Hey, always happy to help a blogger's cause. And I need to get back on the actual planning wagon after a week's "vacation" (being away with the kids...not a vacation exactly but a change of scenery).
Tuesday: Fine Cooking pork loin with cumin scented tomatoes, couscous
Wednesday: leftovers, with okra and tomatoes (oh yes, that's CSA food right there)
Thursday: chicken tandoori, rice, something from veg box
Friday: pizza night!
Sat & Sun are a friend's bbq and an Eagle Scout party so I'm off the hook.
Woohoo! Congrats Lara!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
A Series of Questions I'm Having Trouble Answering
We finally saw An Inconvenient Truth this weekend. (I know, welcome to 2005. I was busy.) By about the 30th minute, I was already agitated to see Al Gore in all those planes. And limos. Ummm...1000 lectures is a lot of fossil fuels. Which I would have figured out anyway but to then acutally watch him on all those planes well nigh drove me crazy. So, question 1: what was he thinking?
Question 2: Am I the only one who grew up in a hippy-dippy-ish enough town to have learned by junior high that there was a huge likelihood of oil running out in our lifetimes, and if not ours, then our children's? I absolutely remember looking at population graphs, graphs of oil usage, and estimates of how much oil there is at all, and how much oil there is that is at all accessible (using late 1970s technology). There was a big gas crisis then, too, so it was on people's minds. And then...what? We all got stupid? A friend of mine has a husband who is an economist with a big energy company. I laughed when I learned this and said, Oh, so you knew $4.20 gas was coming and were stockpiling, then? And she laughed too and said no, but pretty much everyone in his company has been saying for a few years that by 2020, alternate fuels will have to have come of age because oil will be so prohibitive. I smiled but was blanching inside, thinking of my friends in the computer industry, preparing for Y2K (remember that?), and finding things in 1962 manuals saying things like, "Of course this program will only work until 1999. But really, we can't imagine anyone will still be using this technology in 1999 so we didn't create a workaround." And so there were my friends in 1999, creating a workaround. Point being, no one seems to have a decent workaround here, and I'm thinking I'd better fly to California this summer before it's not even a possibility for us anymore.
Question 3: What do I do with garlic scapes? These charming things came in my CSA box a week or two ago. And the New York Times seems to have served me well once again, as did my friend who splits our share with us (she roasted hers with potatoes...yum).
Question 4: Where is this blog going? I was devolving in to a not-at-all interesting food blog. And I'm trying to figure out what to do next.
Though it must be noted, speaking of food blogs, that I tried the Smitten Kitchen Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble and it rocked my world.
And while I'm rambling in to "update" territory, my composting continues, though I was so grossed out by the contents when I tried to lift the whole Earth Machine to fix it once and for all that I just slammed the top half back down in horror. I am now thinking that the woman I read about somewhere who just had an old blender she used to chop her scraps of compostables every night and just dumped it in her garden as is had the right idea. And I'm sure I will uncover an old blender around here somewhere as we keep going through stuff. OrgJunkie would be proud of us this week as we donated 10 pieces of furniture, I forgot to count how many bags of clothes, passed on lots of the baby stuff to my sister-in-law, and recycled two station wagon trunk-fulls of paper and cardboard. Alas, there is no discernable difference in my house from all this. Which is not inspirational. The idea was to get the basement in shape as a playroom. It's closer, but it still houses all our currently un-hung posters, a huge stereo, circa 1967, and about seven boxes of records, from both sets of grandparents as well as my parents' and my own. Which leads to...
Question 5: What does one do with a lifetime collection of records? Particularly if it is not my own lifetime? I have so many genres, known and unknown, it's been hard to find someone interested in everything, and I am not interested in going through each one to figure out which are Motown and which are something else. And my recycling little heart won't just let me chuck them.
Question 6: How am I going to get my suddenly-obsessed-with-the-Yankees son in to Yankee Stadium before it closes? (I know, they'll build a new one and he'll never know the difference. But I will.) Stupid books, getting him interested in places that are hard to go.
Question 7: How do I deal with the petty nastiness of sibling rivalry? I had no siblings and am grateful every day I watch and hear my sons have pointless arguements and lunge for things they forgot they owned but now covet above all else because my brother is holding it. I cannot remember the last time I fixed myself a drink from nerves, but last night I made mojitos. Which brings me to ...
Question 8: Did you know that rum does eventually go bad? And when it does, it smells like industrial strength disinfectant? I was under the impression that alcohol lasted forever. But apparently the Bacardi from my trip to Puerto Rico with my mother in 1991 for the first MLK Holiday weekend ever was ready to give up the ghost. And right when I really wanted a drink, too. I suppose I should check the other liquors in our cabinet since many of the bottles are leftover from our wedding. (That's 1995 if you were wondering. I certainly was; I just had to take off my ring to check. I thought it was 1996. Really, it's been such bliss it doesn't feel a day over 12 years.)
Meanwhile, I was gasping for air from laughing reading Finslippy's labor post, and the one that inspired her to write it. Note: if you have not actually labored yourself, I don't know that you will find a bit of entertainment. But if you have brought a child out of your body, I'll be shocked if you don't laugh at something in these posts. And on the less funny side, a shameless plug for Anjali's post, here, which is really staying with me.
As Jon Hodgman twitters, that is all.
Question 2: Am I the only one who grew up in a hippy-dippy-ish enough town to have learned by junior high that there was a huge likelihood of oil running out in our lifetimes, and if not ours, then our children's? I absolutely remember looking at population graphs, graphs of oil usage, and estimates of how much oil there is at all, and how much oil there is that is at all accessible (using late 1970s technology). There was a big gas crisis then, too, so it was on people's minds. And then...what? We all got stupid? A friend of mine has a husband who is an economist with a big energy company. I laughed when I learned this and said, Oh, so you knew $4.20 gas was coming and were stockpiling, then? And she laughed too and said no, but pretty much everyone in his company has been saying for a few years that by 2020, alternate fuels will have to have come of age because oil will be so prohibitive. I smiled but was blanching inside, thinking of my friends in the computer industry, preparing for Y2K (remember that?), and finding things in 1962 manuals saying things like, "Of course this program will only work until 1999. But really, we can't imagine anyone will still be using this technology in 1999 so we didn't create a workaround." And so there were my friends in 1999, creating a workaround. Point being, no one seems to have a decent workaround here, and I'm thinking I'd better fly to California this summer before it's not even a possibility for us anymore.
Question 3: What do I do with garlic scapes? These charming things came in my CSA box a week or two ago. And the New York Times seems to have served me well once again, as did my friend who splits our share with us (she roasted hers with potatoes...yum).
Question 4: Where is this blog going? I was devolving in to a not-at-all interesting food blog. And I'm trying to figure out what to do next.
Though it must be noted, speaking of food blogs, that I tried the Smitten Kitchen Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble and it rocked my world.
And while I'm rambling in to "update" territory, my composting continues, though I was so grossed out by the contents when I tried to lift the whole Earth Machine to fix it once and for all that I just slammed the top half back down in horror. I am now thinking that the woman I read about somewhere who just had an old blender she used to chop her scraps of compostables every night and just dumped it in her garden as is had the right idea. And I'm sure I will uncover an old blender around here somewhere as we keep going through stuff. OrgJunkie would be proud of us this week as we donated 10 pieces of furniture, I forgot to count how many bags of clothes, passed on lots of the baby stuff to my sister-in-law, and recycled two station wagon trunk-fulls of paper and cardboard. Alas, there is no discernable difference in my house from all this. Which is not inspirational. The idea was to get the basement in shape as a playroom. It's closer, but it still houses all our currently un-hung posters, a huge stereo, circa 1967, and about seven boxes of records, from both sets of grandparents as well as my parents' and my own. Which leads to...
Question 5: What does one do with a lifetime collection of records? Particularly if it is not my own lifetime? I have so many genres, known and unknown, it's been hard to find someone interested in everything, and I am not interested in going through each one to figure out which are Motown and which are something else. And my recycling little heart won't just let me chuck them.
Question 6: How am I going to get my suddenly-obsessed-with-the-Yankees son in to Yankee Stadium before it closes? (I know, they'll build a new one and he'll never know the difference. But I will.) Stupid books, getting him interested in places that are hard to go.
Question 7: How do I deal with the petty nastiness of sibling rivalry? I had no siblings and am grateful every day I watch and hear my sons have pointless arguements and lunge for things they forgot they owned but now covet above all else because my brother is holding it. I cannot remember the last time I fixed myself a drink from nerves, but last night I made mojitos. Which brings me to ...
Question 8: Did you know that rum does eventually go bad? And when it does, it smells like industrial strength disinfectant? I was under the impression that alcohol lasted forever. But apparently the Bacardi from my trip to Puerto Rico with my mother in 1991 for the first MLK Holiday weekend ever was ready to give up the ghost. And right when I really wanted a drink, too. I suppose I should check the other liquors in our cabinet since many of the bottles are leftover from our wedding. (That's 1995 if you were wondering. I certainly was; I just had to take off my ring to check. I thought it was 1996. Really, it's been such bliss it doesn't feel a day over 12 years.)
Meanwhile, I was gasping for air from laughing reading Finslippy's labor post, and the one that inspired her to write it. Note: if you have not actually labored yourself, I don't know that you will find a bit of entertainment. But if you have brought a child out of your body, I'll be shocked if you don't laugh at something in these posts. And on the less funny side, a shameless plug for Anjali's post, here, which is really staying with me.
As Jon Hodgman twitters, that is all.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
If You Get the Chance...
...go here. It was an amazing dinner. The lamb was amazing and I don't even like lamb.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
MPM
Greetings, menu seekers!This is another week with some half-baked (ha ha) excuse for inspiration. (Of course, REAL inspiration is arriving shortly in the form of The Best Babysitter Ever--woohoo!--so I might be varying from this while she enjoys a "real" kitchen again.)
Monday: out to dinner. Our anniversary is actually Tuesday, but we have the sitter tonight, so there it is. Hubby is surprising me with the place so that should be fun.
Tuesday: Leftover stir fry. Those chicken burgers never happened; I got distracted by Don't Eat Baby's stir fry. I had extra meat (don't ask; not paying attention at the butcher's at all) so despite having the largest head of bok choy I'd ever seen, the veggies are gone and all I have left is steak. So I'm adding broccoli and snow peas to finish it off.
Wednesday: Finally, those chicken burgers. Yum. Big salad, and probably more asparagus. Might try this recipe from the freebie healthy food magazine my stores give out. (Because yes, in a fit of delusion I actually purchased red lentils for some other recipe I will never get to in a jillion years.)
Thursday: Veggie day again. Probably leftover chicken burgers but with new and different sides. For my son's sake, I'll probably make baked tomatoes. I don't know how the rest of the world makes 'em, but here, I cut a tomato in half across the equator of the tomato, squeeze out most of the seeds, and fill with the amazing homemade bread crumbs from my sister-in-law's Italian mother-in-law. (I don't think there's an easier way to explain that.) Then I pop under the broiler in my toaster oven and watch like a hawk so they don't burn. Sometimes, when I feel inpired, I drizzle or spritz with olive oil. My son will easily eat an entire tomato this way.
Friday: Pizza at the pool. Lovin' summer.
Happy week, everyone.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
For Those with Real Flooding Problems
My IRL and blog friend Ruth figured out a way to donate to flood relief online.
Even the minor flooding in my basement this weekend caused me angst. And it's NOTHING compared to the great folks in Iowa.
I've been lucky enough to visit these communities, meet their kids, and see their fields that are currently new lakes.
And due to other disasters, the Red Cross is actually out of money to help.
If you have $5 or more to donate, please click through Ruth's site or here. Thank you.
Even the minor flooding in my basement this weekend caused me angst. And it's NOTHING compared to the great folks in Iowa.
I've been lucky enough to visit these communities, meet their kids, and see their fields that are currently new lakes.
And due to other disasters, the Red Cross is actually out of money to help.
If you have $5 or more to donate, please click through Ruth's site or here. Thank you.
Monday, June 16, 2008
MPM--Welcome Summer Edition
Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a fabulous Father's Day. We had family over for a barbecue, which, of course, my house celebrated in the usual fashion: by breaking something and causing a flood. I am starting to think my house has a personality disorder and gets huffy on holidays. Usually it's the sewer line. Yesterday it was one of the air conditioning units. There are towels all over the basement. Gotta love it. At least we had a techie brother in law and nephew already here for dinner and they could lend mechanical assistance, moral support, and help mop. And, of course, this is NOTHING compared to what all those Iowans are going through. (Though interestingly my house also flooded during Katrina, so maybe it's a sympathy thing?) Even my minor flood is a complete pain in the patoot and I can only imagine what they are going through there.Oh, yeah, dinner.
Monday: BBQ leftovers for me (lots of good salads, including this one, which is even better today, and this one, an old favorite, though I used vinegar instead of lemon juice) and probably sandwiches for the kids as Dad is working late.
Tuesday: the "real" BBQ leftovers (hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken) for the boys as I'm out at a goodbye party for someone I used to work with.
Wednesday: I'm out to dinner again (woohoo!) so I'll bet you now the rest of the family has noodles.
Thursday: My favorite chicken burgers. (Can't wait to try Oprah's favorite turkey burgers, but that will have to wait for some other week when I don't have the ingredients for this.)
Friday: Out for pizza, of course. I can live with this.
Have a good week, everyone. May everything and everyone you love stay safe and dry. For more inspiring menus, try here.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
WFMW--Wireless Mouse & Keyboard Warning & Tech Solution
Hey, WFMW folks! I've been out of the loop for some time because my computer was on the fritz. No one could figure out what to do. My virus protection found nothing, my spyware zappers were going aces, and yet I had all these strange things happening to my computer. If I hesitated in typing at all, the cursor would slide backwards in my word or sentence, sometimes jumping back to the start of the line, paragraph, or page. And my web browser and other windows couldn't "hold" a page, and with no prompting at all, or when I tried to click on something, would instead go back to the home page, or up a folder, until I was back at "my computer." When I called for tech support, they were ready to just reload my whole computer to start over.Then I got lucky and mentioned it to an IT guy at work. "Hmm..." he said, "The sliding cursor sounds like a keyboard issue, but that's pretty strange."
Well. Thank you IT guy. I came home, unplugged my keyboard and wireless mouse, plugged in my old keyboard (which thankfully worked) and a new wired mouse (since my old mouse's death prompted me to buy the wireless ones to begin with). And suddenly, my problem that multiple techies couldn't solve, was completely gone. The entire thing works fine and dandy again.
Now that it's working, I have been able to do some research and have found that bluetooth devices can interfere with wireless keyboard and mouse systems, causing these exact problems. But in my long (over 2 months!) search for some assistance with this, not one tech person ever asked if I had a wireless mouse &/or keyboard.
I hope this never happens to you. But if you do have these issues, try a new keyboard and mouse first. I still miss my wireless for lots of reasons, but I missed my computer more. And cheap solutions work for me! What's working for other people? Check Shannon's blog to find out!
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