A Guide To Arguing With Idiots.

I think that this is one of the funniest book covers I've ever seen.

I don't care who you are, republican, libertarian, democrat, communist, independent, whatever. This man is not only a moron, he is dangerous because people listen to him and the filth that he spreads is poisonous. How can anyone take his ramblings seriously?

I'm just pleased that his helpful guide to arguing with idiots has a picture of one on the front for easy identification.

READ HISTORY.

The Third Man on Banjo

I'm trying to convince Ryan to learn this. Possibly my favourite soundtrack from possibly my favourite movie.

EDIT: I keep coming back to my own blog to watch this.

Constance McMillan, Prom is Stupid and You Don't Actually Want to Go.

Apparently there is a girl named Constance McMillan whose desire to take her girlfriend to the prom has caused some consternation and outrage at her school, which resulted in more consternation and outrage after she went to the ACLU.

McMillan was told that she was not allowed to bring her girlfriend as her "date" and if they showed up separately, but danced together, they would be kicked out of the prom. She then approached the ACLU for legal assistance and the school responded by canceling the prom for everyone. Of course I have no evidence of this, but it suggested to me that canceling the prom for everyone was a rather insidious way of getting a bunch of high school kids "on their side".

"You ruined the prom for the rest of us, you big ruiner!"

I have to admit that I can't really understand the fuss. I don't understand why she wanted to go to the prom in the first place, I don't really understand why anyone wants to go to proms. I went to one, it was boring and expensive and I didn't like any of the people there except my boyfriend at the time, who, strangely, insisted that we go in the first place.

I had more fun before prom, hanging out with Margo and drinking champagne. If only we knew what a portent that was.

So, although I stalked the facebook page, because I'm intrigued by the issue, I'm declining to "become a fan". Although I wish McMillan the very best in all her endeavors and I think that it's shitty that she goes to a school run by bigoted idiots, I'm an equal opportunity jerk. I'm not going to support anyone, gay or straight, in the pursuit of such a ridiculous, out dated, overrated tradition that promotes the pervasive high school mentality that out of which, some people never grow. (Once, in high school, during our "brunch" a friend of mine once came to me and said, "My dad told me last night that these were the best years of our lives." We both contemplated the meaning of that, very sadly while hoping that it wasn't true. And, thank goodness, it isn't and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably pumping your gas)

Incidentally, someone on the facebook page actually vehemently suggested more than once that being gay was a "race" because you were born that way. By that mentality, people with Down's syndrome are a race. In fact you could even extrapolate that sentiment to suggest that people with specific hair colours belong to a specific race. Which, as a matter of fact, makes about as much sense as calling black or white a "race" - (excuse my anthropologist geekery) there's only one human race currently in existence and that's ours.

For those interested

I'm ceasing the cooking and making things from this blog and moving it over to a less personal one.

www.incidentalice.wordpress.com.

This is all in preparation for potentially starting to think about maybe selling some preserves on Etsy. I'm going to move Thing A Week there too. I'd like to not scare off potential customers/readers with my rabid atheism, extreme left wing views or my hatred of Garrison Keillor so I'm going to leave that here.

Beluga Lentils in Mirepoix

Mirepoix is a delicious combination of onions, carrots and celery, very common in french cuisine. Traditionally, the ration calls for the same amount of onions as carrots and celery combined - so a 2:1:1 ratio. This evening, we used 2 medium onions. We sauteed our mirepoix this evening in olive oil, added some salt. Once it was cooked down, the onions were translucents and soft and the carrots and celery were a rich and vibrant colour, we stirred in a cup and a half of beluga lentils and enough water to cover the beans by about an inch. Got the beans up to boiling, then turned the burner down to a gentle simmer and left  them, checking them periodically for flavour and doneness. Beluga lentils aren't of the mushy lentil variety - they stay nice and firm when cooked. It's such a simple dish yet so flavourful.

We had simple bowls of it while watching QI, but I imagine it would be nice over rice or mixed into a salad.

Victorian Kitchen Garden

I found this awesome show called "The Victorian Kitchen Garden". It's very inspiring, particularly because we want to do something similar in the future. Some of the wintery growing tips might not be that necessary, if we end up in northern California, however it is nice to know that it's possible to grow a large variety of vegetables and fruit throughout the year with out the expense of living in northern California (it's just a lot more work).

Anyway. The series is from 1987 and features a man named Harry Dodson who was taught by several Victorian head gardeners. He himself was a head gardener for an estate for many years.
 The idea behind Victorian kitchen gardens was that all the vegetables and fruit necessary for the entire year were grown on the estate in various green houses, boxes and plots. Key to this was the Victorian snobbery of wanting to have exotic fruits and vegetables throughout the year, so the gardeners were expected to provide fresh vegetables in the middle of January and things like pineapples, melons, peaches. Dodson revives an old Victorian garden, using Victorian methods over a period of 12 episodes. It's highly entertaining - well, if you're into gardening. My favourite was the chicory or Belgian endive grown in complete darkness and the sea kale grown in giant, clay, bottomless, lidded pots and buried in manure.

***

We planned our plot this morning and I'm sort of in the middle of getting an old wine decanter turned into a mossarium. I have all the bits, I have the gravel down and I'm now trying to explore ways of getting the charcoal, soil and moss down the neck of the decanter without making a huge mess.

We're tracking our gardening expenses this year, so if you include the $26 shiitake mushroom kit that my mother sent to Ryan for his birthday, we're down $78 something dollars.

More Strange Elevators: Vomiting Out of Glass Elevators

I had another strange dream last night. I dreamed I had a long conversation with an old friend in my old bedroom at my parents house. I don't remember much of it, I tried really hard because I was woken up in the middle of it by a dog banging on the heater with his tail, but I do remember him confessing to me that he gets "slightly turned on by people vomiting out of glass elevators."

I had a dream last night, what-what?

From: Alice
To: Ryan
Date: Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:00 AM
Subject: dream

I  just remembered a dream I had: a new Cornell lab was opening up in Texas and we were going to have to go there. I kept asking, "For how long?" thinking - 6 months, I could stand, a year, maybe, but not forever! and you were being really evasive, saying things like, "When the projects finished." or "Well they need people there pretty soon."


You were also wearing a silk paisley lounge jacket and an ascot at the time. 
 
I don't want to move to Texas.

From: Ryan
To: Alice
Date: Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 12:26 PM
Subject: dream

"Darling!  Darling.  I think I ought to tell you, we'll be moving to Texas.  New lab and all that, you know?"
"For how long shall we live in Texas?"
"Oh, you know, old sport.  Not long, I should think.  Only until the project is finished, what? ... I don't suppose I could trouble you to mix a stiff W and S?"
"But how long will we be in Texas?"
"Thanks, that hits the old spot.  Nothing like a good W and S, what?"
"How long will we stay in Texas?"
"Well, I say.  They need people there quite soon.  The, uh, intellectual pool is particularly shallow in that part of the continent."

Barnaby

A considerable amount of entries have mentioned my fairly constant companion for the last 4.5 years. Jeeves, Jeeps, Jeevles, Shorty, Short Lumpy, Fatty Lumpkin, House Otter, Nasty Little Grape Eater, Barley Grape, Spotty Furface, Fur Pants, Doggo, Doggo Futzf, Bonk, Bonkles...

I adopted Jeeves from the San Mateo Humane Society (search the page for Jeeves) a little after I dissolved a long term, quite serious relationship. I had come to some sort of conclusion that a dog was a sure thing. I had seen his little picture on the internet and I knew he was the right dog. Jeeves came home with me and for a long time it was just me and him, even for a time after I met Ryan.

Even since we have moved to Ithaca, he and I spend the majority of our time together because I work from home and when I'm not working from home, I'm often at the barn with...Jeeves. 

Well, my fairly constant companion received a constant companion of his own last weekend. Casey buys hay from a man who had little Barnaby chained to a cattle barn. He wasn't miserable - he was perfectly well fed and perfectly healthy. It just seemed like such a sad little existence for such a friendly, exuberant, cheerful little dog. I say little now...but we think he may end up hitting the 50lb mark.

Barnaby. Barnacle, Barnstable, Barnington, Barn-dog, Barnaclese, Barnles...etc

The Chieftains Featuring Ry Cooder

This album is, I fear, going to be like that Prairie Home Companion movie. I can't stand the Chieftains, but I love Ry Cooder, just like I can't stand Garrison Keillor, but I love Robert Altman. Although I never watched Prairie Home Companion, because I didn't think I could manage to sit through 90+ minutes of Garrison Keillor, I am listening to this album. So far, it's not terrible, but I could do without the flute and possibly the fiddle.

Black Beans with Leek over Cauliflower Puree

Cauliflower puree

1 head of cauliflower, "floretted" and the florets chopped
2 potatoes - russet or yukon gold or something similar (ie not a waxy potato), diced
1/4 cup olive oil (approx)
1/2 cup milk or soy milk (approx)
1 cloves garlic minced very finely
salt (to taste)
fresh ground pepper (to taste - I used a little over 1 tsp)

Steam the cauliflower and the potato until quite soft - the cauliflower was softer than I would eat it, were I not planning on purreeing - but I like firm vegetables. Once steamed, drain the water out of the pot and put the cauliflower and potato back in the pot. Start to break it up with a hand mixer. Add olive oil, milk, salt, garlic and pepper and then mix some more until it is smooth. At this point I turned the burner back on and let it cook some more.

Black Beans with leek

Half of the white bit of a large leek (take one large leek, chop off the green end - save that bit for stock - and the root end and use half of that. Or the whole thing, depends on how much you like leeks)
1 can of black beans - or equivalent of soaked, dried beans*
3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
salt
fresh ground pepper

Heat up some oil in a pan. Once it is hot, add the leeks and saute them until they soften. Add the can of beans. Add chopped garlic, salt and pepper and leave to cook in its liquid, while you puree your cauliflower - you may need to add water as the liquid reduces.

Spoon the puree onto a plate and serve the beans on top.

*I've been really doing a good job about presoaking dried beans recently and I find the flavour difference that much more worth it. It's also a better idea as far as environmental impact goes, despite what Nina Shen Rastogi would have you believe - she wrote an article for slate about canned vs dried and forgot to take into consideration the energy required for making the cans and then recycling them or that it is much easier to buy bulk dried beans than bulk canned beans - meaning much less packaging. However, we do have cans of beans on hand, because sometimes you need something quick and filling and nothing does that like a can of beans, heated up, with salt and pepper, lots butter or olive oil, with maybe a teaspoon of vegetable stock if it's handy or whatever else you want to flavour it with (curry, cayenne, oregano, basil, beer...etc).

Proper Snow.

This morning I woke up at 6:15 and looked out the window. There was so much snow! It honestly felt a little like Christmas did when I was small. Not that snow reminds me of Christmas (I've never celebrated Christmas in a place that had average winter temperatures below 40 degrees), but just the excitement of waking up to such a pleasant anticipated treat. I wanted to wake Ryan up and show him, but I thought better of it. He woke up a little anyway, looked out the window and then curled up and went back to sleep. 

This is the kind of snow I was expecting when I first heard about the supposed enormous amounts of snow that Ithaca gets. This is let's-get-out-the-snowshoes-and-go-to-the-woods kind of weather. Let's-get-really-cold-doing-fun-things-outside-and-then-come-in-for-hot-chocolate-kind-of-weather.

Thing A Week and The Supersizers

My Thing A Week plan is going well.

Last week I made this Chocolate Black Tea cake for Ryan's birthday. I substituted walnuts for the hazelnuts (because I had walnuts but no hazelnuts) and made a cocoa frosting for it. I also made a leek and potato pie, but I don't think that counts for Thing A Week because I make vegetable pies all the time. I'm ammending the original stipulations: baking only counts when it's something that I need more practice at (cakes and bread, basically).

Despite it not counting, I'd like to mention the fabulous crust I made with olive oil, water, a little baking soda and vinegar. We already typically make oil crusts instead of butter crusts, but I thought that olive oil might add some nice flavour to complement the potatoes and leeks. The trick was olive oil in the freezer for several hours, following a suggestion I read in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. This makes an excellent butter/fat substitute, if you're interested. I don't like using packaged butter substitutes because most of them are mostly water. You can watch an extreme version of what happens when you try and cook things with fake butter on one of my favourite television shows, The Supersizers* (1:17 is where the point of interest starts and yes, that's real horse that they're cooking):

I think I'd rather go with the full flavour of olive oil than bland, processed "butterine" if I'm not going to use butter itself) Substitute the frozen olive oil into your recipe 1:1 for your normal fat ingredient, and when you are adding that and the water (ice water!) to your flour, bring it together so that it is just barely on the side of incorporated. Mine had this beautiful marbley look to it. Then it goes back in the fridge for an hour before rolling out between two pieces of wax paper (it will stick to counters).

This week's Thing A Week:

A paper mache box to store chopsticks and other kitchen utensils as part of my Organise/Decorate the House on a Budget of Next to Nil plan. I also came across the interesting idea of using contact paper to cover up ugly kitchen cabinet doors when you rent and can't do anything about your hideous dark crappy kitchen cupboards So I'm going to inspect contact paper to see if a) it looks like crap and then b) I can make our kitchen a little cheerier. Only if it's cheap though.


*it's worth watching the whole 2 seasons of this show. Two journalists (Giles Coren and Sue Perkins) spend a week each episode living as if they were in another time in history, wearing the clothes and most importantly, eating the food. My favourite episode is the Supersizers Go Wartime. Giles makes a cake using paraffin and gives American servicemen diarrhea and Sue paints her legs with gravy and eats a pair of stockings.

Seeds.

We chose seeds! We ordered from TomatoGrowers: purple jalapenos, carbon tomatoes, sweet baby girl tomatoes and a kind of sweet pepper that's name escapes me at the moment. It was really, really hard to choose. It took 4 hours. Because we have no space and no sun, so we can't really be too ambitious but we wanted the essentials and we didn't want to overlap with our CSA too much. We figured, you can never have too many tomatoes and peppers are nice too.

We're also going to sprout some of our dried beans and put in a herb window box in the bedroom (that window gets the most sun).

I thing I'm really looking forward to spring: today I made Lemonade For One (one lemon, 1tbsp sugar, 1 cup water, mix. Add gin if needed). It's not the same when you're wrapped up in cashmere, wool socks and slippers.

Although I still find the snow a bit of a novelty, I'm a little tired of my activities being so beholden to the weather. By activities, I mean "ability to fall asleep outside". Last summer, I fell asleep in the yard, I fell asleep on the balcony and I fell asleep in the woods. I'm looking forward to finding new and exciting places to fall asleep. Oh and the riding. I'm looking forward to that too.

Craftzine.

Really Craftzine? Really? Normally I love your blog. I forward entries all around, post them to Facebook and Twitter, and recommend it to my friends in person. I go to your site everyday and am possibly a better (at least more organised, possibly more creative) person for it.

This entry makes it seem like you've run out of ideas. 

Who hasn't figured out how to make a pasta dish by the time they've moved out of their parents home?  And if they haven't, they probably have no interest in cooking anyway and wouldn't be reading Craftzine for cooking tips.

This goes in the same category as the article I read in the Palo Alto Weekly several years ago that recommended using "heavy objects" such as rocks or bookends to keep books in place on shelves. Rocks, along with cowboy boots filled with rocks and doorstops, can also be used to keep doors open. Another article in the Palo Alto Weekly that recommended stacking smaller pots inside larger pots to save kitchen storage space*



*although I don't have copies of the articles in question, I assure you both of those were real articles.

Ludgate Farms

Today we went to Ludgate Farms and I was disappointed. I think I was hoping for another Milk Pail, which is this awesome grocery in Mountain View that is always unbelievably crowded for a very good reason: cheap, fresh produce, an amazing cheese selection and a substantial bulk department. It's where you go to buy ingredients for delicious meals that you are making from scratch . I've bought a weeks worth of groceries there, for two people, for under $20 and that included food for having people over for dinner one night.

Ludgate Farms was not Milk Pail. While the produce itself was fine, there wasn't very much of it, which I will forgive because it's the middle of winter. Produce aside, the products that they did have were all covered in dust and not only that, a lot of the available items were either close to or actually passed their expiry date. The ones passed the expiry date were usually offered at a discount. My feeling on this is that I don't really want to pay anything for rancid olive oil, so discounts aren't really going to help. That and everything was unbelievably overpriced - $16.00 for a box of Emergen C? That's twice what it costs elsewhere. Believe me, I'd rather shop local and I understand the plight of the small business but I do not have unlimited funds and I can't afford to pay double. What was most frustrating was their "bulk" section, which wasn't "bulk" in the sense that you bag it yourself or that it's cheaper than the prepackaged version. You buy what they've bagged and tagged for you, already (read: no bins) and then you pay more than you would at Greenstar (for example), which up until going to Ludgate Farms, I thought was expensive.

What they should do is get rid of those millions of bottles of olive oil and premade pasta sauces and preserves and just focus on selling good fresh produce and install bulk bins and offer competitive prices.

Thing A Week

Last year, I tried to participate in Thing-A-Day 2009. It did not go well. Sometimes I make several things a day, sometimes nothing at all. I think it might work if I were completing pieces for a larger project, like, for example hexagons for an afghan - something very small, quick and simple but still working towards a larger, more useful project. Part of my problem is that my main "chosen medium" - that is my "craft of choice" is knitting, and even the simplest of quickest knits can take hours. Not suited to banging out a thing a day. Additionally, functional elegance is really important to me, so I was discouraged by the round trivet I was >trying< to make, that ended up a useless flower that lies around my house annoying me - I can't throw it out because I made it, I can't frog it because I felted it, but there isn't much of a point to it.  I tried to include cooking as part of my creative sprint, but I cook almost every day, pretty much from scratch and not every meal is a feat of amazing, complicated, creativity, it seemed like cheating to count a simple broth with chopped vegetables and udon noodles as a "thing" but if I added home made dumplings to that meal then it did count? I guess it just didn't seem like I was stretching myself enough to count meals. 

 So I've decided to make my own challenge. Thing A Week. Starting at the beginning of this month (February) I am going to complete at least one thing a week. Meals don't count, but baking, preserves and pickles do as do "ingredients" things like dumplings, fresh pasta and large batches of curry paste. And I'm going to do it for a year. The project doesn't necessarily have to be started and finished in one week, I just have to complete at least one thing a week, hopefully this will encourage me to finish projects.

So. I've finished Casey's neck warmer and Ryan's hat. I have some other knitting projects started. And I'm going to attempt a cake this morning. After cleaning the kitchen and bathroom and possibly doing some laundry. Do those things count?

EDIT: Drinks like the barley water I made two weeks ago (delicious but I failed to document it in any form other than a chat with Miss Margobee) and this great idea for Lavender Lemonade totally and utterly count.

Huge storm and neck warmer

The huge storm I mentioned in the last post is apparently happening at the moment. Except, it's not as big it was threatened: I think we are getting the edge rather than the middle.

Ithaca is not as snowy as people who you tell you are moving there would like you to believe. Sure, it's snowier than Palo Alto, but a lot of places are. Everyone who had heard of Ithaca gave us the, "Better get used to winter! It's really snowy there! Snow all winter! Snow, snow, snow!" upon hearing we were moving here.

But it's no where near as snowy as Tahoe, which was what we thought about when we thought "lots of snow".

So right now, it's snowing, it's been snowing all day. Outside is very quiet - the noise is dampened by the snow. And to be fair, there is quite a bit of it. But in a few days it will melt and outside will be wet and grey and ugly.
Anyway. I'm glad of the opportunity to experience several "real winters".

Here's what I've been up to, when not working:

It's a birthday present for my friend Casey, who hopefully doesn't read this blog.

Spring flower preserve plan.

We're due for a huge storm on Wednesday. 90% chance of snow all day long. Right now, it's 18 degrees F.

I'm looking forward to spring. 

With that in mind, I've started to think about the jellies and jams and tasty preserves that I want to make. Last summer, Ryan and I made pots and pots of Cornelian cherry jelly, from Cornelian cherries, scrumped from Cornell Campus. 


In Northern California, spring comes for a couple of weeks. I used to mentally remind myself to enjoy the daffodils, naked ladies and tulips while the lasted, because they only lasted 2 or 3 weeks at most. I did the same thing this last spring, here in Ithaca. I kept reminding myself to enjoy the spring bulbs because they wouldn't last. But they did! For weeks and weeks! I've never seen so many blooming flowers all at once. Snowdrops, tulips, narcissus, daffodils and best of all thousands of violets. So I've decided to try violet jelly this year. There is also an abundance of crab apples at the airport that we didn't manage to get to last year, so I'm thinking crab apple lavender jelly and I've recently found out that people make jelly out of geraniums!

Pomegranate Molasses

I bought some pomegranate molasses yesterday. I found a recipe for it in one of my cookbooks and then visualised making it myself. Spending all that time separating the little garnets from their little honeycombs of protective skins and then...not eating them by the handful?

Clearly, that wasn't going to be possible. It's like pomegranate jelly or other preserves - I'm sure they're delicious but how to you make it without just eating the pomegranate?

(also: it's much cheaper to buy a 10.5 oz bottle of molasses than to buy enough pomegranates to make 10.5 oz of molasses)

You also can't always buy pomegranates, because they are a fruit that you have no choice but to eat seasonally - although, one could argue the same for a lot of other fruit, despite the fact that they are available in the store year round - who wants to eat a yucky, bland, dry, out of season orange?- but pomegranates aren't even available when they aren't in season.  

As much as we try and buy local (the CSA really helped with this one), I am an Arab, and Arabs crave things like tomatoes, lemons and most importantly, with regards to this blog entry, pomegranates. All things that are somewhat readily available in a Mediterranean climate, but not so readily available locally here in upstate New York. So about once a year, I crack and buy a pomegranate. One of the ideas of slow food living, so if you can't buy local then at least buy from the region that is known for the particular ingredient/food. So I bought Lebanese pomegranate molasses.

***

Yesterday, driving home from buying the above mentioned molasses, we saw that Pancho Villa's is taking down its sign. It looked like this:

 

Which reminded me of this sketch, from about 2:00 onwards: