Food

Well, here's some of my culinary output in the last two months or so.

Baked ricotta, with lemon and black pepper. Good on bread.

French lentils: beautiful itty bitty ones, mottled grey and green and even a little blue. Not the average drab dust-colored ones. I cooked them with caramalized red onions and lots of red wine, and I think cumin. They turned out marvelous, simultaneously sweet and savory. So good!

Fried egg in a corn tortilla, simmered black beans from the NY Times recipe (now one of my favorite recipes---you must never never never buy canned beans again!), avocado, and paprika sprinkled over top. I love paprika; it's now one of my favorite spices, up there with ginger and cumin and white pepper.

Homemade pizza with all the works. My dad especially liked this one. I think it was the little bit of sugar in the Penzey's pizza seasoning. (Usually I add the salt before I remember the pizza seasoning; and since the pizza seasoning already has salt in it, I forego it.) Oh, the other spice I've discovered I really like: fennel seed. Good on pizza too.

Company appetizer platter.

My brother's graduation cake, from an Ina Garten recipe.

Half-frosted: see the dark cake underneath? I didn't care too much for the frosting (my mom really liked it though) but the cake was lovely. It would work particularly well in an icecream cake. I would just like a bit with some melted chocolate, berries, and some almonds.

In the early stages. One of my best frosting jobs, actually. The frosting was very forgiving. I just don't particularly care for frosting: too much extra stuff. Just give me the chocolate.

remind me to read this

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, Matthew B. Crawford.

From his essay for the New York Times, May 21:

A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this.
Nor can big business or big government — those idols of the right and the left — reliably secure such work for us. Everyone is rightly concerned about economic growth on the one hand or unemployment and wages on the other, but the character of work doesn’t figure much in political debate. Labor unions address important concerns like workplace safety and family leave, and management looks for greater efficiency, but on the nature of the job itself, the dominant political and economic paradigms are mute. Yet work forms us, and deforms us, with broad public consequences.

I wonder if I could make myself do it

From ND Wilson's blog:
As is the case with most things that I say, this is stolen. But this isn’t stolen from another writer, this is stolen (and adapted) from a music video/film guy friend.
If you want to be a writer (professionally and not just as a hobbyist), here’s a litmus test for your dedication. Can you get up early and write a short creative sketch of the sunrise (oh, say, 250 wds)? Then can you do it again tomorrow? And the next day? Can you write 30 descriptive sketches of 30 consecutive sunrises? The simple exercise in discipline is hard enough, and it will tell you just how much you actually want to write. But on top of that, the writing component is quite difficult as well. How do you see the sunrise in a new way every morning? How do you express it in a new way? Can you get through the verbal cliche-flailing, and actually create 30 distinct scenes?
Adapt the exercise if you want. Stand in the same place every night and try to sketch 30 consecutive midnights. I have one student doing daily sketches of the same glass of wine. If you do try to do this (no matter how good you might already be), you will learn a lot about yourself as a writer, and you’ll have to move in new ways through the English language. Get off the worn footpaths of description. Kick through walls. Climb fences. Trespass.
As is the case with most things that I say, this is stolen. But this isn’t stolen from another writer, this is stolen (and adapted) from a music video/film guy friend.
If you want to be a writer (professionally and not just as a hobbyist), here’s a litmus test for your dedication. Can you get up early and write a short creative sketch of the sunrise (oh, say, 250 wds)? Then can you do it again tomorrow? And the next day? Can you write 30 descriptive sketches of 30 consecutive sunrises? The simple exercise in discipline is hard enough, and it will tell you just how much you actually want to write. But on top of that, the writing component is quite difficult as well. How do you see the sunrise in a new way every morning? How do you express it in a new way? Can you get through the verbal cliche-flailing, and actually create 30 distinct scenes?
Adapt the exercise if you want. Stand in the same place every night and try to sketch 30 consecutive midnights. I have one student doing daily sketches of the same glass of wine. If you do try to do this (no matter how good you might already be), you will learn a lot about yourself as a writer, and you’ll have to move in new ways through the English language. Get off the worn footpaths of description. Kick through walls. Climb fences. Trespass.

http://ndwilson.com/blog/

Yogi tea-worthy

A gem of wisdom from my Greek professor: In giving an answer, "if you don't know what the question is, you're just blogging."

He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent away empty-handed

Look you Floridians: see that sky? There's nothing in the way. It's like the roof got lifted. No haze of humidity pressing down on you; you just stare up into the sky and it makes you giddy.

I still think of this cute spot as my little house, even though I only live in the upstairs apartment. And see the lawn? It's actually green. Rob (downstairs) plowed amd seeded it with the help of his brother-in-law; last year it was a mess of dirt, rocks, and weeds.

Yellow crocus.

Purple crocus. They are actually a deeper purple than this, but my camera isn't able to capture their intensity.

I wish I could take pictures like Georgia O'Keefe painte, but my camera doesn't like getting too intimate with its subjects.

Last bits of snow.

They're just too fabulous; I can't ignore them.

Cooking adventures: tomato soup with lots of spices. Those are soy nuts and cilantro on top. I've been putting soy nuts on everything; they have a lovely toasty-golden flavor and add a nice crunch.

Jambalaya

Fantastic canteloupe with plain yogurt, cinnamon, and peanut butter.

Granny smith apples and almonds on oatmeal. They were just too pretty and I was sick that day. I never liked granny smiths until rather recently. (There's a lot of things I haven't really liked until rather recently, specifically since I began my college career: paprika, cilantro, green tea, dark chocolate, red pepper flakes, plain yogurt, eggplant, squash . . .)

Tiffany stained-glass can't rival a cantaloupe.

My life has just somersaulted. So here are some lovely things to be thankful for.

Thinking about poetry . . .

This is a poem my professor read the other day; we're studying Thomas Aquinas and he thought that the poem rather echoed some of Aquinas' metaphysics. (Mr. McIntosh stated that he thought that good metaphysics and good poetry are essential to one another . . . could I say essential to one another's existence?)

Every Riven Thing
by Christian Wiman

God goes, belonging to every riven thing He’s made
Sing his being simply by being
The thing it is:
Stone and tree and sky,
Man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing He’s made,
Means a storm of peace.Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
Trying to will himself into the stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing He’s made
There is given one shade
Shaped exactly to the thing itself:
Under the tree a darker tree;
Under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
The things that bring Him near,
Made the mind that makes Him go.
A part of what man knows,
Apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing He’s made.

We got to see (and hear) Mr. Wiman read this poem aloud at our weekly student-body meeting. I wasn't able to keep up with the reading (I generally like poetry for its visual cleanness more than for its aural qualities) but it was a fair treat. I liked his presence.

the Latest

First, in the crafting department: some valentines. The heart folds into an envelope.

And then the mask I made for the school's masquerade ball:

For my culinary escapades:

Roast turkey. There are no vegetables left in the bottom because I ate them. Onions roasted with turkey, oh . . . .

From that turkey came this soup.

Egg baked in a corn tortilla. It looks rather like a cabbage (which is after all, a flower).

Isn't it pretty? Cranberries cooked with merlot, sugar, and pinch of salt. Soooooo good! Between a chutney and a jam, and good on everything. The cranberries had enough pectin of their own: the texture turned out much better than I thought it would.

On oatmeal.

On toasted tortillas. I also thinly sliced a sweet potato and baked the slices. The cranberries were an agreeable condiment.

My beautiful asparagus!


With rice pelof. I also made a red wine sauce which you can't see. It turned out a little too thin (it was actually intended to go over fish) and the rice absorbed it. Which just made the rice better.

It's so breath taking.