Chapter 1: The Bride('s spring rolls): mdyesowitch

The Boston Herald had an article t'other week (June 18) about spring rolls. One of the things they mentioned was that you don't have to cook Thai spring rolls, just hydrate them. And ever since I read it last Saturday, I've been craving them. So on FRiday I stopped at Bread & Circus, our local health food/grocery store and examined the spring roll wrappers. I bypassed the ones in the refrigerator section which were Chinese spring roll wrappers and seemed wrong, and finally (with the help of the nice stocker) located the non-refrigerated rice Thai spring roll wrappers. They only had one variety (although two sizes), so that was an easy choice. I bought the small size. Then I purchased a variety of veggies to turn into spring rolls. Their recipe (which hoppie noted with amusement, I used solely for the idea of making spring rolls and hydrating them - their hydration advice reads like this: Soak for a few seconds until soft, but not mushy. You'll get the hang of it after you screw a few up.) was for shrimp spring rolls. I made celery (we had it in the house), cucumber, carrot, and green pepper spring rolls. I julianned (most of my hand and) the veggies, salad spun them to remove the water and prepared my pan of warm/hot water for hydrating. I didn't actually screw up any irreparably, but some were more or less rollable. Hoppie tried one of the first ones and suggested adding a sauce inside as well as using the peanut dipping sauce I'd purchased as a backup in case I didn't have the ingredients to make the sauces in the Herald. So I reached into the cabinet and pulled out my ginger pickle and my eggplant pickle. I then started a rotation using the peanut sauce and the pickles, each to a spring roll until I'd finished seven of them. Then I put the plate in the fridge to chil and let hoppie take over. He filled a plate and then I took over. I filled another plate and let him do the last three.
The ginger pickle one was awful. The strong ginger totally overpowered the gentle saltiness of the wrapper and the tastes of the veggies. You still had the textures, but otherwise it was all ginger.
The eggplant pickle was fabulous. The sweet eggplant and sauce complimented the veggies and brought out some of their sweetness and was a perfect foil for the slightly salty wrappers.
The peanut sauce was very good. Spring rolls were made for peanut sauce and putting them in the rolls allowed them to marry with the veggies while the rolls were settling in the fridge.
All in all, a success which is just as well, because we have many more wrappers left.
And now on to Chapter 1 of Order of the Phoenix

So who's surprised that Dudley is leading his own gang? I guess I'm not surprised that Harry is brooding either. What else does he have to do? Brood and wait. It's no surprise of course that Mrs. Figg turns out to be the oft mentioned Arabella Figg. It's only surprising to me that Harry didn't figure it out on his own. Creepy old lady...cats...of course she's a witch. Duh.
But what went wrong with Dumbledore's protection though? We know it's not a secret keeper based magic because Voldemort knows where he is and still can't get to him. Why can the dementors? Do you think catatonic muggles have been kissed by the dementors? Hrm.
Anyway, a nicely whetting chapter.

And went to Fiesta on Sunday. We were truely slugs this year. Not only did we not make it for the Blessing of the Fleet, we missed the Siene boat races and the Greasy Pole, and were late to meet up with hoppie's parents, although not too late. The Fireworks, however, we were not late for. And they were fabulous. Excellent job by the fair committee!
Which brings us up to date.
-m

Chapter 1: The Bride('s spring rolls)

Carz

There's 40 shillings on the drum for men who volunteer to come

When after all it's just a compromise of the things we do for love

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