Firing up the pizza oven

Helen and James have fired up their just completed pizza oven. After 24 hours  since firing it up, it is still very warm to the touch. Great result!

Pizza oven

My son-in-law James and daughter Helen, are soon to try out their pizza oven.  James bought a builder’s kit and the oven is nearing completion. As soon as the dome is bricked in the surface is to be plastered with a heat resistant plaster and then the sand mound removed from beneath the bricks.  Small plastic spacers hold the fire bricks at the correct angle to follow the curve of the dome whilst cementing them in.

Looking good!

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A good idea

Daughter Helen bought a pasta maker and yesterday gave it its initial tryout.   It was from K Mart for the princely sum of $15.  The box did not include instructions and Helen had to google for instructions to get started.   I went to her house to see how it worked.

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It makes several different types of pasta and works quite well. Certainly easier than mixing pasta dough by hand.   I am astounded that a complex, well made little machine which does work well, costs so little.   Helen reports that it made a very nice spaghetti and she is trying other pasta types today.

Must get one to put in the cupboard with other gear, like coffee makers, electric frypans, deep fryers, juicers etc etc.

On second thoughts it has to be the most speccie Xmas/birthday present @ $15.

PS:  Went to Kmart(s) and found none.  We were advised it was a clearance sale and that line has been discontinued. Bummer!

PPS: A friend of daughter Helen has just found several pasta machines at another K Mart store and is buying me one.

Back into homebrewing

I am bottling a homebrew of beer today.   It has been some years since I last brewed and I did like the flavours I could produce in my own recipes.  There is a bit of mucking around, but I feel it is worth it in the end.   28 X 750ml bottles will sit around maturing for maybe three or four weeks before I can sample the brew. It is not being done to save money, however Australian beer prices are rather high.

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Adolph is still popular

I have just watched a rather poor documentary about the rise of Adolph Hitler.

In 2016, his manifesto, Mein Kampf, was reprinted.

‘The manifesto has sold about 75,000 copies and spent 35 weeks on the German "Der Spiegel" best-seller list in 2016, The New York Times reported. The book had been banned in Germany for seven decades; the state of Bavaria held the copyright until the end of 2015 and continually thwarted efforts to republish the book. But the copyright expired Dec. 31, 2015, and the new edition of the book was published immediately after.’

I believe that the interest in Mein Kampf is worrying and the philosopher Bertolt Brecht said.....“For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.”