Variety of Food, Day 21: Akoori

Today we have plans to go out for dinner this evening, so I did my cooking for brunch. We had Akoori, an Indian scrambled egg curry.

Akoori
From The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon
8 eggs
4 tbsp milk
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tbsp butter
2 spring onions, chopped
1/2 jalepeno pepper, seeded and diced
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
1/8 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp chopped coriander (which is the same as cilantro)
1 tomato, diced
1/2 tsp cumin
Beat the eggs in a bowl with the milk, salt and pepper. Heat the butter over low heat in a heavy skillet until melted. Add the onions, jalepeno and ginger and cook until soft and fragrant. Add the turmeric, coriander and tomato, and few for another minute or two. Add the cumin and the egg mixture, and stir constantly until the eggs are creamy, but not stiff. Serve with warm whole-wheat tortillas or another Indian bread.

This is easy, and very flavorful, and now we're ready for our day. Get ready for tomorrow's marathon post!!

Variety of Food, Day 20: Penne Arrabiata

I'm a big fan of a little irony, when I can fit it in. Tonight, that was in the form of serving "angry pasta" to my parents. Hee hee! It was tasty with a little salad and some nice cabernet.

Penne Arrabbiata
From The Classic Pasta Cookbook by Guiliano Hazan
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
3 oz pancetta, cut into 1/4 inch strips
28 oz canned diced tomatoes
1 tsp red pepper flakes
salt to taste
1 lb penne
12 fresh basil leaves, torn into 1/2 inch pieces
2 tbsp grated romano cheese
Heat the olive oil and garlic in a skillet over medium heat until the garlic is sizzling, Add the pancetta and cook to browned, but not crisp. Add the tomatoes, red pepper and a pinch of salt. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 30-40 minutes until the tomatoes have cooked down. Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water until tender. Add the basil to the sauce and toss together. Combine the pasta, sauce, and cheese and toss together to serve.

It's easy, and it's one of our favorites these days. It was nice to share it with my parents, who missed the irony and appreciated the flavors. Ah, the naivete.

Variety of Food, Day 19: Hoi Sin Fish

I have people to cook for again! My mom and dad came into town today, and my husband may even be in later tonight. So much better than cooking just for one. We started with dumplings and sauce, and proceeded to the main meal.

Hoi Sin Fish
From Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook
1 1/2 pounds of firm white fish (I used Chilean sea bass)
2 tbsp peanut oil
2 cloves of crushed garlic
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp grated ginger
2 tsp hoi sin sauce
1 spring onion diced
Heat the oil in a wok, and fry the garlic to golden brown. Add the fish, and brown on both sides. Sprinkle the soy sauce over the fish and cover for 1 minute. Add the ginger and cover for another minute. Turn off the heat, add the hoi sin sauce to the gravy. Serve the fish with the gravy over the top, garnished with the spring onions.

I served this with white rice and some braised baby bok choy, and it was pronounced tasty. It's just so nice to have a reason to cook again, and it's doubly nice that my mom helped me do all the dishes after dinner. Woohoo!

Variety of Food, Day 18: Ham and Mushroom Pasta

Rationalization and diversion did a number on me today. My afternoon went something like this.

Got up from the couch, noticing it was dark outside. I figured it must be too late to eat, and I should just go to bed. Nope, it's 5:30. No wonder I'm not hungry -- I barely finished lunch (leftovers). Hmm, I need to pay bills and otherwise waste some time on the internet. And the guest bathroom needs to be cleaned and have fresh towels put out. Okay, that's done. The kitchen is a mess, and I don't want to make it worse before my parents come to town tomorrow. Well, it's good that the kitchen is clean now. Here's an example of one of the seventeen loads of dishes I did today.I may be exaggerating a little on the number of loads, but not by much. You wanna see that work surface I showed you a couple of days ago that looked like such a disaster? Please humor me. I need to share my accomplishment with someone, and Moo-Bunny just isn't cutting it on this. Thanks for letting me share. Then I remembered I had laundry in the dryer. That's folded and put away now.

By this time, my house is almost clean, and I'm running out of diversionary tactics to keep me from cooking. I'm also hungry by this point. So, I went with something easy. It was just like Day 13, except with ham and mushrooms instead of the prosciutto and peas. Tasted totally different. I liked this one a lot better. I would upload a picture, but Blogger has decided I have enough in this post, and I'm too tired to try to get it to work. I'll put the picture in words: it was a bowl of fettucine with little cubes of ham and sauteed mushrooms dotting it.

And now I can go to bed. I know it's bad to eat and then sleep immediately, but eh. I'm too tired to do anything else.

Variety of Food, Day 17: Steak

I didn't want to eat alone this evening. With my husband 4 time zones away, and it being a Saturday night, my options were limited. So, I called on an old friend.

Years ago, my husband created a unique gift for me for Christmas: a Moo-Bunny. He bought a stuffed rabbit and a stuffed cow, and then Frankesteined them together. The cow parts didn't fit in the holes on the bunny, so I don't have two of these creatures, just the cow with the bunny ears and tail. Moo-Bunny keeps me company when my husband is out of town, and tonight was no exception.

Initially, Moo-Bunny was annoyed that I'd invited him to eat with me on a night I had gone to the store and bought a single portion of filet mignon. I can't really blame him. The only thing that would have been worse is if I'd had some sort of rabbit sauce on the steak.


Eventually, I was able to convince him to just eat the veggies. Corn and broccoli aren't nearly as offensive, and I think he just wanted to be out in the fun. We enjoyed a generally underdone dinner. It's the way I like things, but I try to cook everything a tad longer when other people are eating with me. Moo-Bunny is used to raw veggies, so it was fine for him.

To make dinner, I started boiling water in the asparagus pot. (It was clean. Think whatever you want.) Then I sauteed a few mushrooms in butter, and when they were getting dark, I added some sherry and cooked that down. Then I steamed the broccoli in the microwave (a little water in a bowl, add the broccoli, cover with plastic wrap, poke a few holes, and nuke for 3 minutes). I salted and peppered the steaks and pan-fried them for a few minutes on each side. I threw the corn in the boiling water for a couple minutes, and voila -- 15-minute dinner.

And the best part, besides the silent, furry company? No leftovers.

Variety of Food, Day 16: French Toast

I love breakfast food. Tonight, I really wanted to make French toast with some leftover sourdough bread I had lying around. And I figured that if I was just cooking for myself, why couldn't I just have French toast for dinner? I figure I've had enough pasta lately, so I decided to load up on other carbs, instead. What did I decide to have with my French toast? Potato pancakes. Just because they sounded good as their own entity, separate from the French toast.


I can also now tell you that French toast is not very good with applesauce, nor are potato pancakes any good with syrup, just in case you were wondering. However, my non-conventional dinner hit the spot.

My First Earthquake

I believe that I just experienced my first earthquake a few moments ago. I was sitting here at my computer working on something unimportant and then there was this rumbling noise and the floor shook like the house just got crashed into by a car. It was subtle and really low. I ran downstairs and outside to see if anyone was around to ask if that really was an earthquake, but no one else seemed to see it as any big deal.

Conveniently, I found this website that lists all the earthquakes in the last 7 days. And that confirmed it -- indeed I just experienced my first quake:

Magnitude	UTC Date-Time	Latitude	Longitude	Depth	Region
2.6	2007/11/17 02:55:19	34.376	-119.651	0.0	SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL, CALIFORNIA
3.4	2007/11/17 02:45:08	34.390	-119.658	10.3	SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL, CALIFORNIA

I have to say, it was sort of exciting. A 3.4 quake followed by a 2.6 one, and I could feel them and nothing bad happened. I think anything over a 5 would scare me out of my wits, but for now, that was cool.

Variety of Food, Day 15: Ravioli Pomodoro

Tonight's my first night in a span of nights cooking for myself. BORING. Cooking for two is hard enough (I think I'm only capable of cooking for 4 or more), so cooking for one is nearly unbearable. Tonight I made an easy sauce, and put it with some prepared chicken and garlic ravioli. Wanna see how easy that sauce is?

Ravioli Pomodoro
New recipe from Giuliano Hazan's The Classic Pasta Cookbook
In a saucepan, put a large can (24 ounces) of chopped tomatoes, 6 tablespoons of butter, an onion cut in halves, and a bit of salt. Simmer over low heat until the tomatoes break down and separate from the butter (20-40 minutes). Cook the pasta, and toss the sauce and 4 tablespoons grated parmesan with the pasta.

Total Kitchen Time: 10 minutes

That's it. I might even put this on the list for easy lunches to make in the future. I hope the leftovers freeze okay, because I can't bear to have any more leftovers in the fridge at this point.

Variety of Food, Day 14: Szechwan Fried Chicken

This afternoon, I received a call from my husband. He's going to Hawaii for work. In the morning. Tomorrow morning. He's bailing on at least five of my dinners this month while he runs off to work 20 hours of every day on a telescope that has some sort of issue.

I decided that meant that tonight should be something good for his sendoff. So, I pulled out my regular cookbook and let it fall open where the binding naturally breaks. Well, I say "naturally", but it really opens there because of all the various bits of oil and garlic and rice kernels that seem to be a permanent fixture to the page. My husband told me in our earliest dating days that "I like Chinese food! General Tso's Chicken is my favorite!" Bless his little white, un-Asian-acclimated heart, I could hardly tell him that General Tso's is an American invention, and not really very authentic. I tried out the recipe in question, because I hoped it was close enough to what he thought of as Chinese food to be able to introduce him to actual Chinese food. Well, this didn't turn out anything like his old favorite, but it turned him into an instant convert to the ways of hoisin sauce and dim sum and the kind of craziness I prefer to eat and cook. And now, it's one of our favorite recipes. The comment at dinner? "Really? We haven't already had this this month? Cool!"

Szechuan Fried Chicken
Adapted over many attempts from The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon
Take a pound of chicken (either breasts or thighs -- each work, but it needs to be all white meat or all dark meat), and cut it up into small bite-size pieces. Mix together 1/4 cup cornstarch, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp five spice powder, and add the pieces of chicken and mix it all up evenly. In a bowl or measuring cup combine 1 cup chicken stock, 4 tsp sugar, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 2 tsp vinegar, 4 tsp dry sherry, 1/2 tsp five spice powder and 1/2 tsp black pepper. In another small bowl, mix 4 tsp cornstarch into 2 tbsp cold water and stir until smooth. Start cooking the white rice, so it will be ready when the chicken is ready. Then, heat about 2 tbsp peanut oil (it's the best oil for frying because the smoke point is higher than other oils) in a wok over very high heat. Fry the chicken in three batches until the pieces stop sticking to each other and start to turn golden brown (about 7-10 minutes per batch), removing to a paper-toweled plate to drain. While this is cooking, slice 4 dried red chillies lengthwise and remove the seeds (do not touch your face for 24 hours after this step -- I promise!), mince 3 cloves of garlic, grate 2 tsp of ginger, and cut 4 spring onions into 1-inch pieces. Once all the chicken is done, turn the heat down to medium, put 2 tbsp oil in the wok and fry the chillies, garlic and ginger for about a minute, until the garlic is starting to brown, and the chillies get dark. Toss in the onions and fry for a few seconds. Then add the stock mixture and bring it to a boil (you may have to turn the heat back up for this). Stir the cornstarch/water mixture to a smooth liquid again, and drizzle it into the boiling mixture while stirring to thicken it. Add the chicken, mix it all together, and serve with your rice.

Total kitchen time: 2 hours

I also made pork and shrimp wontons tonight, and somewhere during the prep realized that my kitchen was a disaster. This could have been when I found the fourth item that I had to wash before I could use it or when I realized I was making wontons in whatever available clean-ish corner I could find, or when I saw that I had no place to set my during-dinner-making drink. Regardless, here is my kitchen in action. Or it's a kitchen slowed to inaction. I'm not sure. On this table, you can see the pot from the green beans from Day 8, the crockpot insert used to make stew on Day 11, the sauce containers from the bulgogi on Day 12, my bowl from reheating the pasta from Day 13 for lunch today. I admit it -- it's a mess. Should I even admit that this is just one of three cooking/counter surfaces in the kitchen and they all look like this? But somehow I have to cook in that again tomorrow. Anyone out there really like doing dishes and want to come do mine?

Variety of Food, Day 13: Mardi Gras Pasta

Tonight we've been invited to a friend's place for dinner. Since I won't be cooking that, I made a new pasta dish tonight that will now go into the fridge as leftovers. It actually turned out pretty well, so I'm stoked.

Mardi Gras Pasta
From The Classic Pasta Cookbook by Giuliano Hazan, with a new title by Heather, since I don't really want to try to learn how to pronounce "Paglia e Fieno coi Piselli".
1/2 stick of butter (4 tbsp)
1/2 a small onion, diced
6 ounces prosciutto, cut into long thin strips
1/2 package of frozen petite peas, thawed
salt and pepper
1 cup cream
3/4 pound of egg fettucine
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Melt the butter over medium-low heat, and saute the onion until it's soft and golden. Add the prosciutto and cook until it loses the raw pink look (somewhere between purple and brown). Start water boiling for the pasta. Turn the heat up on the sauce to medium-high and add the peas and cook for 2-3 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the cream and cook until it has reduced by half. Remove from heat and cook the pasta. Toss the sauce with the cooked pasta and the parmesan and serve.

Total Kitchen Time: 30 minutes

The egg fettuccine is a lot richer than normal fettuccine, so I can tell this is going to be a very filling dish with the leftovers lasting longer than really necessary. But at least it's tasty. And look at that picture and see if you don't think my new title is appropriate for the dish.

Variety of Food, Day 12: Bulgogi

Now we're back on track with this Korean beef dish that my husband has deemed a recent favorite.

Bulgogi
Adapted from The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon.
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
3 cloves of crushed garlic
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp sesame seeds
2 lbs lean rump or round roast

Combine all the ingredients, except beef, together to create the marinade. Slice the beef into very thin slices, and then cut the slices into 1-inch squares. Place in the marinade for 3-5 hours (or a whole day if you put it in the marinade yesterday afternoon and then went out and partied too hard). To cook, preheat the broiler, spread the meat out on a broiler pan evenly, and cook for 5-7 minutes until the tops start to get crispy. Serve with white rice and the following sauce:

Bulgogi Sauce
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp Chinese bean paste
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp dry sherry
1 tsp sesame seeds
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp sambal ulek
2 tsp sugar
Combine all ingredients together.

We did have a vegetable, but I was being lazy, so we went with pre-packaged vegetable birds nests from Trader Joe's. It was very tasty, and I'm (hopefully) back on track for the rest of the month.

Total Kitchen Time: 30 minutes

AFI Film Festival in LA

Saturday, we got the chance to go to a movie showing at tha AFI Film Festival which just wrapped up yesterday. We aren't normally up on what's going on, but we knew the writer/director, Alex Holdridge, from years gone by, so we went to see In Search of a Midnight Kiss. Alex used to live in Austin, and we were lucky enough to see the premiere of his first movie, Wrong Numbers, and that was great, so we knew what sort of movie we were lining up for, and definitely had expectations.

It didn't disappoint -- it was such a great flick! The premise is simple enough. A guy is depressed after his relationship ends and his career comes to a screeching halt after moving to pursue it. His friends push him to have a date for the New Year's Eve party, so he posts a want ad on Craig's List and the story goes from there. It's a really well-written story with very human characters (no caricatures here). I'm sort of surprised it's being billed as a romantic comedy, because it's missing all the schmaltz and predictability that we've come to expect from that genre. This is more like a relationship drama with some laugh-out-loud scenes in it. We stayed for the Q&A after the film, and found that a lot of this story is autobiographical, and the whole thing was filmed in 16 days. What an accomplishment, to take a real-life tragedy and turn it into such a winning movie so quickly and on a shoestring budget. Alex's parents were there at the screening, and I'm sure his mother was crying tears of pride for her baby's obvious success.

If you get a chance to see this one, take it. Good stuff.

Variety of Food, Day 11: Burgundy Beef Stew

I'm calling the 10th the day I failed on the challenge to make something new every day. This was actually finished on Sunday, so that's when we ate it. Mostly this is an ego thing. It's better to say that I didn't cook on the day we spent the entire day in LA than to say I failed because I got pukey drunk.

Burgundy Beef Stew
Brown 2 pounds of stew meat and move to a stewpot (or crockpot). Saute a diced onion in the meat juices and move to the pot. Add a pound of carrots and a pound of potatoes, cut up in approximately 1-inch cubes. Cover all the pieces with beef broth (about 6 cups) and simmer gently for an hour (or put your crockpot on low and leave it overnight). Add a cup of burgundy wine, a package of frozen peas and a pound of sliced mushrooms and cook for a further 15 minutes (or throw them in the crockpot before you go to church, and when you get back it will be ready). Taste and add salt if needed.

Served with some hot sourdough bread and butter, this was the perfect meal for the gray, drizzly day we had here. It hit the spot!

And now, through no fault of its own, the stew will be going into the freezer. There's something about regurgitated stew that means I should wait a while to eat those leftovers.

Um, Yeah....

Apparently, by tomorrow, I meant the day after tomorrow. Which is today.

Yesterday was a very bad day in Heather-land. It started out fine, but took a nose dive after lunch when we decided to meet up with friends in Ventura. The guy in the couple was the department drunk at UT, and he hasn't changed. Losing track of what I was doing, I drank an entire bottle of wine. Oops. I had to throw up on the way home, and then spent about 3 hours in the shower just trying to feel well enough to climb in bed. Needless to say, I didn't cook dinner or post or anything.

I haven't done that in years. I imagine it will be a while before I do it again, too. Hopefully, forever. I hate feeling like that. And to know I did it to myself is just that much worse.

Good Reason for Today's Post(s) Coming Tomorrow

Today, we went into LA to go to a friend's movie showing as part of the AFI Film Festival. We left mid-morning and got home tonight at 11:30. I have now started dinner, and it will be in the crockpot all night for tomorrow's lunch, but I feel like it should count because I started it tonight before I'm going to bed.

Posts on the film and on the dinner are coming tomorrow, after I've gotten a chance to sleep.

Chris Tomlin at the Santa Barbara Bowl

Last weekend, I went to see Chris Tomlin at the Santa Barbara Bowl. The Bowl is an outdoor amphitheatre, and the primary big concert location here in town. I had wanted to see a concert there, and this was the perfect combo -- an artist I knew that I vaguely wanted to see together with cheaper tickets. It turned out to be better than just a way to see what the venue was like.

It was like going to church on Friday night for three hours with 4500 of your closest friends. I know that doesn't sound great to most of you, but for me it was just what I needed. The sermon touched me, but mostly it was just knowing that there were other folks in town that wanted to go to church on a Friday night that recharged me spiritually.

We came in and got settled in our side floor seats, and justified that they were good once we found some that were worse. As it got dark, the music started up. They put all the words up on a screen at the back of the stage, so even you only knew some of the words you could sing like you meant it. It was great for songs I'd never heard before, too, because by the second chorus I could join in. He was a worship leader before he started his singing career, and you can tell. He sure knows how to get people singing loud and proud, from easy tunes and powerful lyrics to just the right amount of repitition so everyone can feel like they have it down, these songs are designed to have you singing them in your car or while you do dishes (which I do all the time these days). In the resinging you find new insights and the music just continues to make an impact well after the concert is over.

In the middle of the concert, Louie Giglio, the pastor traveling with the tour, got up and preached one of the longest sermons I've ever heard. It was a generic sermon about how big God is with this whole universe he created, and yet he cares about each of us enough to be involved in our little lives. And yet, it was a topic that was welcome in my brain, one that made me think and re-remember the enormity of God and all the little details that are His business.

When it was all over, I wished it wasn't, and I only then noticed just how cold it had gotten in the dark. So, I think I can say it was a successful concert, and I imagine I will be back to the venue, even if not for church next time.

Variety of Food, Day 9: Pasta

All I wanted for dinner tonight was a long hot bath. I'm tired of grocery shopping, I'm tired of figuring out to cook, but mostly, I'm just sick and tired of doing dishes. We don't have a garbage disposal or a dishwasher, so I'm filling the sink with hot soapy water, washing and rinsing the dishes, and then catching all the gunk and throwing it away. And after a whole lot of involved meals, I'm just tired and don't want to do it anymore. I know it's only day 9, but there it is.

My husband came to the rescue. I wanted to eat something that he made in college back when we were dating (which seems like a hundred years ago). He used to make pasta with olive oil and basalmic vinegar, and it was one of those cheap college meals that made you feel full and think you'd eaten a real meal. So, he made that tonight, sort of. We always just called it "pasta", so that's where the title comes from.

Pasta
Heat some minced garlic in olive oil, adding basil, oregano, and salt as the garlic starts to get golden. Remove from heat and add freshly-cooked spaghetti and a bit of basalmic vinegar and pepper and mix it all together. Add a little parmesan on top, and be happy that you have no leftovers for the first time all month.

Total Kitchen Time: 15 minutes, during which I drank a glass of wine and watched my husband cook.

Variety of Food, Day 8: Pork Chops and Potato Pancakes

Tonight we had friends over for dinner. After dinner and wine and the blueberry cheesecake they brought, I just wanted to go to bed.

But...must...post...first...

The pork chops were lightly dusted in flour with garlic powder, onion powder, basil, celery seed, salt and pepper and then fried over medium heat to a nice golden brown. But, the best part was the potato pancakes that we had with them. My dad called me this afternoon, and I mentioned I was making potato pancakes tonight. He said that Mom makes the best potato pancakes around. I told him I had her recipe, to which he responded that mine might be a close second, then.

So, here is the recipe for my second-place potato pancakes.

Potato Pancakes
In a blender, put 2 eggs (it apparently doesn't matter if you end up with a pretty decent-sized piece of shell -- oops), 1 small quartered onion, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of flour, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 cup of potato cubes. Blenderize until smooth. Then add 2 1/2 cups more of potato cubes and blenderize that, too. In a heavy skillet, heat some butter over medium heat. Use a 1/4 cup measurer to pour the pancakes, let brown for 2-3 minutes per side. Serve with butter, sour cream, and applesauce.

I love potato pancakes. Sometimes I wonder why you have to eat other things with them to make it a full meal. Can't a whole pile of potatoes count as a balanced meal? Maybe just once in a while?

Time in the kitchen: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Variety of Food, Day 7: Lentil Chili

Since the fish last night was so bad, I went back to soup -- those were working this week. Tonight, we went vegetarian, which is something I try to do once a week, or so. Since my husband bikes to and from work, he tends to need a lot of protein though, and neither of us are tofu fans, so it doesn't always work. But I try. Tonight's recipe was a new one for us, and it was more successful than last night's new attempt. I'd even call it tasty.

Lentil Chili
From the Fresh cookbook from the Lake Austin Spa
Heat 2 teaspoons olive oil over medium heat and saute 1 diced onion for a few minutes until translucent. Add 2 cloves of minced garlic and cook for a minute more. Then add 3 tablespoons of chili powder, 1 1/2 tablespoons cumin, 1/2 teaspoon oregano, 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder, and 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and stir for about 30 seconds. Pour in 4 cups water, an 8 ounce can of tomato sauce, and 1 cup of uncooked brown or red lentils (they cook faster than other varieties) and bring it all to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 30-45 minutes until the lentils are tender. Add 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and salt to taste (I used about 2 tablespoons), and serve with saltine crackers.

Total Kitchen Time: 45 minutes

A Moment of Wit

I am not a witty person. Generally, I'm the person that leaves a conversation flat and then 2-3 hours (or days) later, I come up with a good response.

However, last night I had a moment of witty clarity.

My husband and I have recently combined our offices to make room for a guest room, so we tend to be in the same room at night working on our respective computers. Last night we had this exchange:

Hubby:
Me: Huh? (not the witty part, I promise)
Hubby: I was talking to myself.
Me: Are you sure you want to hear what you have to say?

It just happens so rarely that I had to share. Thank you for your time.

Variety of Food, Day 6: Parmesan-Crusted Snapper

Today was my first attempt during this blog-a-thon to make a recipe that I'd never made before. I bought red snapper at the store, and then tried to find something to make with it. I came across this recipe in the iconic Joy of Cooking, and it was hideous. Pure hideosity. Disgust-o-rama. I couldn't eat mine. At least the rice and broccoli were edible.

It seemed harmless enough, even if a bit boring. Start with an eggwash, and dip the fish in that and then in a breadcrumb/parmesan/parsley mix. Saute in butter over medium heat for 3-4 minutes per side and be careful not to burn the parmesan.

I didn't burn the cheese, but the result was a disaster. I really only managed two bites before I had to call myself finished with "dinner".

And yet, my husband cleaned his plate, and demanded I save the leftovers for him for lunch this week. There's just no accounting for taste.

Total Kitchen Time: 30 minutes

Variety of Food, Day 5: Wild Rice Soup

So, I'm still feeling less than 100%, and that means more soup. This is another easy one. I got it from my mother, who likes anything that reminds her of Minnesota, and wild rice is definitely one of those things. It turned out okay, but I was a little short on the cooking time for the rice (or my microwave is dying -- both quite likely explanations), so it was a bit chewy. I have a tendency to call something done earlier than I should, because I get hungry and impatient.

Wild Rice Soup
1 cup wild rice
4 cups water
1/2 cup butter
1 diced onion
2 diced carrots
2 diced stalks of celery
3/4 lb diced ham
1 cup flour
7 cups chicken broth
1 cup evaporated milk

Put the rice and water in a covered dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes, and then at 50% power for 30 minutes. Leave it in the microwave for 15 minutes afterward. While this is going, chop up all the other items, and then saute the onion, carrot, celery and ham in the butter for about 5 minutes in a big soup pot, until the onion is transparent. Add the flour a bit at a time, and stir into the mixture. Once it's all added and your arm is tired from stirring, add the broth, about a cup at a time and continue the stirring. Let it simmer gently until the rice is done, and then add that to the soup pot along with any liquid left in the dish. simmer for 10 minutes or so until the rice is tender. Add the evaporated milk and heat through.

Total kitchen time: 45 minutes

Variety of Food, Day 4: Taco Stew

I tend to go all out when people come to visit me, so if you're coming, give me several weeks to prepare adequately. Now that our guest has left, and several high-maintenance meals have been made, I decided it was time for something easy. Still tasty and homemade, but easy. For those of you that asked for it, this is one of my favorite crockpot meals. Plus, I'm coming down with something, and spent most of the day with a low-grade fever. It's the kind of thing that would normally have me deciding on a frozen pizza for dinner, but not this month!

Taco Stew
1 lb ground beef
1 chopped onion
1 can pinto beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can corn
1 can blackeyed peas
1 can pinto beans with jalepenos
1 can Ranch style beans
2 cans Rotel tomatoes
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 pkg dry ranch dressing

Brown the ground beef with the onion, and dump in a crockpot with everything else and stir it all up. Cook all day on low (anywhere from 6 to 22 hours -- I've tried), and serve over tortilla chips, with some melted cheese on top.

Never said it was hard to make something that tastes good. This is a favorite -- both for prep time and for tastiness. This makes a ton of food, so we'll be eating it for lunch for the forseeable future. That's fine by me!

Total kitchen time: 15 minutes

Variety of Food, Day 3: Pork Tenderloin

With every couple, it seems, there is some point where the deal was sealed. For us, that occurred when my husband cooked a beef tenderloin for me. It was absolutely phenomenal. This is a different animal, but I strive to make the pork as tender as that beef was.

Pork Tenderloin
3 lb tenderloin
5-8 cloves garlic, crushed
3 tsp freshly grated ginger
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup soy sauce
lots and lots of pepper

Press the garlic, ginger, and pepper into the meat on all sides. Add the lemon juice and soy sauce and roll the meat over to get the juices on all the sides. Marinade for 3 hours at room temperature (overnight in the fridge) on a foil-lined cookie sheet (I promise this will help with cleanup), and covered with plastic wrap (so all the juice stays in). Preheat the oven to 500 degrees, put the meat in and lower the oven to 350 degrees immediately. Cook for 15 minutes per pound, until the outside is browned and the inside is light pink. Let the meat rest on a board for 10-15 minutes before slicing and serving.

We had the tenderloin with steamed green beans and buttered rosemary skillet potatoes. We thought about dessert, but just couldn't make it fit.

Total kitchen time: 1.5 hours

I Have an Admission to Make

Already, on day 2 of November, we didn't eat what I made for dinner. Yesterday's dinner was made and promptly boxed and put into the fridge and not eaten. We ate it for breakfast this morning, though. Spaghetti Carbonara reheats very well.

See, my out-of-town friend and I spent the day getting haircuts and shopping, and we ended up eating lunch out about 2 in the afternoon. Then, I had to make dinner early, because we had concert tickets at the Santa Barbara Bowl for 7pm. So, dinner being ready at 5:30 meant we weren't hungry for it yet. And then my husband worked late because he knew we'd be out late, so he ate leftovers at work.

In previous times, I just wouldn't have made dinner last night. But that wasn't the deal -- I had to cook something new every night. Good thing this came up early enough in the month that my resolve wasn't tested. I just made it and put it away.

Just thought I'd let you all know what was going on behind the scenes on that.

There's a post coming on the concert from last night, too, but I'm just not quite there yet. Soon, I promise.

Variety of Food, Day 2: Spaghetti Carbonara

This is one of those classic pasta sauces that I was afraid to try for a long time because of the raw eggs. However, the eggs just add a creamy richness, so don't let this stop you. Tonight we made this, and had it with a salad and a glass of pinot grigio. Okay, maybe more than one glass. You just can't leave the bottle partially empty.

Spaghetti Carbonara
Adapted from Giuliano Hazan's The Classic Pasta Cookbook
1 pound spaghetti
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil (extra-virgin -- I don't even know why they sell the other kinds)
6 ounces pancetta, cut into 1"x1/4" slices
1/3 cup white wine (I used some of the pinot grigio we ended up drinking with dinner)
4 eggs
3 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
1 tbsp grated romano cheese
1 tbsp chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Start the water boiling for your pasta. In a skillet, melt the butter in the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the pancetta and fry to a tender brownness. Add the wine and let the mixture boil down by half. Remove from the heat. Add salt to the boiling water and dump the pasta in. In a big serving bowl, beat the eggs with the cheeses, parsley, a pinch of salt (the pancetta will be salty, so go easy) and lots of pepper (as much as you think you can stand). When the pasta is al dente, drain and at to the egg/cheese mixture in the pasta bowl. Toss it all together and then add the pancetta and toss some more.

Total kitchen time: 30 minutes

Variety of Food, Day 1: Szechuan Fried Fish

This is a recipe I have done once before, but it's been awhile. That means it's similar to it being a new dish, except I'm less concerned that it will royally suck. Here's the gist of it:

Szechuan Fried Fish
Adapted from The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon
2 pounds of a white fish (I used Chilean sea bass)
4 tbsp dry sherry
4 tbsp soy sauce (only Kikkoman is used in these parts -- you just don't mess with something that's been around since 1630)
2 tsp corn starch
1 tbsp + 1 cup cold water
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
5 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons Chinese black bean sauce
1/2 tsp sambal ulek (or srirachi sauce)
4 spring onions, chopped
peanut oil for frying

Score the fish and combine with 2 tbsp each of soy sauce and sherry to marinade for 30 minutes at room temperature or 2 hours in the fridge. Mix the corn starch in the tbsp of cold water until smooth, and then add the rest of the soy and sherry, plus the sugar. In a very hot wok, pour in a half-cup of oil and fry each piece of fish until it's brown on both sides (3-4 minutes per side), and remove to drain as finished. When all the fish is fried, pour out some of the hot oil so you have 2 tbsp or so. Turn the heat down to medium, and fry the garlic and ginger to a light gold, stirring constantly. Stir in the bean sauce and sambal ulek, and then add a cup of water. Restir the corn starch mixture, so it is smooth again, and then drizzle it into the wok while stirring constantly. When it starts to come to a boil and get thicker, remove from heat, add the spring onions, and pour over the fish, arranged on a serving plate.

I served this with quick-fried green beans (still crunchy!) and white rice. We had potstickers with sauce as an appetizer. The potstickers were bought frozen, and prepared to the package directions, but here's my dumpling sauce:

Dumpling Sauce
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/3 cup soy sauce
dash of sesame oil
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp chopped green onion

Combine everything but the green onion in a small saucepan and simmer for 3-5 minutes until the sugar and spices are dissolved in the liquid. Garnish with the green onion and serve.

We had a friend in town to participate in this one, and she was convinced it was great. Eh. It was so-so. It had a suprising vinegar-y flavor, but it was okay. I took pictures, too, but I can't find the cable to get them off my camera, so I'll have to add those later.

Total kitchen time: 2.25 hours

Halloween Withdrawal

Halloween might have been yesterday. I wouldn't know. No children came to our house to trick-or-treat. I bought candy, turned on my porch light, and waited patiently for the little costumed beggars coming for me. And I waited...and waited...and finally gave up and went to bed.

Austin is a town that seems to live and die by Halloween. You just can't go through the day of October 31st and not remember that it's Halloween. We would have 50-75 kids come through for candy in the evening, and you would crash in bed thankful to be done with another year.

See, I'm not really a fan of the holiday. Never have been. Maybe it has to do with 4th grade, where I was invited to a Halloween party as a joke. They just wanted to see what kind of crappy costume I would piece together with what was laying around. And here was 9-year-old Heather, shocked that this girl wasn't just being nice. Regardless if that was the cause (it was the only Halloween-related memory I could come up with), I just don't get that excited about it. However, it was sad this year having absolutely NO Halloween.

No trick-or-treaters can mean one or more of a few things:
1. There are no children in Santa Barbara. This would actually confirm a few things that have been troubling me about this much-older community.
2. Our house is on some list of sex offenders. This would be awesome, because then we'd never have fundraising kids coming by.
3. The porch light being on is actually some weird California code that we don't know about that means "stay away or the crazy people inside will eat you!" Ah, the culture shift and little faux pas we may be making.
4. This is one of those places where overprotective parents only allow their kids to trick-or-treat at houses where they know they people. Where's the fun in that?

But mostly I'm just sad that now my husband will eat all that candy I got for the kids. And I was finally shrinking his sweet tooth!

The Time Traveler's Wife

This weekend I read my birthday present -- a book by Audrey Niffenegger. I tend not to read very often, because good novels get into my psyche and everything falls by the wayside while I finish it. So, I don't read, not because I don't like to read, but because I like it too much. Weird, I know.

Regardless, we went to Dallas this weekend for the birthday party of some friends' kids. That meant we had lots of travel time (unguilted reading time), and we would likely need to entertain ourselves a bit while our friends dealt with their life a kids during the weekend (more unguilted reading time), so I decided to start this one.

I actually started Thursday night before we left, and that's a good thing, because this story sucked me in, and I had no choice but to stay up late Saturday night finishing it up. Of course my husband was getting annoyed with me crying with the bedside table-lamp on until 1 in the morning, but it's his fault -- he gave me the book.

To give you the brief, no-spoilers-involved, rundown, we follow the story of a woman, Clare, and her time-traveling husband, Henry (no duh -- you get that from the title). But, unlike other time-travel stories, Henry didn't invent some crazy machine and use it to run all over the time continuum. Instead, Henry has a genetic disease that means when he gets stressed, his fight-or-flight response is extreme: he time travels. He tends to travel to times and places that are important to him, including times while his future wife is a young child and is growing up. One of the unfortunate issues with his type of time travel is that anything not a part of him is left behind -- clothes, shoes, etc. So, his young wife-to-be becomes a partner in getting him the necessities of life -- food, clothing, etc. It is a beautiful love story told from both points of view. We primarily follow Clare, as her story is easier as a linear story line, but Henry's story is woven in a very neat way, showing us his "linear" as the jumpy timeline where answers come before questions and some answers just shouldn't be given. He has a couple of great lines about 20 years ago and a few minutes ago being the same thing to him. It's an interesting take on two people being fated for each other, and as I mentioned before, it made me bawl my little eyes out for hours. Folks having trouble having kids might want to avoid this one, though I don't think any admonition of that sort would have stopped me from reading it.

And then I see that they are making a movie out of the story. I always love to see that a good story gets told to a larger audience, but I haven't decided what I think about making this particular one into a movie. Of course a lot will be lost, but I'm sure I'll have to see it -- to see if they faithfully render the duo I met this weekend when I was on a plane or supposed to be sleeping. But at least the laundry and dishes weren't being shirked while I read.

The Bloggin' Is A-Comin'

I have joined NaBloPoMo, which I found out about from Snickollet. It does virtually nothing, except indicate that I have promised to post every day in the month of November. And now that I'm on their blogroll, I guess there's no backing out now.

And since I like a challenge, I've decided to combine this with something else. I know it's silly, and I don't even come close to posting every day, so that will be enough of a challenge, right? Regardless, I need more. Years ago, my husband and I discussed one of his zany ideas to never eat anything the same twice in the same month. I don't think I'm quite that crazy, but I will be planning to cook something different for dinner every night for a month. I'll post recipes along with the fun. Some of them may be recipes I've never tried before, and therefore will be a crapshoot as to whether they'll be any good. Others will be tried-and-true favorites that keep us coming to the dinner table night after night. Well, those recipes and the hunger.

And now that I cook a lot (and am not going anywhere for Thanksgiving, so you'll get all my Turkey day recipes, too), I'm really thinking this should be doable. Here are my rules for myself on this:

1. It's the main dish that counts and can't be duplicated, not the sides. If it's a one-dish meal, then the whole meal counts.
2. Leftovers should be eaten for lunch, or frozen if we find we are becoming overwhelmed with too much food (I'm a German/Scandinavian Lutheran Texan -- a combo that always seems to result in more food than people to eat it).
3. If eating out for dinner looks likely, cook for lunch or breakfast instead. No cheating!!
4. No making up for a missed meal the next day.
5. No prepared meals -- the main dish must be homemade.
6. I can blog about other things, too, but I have to blog about our progress on this goal.

Okay, I think that's enough. Get ready for November!

No News Is Good News?

It's been six weeks since we made an offer on the house we live in. We still don't have a response, but they are "working on a counter". Every indication we have is that she really would like to sell it to us, so we'll just have to wait and see what she comes back with. I've decided to go with the old adage. It may be foolish, but we're living in the house we want in the meantime, so that's good enough for me.

Plus, yesterday we had a toilet leak, and that got fixed on the landlady's dime. I really think I am content for us to stay renters for a very long time. We'll be here, at least, through all the scheduled visitors for the fall, so that's good.

I feel like our realtor. She checks in periodically just to tell us she's talked with the seller's realtor and has no news. One day, when the longest offer period EVER is over, I'll let you know that we actually have news. If that day ever comes, that is.

How Can I Be Anything But Crazy

My dad called this afternoon, about 3, and left a message on my cell phone. Then he called again at 4 when I hadn't called him back yet. Then he sics my crazy aunt on me, and she calls at 4:30, and then she paged me at 5pm, because my dad's called her because he's worried that I'm not answering my cell phone. NOT ANSWERING MY CELL PHONE???? Dude! Calm down -- it's been two whole hours!

It seems he was concerned that the latest fires were about to consume us, even though the vast majority of them are in Malibu (a ways south of us) and San Diego (a long ways south of us). Meanwhile, I was paged for work at 11:30 last night, and had finished working a 13-hour day, and wanted to take a nap. Just a weensy little nap so I don't become complete psycho-girl, but that was thwarted. First, the plumber came to fix a leak 10 minutes after I fell asleep, and then there was the onslaught of worried relatives.

So, now you see what I'm up against. How can I possibly be a productive member of society when I have genes like that pulling for my total descent into Crazytown?

And now I'm going to go try to get a real nap -- one to try to make up for my lack of nighttime sleep last night. And please don't call me until tomorrow. Thank you for your consideration for my sanity.

"The Clean House": A Review

Last weekend, we went to see "The Clean House" at a theatre here in SB. Great play. This weekend is the last weekend, so if you live around here, go see it in the next 3-4 days.

TCH is a new play written by a new playwright, and there's a reason that the critics seem to think Sarah Ruhl is the next big thing. The play is funny and sad and triumphant all at the same time. Plus I like a play that only has a handful of characters so I don't get lost, as that seems to happen to me way too often.

Here's the plot, in a nutshell. The main character, Lane, is a fancy doctor with a Portuguese maid, Mathilde, that doesn't like to clean -- she's searching for the perfect joke instead. Lane's sister, Virginia, loves to clean, so she secretly helps Mathilde clean the house. When Lane's husband, Charles, runs off with Ana, Lane's life becomes a mess, until Ana gets sick and Lane has a choice to make. It's a really beautiful story, and it was well done, to boot. And only 5 characters -- I can handle that.

We have more plays coming up, so I'll be keeping you posted. I'm hoping that when you buy season tickets to see a bunch of plays you've never heard of, that you end up with a few gems in there. One down, four to go!

I Have a Special Gift

I'm bilingual. I speak timezone.

Friday Random Ten

I have decided to allow iTunes to decide what I listen to today. Here is what it gave me.

"Tunnel of Love" by Dire Straits on Money For Nothing
"Hard Times" by Wayne Watson on A Beautiful Place
"Goodbye, Goodnight" by Jars of Clay* on If I Left the Zoo
"Children of the World" by Amy Grant on WOW 1996
"Language of the Soul" by PFR* on Disappear
"To Have and To Hold" by Depeche Mode on Music For the Masses
"Wassail, Wassail" by Mannheim Steamroller on Christmas Live
"Aware of Wonder" by Geoff Moore & The Distance* on A Friend Like U
"Daytime" by Cat Stevens on Footsteps in the Dark
"White Christmas" by Louis Armstrong from a CD a friend made for me

I guess now I can complain about Christmas music even before Thanksgiving. Except I really like Christmas music, all through the year. That's why I have all that in my general library to be picked up periodically.

*Acts I've seen live.

A Word of Caution

To start with, I tend to view Texas A&M University as a bit of a microcosm of the country in general. Maybe it's because I see their tendency to be conservative coupled with their strive to be progressive, which looks rather like middle-America. Maybe it's because I really loved going to school there, and that's where I developed a lot of my world view. I don't know, but there it is. I tell you this to preface my little history lesson. Texas A&M was founded in 1876 as an all-male military school. In 1963, the first black and female students were accepted and began attending the university (1 and 2). Blacks were admitted at equal status (always with the "legally" on this one, unfortunately) with whites in 1964 (1). Women achieved equal admittance status with men in 1971 (2). In 1976, Fred McClure was elected the first black student body president at A&M (1). Brooke Rollins was elected the first female student body president in 1994 (3).

I share this not to say that women have it worse than blacks, but to throw out a word of caution to all Democrats out there. I do not believe that this country is ready for a female president. Much the same that A&M embraced blacks in the student body more readily than women, the US can handle a black man in the presidency right now more readily than a woman. And here's a bold prediction that I'll make a year ahead of time: if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, we will have another Republican in office for the next four years.

It's an issue that has plagued powerful women for centuries: How do you make it look like you're as capable as a man in "manly things" without diminishing what it is that makes you female? Can a woman be powerful and feminine at the same time? Look at Hillary -- everything about her is criticized in the press. If she dresses like a businesswoman, she looks "boxy"; if she wears something flattering, she's being a tease (4). If she's too serious, then she's cold and calculating, but if she tries to lighten things up, her laugh is ridiculed. She just can't win....and that's kinda my point.

Right now we can't even stomach the thought of a woman as our boss (5). If a female boss is met with resistance, can we really take a female political boss? There has been a lot of talk about whether a woman belongs in the military (6). Can a female Commander-in-Chief be respected? I don't think she can. And she will mobilize an opposition faster than you can say "Hillary".

Months ago, I opined (that's my new favorite word, "opined". Do you like it, too?) that the Republican party was smearing Barrack Obama because they wanted to see Hillary win the Democratic nomination. And it's working so far (7). And, I'd venture to say that a significant amount of her money is coming from the Republican party -- people that want to ensure that she has enough money to beat Obama and Edwards (either of which I believe could beat any Republican nominee that they put forward).

So, I reiterate what I've said before. Stop supporting Hillary. She can't win, and I don't want to see another Republican in the White House for a while. I'd love to see her drop out of the race for the good of the party, but that seems to be too much to ask. Let's switch our focus, though, to Obama vs. Edwards. And the decision isn't which one to pick for president, but whether we have an Obama/Edwards ticket or an Edwards/Obama ticket. I currently believe Edwards/Obama would be more winnable, and currently, that's all I want. A winnable ticket to be put forward by the Democratic party in 2008. Please vote in your Democratic primaries as they come up. And please don't vote for Mrs. Clinton.

Please? Pretty please? Is that really so much to ask?

References
1. Resource from the Cushing Library on the history of African Americans at Texas A&M University.

2. The history of Texas A&M, as recorded in the Texas State Handbook.

3. News release from A&M regarding a speaking engagement by Ms. Rollins.

4. An LA Times article about Hillary's clothing choices.

5. An Economist article about the perceptions of being disciplined by a male or female boss.

6. A history of women in our military.

7. ABC News coverage of polling in Iowa placing Hillary well in the lead.

Serious Talent Found Here

This weekend I noticed something strange on my leg: five parallel scabs that looked like they had to be caused by a bike gear and a yellow-purple bruise underneath them. The weird part was that I don't remember getting these injuries. Based on the age of the scabs, they correspond with Tuesday when I last rode my bike, but how can you cut your leg and just not notice?

Then, last night, I was frying fish, and splattered oil on my neck. Ew, oil burn. This morning I see I also got a splatter on my shoulder, but I didn't notice that one. Oops. Now I'll have a nice scar for that one. How do you not notice your flesh burning?

I'd like to think this has something to do with some astronomically high threshhold for pain. But, somehow I doubt it. It's more likely a study in distraction's effect on pain.

OSF: "Romeo and Juliet" Amazing Despite...

Last weekend we had tickets to see "Romeo and Juliet" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. As part of that, I took Monday off work, and therefore have been behind all week, and thus Saturday is the first chance I have to post about it.

First, let me say that Ashland is beautiful. I'd never been before, but it's just like a painted picture of small-town America. Cute houses, cute shops, friendly people. And with fall really coming in, the colors were starting to change, and there was snow on the mountains. Good stuff.

We went because we know someone in the company and he got us tickets. I'll just leave it at that to protect his privacy and to keep him from being overwhelmed with requests for free tickets. I'll call him Pete for the rest of this post. We went up and stayed in Pete's apartment while he stayed with his girlfriend for the weekend. It was nice to stay in a place with a kitchen and where you can feel comfortable. It helps that we've known him a long time.

But after seeing the play, I can't understand why we waited so long! We're obviously dunderheads, and that's the only explanation. And if you have a chance to go to a play in any of their three theatres, please do so. They've announced the 2008 season already, so pick out the time to go, the plays to see, and get on it already! We will be seeing everything we have time to see next year, because we've been bitten with some kind of bug now.

So, on to the play. We went Sunday night, and all day it was looking like it was going to rain. Two of the three stages are indoors, but the Elizabethan Stage (where R&J was to be) is outdoor. This is neat in a lot of ways, but when it's cold and rainy, it's just sucky for everyone involved. Pete had gotten us tickets in the balcony, so we were covered by the partial roof that is there to help with acoustics. He obviously knew something we wouldn't realize as first-timers -- we hadn't brought all our warmest clothes and raingear. But, as I said, with the roof, we were fine. And I'm not too worried about the folks on the floor -- they all seemed prepared and seemed fine. The actors, however, had to perform in abysmal conditions. The rain started out light, but we were barely into the second scene before they started slipping around on the stage.

They were troopers, but six of them got hurt falling down, and one guy's hearing aid shorted out. That's crazy to expect actors to perform in those sorts of conditions. And I don't want to be at a performance that's just going on because they don't feel they can quit. By the time we got to the morning after bedroom scene with Romeo and Juliet wearing next to nothing under a soaking wet down comforter and wet stringy hair, the play had changed from being about Shakespeare's witty language and action-filled plot. It was about being in awe of these actors and what they were having to deal with. And that's all fine and dandy, but I didn't go to see a test of the human will to persevere. I think that was a different play or something.

All in all, I got a different (better) understanding of parts of the story, and it was wonderful to see it done by experts. As an artistic license thing, they tried to augment the difference between the young and older generation by dressing the old folks in traditional costumes, and the kids in modern-day clothes. Mercutio in a leather jacket and blue jeans was the perfect costume for him, for example. The kids all in school uniforms reminded us that they were really kids, even though Romeo and Juliet were played by mid-20s to early-30s actors.

We will be back. You just won't see us crying over a cancelled play if the weather's bad. Not here. And you should go, too.

Friday Rigged Ten (or Twelve)

Right now, I am completely addicted to the Jars of Clay album Good Monsters. This is a problem that I've written about before. It doesn't strike often, but when it does, it strikes hard. I am a victim of my own obsession, and my iTunes is a helpless bystander. I have it repeating this album over and over and over. Poor thing. It had no chance to dig up some random stuff, so I'll just share what I have it playing these days.

"Work" This song is about how life is hard. Everything is hard work -- even just living. Sometimes it seems it would be easier to just give up and die. The key line for me is I have no fear of drowning/It's the breathing that's taking all this work. This causes general doubt to set in about the purpose of life in general.

"Dead Man (Carry Me)" Here we have the imagery of being dead while we walk around in life. The songwriters appear to be talking about people that continue to go through the motions of life, but not feeling anything about anyone or anything around them. It's a basically a plea to care. I do like the picture I get in my head when they come to the lines There's something in my veins/But I can't seem to make it work, it won't work. It makes me think of all the little red and white blood cells on the side of the highway with their shovels in hand, but just sitting there.

"All My Tears" What a sweet song about going home to heaven when we die. I especially love the chorus: It don't matter where you bury me/I'll be home and I'll be free/It don't matter where I lay/All my tears be washed away. It's that whole concept of death being the final resting place of this imperfect body and the transition into the perfect body that God gives us in heaven. It's also a plea to the people left behind on earth from the dead person: So weep not for me, my friends/When my time below does end/For my life belongs to Him/Who will raise the dead again. It also helps that it has one of those sweet melodies to sort of disguise the fact that it's a song about death. Or maybe that's just part of the overall point of the song -- death isn't the terrible end thing that it is always made out to be.

"Even Angels Cry" This song captured me from the first time I heard it. It took me a long time to understand what it's about, but it's so beautiful I was my favorite early on. I'm not completely sure I get it still, but I'll take a stab at an interpretation. Bad things happen, and sometimes bad things happen to good people. Those times are even mourned in heaven, and we're not alone while we suffer through them. I can't capture the beauty of the song here, but if you ever hang out with me, I'll be happy to play it for you.

"There Is A River" We are human and we make mistakes. All the time. This is constant struggle that I find myself fighting with. I find myself doing things that I know (even while I'm doing them) that I shouldn't be doing. But sometimes I find I just can't help it. This is one of those songs that strives to make me feel better by reminding me that God still loves me and washes away those mess-ups right away. I'm especially drawn to the line Give it up, let go/These are things you were never meant to shoulder. Remember that more often, Heather.

"Good Monsters" I found myself with an original assumption as to what this song was about, and then that changed with multiple listenings. So, I think I get it now, but a nuanced song like this begs you to find another interpretation or insight with each listen. Currently, I'm in the interpretation that it's a song about the good people that do nothing. People all over the planet just let bad things happen. We don't stop the bad monsters, and that makes us good monsters. Our hearts are good, but our actions don't reflect that, so how good can our hearts be? The song declares this is caused by selfishness, and we just have to get over ourselves. The most poignant verse is this one: If good won't show its ugly face/Evil, won't you take your place?/Nothing ever changes, nothing ever changes/By itself. Okay, I get it: get out there and do something good!

"Oh My God" The haunting melody underlies the theme of this song. Every person has different events that cause them to call on God, but ultimately God hears those requests, regardless of who makes them. I love the middle section where they list off the types of people that pray -- everyone from thieves to angels to orphans to warriors to whores to preachers and plenty more. The juxtapositions of some of the various groups that end up turning to God in times of crisis is very powerful.

"Surprise" A song about dreaming. Who knew that would happen. This song is about those crazy things that show up in your dreams and surprise you. I've almost got the timing on the "surprise" encore to the song that comes up after you're sure it's over.

"Take Me Higher" I think this is a request to God to give the singer some peace, even if just for a short time. However, I am happy to hear alternate interpretations if anyone that reads this has listened to this song, or otherwise knows something I don't know.

"Mirrors & Smoke" This is a weird little song. It seems to be a bitter take on a person's struggle with marriage and love. It's done as a duet with Leigh Nash, from Sixpence None the Richer, and I think it's the only song that I don't really like on the album. Maybe it's because I don't get it and it really isn't a bitter anti-love song. I'll just leave you the last chorus, and you can make your own decision: Love's a constant mission/Truer word were never spoke/My love, it keeps you wishing/My heart, it keeps me broke. I completely agree with the first part, and if they're just trying to say that human love isn't as good as Godly love, I really think they could have done that without making marriage seem like a lost cause.

"Light Gives Heat" As the counterpart to "Good Monsters", here we have the admonition that we don't have all the answers to "save" the whole world. Accompaned by the African Children's Choir, this song hammers home who we are harming with our aid policies. As an example, take the first verse: Catch the rain empty hands/Save the children from their lands/Wash the darkness from their skin/Heroes from the west/We don't know you, we know best/But this is not a test. Clearly, we have to help in appropriate ways, and shoving Western culture and values down everyone's throat isn't the way to do that.

"Water Under the Bridge" Here's a more redeeming love song than "Mirrors & Smoke". Not a love song in the classic sense, but that's the best I can classify it. Here we have a person in a relationship that recognizes that arguments contain hurtful things that dredge up more arguments and more pain. Most of us don't deal with these things well, and it can feel like you're at war with your spouse at times. But these people are committed, and they know they can outlast the hurt they've done to each other, and we can stay/'Till the last drop of water flows under the bridge.

So, there you have it. The album that has hijacked my iTunes. Now that I've listened to it about 40 times in the last two weeks, I might be able to move on to other songs, but we'll just have to see. One must feed her addiction!

Saturday Strangeness From Around the World

Here's the strangeness that I found this week.

India Outsources Outsourcing In a bizarre shift, a few Indian technology companies are finding they have more software jobs than they can fill. So they're outsourcing them to places like Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, China, Brazil, The Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Romania, The Czech Republic, Thailand, Canada, and yes, The United States. They are focusing on "states that are less developed" like Georgia, Arizona, Idaho, and Virginia. One quote from the article says, "Such is the new outsourcing. A company in the United States pays an Indian vendor 7,000 miles, or 11,200 kilometers, away to supply it with Mexican workers situated 150 miles south of the U.S. border." What a pile of irony.

The World's Most Expensive Dessert A resort in Singapore has a dessert on the menu that they charge $14,500 for. What? According to the report, "the dessert is a gold leaf Italian cassata flavored with Irish cream, served with a mango and pomegranate compote and a champagne sabayon enlighten. The dessert is decorated with a chocolate carving of a fisherman clinging to a stilt, an age old local fishing practice, and an 80 carat aquamarine stone." Can I just have it without the gemstone and the needlessly intricate chocolate art? The rest doesn't sound too bad, as long as we're now down in the $7-10 range.

Green Eggs and Ham Ruling A federal judge in New Hampshire was prompted to issue a Dr. Seuss-like ruling this week. He received a hard-boiled egg in the mail from an Orthodox Jewish inmate who was complaining about the non-Kosher food he is served in prison. The judge's response?

I do not like eggs in the file.
I do not like them in any style.
I will not take them fried or boiled.
I will not take them poached or broiled.
I will not take them soft or scrambled
Despite an argument well-rambled.

Then the judge issued a decree regarding the egg he received.

No fan I am
Of the egg at hand.
Destroy that egg! Today! Today!
Today I say! Without delay!

I do like a poetic judge.

Man Takes Office Theft to a New Level In this story out of Berlin, an assembly line worker sneaked up to 7000 screws a day over a two year period and took them home to sell on eBay. His employer never noticed, but police were alerted when they saw he was selling large amounts of screws below market price, and they started investigating. The employer never noticed that 1.1 million screws went missing. Sounds like a new Office Space-type ploy.

House Update

Just so you don't think I'm ignoring you on this front, I thought I'd just post to say we have no news. Yes, we made an offer two and a half weeks ago, and yes, that's a really long time to not get an acceptance or counter-offer, and yes, legally there's no offer on the table any more (effectively declined). However, we are still in offer limbo, as the seller keeps asking for more time to figure things out on her side. In exchange for our patience, there are no open houses or showings until we hear back from them.

It's fine with us. We're still living in the house in the meantime, and with no showings or open houses, it's like the house isn't on the market anymore. And it's way cheaper to rent the house than it is to own it, so we'll take a few more weeks/months of the lower payment. It does mean we can't start to get to work on some of the changes we want to do, but that's okay. Instead we'll just keep socking away money so that when we do buy a house we have more that we can do. Plus, interest rates keep going down and we keep getting farther and farther away from the crazy mortgage panic that means we might be able to get a decently priced mortgage.

It's all fine. My husband is getting itchy, but I can be as patient (read that as "stubborn") as they need me to be. I figure the more time they ask for to consider the offer, the harder it will be for them to counter (since we'll just say no the longer we wait), and we may just get it for what we've asked. I'm pretty okay with that. So, as I'm in the optimistic no-news-is-good-news camp, I just thought I'd let you know that's where we are.

Saturday Strangeness from Around the World

I have decided to add a new feature to my blog. Theoretically, I think I'm strange (okay, not really, but it's the title of my blog, so I feel a certain need to prove that there is strangeness here), but the world around us is strange, indeed. So, I'm going to look through the week to find strange stories in the news and highlight them here. Here is what I found this week.

Man Reports His Missing Cocaine You can read the AP account from Wednesday, but the gist is that the stupid dude has been smuggling drugs across the Canadian border for a while, but they haven't had enough to arrest him. However, his latest exchange didn't go so well. He lost two blue backpacks containing 68 pounds of cocaine, and called the Feds and "asked if ICE could put out a news release saying that federal agents had seized the drugs. That way,...the organization he was working for would believe his statements that he hadn't stolen them." Instead, the authorities found the backpacks and arrested the guy. Try to plead "Not Guilty" now, crazy dude. I do love a good stupid criminal story.

Omnivores: The Next Protected Class? I found this one over at the International Herald Tribune, describing portions of Mumbai, India, where vegetarianism is almost its own cult. One vegetarian is quoted as saying "I'd have issues living next to a non-vegetarian person. The smell would be a problem, but it's more than that. A non-vegetarian person eats hot blood and it makes him hot blooded; he might not keep control of his emotions." The concern seems to be that as India partakes more and more in Western culture, that more people in India will eat meat, and the children of vegetarians could be corrupted. The story also talks about a lady that lives in one of these parts of the city, and the lengths she goes to to keep up the lie that she eats meat and egs. Some part of this feeling seems to be to try to keep Muslims out of Hindu residential areas. I understand religious zealotry, but this goes beyond that. This (and other stories I've seen from India) also seems to suggest that any shift toward Western ideals is going to be fought very hard there. So, to my Indian friends that eat meat -- keep using those canine teeth and don't let the vegetarians get you down!

Belgium Put on eBay This one cracks me up! A teacher posted the country on eBay, "offering free delivery, but pointing out that the country was coming secondhand and that potential buyers would have to take on over $300 billion in national debt." The funniest part, though, is that eBay "decided to pull the ad Tuesday after receiving a bid of $14 million." Ha! I suppose the teacher got what he was looking for -- some notice for his country and the crazy political turmoil they are currently in.

Legislating the 7-Year Itch From Berlin, we find this story of Gabriele Pauli, a politician from Bavaria, who suggests "that marriages [should] expire after seven years." If you really like your spouse, don't worry -- "After that time, couples should either agree to extend their marriage or it should be automatically dissolved." I have mixed feelings on this. It might reduce the divorce rate (though how many really make it to the 7-year point), but then I might have taken that way out. Seven was a bad year for us, but I'm glad now that I stuck it out. It's an odd suggestion, and I doubt it's the last time we'll hear of it.

I'll be looking for more stories for next week. I hope you enjoy hearing about zany stuff I find. I do enjoy looking for oddness in the news. It's more fun than reading only the regular depressing stuff.

Friday Random Ten

I've been on sabbatical. Or something. Like the random ten is hard on my brain. It's hard on iTunes, I tell you! Here's what I got this week.

"Just Never Say It Enough" by Wayne Watson on Home Free
"Joe" by The Cranberries on To The Faithful Departed
"Underneath The Bunker" by R.E.M. on Life's Rich Pageant
"I Can't Stop" by When In Rome on When In Rome
"In Your Care" by 4HIM on The Season Of Love
"Cry for Love" by Michael W. Smith* on WOW 1996
"House of Faith" by Geoff Moore & The Distance* on A Friend Like U
"Common Creed" by Wes King on WOW 1996
"Heaven Knows" by When In Rome on When In Rome
"La Linda" by Hewlett Crist on The Rio Grande Songs II

It's weird to have two cases of two songs from the same album in the same Ten. And this was such a sleepy set that I now just want to go take a nap. Is that bad on a Friday afternoon when there are dishes to do?

* Indicates acts I've seen live.

What Else do I Have to Learn?

Monica and James both made comments that must have been ripe for the considering. While thinking about what may be in store for us that might lead to having kids not being the best decision ever, I started to think about all this in a slightly different sort of way.

Life is a journey. Every experience you have gives you new perspective on the world around you, and helps you develop new skills that might come in handy with future experiences. There are certainly things I've done that I know I couldn't have done as well without X having happened before Y to teach me something in particular. There is definitely a desirable order to some experiences, and it's nice if things go in that direction.

So, what is the X that is supposed to happen before my Y of having kids? (Ha -- get it? Xs and Ys? Maybe it's only funny to me.) What sorts of experiences am I supposed to have (or is my husband supposed to have) in order to better prepare us for the crazy world of parenthood? Since I have no way of seeing into his brain, I'll just focus on myself. Here are the main skillsets I can see that I could use some work on pre-kids.

Patience. Couldn't we all get better at this one? My relationship with my husband has taught be quite a bit of this over the years and my sister living with us taught me how to push the limits of what I can tolerate. I am currently lightyears ahead of where I was ten years ago, but that's not really saying much. I do think I am slower to get angry than I used to be, but I'm also just slower than I used to be. I could use a little reminder to count to 10 before getting angry every once in a while.

House Maintenance. I've never been a great, or even middling, housekeeper. Dishes stack up for days. Laundry isn't always done until there are no clothes to wear. Toilets start to grow moldy, fungusy things. The refrigerator does, too. Go figure, since one of my dad's favorite sayings while I was growing up was "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." Pthbbt. Whatever. It's just never been a really high priority for me. I do clean when I know someone's coming over, and I am capable of doing the work, it's just not the first thing I do when I finish my workday, and sometimes it piles up. Living in this house that has to be kept clean for showings does help, and I'm starting to like having the house clean for us, and not just for company. Hopefully, I can keep that going if the house isn't on the market and will have learned something new. If not, I figure a messy house leads to stronger immune systems. Or I can find any other justification I need.

Sleep-Deprived Functioning. This is probably the biggest one for me right now. The thought of the first few months of nearly total sleep deprivation is a little scary. I'm a girl that really likes her 8-9 hours of sleep each night. I also like a weekend nap if I can get it in. I know in my head that when I'm exercising I can get by on less sleep, so maybe that will come into play, and I fully intend to sleep whenever I can with a little one to avoid issues if at all possible. Sleep deprivation is one of those things that depletes patience faster than anything. Not sure how else to try to teach myself these skills. A deathbed watch doesn't sound like a lot of fun. I'm not going back to school to have to pull all-nighters (those didn't work out well in college, either). Maybe I just have to exercise more so I'm in better shape and ready to take on whatever is thrown at me.

Those of you that are parents, maybe you can relate some things that you see now that you had to learn before you became a parent. I'd be interested to look for other opportunities to learn the skills that would come in handy for the fun that could lie ahead.

Strange Sound

I got up to start working this morning, and heard a strange sound outside. Wouldn't you know it -- it was raining! It didn't last long, but it did get the ground wet, which was nice to see. This is a big deal to me, because it's the first rain we've gotten out here. It rained once before, but not even enough to wet the sidewalk. This time wasn't much either -- just barely above the official "trace", but it was real rain. Rain you could hear and feel and see. It was nice.

Happy Birthday, Husband!

Today is my husband's birthday. Please don't tell him I told you, because he apparently hates his birthday. I'm a big fan of birthdays, and have decided to celebrate his, whether he wants to or not. In order to do this in a way that doesn't make him mad at me, I'm celebrating here with a list of why my husband would make a good father. (Wink, wink! There's an ulterior motive here -- see if I can convince you that he would make a good parent, maybe I'll be able to convince him one day.)

1. He's a constant learner and questionner. I believe that children learn some things about life from watching how their parents interact with the world. He loves to debate topics and experiment and research ideas and talk through something and pick up a brand new hobby and learn about it. This love of learning is infectious, and I know he'll pass that one to our kids. He'll probably also cause many visits to the ER, but that just adds to the spice of life. What kind of a childhood can it really be with no ER visits? Well, mine, but that's precisely my point -- mine was mostly boring. He would make sure that our kids' growing up wasn't boring.

2. He is tender and loving. While he is convinced that a kid would turn up on his discarded hobby-of-the-month pile at some point, I'm convinced that's not the case. I've seen him with other people's kids, and he's great. He has a Godson he writes letters to, because one day that kid will want to read them. He is quiet and kind and not afraid to cry or say he's sorry. Besides, loving a child of your own is one of those things that you can't imagine until you're a parent and then you can't imagine not being a parent again (at least that's what my parent-friends tell me). He's just too sweet a soul to become apathetic or mean to a child.

3. He is committed to his family. This overdeveloped sense of family of his is very endearing and a little maddening at the same time. His sister is not a very nice person, and takes out most of her anger on their mother. Who is the good son that talks his mother off the ledges after the shouting matches? My husband. Who still calls the sister on her birthday even though she hasn't talked to us in months? My husband. Who is constantly remarking how brilliant his 10-year-old stepsister is and talking with her mother about ideas to nurture her creativity? My husband. Who takes every call from his uncle who just wants to talk non-stop about cameras and no one ever wants to listen to him? My husband. Who is convinced my baby sister can do anything she wants if she's just encouraged enough? Well, besides me? My husband. Who offered to have my crazy sister come live with us when she hit rock bottom? My husband. I'm constantly amazed by how hard he tries to give all the family members around him what they need, even when that's not reciprocated.

4. He's encouraging. Anytime we talk about other people, his thoughts always turn to what they're great at. These observations generally have nothing to do with what he's good at. He's genuinely interested in recognizing their strengths, even if they don't notice them themselves. This is vital in parenting, as you can't just try to raise mini-mes that the parent lives vicariously through. As such, I know he would help our children explore themselves and discover the innate talents that they have and then practice them in order to better succeed as people.

5. He loves my cupcakes. I'm not certain that this will make him a good dad, but it might. Meanwhile, I better go finish them before he gets home. What's a birthday without cake?

Post-Run Post

My run this afternoon was really pleasant. Surprisingly so. Quite a bit faster than the run earlier this week. However, the best part was coming home and walking into a wonderful smelling place where someone was making dinner. Oh wait -- that was the stuff I put in the crockpot this morning! No matter, it smelled good, and was precisely the right thing for the day.

The Hill Country Had No Hills

Well, even for one day I couldn't keep up the post-a-day pace. No one really expected that to work out, did they?

Regardless, I've been trying to get back into the whole running thing, and that's been very hard and unreasonably depressing. The problem comes from the fact that when you have a city that goes from ocean to the Santa Ynez mountains in just about 10 miles, the running isn't very flat. I know I moved here from the "hill country", but Austin is only just on the edge of that topography, and you have to go to the outskirts of town to find hills like the one just out my front door here. As a result, the first few times I went running, I lasted a mile or less before I was sure I was going to die. A few days ago, I actually ran 3 whole miles again. It feels like ages since I last did that, and I was happy to finally run the whole planned distance. Well, "run" is a bit of an overstatement, but I didn't walk. Now to work on distance and speed, while continuing this not-dying feeling. I'm really looking forward to my run this afternoon.

Next year, I'm embracing the crazy topography that we have here, and will be doing the Santa Barbara Half-Marathon. Anyone want to work hills with me to prepare for it?

Purge...Didn't...Work

I thought that by typing out the thoughts I have over and over and over again that I would be able to move on to other topics. Well, by the lack of posts lately you should all be assuming that didn't so much happen.

So, while the frustration hasn't abated, I've decided to come back and bore you about our current disconnect. My husband is concerned that we have to be a certain amount of stable in order to expand our family beyond the two of this. I agree, to some extent. We are both very responsible, we have great credit, we live below our means (at least until we buy a house -- HA!), we're healthy, we're done with school, we're both employed at jobs we like that compensate us appropriately, our only debt is a 2005 Mini that'll be paid off in the next year without trying (at least until we buy a house -- HA!). We're in a good spot. Expecting to be in a more stable place seems akin to trying to buy the moon. Right now, he harps on the fact that we're renting a house that is on the market, and so we could have to move at any time. I say "So?" in my head, but I know it's a concern of his, so I try to treat it with respect. Now we've made an offer and things are moving slowly on that front, which is good, because I think we may have to back out of it.

Here's the background on my husband that you have to understand for this to make sense. He loves the idea of home. You could say he's obsessed with it. Every time he sees a "Home for Sale" sign he goes ballistic. See "home" is where you go to feel safe and loved and you're almost invincible there. People sell houses. You couldn't buy a home with all the money in the world. I have worked tirelessly to create something that he could call home. It'll never be as perfect and safe as he has in his mind (have I ever mentioned that he's such a girl sometimes?), but I think I'm getting the hang of what he's looking for: a place with discussion and debate, but not fighting; a place where projects can be done, but don't have to be; a place where good food is eaten and available for all-hours snacking; a place where people work hard and see the results; a place where one knows the surroundings, and feels reasonably sure they will stay there. I don't always manage to create all of this, but the closer I come to making our house meet these sorts of criteria the happier he is, and the more I get the things I want. I don't mean to say that I do things to try and get a measured response from him, I mean that we have a positively reinforced cycle -- one that I generally get as much out of as I put in, even if not the same sorts of things. I don't want you all to get the impression that I'm a 1950s housewife, either. He cleans and does laundry and does various projects with the best of them. I'm just home more to do more of the mundane house stuff. But he so appreciates it since he's not so depressed anymore. All this would point to buying a house and being able to be more settled -- being able to do projects around the house without a landlord's approval, etc.

But...and there is always a "but" with these things...he get's buyer's remorse more than anyone I've ever heard of. This is seriously difficult because he buys way more stuff than I do. This year, his major purchases have included some zany-looking speakers, an original-style camera, an iPhone, and more computer equipment than I care to think about. And each time, he remembers how much money this all costs, and he's sad or mad for days. The more money something costs the longer the sadness/madness lasts. When we bought his car, it lasted about a month. A house costs more than a car. I'll let you do the math. Oh, and the house has termites. And dry rot. And possibly structural issues.

So, here we are. Buy a house and help him feel more "stable" (not honestly sure that anything will make him feel more stable) and likely have buyer's remorse for a very long time OR don't buy a house and try to convince him that we're stable as we are. Neither sounds like Heather will be a parent for the next several years. Oh, and either way there's no moving -- just the same house we're living in now which we both really like. And, while it's a really big move for us, his employer is helping out a lot, so it's actually a manageable house purchase for us.

And different posts are coming. I promise to force myself to post about other topics for a while. Here are some topics that I will be posting about soon:

privacy vs. openness
our recent bike tour of the area
attempts at running in this town
updates on the house we're trying to buy

I might even try a week of posting every day, but let's not get too crazy here in our expectations.