Hair art

Have you seen XIX^th C. hair art?

I did yesterday. You can make nearly paintings - in a palette ranging from blonde to black - using hair and hair powder. Hair powder means hair ground really fine, like sand. What I saw was religious art: a Calvary, a St Vincent of Paul, some tombstones.

Broken Symmetries in Chinese & Japanese art

• big - small
• long - short
• light - dark
• dense - scarce
• many - few
• round - edgy
• leave one corner free

Cake without equatorial imports or chemicals

Sugar - beetroot sugar* is same as cane sugar, only slightly less in quality. However I do not know if chemicals are needed to make brown sugar, as is certainly the case for white sugar. Can be replaced with honey.

Cake recipe without baking soda (basic recipe):

• one cup of flour
• one cup of sugar
• one egg
• tablespoon of boiling water

times as much as you want up to three eggs or even more if you can handle it, and:

oven, form, butter and bread flour.

Prepare oven and form. Beat sugar and eggs until fluffy. Add flour, beating or stirring as you can. Add the hot water and beat again, then pour into form(s) QUICK and into oven QUICK. Into the oven for forty minutes on not too hot.

Can also be used as basis for biscuits: cut up cake, back into oven till dry.

Cake with yeast?

Exists in Germany and Alsace. Guglhupf/Gougloupfe is done with a little yeast and a lot of goodish candylike taste additions, like lemon zest (Mediterranean import, not equatorial) and raisins. Unfortunately I cannot remember the recipe.

Taste without imported additions?

Here in S. France, lemon zest and orange peels and raisins are not imported. Further north, apples and plums can be added to give a cake taste - though cinnamon is of course an imported spice.

* Look here on sugar beets. Seems some chemicals are necessary for sugar extraction after all. Like chalk. Is beetroot sugar an invention from Kent, England? But it seems cassonade/brown sugar does not depend on it.

And yes, I completely forgot about maple sirup!

Toilette + douche = coup de cœur!

Vous connaissez les toilettes Latines (France, Espagne, Mexique ...) qui sont juste un trou dans un bassin avec deux marches pour les pieds, plus l'appareil pour tirer la chasse?

Eh ben, ce modèle là est très bien combinable avec une douche. On ajoute une douche à coté de la chasse, d'une part on peut se laver les mains avec la douche, de l'autre on peut faire ses besoins en dernière minute avant de prendre la douche, en plus les cheveux ou poils qui tombent s'évacuent facilement dans le trou de la toilette. Un bord de planche s'ajoute pendant la douche pour plus de comfort. Le champoin se garde à coté du papier hygiène.