSA – best not to talk too much about dealing with snakes – killing them is a $10,000 fine in SA these days – unless you are in imminent danger. Things have definitely changed since I was young.
Remembered one more place you have to check for redback spiders – inside the rubber boots!
I remembered something after I finished my post about the flours – pakoras are made from veg coated in chickpea batter, and the nicest pakoras I think are cauliflower – so the flavours should work. You can also tell your daughter that rather nice muffins can be made from wholemeal spelt flour – I have some recipes if you are looking for some – although adding lots of sugar and butter to the spelt rather diminishes it good properties. There are also plenty of cake recipes online for coconut flour. (I’d recommend this site: https://elanaspantry.com/ingredients/coconut-flour/ ) Cakes are something I couldn’t imagine using chickpea flour for – although a savoury muffin would probably work.
Thin, I’ve never frozen kefir grains and would have to do some research before trying it. I should find out though, because I end up with a lot of grains.
We have lots of snakes and spiders around here, but I’ve rarely seen any snakes. I live in a semi-rural area, in a subdivision with no sidewalks but landscaped yards and gardens. The common dangerous spider is the Black Widow Spider. I’ve only seen a few small ones over the years.
There are several snakes. The Gopher Snake, King Snake, Garter Snake and Rattlesnake are a few common ones. I’ve never seen a Rattlesnake but on a local forum for this area called nextdoor.com, there were several Rattlesnake sittings in people’s yards and patios, especially baby rattlers which are supposed to be even more dangerous than the full grown ones. Every year, several dogs are bitten. There are Rattlesnake vaccines available at the local vets. But they don’t prevent the effects of a bite, they just give a little more time for treatment. I hope I never see one of those! There are often signs to beware of Rattlesnakes in parking lots around areas with lots of open space.
I always check my garden clogs which I leave in the garage because they get muddy, for spiders and snakes. We have a large paved area behind the length of the house with gates at either end and a 3 to 4 foot retaining wall behind it where the dog goes when he’s outdoors. We always check the area for snakes but have never seen one there. We do have a family of small, harmless lizards which we see often scurrying about.
Thin, here are a couple sites that discuss freezing kefir grains:
https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/5976/how-to-properly-freeze-kefir-grains
http://bloglocation.com/art/freezing-kefir-grains-how-to-freeze-store-milk-kefir
Penguin, I’ve left mine in the frig for 3 weeks several times and they survived. I was here, but just got tired of kefir for a while. But I should try freezing some because one of these days I’m going to kill them by leaving them too long. (Lately I’ve been drinking more since I’ve been reading that 10% Human book.) I found a store that sells the goat milk for 3.49 per .945 L instead of 4.68 like the store closer to me. Penguin, I used whole cow’s milk for the last batch of cow’s instead of the 1%. It tastes a lot better.
ClaifDreamer. Thank you. I’ll mix and match – half in the fridge and half in the freezer. The price of your goat’s milk surprised me. We always think your cost of living is lower than ours – whenever I visit the US I travel with not much more than a toothbrush then buy a suitcase and everything I need. Here I buy my goat’s milk from what the Brits regard as an expensive supermarket and its about half your lower price. I use full cow’s milk (3.5 – 4%) for kefir, in fact for pretty much everything. My wife, who for a long time followed Rosemary Conley, a Brit who wrote books and ran weight loss groups on a low fat basis, got into the habit of semi skimmed (1.5 – 1.8%) but to me it tastes thin.
Good morning Tuesday! Great reading your tales of spiders and snakes! Thankfully living in the burbs of Melbourne we don’t get many snakes but they are around as there are plenty of posts on FB very close to home. I actually dob my neighbour in regularly to the council as she lets her yards get so over grown that I’m always worried about it attracting snakes and with 2 kids and a dog I can’t risk her laziness harming them!!!!! We do get quite a few red backs although I didn’t see hardly any last summer, get white tails in the house all the time though!!! Well I was going to have an FD yesterday and was doing well until dinner! I was very tired yesterday, I put it down to the weather! So as I wasn’t quite as prepared I ended up having some pasta for dinner that the kids were having as I couldn’t be stuffed making seperate meals 😩 Oh well, today is another day so onwards and downwards! Thankfully the Dr confirmed that the swelling on my sons face was just soft tissue injury and he didn’t feel that anything was broken so no need for X-ray! Going to try and keep busy around the house today and catch up on some cleaning so I hope you all have a good day 😉
Good morning everyone.
Hooray I am feeling better. Such a lovely feeling! Thanks so much for the good wishes, they worked!
Now to catch up on all the things I am behind with. hmm and I didn’t manage to catch up last time! It is a mountain! But at least I now have the spirit to start writing lists and ticking things off. I might even get to an opshop!
Australian poisonous animals are just mindfulness training for us! It is just hard for visitors or newcomers, who don’t know how to be prepared. I felt so safe coming back to Victoria after living in the tropics with green ants, crocodiles, wild buffalo and bulldust that were all new dangers to me.
Cheers to all the kefir drinkers. Can you strain it to be like thick yoghurt and then like yoghurt cheese?
Re the no knead bread, yes I am careful to use about 3 1/2 cups of plain white (unbeached) wheat flour and only 1/2 a cup of extras so that it rises well.
Thinking I might fast tomorrow, Thin!
Cheers to everyone fasting today!
Back several posts ago when everyone was talking about the kids shows they watched.. Here are 3 that were popular in the U.S.
One of the earliest shows I remember, Kookla, Fran and Ollie
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uuM2T-hik0E
The Howdy Doody Show:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOqHgge87N8
And when I was just a few years older, The Roy Rogers Show. He was my first movie star crush.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SY47sdLrMbA
Cinque, so glad you’re feeling better today!
I had some kefir in the frig that was completely separated with the bottom half all the liquid whey. I poured that off and then pushed the curds through a strainer to separate the grains. What I was left with was a thick yogurt like substance. The taste was creamy and much like yogurt except maybe a bit more sour.
Cinque, when did you live in the tropics? The tropics in Australia or somewhere else?
Frang, I’m glad your son didn’t break any bones in his face. Does it still look really bruised?
Ha Cali, you have inspired me to link a lovely Ben and Holly episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v06sXEVGprI
Hmm, kefir has seemed like too much trouble to me, but maybe I will try some if the chance comes along.
A friend said she tried it but just got yellow sour stuff so she threw it away, does that mean she should have been patient for longer?
ok, back to business…. bye!
Hi everyone. I’m a bit late checking in today as the nurse arrived 2 hours later than usual – I pack my laptop away when I’m expecting her as she uses my mobile laptop table for the folder containing my obs notes. Anyway, the infusion is done for another month, and so far I feel good, so hopefully I’ll get off easy with the side effects this time.
Thin – holidays over in SA are fine – just stick to the built up areas and you won’t see anything more frightening than a gentle huntsman spider (one of the few spiders that I will carefully catch and escort outside to a new home – everything else gets hit with a slipper).
Frangi – Your son may have to make up some equally colourful story about how he came by his injuries – I’m sure he can make it all sound rather cool if he puts his mind to it.
Cinque – glad you are better – that was a very fast bounce back.
I don’t think I’d cope with the tropics. I’d much rather deal with snakes and spiders than crocodiles, they terrify me even more than sharks.
Penguin – I always had the same impression, that prices were much lower in the US. Although it’s all relative – we have a decent minimum wage here and reasonable rates of pay and even those in service industries here get a proper wage and don’t have to survive on tips. So I think I’d rather put up with higher prices if it means people can earn a living wage from their job. For comparison, goats milk at the major supermarkets here is $5.00-$5.50 per litre (but that’s in Aussie dollars), it’s much more expensive than that at health food stores ($7.50-$9.00 per litre).
At least we can buy other milks these days. When my sister was little she had terrible eczema and the doctor thought she was allergic to milk. To get her goat milk, my parents bought a nanny goat which they had to milk themselves daily so she had some form of milk she could drink. (Both of my parents had to milk cows when they were children, so it probably wasn’t that daunting a task for them.)
Thanks for the kefir links CalifD and sorry to put you to the extra trouble, for some reason I thought you had mentioned freezing it when going away. It seems one can either freeze grains in milk or freeze after drying first. Cinque, it’s dead easy and I think you’d love it! I wish you were my neighbour and then I could give you my excess grains.
I used to love earning tips as a waitress in the USA. Customers would tip generously just because of my accent and my British friend and I made more in tips at our 10pm-4am job at Sambo’s than in our day jobs as newly qualified O.T.s. “Honey, I just love the way you talk; here’s $10 for you and $10 for your friend over there too”. One thing I loved so much about living in America is that the service was always good due to the expectation of earning a tip. One thing I love about Australia is not having to tip.
Crocodiles are fascinating creatures, aren’t they? When my OH and I were newly arrived in Oz, we knew no-one and on Christmas Day, thought the Aussie thing to do was go to the beach. We sat on a Perth beach, terrified to go in the water. I’d given him, “Dangerous Creatures of Australia” and he’d given me, “Crocodile Attack”. Both were large, graphically illustrated hardbacks which we still have.
And then, as if playing tricks on me, the website I’d originally used for all things kefir re-appeared: https://www.yemoos.com/pages/milk-kefir-step-by-step-guide They sell kefir grain, kombucha and sourdough starter kits here to name a few. There’s a Learning Centre page that I believe you might find interesting LJ, Cinque and Penguin. https://www.yemoos.com/pages/milk-kefir-overview
Hi thin, thanks for that link, I’ve saved it to peruse later.
The thing with tips, is that you never know what to d if it’s a system you aren’t familiar with. I’m completely lost when overseas – I don’t want to offend anyone, but only ever have a vague idea of who I should be tipping and how much. I’m sure I get it wrong more often than not.
I agree. It’s always awkward. We went to a ‘ladyboy’ cabaret in Thailand and the price of the ticket included a ‘free’ drink. When the ‘waitress’ brought our drink over, it was on a tray with crude writing reading ‘tip please’. There was a lot of sulking happening as my OH explained that he’d tip her at the end of the evening if the service was good. Unfortunately, the waitress kept shoving the tray closer to my OH every time she passed our table with an accompanying sullen look which really annoyed OH no end. He’s used to tipping but believes a tip is just that. You don’t demand one.
I love Aus and NZ for the fact that what you see on a menu or a clothing price tag is what you’ll actually pay. In the USA, there’s state sales tax to be added to clothing, for example, and tips and tax to be added to menus.
Goats milk here is more expensive than cow’s- in the £1.50 -1 80 per litre range. Today’s very weak exchange rate would put that somewhere around $Aus 2.45 – 2.94. $US 1.90 – 2.20.
Tipping rates vary across Europe. For years the going rate in UK has been about 10% for reasonable service. If its bad I don’ t tip, if its good I’ll go over. Tipping in pubs is unusual but normal anywhere with food or in taxis. Some places add a service charge, to which I object. If paying by card and adding a tip I always ask the staff if they will get it, after being told by one woman not to bother because it wouldn’t get to her. (and that was in a smart place I’d been going to for years, but don’t go to anymore) I have been going to Madeira most years for the last 20. When we first went tipping was unheard of and the guide books said don’t. Now it has become expected because tourism has increased and tourists do.
A study which tracked 135,000 adults across 18 countries has presented the results at the European Society of Cardiology. They found that a low intake of saturated fats raised chances of early death by 13%. and consuming high levels of all fats cut mortality by 23%. They concluded we should aim to get about 35% of our calories from fat. Our public health advice still demonises fat, particularly saturated fats, but Government advice varies depending on where you live. Irish advice permits twice as much alcohol as British.
Penguin – There has been a of confusion in recent years about what fats to eat and how much. I still don’t know if we have definitive answers.
For me it’s actually an easy choice – I have to listen to my body. I had my gall bladder removed over 30 years ago and have had to work out what fats I can and can’t eat without repercussions. Anything deep fried gives me intense nausea for about 24 hours – I can get away with about 4 chips with a meal. I have a similar reaction to reheated fats (eg pies and pasties that have been sitting in a warmer for a while). With fresh baking it’s OK as long as I don’t overeat. I can shallow fry foods myself and it’s usually OK. I also never react badly to nuts even eaten in generous quantities. I can eat chocolate – as long as it’s not an entire family block in one sitting. It’s quite good actually, because the fats that I can’t seem to digest easily are mostly the type of foods that I shouldn’t be eating anyway. Despite knowing this I sometimes still make poor choices and then pay for it. Usually when I’m suffering the consequences I’m promising myself that I’ll never do it again – a bit like someone with a hangover really.
Thin – When the government introduced GST here they specifically chose to make it law that this wasn’t kept separate but had to be part of the listed prices so that you always knew the final cost of things. It annoys me that most people in the construction industry still don’t do this. Sometimes a quote will list it at the bottom, but mostly it’s not mentioned until it’s time to pay the bill. So you always have to assume that the cost will be 10% more. I suspect they continue to do this because they’re hoping to be paid in cash so that they can void paying income tax on it.
In my area of California the sales tax on almost everything except unprepared food in a grocery store varies from 7.25% to 8.25% depending on the city you’re in. Exceptions would be services, veterinary and medical.
Across the U.S. Tips of 15 – 20% are expected from waiters and waitresses, taxi drivers and hairdressers.
So the actual cost of many things is a lot more than what you see as the price. A restaurant bill with tax and tip can be 27.5% of the actual food. I wish we had a no tipping policy here in the U.S. and restaurants had to pay their employees more.
Our state and federal income taxes may be lower than in some countries but when we add on all the other taxes like property tax (if we own a home), social security tax, Medicare tax and sales taxes, I imagine it isn’t very much lower. And if we don’t have employer covered medical insurance or Medicare and have to purchase our own health insurance, that is a big expense too. And then there’s car insurance, homeowner’s insurance…..
We pay no income tax on the first, small, amount. After that at varying rates, depending on earnings, up to 40% and you don’t have to be rich to pay 40%. We also pay National Insurance, and so do our employers. We pay 20% value added tax on everything we buy except food, children’s clothing, some financial transactions and house purchase. VAT is also paid for things like vet’s bills and plumbers. There is a separate tax for house purchase. I was thinking of moving house earlier this year, until I worked out that it would cost me about £25,000 in tax on the new one. If I owned a second house and sold it, I would pay tax on that. Local property taxes are paid on every property, either by the tenant or the owner. If a family member dies, you pay tax on the estate, again not on an initial amount, but a sliding scale above that. In return we expect a pension in old age, good public services and a good free health service. Our public services are not what they were. There is a measure of discontent. We pay more to the European Union than we ever see back – Germany, France and the UK subsidise the rest, which is why all of eastern Europe wants in. We are in the process of leaving the EU and they are demanding £100 billion as a divorce settlement because without us they can’t meet their commitments. They won’t discuss post-leaving trade deals until we agree to pay. I voted to stay in, but I am beginning to wonder if I want to remain in a club that seeks to penalise those who leave.
Good morning everyone,
Just bypassing the tax conversation!
Thanks for the kefir info! I expect the whey would be wonderful in bread and soup like yoghurt whey is.
I am fasting today even though I am out of chicken and shiitake mushrooms, (for my miso soup) but I will go shopping later today.
Frangipani I bet your son is looking even more impressive today!
So glad your treatment went well LJoyce.
I am still going slowly, but so glad to be upright!
Best wishes to everyone.
Good morning, everyone. And Good Night, penguin. Cinque. I try to avoid thinking about tax stuff too. I’m the one who fills ours out each year with the help of tax software that costs about $30 a year on sale. Taxes should not be so complicated that it requires software or an accountant to do them!
Cinque, the whey would probably be good in soup, but in order to preserve the good bacteria you wouldn’t be able to heat it too much. I hate to waste all the good effects of it. And I do like soup hot. (But maybe not tonight.)
I’m trying to think of something to make for dinner that doesn’t involve the oven. It’s around 40 degrees here now and I don’t even want to step outside that door! Good thing it’s supposed to drop down to 15 tonight before it gets hot again tomorrow. August is almost over. It shouldn’t be so hot.
Hi, just checking in.
It’s been over a week since I fasted. I wasn’t able to fit it in with my assignment deadlines and the ‘newness’ factor of my work schedule.
I’ve planned a fast day for today, since I’m craving one badly, though am starting a class assignment that is due today, so am under the pump so to speak to research and get those words on the page! We’ll see if I can pull it off. If so, it will be a first to be meeting a close deadline while fasting. If I don’t end up feeling able to go through with this fast day, I’ll recommence it tomorrow. I’ll let you know how I go.
I briefly saw the discussion about taxes above. The California Franchise tax board has sent me notices wanting me to report my worldwide income to them so that they can assess how much I owe them. I haven’t lived in California for 30+ years, though I do maintain a bank account there and a postal address at a relatives’ home. I also earn a small income that originates from there. So, on top of the work and assignments, I’ve been working on submitting my 2013 and 2014 figures to send my tax agent here in Australia who will be generating a 50 page tax return that I will have to send to California before the deadline that the California Franchise tax board has set for me. Besides proof reading an assignment that I emailed to a TAFE teacher yesterday, I spent half the day entering numbers in an Excel spreadsheet to appease the California Franchise tax board. I don’t mind that they want to know about the small income that I generate from California, but I resent that they demand to know the total of all my income that I generate from Australia. I have to do the same for the IRS too. So since receiving the California Franchise tax board notifications I now have to submit tax returns to 3 entities each year: Australia, USA Federal and now California returns. By the way, California has already been deducting 7% off that modest income I’ve been receiving, so it isn’t that I owe anything. I just wish they would have been happy to be receiving that 7% that is creamed off the gross amount before I ever receive a cent, and not now make me jump through so many hoops to prove that I did it and that I don’t legally owe them anything from the pay I receive from the hard work I do here in Australia. I’m not alone. My brother who has lived in Ireland for about as long as I’ve lived in Australia complains of the same.
Minka, as if that isn’t sickening enough, you didn’t mention that America’s tax year goes from 1 Jan to 31 Dec (logically as it means that anything with one particular year’s date on it pertains to that particular tax year) while Australia’s tax year (weirdly in my view) goes from 1 July – 30 June – who on earth came up with that idea? The UK’s goes from April to April. This means that you can’t even satisfy two countries’ demands with the same set of records.
But on a happier note, Minka and Cinque, I’m fasting with you today. All the best with yours.
Minka, having a business in California is probably why you have to fill out a return. Are you still a U.S. citizen? Owning a business and having a bank account here makes filing taxes more complicated. I have no idea how all of that works. As one who hates government paperwork with a passion, I can sympathize.
Minka, I also sympathise. It sounds like the US is treating you as a resident rather than a non-resident.
I’ve had the same consideration as Penguin when deciding to move house. The combined cost of stamp duty on the next house purchase and agents fees selling this one is likely to be $40k. That’s why I want to choose carefully something that will suit me well into old age – I don’t want to be dealing with those sorts of costs multiple times. There was some discussion here in S.A. a couple of years ago, about moving to an moderate annual property tax (similar $ level to council rates) rather than a huge lump sum stamp duty fee. I like that idea as a concept because it makes it easier to make the decision to move house, but I was always worried that the only way a government could afford to do it was to apply the property tax to every home owner, including those who’d paid the stamp duty when they bought their current home – effectively taxing the same property twice – that would not be OK.
I had a very broken night’s sleep. I always feel dehydrated after treatment and I kept needing to get up and drink more water.
Sounds like lots of you are fasting today – hope that goes well. I’m doing what Cali would call a “controlled day”. Basically a “no frills” NFD. I have started it with a cereal bowl made from oats, coconut, hazelnuts, cinnamon, pepitas, sultanas, bran, blueberries, kefir, almond milk and a big scoop of stewed rhubarb-apple-strawberries. It was delicious. I really need to do some grocery shopping but have been putting it off for the last couple of days, so the fruit bowl is almost empty – I had to raid the freezer for stewed fruits and frozen blueberries to put together my brunch. I’m almost out of milk so I’ll have to go shopping by tomorrow morning – black tea is not an option.
I decided to go and do my grocery shopping this afternoon – can’t put it off forever. They were out of my favourite kefir, so I bought the same brand (Blue Bay) but goat kefir rather than cows. I’ve just tasted it and I’m really not sure it was a good decision. It has an aftertaste that I don’t particularly like. This brand produces incredibly thick kefir – it’s so thick it’s actually hard to pour out of the bottle – it ferments new milk into kefir really quickly so I can turn my 1 litre of kefir into about 2 1/2 litres by fermenting it with fresh organic milk. I’m hoping that by diluting it with cows milk the flavour will improve. I don’t think it will matter when I use it on cereal as there are so many flavours that it will compete with, but I don’t think I’ll be drinking this by itself. At least I now know that in future I need to stick to cows milk kefir.
Frangipani, there have been so many posts recently I had to scroll back a long way to find out what your son had done to himself. Unlucky to lose it, but it sounds as though he was lucky with the damage – very easy to break a bone or two coming off a bike. I think it passed me by at the time because like most guys I have fallen off a few myself.
Hi all, update on my potato cleasnse . It is a very cleansing way to eat I had no idea, the first leg required only potato for three days then for the remainder replace all carbs with potato being your only source but including all your non startchy veg. Dropped two kilo . It is very filling way to eat so if you are having trouble satiating your appetite on a normal healthy diet , just fill up your carb content with potato . I left thecskin on all my organic potatoes and ate them every different way , oven fries were my fav all I used was a cake cooler for my fries so they turned out nice and crispy . Potato waffles were also nice and made by simply boiling and mashing your potato and piling it high in the wafffle makervand let crisp for around 20 min , very nice way to eat potato.
I must say I’m loving all my veg after the initial three day where it was all potato , thanks calif for the info on dr mcdougal starch solution , it’s my favourite book , I’m also reading the pleasure trap by an associate of the dr . I’ve been folllowing chef aj for a while, she’s wonderful and there’s a lot to be said about food addiction. Spudfit Australia actually overcame food addiction/ binging by using the potato diet for a year, braves man.
I like goats’ cheese but haven’t tried any goat kefir. I was in favour of the GST because it meant that we would know exactly how much tax was being applied whereas, before 2000, there was no way to know whether an item attracted no tax or, for example, whether a 40% luxury tax applied – as I believe was the category for feminine products & toothpaste. Being a %, I don’t understand the justification to increase the rate so I was alarmed to read Penguin’s account of the UK VAT having reached 20%. Don’t our respective govts gleen increasingly more tax revenue just by virtue of inflation? In Australia, we were promised stamp duty on homes would be abolished with the introduction of GST. Of course, the local govts never allowed that to happen and many businesses, especially restaurants, used the new system to take advantage of the consumer.
Penguin, did you know that you can scroll through an individual’s posts? Just click on the poster’s name to get to their profile and then choose ‘Replies Created’. That saves you wading through pages of all the posts.
Thin, Thanks for that, it would have been quicker. I have made goats cheese kefir twice. It tastes a little different but is still very drinkable. 20% VAT isn’t that unusual in Europe – I think the EU minimum is 17.5%.
LJ. I had intended to try making kefir with the bought stuff but hadn’t got round to it. If it is that productive I will have to give it a go. With luck it will add to the variety of bugs.
It was the hottest late August weekend on record but it is raining today, so no garden work. Grand daughter and grand dog arrive this afternoon. I have just been handed a shopping list with the suggestion that I might like to go into town. Looks like I’ll be making cauliflower macaroni cheese tonight.
LJoyce, the goat milk I’ve tasted and made here is only slightly thicker than the cow kefir. The taste is fairly mild. I wonder if the one you bought had other things added? If it was so thick I would try another brand before you give up on it.
What is a stamp tax? What is it based on? You don’t pay a yearly property tax? The GST is like a VAT, right? It’s interesting to hear about all the different tax systems.
Sarahwat, after the first 3 days you ate only potatoes and non starchy vegetables? Or did you include meat and seafood too? Or dairy?
In 1974, the VAT in the UK was 8% (reduced from 10% but compensated for by a higher tax on some items like petrol). I just wonder, where does it end? 99% tax?
Stamp duty is simply another word for tax CalifD. It’s based on the British system I believe. When an official ‘rubber stamps’ something, you pay a tax. Yes, the homeowner pays annual property tax. I just qualified this year to get a reduced rate after 25 years due to my advancing age of 61. But guess what? The new State Govt. just took that away this year.
We don’t pay capital gains tax on the sale of our primary residence. But guess what? If you’re an American citizen, the US govt. will pursue you for that when you sell your home (as happened to Boris Johnson). Basically, you don’t have to pay tax in two countries. But if you’re an American, you are required to file a W2 form (you know what that is) for the rest of your life, and as I mentioned, the respective tax years do not co-incide so it’s a huge accounting burden. One country will tax you any excess if they deem you haven’t paid adequate tax in the other. And how’s this for fairness? After 25 years of living in Australia and working and paying tax for every single day of that, you will not qualify for the age pension if you have US citizenship. And just to top that off, if you do claim the pension from the US, the Aussie govt will tax you on it! I hope you all feel better now.
Miss D and I were at the hairdressers this arvo when promotional people from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts came in giving away boxes of doughnuts. A new On the Run Servo is opening up close by in a couple of weeks and includes the KKD and Wok in a Box shops. We politely accepted our boxes along with all the other clients and staff.
On the way home the smell omitting from the boxes (24 doughnuts would you believe) was nauseating. Decided to taste one just to see what all the hype was about. I’d seen on tv months before when a store opened up in Adelaide with people queuing for hours and raving about them.
MissD immediately spate hers out. I scrapped off the sugary/syrupy topping and did LJoyce’s zen thing (mmm 100 % sugar and fat) before taking a small bite. It was awful, sickly, sugary, tasteless processed rubbish – I honestly can’t believe people enjoy eating them.
I wouldn’t even give them to my chooks to eat thats how bad they were.
GDSA, I’m with you, I never saw the appeal of doughnuts, let alone eating a dozen in a sitting.
Minka, did you make it through the FD? Your post sounded like a confessional! I hope it was a good day for you and Cinque and everyone else. I’ve had the same FD meal for the past four fasts and have two frozen portions left. No need to think. Tonight I served the OFMs pizza and salad and both said they’d rather have the FD meal. Hurray!
In my big tax whinge above, I forgot to say that we are both Australian citizens as well as taxpayers. There’s no utopia, there are good and bad aspects of all (well most) countries and no getting around taxes wherever you live. As Penguin says, it’s how that money is spent that counts. Let’s not get into that. We must consider our blood pressure after all.
After a fair bit of reading, I decided to dry my excess kefir grains to give them the longest possible life. Freezing might give them 3-6 months whereas drying could give them a year or longer.
GDSA – it looks like you’ll have to wait for the local shows for your doughnut fix. Good thing you didn’t give them to the chooks – you don’t need moody sugar addicted chickens. (My mum was always fussy about the food scraps that went into the chooks pail – we could give them meat scraps but never chicken. She believed it was wrong to make them into cannibals – given that this was decades before the mad cow incident I think she was on the right track.)
I can’t actually remember the last time I had a doughnut. My best memories of them are from high school. We used to have fund raising fete days and one of the stalls was always freshly made doughnuts rolled in cinnamon sugar and eaten while still hot. Local bakeries make donuts but they are iced and cold (both of which don’t appeal to me). There are plenty of treats in the bakery that are tempting but cold iced doughnuts are definitely not one of them. I can actually say that I’ve never tried Krispy Creme, despite having easy access in Adelaide, although none are in the area where I live. They built them all in the lower socio-economic areas – mostly outer suburbs – they obviously decided that disadvantaged people needed to yet more health issues to add to their difficulties.
Thin – I’m starting to feel glad that I’m not a citizen of anywhere but Australia. I hate having to fill in tax forms for one country. To have to do it in duplicate or triplicate would really ruin my day (or probably month actually given the amount of paperwork and overlapping financial years). I felt quite a sense of achievement this year when I managed to do my taxes online in one afternoon for the first time ever. I’ve simplified everything that I can with my finances since retirement and it is less hassle and stress.
I doubt our GST rate will change from 10% anytime soon – I can’t imagine any government getting enough votes in the senate to get a change across the line. I remember when studying law and tax subjects it became clear to me that a combination of income and wealth tax was fairer than a consumption tax – in theory. However reality is bit different to theory and those with the greatest wealth and the highest income seem to be rather adept at finding enough legal loopholes to avoid much of the tax that I think they should be paying. Although a GST is not an ideal solution it does at least catch everyone that consumes just about anything in Australia. I’m also pleased that states don’t add sales tax to regular consumption – although I think some do add fees to petrol sales, on top of federal excise. (Because we only see the final price I never know how much is fees, but I think it’s about 2/3 of the price we pay.)
Cali – there’s definitely nothing added to the brand of kefir I bought today – it’s the only brand on the market that contains nothing but milk & cultures. I’ve been buying their cow milk kefir and it’s been fabulous – really active bacteria that start fermenting up quickly when left on the bench – they even ferment and get thicker in the fridge. I think that’s why I can dilute it so much with plain milk and create more kefir. It’s been so successful that I haven’t bothered to follow up trying to locate kefir grains as this is less of an obligation to keep something alive and provides me with more than enough kefir for a reasonable price.
I think it’s just the taste of goats milk that I don’t like – I don’t like goats cheese either so it’s not surprising. However it can be disguised. For dessert tonight I made a soft serve “ice cream” using frozen blueberries, stewed rhubarb & strawberries, goat kefir, inulin, vanilla, nutmeg, psyllium and lots of ice cubes (a whole tray) – I just keep blending and slowly adding the ice cubes until I have something that looks like a bowl of soft serve ice cream – it takes a bit of patience. I don’t usually make it in cold weather but I was in the mood tonight – couldn’t really taste the goat milk in it, so I suspect as long as I team the kefir with strongly flavoured fruits and spices it’ll be fine.
Cali, some states have a land tax that you pay on vacant residential land – this stops once you develop it – basically it’s to make you hurry up and build a residence on it. The only state or federal tax that you pay on your own home is stamp duty – that’s a once off lump sum when you buy a property – on residential homes it’s 2-4% of the value (when I bought my current home more than half of the money I’d saved for the deposit went on paying the stamp duty). The only ongoing fees that are connected to our own homes are council rates and water-sewage rates – they are calculated on the value of our property and are either annual or quarterly charges for providing these services. (Councils are our local government and they provide things like rubbish collection, local parks & sporting facilities, libraries, services for the elderly, building & development approvals, maintenance of footpaths and some roads etc.) Now I could be wrong about some of this because these are all state based taxes and every state does it differently, so what happens here may be different in other parts of Australia. We also have capital gains tax, but it only applies to investment assets (rental properties, shares etc), it doesn’t apply to your own home.
I’m quite happy with my food choices today – my controlled day actually lived up to the phrase for once. I had taken a small serve of veggie gratin out of the freezer for dinner but decided to add a bit more veg to it, including some protein rich edamame beans. It was very filling in the end and contained a whopping 9 different veg (I hope my gut bugs are happy with this little buffet). Fasting day for me tomorrow and I have bought the ingredients for a veggie stir fry for tomorrow night.
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28 Aug 17