I'm making Biltong

Hi dearest darlings,

I am back. Had a few issues, blah blah winge winge.

But I am here and this is a little tutorial for people who may or may not want to make their own biltong. Now for those  of you who do not know biltong is a snack made of hung and dried beef strips popular in Africa and South Africa. My Mum was born and partly raised in Zambia which is as south of Africa as you can get without being in South Africa. She used to make it out there, they tend to just hang beef in sheds out there but here the air is too damp and it would just mould.

So in this fabulous country we use a box designed to make biltong in, it looks like this;

 It's basically a box with polls across it. There are small holes in the lid and then a fan and lightbulb that can be seen there to plug in. The fan and light are needed for heat and air flow as the beef needs t dry out.

You then have spices that you use to flavour the meet;

And then you need hooks to hang the meat on;

The way you make it is, a bit of vinegar and the spices rubbed into the meat and left to marinate for at least 4 hours, we usually do it over night.

Then when that's done, hook through the top of the strip and hang it. It shouldn't touch the bottom and the pieces should be spaced apart so they don't touch.

It's then a case of waiting. Hang it in the box, turn the fan and light on and leave. Small thin strips take about 36 hours but the big strips take between 3 days and 5 days to fully dry out.

 Depending on taste you can eat it when ever as beef is edible 'rare', we tend to eat it mostly dry so there may be a bit of pink/red on the very inside but it's mostly dry and chewy.

I planned on taking a picture of it completely done but it didn't last that long and was consumed. So yea, that's making biltong.

 I would blog more about my cooking but my macaroons aren't very good at the moment and most things are common so if I do another random type food thing I will definitely blog it.

I will blog again soon providing that Dragon age and world of Warcraft don't eat up my time. There are new clog (my video blog) episodes up. There are more to follow, one on Castle and one on Zombie stuff.

Promise I will try to update more often but not doing anything means I rarely have interesting things to tell you.

Goodbye for now my loves.
xxx

The reason I write Fanfiction.

Hello dearies,

I know it's been a while, I could explain but it's private and depressing so I won't bore you. I've been out of my usual internet circles of late so this is actually the first blog/vlog, since then.

Just to let you know I am part way through editing a vlog which should be up sometime this week I hope.

Anyway, today's topic; fanfiction.

Now most of you probably have an idea of what this is, and woe betide anyone who immediately jumps to 50 Shades of Grey cos that is the worst advert for fanfic in the whole of the universe. I mean really!!! Gah, I can't even - eugh! Why - just ew -no.

Sorry minor spaz, no right, fanfiction is writing using already established characters. Fanfic comes in many forms, there's shippers who write couples from shows, books films games etc, these are people invested in a relationship from their chosen place. Slash, which is usually the homosexual versions, and normally ones that aren't canon except to them, I have a couple of these cos I get angry at the universe when something obvious isn't shown *cough John and Sherlock cough* And then there's people who like to make up new adventures for the sake of it but love certain characters or cba to make their own up.

And then there's people who are published fanfiction writers, for instance ever read a world of warcraft book, assassins creed, doctor who...I could go on. These people write fanfiction but for the show, although not strictly cannon they don't change the relationships and history etc.

Now all this information is purely my interpretation, fanfiction does not have rules, that's the beauty of fandoms, people write because they love to, they love the characters or the universes whatever.

I write fanfiction. Some people knew this, others didn't well I have been writing it for about 4 years and I've been reading it a lot longer, published and internet based. I have a few pieces of my own work online and I write it for 3 main reasons;

1. I love the characters and their relationships (granted I do slash couples,)

2. I love to write and using pre-made characters that people are already invested in does make it easier and it does get read.

And 3. My life is boring. Well no, I just tend to escape through writing or reading because on screen romance is so much better than real life. It's easier to write a whirlwind romance using an established tv couple than trying to find and live one yourself.

Plus climbing mountains and throwing a magic ring into a volcano just isn't something you can get from a package holiday :P

So thats my small and hopefully informative blog today, if you're interested in fanfic there are many a site. But please please check the rating before you read it, if it's above pg-13 I'd be careful. Also find out what acronyms mean for instance if you don't want a risqué 18+ peice steer clear of PWP cos it means; and I apologise for the crude wording; Porn Without Plot.

Okay so that's my warning, key sites for fanfic are around I am a member of Livejournal (not just for ff) and many people use Fanfiction.net self naming really.

Any questions or whatever I can always be reached by email; cozi.blog@live.co.uk

Speak soon my lovely readers
xxx