Thanksgiving Menu

I am not, by any standards, a domestic goddess. I can, however cook. Or rather, I enjoy cooking as opposed to laundry, scrubbing toilets and making beds. I've started planning the menu. I'm trying to stay as seasonal as possible and pretty much only using vegetables from the CSA with a few exceptions (brussel sprouts, apples, bell pepper).

Preliminary Thanksgiving Menu.

Lemony Hashed Brusselled Sprouts

Stuffed endive (stuffed with apple, bell pepper, onion, olives, walnuts, sesame seeds, olive oil and basil)

Mark Bittman's Millet Bake, courtesy 101 Cookbooks, brought to my attention by the scintillating Sara Hancock.

Roast vegetables:
Carrots (purple ones!)
Garlic
Parsnips
Potatoes
Onions

Baked, stuffed, delicata squash

Olives (Yay Wegmans!)

Red Onion Chutney

Garlic-Rosemary figs

Toasted Squash Seeds

Cranberry butter

Rolls

Fresh bread

Butternut squash pie (I'm leaving the pies/desserts to Ryan, but I know he's planning this one)

Beverages:

Growler filled with something delicious

More delicious beers

Bellwether cider

Elderflower soda, juice

Currant wine

In more food related news, last night I made a delicious (delicious!) curry, started by making my own curry paste. It turned out so well, that I think I'm going to make quite a large batch next time and can it. Pictures and recipe to follow soon.

GAH.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091116/pl_afp/japanusdiplomacyasiaobama?

I'm not sure how showing respect to a foreign dignitary "weakens" the US's position in anything. Can someone please explain it to me?

Also - how can anyone still take Bill Kristol seriously? He's the one responsible for the Palin.

Oh well. Here's some music.

Oh yeah. This is where I moved to.

Late fall in Ithaca. Beautiful.

Where have I moved to?

This was sent out to the Ithaca Freecycle group.

Crazy Launderette Lady

The joys of working from home include being able to get little odd bits of housework done during the work day. That one is able to do chores during the day doesn't, of course, mean that they actually get done. The last 2 weeks I have been disgracefully neglectful of my regular houseworky tasks, but we had a guest (my brother), so I excused myself.

Since he left yesterday, I have no more excuses not to be a proper domestic, other than malaise or laziness, I went to the launderette with a pile of laundry. It's right around the corner so I can take things over there and then come home and, theoretically, get some work done.

Launderettes are funny places - a really public place full of complete and total strangers watching you literally air your underwear. Kind of like being on an airplane: one would never, ever sit that close to a complete stranger in any other setting. If you both go to sleep, you're probably sleeping closer to them, proximity-wise, than you might with your significant other. You see a different side of a person when you see them in these sorts of situations, such as at the launderette. A side that perhaps might otherwise be only seen in the home. The sweatpanted, messy haired, trashy magazine reading, grumpy side. One is completing a household chore that most people aren't particularly fond of, in a public sphere. In short, often one is often at their worst at the launderette.

This morning's experience was no exception. I went to switch the load from the washer to the dryer*. I had a woman literally shove the laundry cart at me. Apparently I had left the offending cart in front of her dryer.

"Are you done with this?"

"Yes"

"Then get it out of my way."

And she pushed the cart, quite forcefully, in my direction. I had to catch it, to avoid it running into me. I looked at one of the other patrons, to gauge her reaction to this behaviour, just in case I had misread hostility when there was none. The other patron looked as shocked as I felt.

Part of me wanted to say something like, "Yeah. I knew that was your dryer. That's why I purposely left my laundry cart in front of it. In fact, I wasn't even in here doing laundry, I was just in here specifically to put a laundry cart in your way, to inconvenience you, yes, you specifically."

I didn't though, because my statement would have been an effort to convince her that not every red light or stubbed toe was because someone else was so obsessed with her that they went out of their way to ruin her day, but had I said that, it probably would have contributed to her current self absorbed world view rather than forcing her to question it.

Of course that is an awful lot of assumptions to make on my part. I am assuming that people don't want to be the kind of person that shoves laundry carts at strangers, when in fact, this may have been working for years, cultivating that specific part of her personality as a trait she values and admires.


*we used to dry things at home, on lines we strung up in our living room. But then the house started molding, so we had to stop.

Lemming, Lemming, Lemming of the ADA

Apparently there is an American Decency Association (ADA - but not to be confused with the American Dental Association).

Upon the discovering of the existence of this organisation, I (of course) immediately looked up "American Indecency Association". It, unfortunately, doesn't exist. I think I want to rectify that.

On the ADA's home page it has the following statement: "In the last main session (sixth video) of the conference, Mr. Trueman and Mr. Ensley answer questions and discuss in detail not only why we must continue to battle pornography, but how we can battle pornography in our own back yards."

That got me giggling because I imagined a bunch of people in corduroys and turtleneck sweaters running around their back yards after artificially enhanced naked people, while waving crucifixes at them.

I am a fairly normal person and I lead a fairly normal life. I don't live inside a cult housing complex or on an Amish farm. Somehow though, I manage to avoid seeing pornography almost every day and I've managed to do this for most of my life. So how come these people are having to battle pornography every day?

Wine and arguments

I've eaten a lot of kale today. Kale with scrambled eggs and then kale with rice. My favourite way to eat it is with soy sauce and lemon juice.

***

Ryan is making croissants. We had a fight earlier because I feel like his enthusiasm on the search for a second dog has waned. Among his claims after I snarkily said, "Should I just stop looking? Because you don't seem to really want a second dog." was that it was hard to get excited about a dog on the internet. I'm not sure how he expects to find a dog. To me, the beauty of the internet is that we find a few dogs that fit our requirements and then go and look at them. I don't want to go to the SPCA once a week and feel miserable for hours afterwards. Among his other claims was that it was hard to walk two dogs on a leash.

I found both of those arguments thin.

He said, "How can I get excited about a picture of a dog on the internet?"

I replied, "I'm not asking you to get excited, I'm asking you to participate in the process of finding a second dog."

And it made me feel like one of those baby crazy women. It made me sympathise with those baby crazy women (shit!). I took a bath while I was still angry. I thought, if I ever decide that I absolutely want children, I'm going to have to have the same damn argument. This sort of thing is always going to be up to me.

***

Which drives me nuts!

***

As such, I'm still a bit angry. Maybe I'll have some wine. Maybe I'll buy a horse.

***

We bought wine on our trip around lake Cayuga. We only ever buy wine when we go wine tasting because of New York's inexplicable liquor laws: One cannot buy wine in a grocery store, only beer (as far as alcoholic beverages are concerned).

***

Jeeves is learning a new trick: turning the floor lamp on. He's not quite there yet, but he's getting it.

***

Email to my husband.

from: Alice
to: Ryan
date: Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 10:54 AM
subject: You can't have a poodle.

I had a dream last night that we (including Jeeves) were wandering around in some big city. There were lots of stray dogs. There was a little brown dog that started following us around. You found a piece of twine and tied it to the dog and we brought it home - we were living in the big, nameless city in a 3 room apartment. All 3 rooms were living rooms and over filled with old, 70's-80's ish furniture. Things like dusty old futons with Indian wood cut print cover sheets loosely draped over them. There were lots of wood, lot of rugs and a large, old desktop computer. We were getting ready for a party. I was trying to find the new dog to show to some people only to discover another, different dog. This one was a gray miniature poodle cross. I found you and asked you where the brown dog was and you said you'd taken it back and found this one instead. I was furious with you. For one thing, I thought it was awful to bring the dog home and then just let it go and for another I did not want a poodle. I told you these things and you told me I didn't have any good reasons for not wanting a poodle, implying that it was just my snobbery. I started listing all the reasons I didn't want one - their hair doesn't stop growing, so you must cut it or have it cut, which costs money, they get really filthy and gross and need a lot of bathing, I didn't want small dogs...etc. You said that you would take charge of all the grooming and bathing. When you said that, I looked at the dog and it was wearing its hair in a little top knot held in place by a bow - which you had done to prove to me that you were going to do all the grooming necessary. I couldn't stop feeling awfully for the little brown dog and couldn't make you understand how reprehensible I thought 'replacing' it was.

The dream ended with me watching you play with the poodle on the floor and telling me I would grow to love it. At that point I could see that it wasn't all poodle, it had a bit of spaniel in it. And the more I looked at it, the more it looked like a black spaniel.

Sorrel Soup

From my mother:

The sorrel I have is perennial and has grown into a huge plant. I don't know how it stands up to snow and frost but it definitely grows in England. Though I never had it there, it was probably regarded as a poor persons food.

Ingredients:

A big bunch of sorrel leaves, stems trimmed off. Wash well.
Potato scrubbed but leave skin on. Chop into cubes and parboil or put in microwave for 4-5 minutes.
Bunch of spring onions chopped fine including greens
3 Cups of vegetable stock
2 tablespoons Olive oil
Nutmeg, salt & pepper

Heat oil, medium, add onions and sorrel leaves, stir and cook for three minutes till leaves turn bright green.

Add potato, vegetable stock, cook for about 6 minutes or until potato is fully cooked.

Grate in nutmeg

Leave to cool a bit and blend til smooth, return to pan to heat through if necessary.

Taste, add salt & pepper to liking.

It has it's own flavor and doesn't taste like anything else.
(The original recipe called for thickening with corn flour but I find potato does just as good a job.)

Oh I also added a large pinch of dry mint with the potato & veg stock.

How many uterus related arts and crafts projects can there be?

I've spent a lot of time on Etsy because I can find reasonably priced unique clothes that (most importantly!) fit me. I think the fitting me part is because when I buy vintage, it was usually made in a time when my size was closer to the average as opposed to the tiny people side of things.

I have, though, come across some really hideous items for sale and I'm very glad to say, someone finds them as hideous as I do.

My ex roommate Shawn passed this along:

www.regretsy.com

Enjoy!

Nonsense is good for you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health/06mind.html?em

Of course. If something was a little weird, and it turned out to be a
lion shoulder blade above the tall grass, one would have needed to
figure it out, right soon. We still need to be able to spot
unsettling things. "That's odd, I saw movement in the car. There
isn't supposed to be movement in the car. Aha! There is a man laying
in ambush in the backseat."

That's a neat article. Thanks for sending it to me. I hear the devil
calling, "Back on your heads!"
-Ryan

Dreams: David Mitchell Lookalikes

Last night I had a dream I walked into a pub that was having a David Mitchell lookalike contest. Everyone in the pub looked exactly like David Mitchell, even the kind publican that sold me a pint.

I was the only one not competing.

Death and grieving.

My ex-boyfriend died on Thursday night. We lived together for three years, had a dog together and cared a great deal about each other. He played the harmonica and the guitar and he was quite a good photographer.

I'm not going to go into the nasty, awful, messy details of breaking up, except to say it was a bad one. I think, partly, because everyone, except me, towards the end, thought we were going to end up together, married, etcetera. The awful details of the death are this: he had a brain aneurysm, in his sleep. They found him with our dog licking his face, trying to wake him up.

I didn't go to the funeral, for a number of reasons. I think that funerals are probably a really healthy thing - everyone gets together and decides to grieve together for a certain amount of time and then, one can move on - but for me, I didn't need to see a lot of strangers to grieve. Not to sound melodramatic, but I've already grieved over the death of our relationship and I've already grieved over Al. I realised somewhere along the way he was never going to be well, I was never going to be able to make him well, and I had to leave him to so that he could begin to figure things out on his own.

I spent most of Friday morning sobbing, I mean really sobbing. I think I even screamed a few times. Then I went to the barn because you can, or rather you should, for your own safety, leave your emotions on the ground when you get on, so I thought it might help me feel normal again. But instead of riding, I went to a school fete with my friend and her children. I ended up drinking a beer with a man who went to the same tiny, smaller-than-a-lot-of-high-schools, photography school that Al went to, Brooks.

So there I was, in the middle of central New York (well, actually closer to the Pennsylvania border), talking to a complete stranger about my life in Santa Barbara. Reliving moments and reminiscing about things that happened during my life with Al. It was a little surreal.

******

I keep waking up in the middle of the night and remembering that he's dead. It's really awful. I did it three times last night. I start going through conversations that we had - everything from the mundane to the excruciating. No particularly vivid dreams yet, though. Just an awareness of his presence in a lot of them.

******

On Saturday night, I left a strange party early and went to bed by myself. I called Margo and started crying almost instantly. I'd gone from being tremendously sad to feeling abjectly guilty. I'd read his obituary and it just seemed so trite and banal - I think he would have hated it. Well, I hated it anyway. It made me a little sick. I don't know what else I expected - it was filled with all the usual obituary stuff. I think it was because it reduced someone who was larger than life down to a few lines on a piece of paper.

*******

So here I am, Wednesday morning and getting back to work, finally feeling more normal. Still tired: I overslept this morning - it's 11:16 and I haven't even made a cup of tea yet.

I think I'll do some work and then head out to the barn. My mother said something that struck me as apt: "You know, I just can't quite get it into my head that there's a world without Al in it."

I'm not paying $50 to hang out with people I went to high school with.

http://www.paloaltothemovie.com/home.html

"Someone watch that trailer and tell me this isn't utterly absurd. If these people are trying to represent Palo Alto as Any Town, U.S.A. that is just patently false; and if they are representing Palo Alto as the rich niche that it actually is, well, I can only say with devastating honesty that that is just not a very interesting story, Tom Arnold or no."
-JT

"It looks shallow, cliche, and vapid. much like its namesake."
-BB

I just found a website announcing my ten year high school reunion. It's at a shitty bar in the town I went to high school in. And by shitty, I mean overpriced, loud and lacking in any personality, but still full of sweaty 20 and 30 somethings dry humping each other and yelling over the terrible music. The last time I went there, I ended up having to leave early to preemptively remove one drunk member of our party, before what she was doing started counting as sexual assault. Blame my drunk friend if you will, but I don't think that behaviour is out of the ordinary for that place.

It's also exactly where and how I would have pictured my high school reunion happening.

My complaint though, is not really about the bar, it's about the cost. Because I would probably go if it were, maybe ten bucks. But it's not ten bucks, it's fifty.

My apologies to any one who doesn't find fifty dollars an obscene amount of money for this particular event, but really? Really? Fifty dollars? Fifty dollars to go and hang out at a crappy loud bar in downtown PA? And have awkward conversations with people? I can do that for free pretty much anywhere else, the only difference being that I may not have already had awkward conversations with those people, 10 years ago. It would be a hundred if I want to bring my husband. We could have a nice meal for that. I can pay $35 dollars and go and see a show in the city at an awesome bar instead of a shitty one.

There was an alternative - the organiser suggested that if we didn't wish to drink, $10 or $15 dollars at the door would be fine, in order to help defray the costs of the reservation. That solution isn't really workable for me though, because being I don't think I could manage the evening sober and it seems like it might suggest a substance abuse problem or at the very least be regarded as a little tacky, if I showed up already inebriated.

I'm not sure what a high school reunion is for, anyway, these days. Isn't one of the wonderful things about facebook that you can keep in touch with/stalk people you want to keep in touch with but you can fairly successfully avoid those you don't?

Mosquito Bites.

I am the indignant sufferer of mosquito bites, all on my foot. Two of said mosquito bites are on the sole - one on each.

Since moving to the East Coast, I have started suffering rather more severely than in the past from mosquitoes. At the beginning of the summer, I was horrified by the dragonfly sized mosquitoes that insisted on suckling my blood while I was asleep. It was during a camping trip with Ryan when I fully came to realise exactly how much more flavourful I must innately be than he, because for every 1 bite he had, I had 7.

And not just 7 little bumps. These were giant welts that were painful. It's not that they didn't itch - the itching and all the indelicacies of scratching the itch came later. First was sore, aching pain as my immune system went into overdrive.

These giant winged monsters, however, have proved nothing compared to the gnat sized mosquitoes I encountered the other day, whilst walking through the woods near my house.

At firsts I thought that they seemed more like the mosquitoes I was used to, out west. Small, irritating, but not of the agony causing variety.

Not so. I smacked one, absently on my left arm, just below my elbow, while looking at something else. I know that killing them mid-suckle is usually a bad idea because it makes the bite that much worse, but I felt a small tickle and I reacted to it. I had already found and killed one eating my right elbow, so had become a little reactionary.

Within minutes both bites had spread into flat, white, raised bumps, which would have been a quarter inch in diameter, if they had been more circular. They had, instead, bumpy and uneven edges.

That evening, my left arm was swollen. The next morning, it was a third again its normal size, red, and inflamed. My elbow ached. I spent the morning looking up things like "Really horrible mosquito bite" and "mosquito bite inflammation" on Google. I self-diagnosed myself with skeeter syndrome and moaned a lot about it to my husband.

I was finally back to normal when yesterday morning I woke up scratching the bottom of my feet. One bite in the very middle of the arch of my right foot and the other on the side of my left foot.
There is no more irritating a place than the bottom of your foot for an itchy insect bite. People can tell you all they like that "scratching just makes it worse!" but try not scratching an itch that you are reminded of every time you stand up. Or put on shoes. Or bring the bottom of your feet in any contact to anything.

Then, this morning I sat down to read my email, only to discover a second bite, this one on the bottom of my left foot. Swollen, uncomfortable and itchy. When I notified my husband of the new development, he had this to say:

You ought to stop sticking your feet out from under the covers. Don't give the little bastards the opportunity.

Japanese food experimenting.

It's late and I'm trying to make red bean paste.

I've been, lately, really getting into trying to make Japanese food, to some degree of success. I'm finally getting the hang of onigiri and last night I even made a carrot sesame furikake for the on going onigiri experiments.

Most of my instruction has come from 2 places.

1. Just Bento/Just Hungry - 2 unbelievably friendly, informative blogs by the same person. There is SO MUCH there and it's all good.

2. Cooking with Dog - a YouTube channel that is campy and informative! The show is apparently hosted by a miniature poodle named Francis. At first I thought that the dog just hung out watching the cooking - I didn't realise that he was the host. Francis' voice is provided by a very polite Japanese man who has to be heard to be truly appreciated. I watched several of the videos yesterday and walked around saying, "Mix it well" over and over again. You'll understand when you've watched one. The cooking is done by the cutest little Japanese lady who always tells you how enjoyable the food is at the end of each segment.

Tonight I decided to attempt red bean paste because a) it is delicious and b)we found the asian markets in Ithaca and I had to get something. The red beans, the sweet rice flour and the aloe vera juice sufficed.

It is now 11:56. I started boiling the beans 2 hours ago and there's no end in sight. I soaked them for 22 hours, I boiled and drained them then boiled and drained them again and now I'm just waiting. Waiting and sleepy.

Radio Dream

I had a dream last night that I was hosting a radio show, which I was using to plug this blog.

Birthday picnic.

Birthday picnic in the house tomorrow. It's supposed to pour, so my grand plans of having everyone hang out in the back yard drinking gin t's and listening to chansons by Edith Piaf and Yves Montand have been dashed.

The Menu.

Hummus

Tomato basil thing

*Pickled green beans

Flat bread

Cornelian cherry soda

Lemonade

Cous cous & cherry tomato salad

*Just White Beans

*Pickled Red Onions

Zata

*Chili

*Cornbread

Asterisks indicate that the item has already been prepared.

It's late and I've spent the evening listening to British panel shows.

Preserves.

When we decided to join our CSA, I told Ryan that an important thing I wanted to do this summer was do more preserving and pickling.

I'm very excited that I've actually done this. The final results have, for the most part, been successful and if they weren't successful, they were at least delicious.

One exciting part of it is that we gathered all of the ingredients ourselves. And the plums came from my mother's garden while the Cornelian cherries were scrumped!

The next plan involves scrumping crabapples from the Ithaca airport and making crap apple and lavender jelly along with green tomato chutney from our sad little tomato plants that will have to be put to sleep soon as the have come down with late blight.

I'm also keeping tabs on the roses in the neigbourhood, because I like the idea of making rose hip jelly. It's in keeping with my little old lady fascination. Sort of goes along with Coty face powder and sachets of lavender. Basically, I'm thinking of my grandmother although I have honestly no idea if she's ever made rose hip jelly or not.

Healthcare Reform! Yay!

I was going to have a big announcement about my prodigal return to blogging, but what the hell. Linking to someone else's blog is much easier. Particularly when they've accurately described sentiments which I share.

This won't hurt a bit: Mob Scene

Here's the bit I liked best:

"As a nurse, I cannot speak strongly enough in favor of discussing end of life care with your doctors when you have the chance. Hell, I think all adults should have advanced directives. And your doctor should get paid for the time s/he spends talking to you about your options. No one is lining up to exterminate your disabled child or elderly parent. The fact that I have to write that makes my brain hurt."

Kids, now is absolutely the time to be reforming the health care system. Why? Because our economy is in the toilet (excuse the vulgarity) and people are out of work, and thus without adequate health care. What kind of barbaric society allows its people to suffer needlessly?