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Thank goodness for email, because I would have a much harder time doing any of these house-related things if I actually had to call people. Well, really I'd be making poor G. call everyone, so it's a good thing for both of us being able to email instead. We have a giant hole in the ground now, with concrete and rebar sticking up everywhere. My father is faithfully going over to take pictures every week or so (because they live a little closer to the property than we do); maybe when he takes one on a sunny, clear day so that our wonderful view is apparent, I'll post one. We met with some prospective cabinetry/woodworking guys a couple of weeks ago, because they wanted to discuss our needs with us in person before making the bid. Given the number of bookshelves in the house, not to mention the secret door (which we had a lot of fun trying to figure out), that seemed a wise plan. Now they're the official cabinet guys, and we need to meet with them again in order to choose woods and finishes and finalize the design. I still want to have this on the library ceiling (thanks to ![[info - personal]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) jonquil, from whom I'm fairly sure I got that link). I should remember to tell our builder that at some point, maybe. This entry was originally posted at http://gwyneira.dreamwidth.org/20138.html. There are  comments on that post.Tags: house
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Man, I think I'm going to have trouble hitting 50 before the end of the year. It's a good thing Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up, since I'm sure I can sneak some new recipes into the big family dinners. #36: chili mac, from Cook’s Illustrated Cover and Bake: Cook's calls this "a favorite childhood comfort food", and I think maybe you have to have had it in childhood for it to work for you. Basically, it's chili (no beans) mixed with elbow macaroni covered with cheese and baked. It tasted fine (though the macaroni failed to partake of the chili flavor much) and was easy to make, but really, I'd just as soon have either chili or mac and cheese separately. #37: romaine salad with chicken, cheddar, apple, and spiced pecans, from Cook's Illustrated The Best Chicken Recipes: I didn't bother making spiced pecans and I played with the proportions a bit, but I thought this was a good, fairly easy, filling dinner-type salad. I particularly liked the cubes of cheddar (I used English Coastal cheddar and the dressing, which has, among other things, dried cranberries, cranberry juice, and shallots: a nice mix of sweet and tangy. #38: risotto with corn, spicy sausage, and wilted arugula, from Fine Cooking issue #100: I cheated and used frozen corn, because I kept forgetting to make this while there was still fresh corn; I had to mash some of the corn instead of grating it off the cob. (I also used baby spinach instead of arugula.) I think it would have been better with fresh corn, but I liked the balance of flavors: sweet corn, spicy sausage, garlicky spinach. G. liked it, and he has high risotto standards. This entry was originally posted at http://gwyneira.dreamwidth.org/18163.html. There are  comments on that post.Tags: 50 recipe challenge, cooking
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When we went to New York a couple of years ago, two of our best restaurant experiences were at Stanton Social, where we had wonderful food for sharing with kickaha and ginkgo, and at Artisanal, where we had fabulous cheeses. (The third was Lupa, featuring gnocchi that were actually pillow-like, as they're supposed to be.) A week or two ago, G. noticed a new restaurant in Bellevue: Artisanal Brasserie. Yup, run by the same folks. Yup, we'll be going there as soon as we can figure out when. And a week or two before that, I got my new issue of Fine Cooking and noticed they had a French onion soup article. I flipped to it, and lo and behold, there was the recipe for French onion soup dumplings! By the chef at Stanton Social! I haven't made them yet, because they look like kind of a pain in the ass (unsurprisingly), but I think I have my mother convinced to help me try making them. French onion soup dumplings yay! Now I guess I need to figure out how to make really, really good gnocchi. (Mine are pretty good, but not the ambrosial ones I had at Lupa.) Tags: cooking, food
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There is absolutely no such thing as reading but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry arbours, but it was labor thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teasing, like so many coquets, that will have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By the midnight taper, the writers digests his meditations. By the same light we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, the odour.-- Charles Lamb (quoted in Anne Fadiman, At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays) I don't know that this holds for everyone, but it's certainly true for me, confirmed night owl that I am. I can read during the day, but I'm much more prone to being distracted by thoughts of something I simply must do right now. In the evening, I can concentrate, and either those distracting thoughts don't come, or I can shrug them off until tomorrow. I look forward all day to my quiet evening reading in my favorite chair, with a big mug of tea to drink and cats draped all over me. When is your favorite time of the day to read? Tags: commonplace book, reading
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) care_faith_hope is a fandom auction to benefit my friend, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) faithhopetricks and her husband, who is in immediate need of life-saving heart surgery. They have no health insurance and no savings. Both have other potentially life-threatening conditions which have gone untreated or poorly treated due to their lack of health insurance. (And if I was saddened before at the state of healthcare in this country, I am even more despairing about it now, having seen what they are going through right now.) More detailed information is in the user info of care_faith_hope. Some details have been left out for reasons of privacy. Please do not contact faithhopetricks to inform her of government assistance programs she can apply for. Her friends are helping her work on that. However, if you know of job openings for an IT professional in greater Seattle, her husband will be seeking a job as soon as he recovers. You can help by bidding on offers, or by posting your own offers. Current offers include homemade baked goods and candy, unique memorabilia from and a guided tour of the Jim Henson Company (I would so be bidding on this if we lived in SoCal), books signed by the authors, vids and fanfic, jewelry, handknitted items, and much, much more! I am offering a handknitted scarf and a selection of homemade jam. G. and I will also be offering one of his photography prints, once we get our act together and figure out how we want to do that (since he's in Colorado at the moment). Tags: personal, psa
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#33, Shanghai noodles with pork and bok choy, from Martin Yan's Chinatown Cooking: I liked it; G. thought it was too sweet. I'll try adding a little red pepper flake or sambal next time, but it's supposed to be sweet, so I don't want to mess with it too much lest it be too similar to Yan's jia jiang mein, which I tried last month. #34, blueberry buckle, from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: Meh. I think a fruit dessert like a buckle or crisp or cobbler should be more about the fruit than the pastry, but this was essentially a blueberry coffee cake. I mean, it wasn't a bad coffee cake (except for having too much streusel), but it wasn't what I was looking for. Next time I will try Cook's Illustrated's version, which looks much less fussy and distracting. #35, pasta and rustic slow-simmered tomato sauce with meat, from Cook's Illustrated's Italian Classics: This was delicious and really easy; I just seared some beef short ribs and then simmered them for a couple of hours in tomato sauce with a chopped onion, until the meat fell off the bones. Then I took the meat and bones out, shredded the meat and discarded the bones, and put the meat back in. The sauce ended up infused with what I can only describe as essence of beef. It was maybe a little fattier than I would have liked, so I may try trimming some fat off the short ribs next time, but other than that, it was a winner. Even Liam (aka Mr. Picky Man) liked it. Tags: 50 recipe challenge, baking, cooking
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I'm flirting with abandoning the long booklog posts for a while, because I'm feeling so dissatisfied with what I write: everything seems either too long and boring or too short and boring. I may return to it in September when Liam goes back to school and my free time increases, but I may not. We'll see what my brain thinks, I guess. Anyway, so instead of a series of posts for July, here are several books I wrote up for the Writers of Color 50 Book Challenge community, plus a straight list of everything else I read last month. Do please comment if you want to know what I thought of a particular book. ( Cindy Pon, Silver Phoenix )( Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty )( Laurence Yep, Dragon Steel, Dragon Cauldron, Dragon War )( also read )( rereads )Tags: 50 poc books challenge, booklog
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#29, spaghetti with garlic, olive oil, Parmigiano, and balsamic vinegar, from Cook's Illustrated The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles: This is a variation on the classic spaghetti with garlic and olive oil (spaghetti aglio e olio). I liked it a lot (not more than the classic recipe, just differently); G. felt that there wasn't enough garlic to compete with the balsamic vinegar and wasn't thrilled about it. I will probably try it again sometime with more garlic. #30, jia jiang mein, from Martin Yan's Chinatown Cooking: Yum, another lovely noodly dish, with hoisin sauce, pork, and vegetables. As I usually do, I used fresh jicama instead of canned water chestnuts, and I put in a lot less chili-garlic sauce, thankfully. #31, dark chocolate crackles, from Fine Cooking, Vol. 89 (recipe currently here): I knew these would be good, because they're an Abigail Johnson Dodge recipe, and I don't think I've ever baked one of her recipes that didn't turn out well. They're a little different from the chocolate crinkles I usually make (from Nancy Baggett's recipe in The International Chocolate Cookbook); they're darker and chewier (instead of fudgy) and have an intriguing flavor which comes from using brown sugar and orange extract. I'd make them again, but I wouldn't abandon the other recipe, which G. still prefers. #32, ginger-spice cookies with lemon cream, from Fine Cooking, Vol. 99 (recipe currently here): Liam had a cookie like this at a local bakery, and I remembered seeing this recipe, so I made them for a family gathering. They were pretty easy to make and a big hit: the spiciness of the cookies is beautifully set off by the lemon-cream cheese filling. Tags: 50 recipe challenge, baking, cooking
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I haven't been around much the last few days, for various reasons. G. and I spent the weekend on the peninsula hiking (and having a marvelous dinner in Port Angeles at Sabai Thai, which I highly recommend if you're ever, you know, in Port Angeles). When we got home on Sunday, the cats had finished their whole big bowl of water (the same amount I normally leave them when we're away for two days; more than that, and my parents come check on them). Smokey and Xena came and had a drink and were fine. Zeke, however, was so weak that he couldn't even jump up on the counter to get a drink from the faucet (his preferred method of water intake). We helped him, and he had several long drinks and something to eat, but he was still staggering, clearly not in control of his legs. He was just the same yesterday morning, so I took him to the vet. They kept him for tests and couldn't figure out what was wrong, so in the afternoon they had me transfer him over to the 24-hour clinic, which is staffed for overnight stays and has specialist vets who could check him out again. This is the same clinic I spent a lot of time at last summer when I had to have my mother's cat put to sleep, so visiting it again wasn't a lot of fun, especially when I was worried sick about my old beastie. When I left there yesterday, he was still on an IV and very lethargic, so of course I spent the entire afternoon and evening and night and morning worrying about him. A couple of hours ago the vet called and said that he's doing much better today and "eating like a champion" (and very affectionate, which is what the vets and their staffs always say). They looked at his tests and X-rays and charts from last year and concluded that the current problem is most likely an intense flare-up of the pancreas and liver problems he was having last year: scary, but since he's improving, not by any means the worst thing that could have happened. Zekie is coming home this afternoon, and if he keeps improving, then I just continue to keep an eye on him. I'll take him back in as soon as he shows any signs of lethargy or weakness. I'll pet him and appreciate him and thank my lucky stars that this wasn't the end of his sixteen years with me. Tags: cats, personal
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Because it is too hot to do anything else, I am watching "Chess in Concert" (omg fabulous) and painting my toenails. The pink polish I just bought (the appropriately named OPI Feelin' Hot Hot Hot) is a little on the hot pink side for me, so I'm thinking I might put a different top coat on to tone it down a little. So...a totally frivolous poll! Poll #1437484 Toes of many colors
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8 What color should the third coat of polish on my toenails be? Tickybox prefers... And if you're in the mood for polls, go vote in G.'s current poll, because I feel that I need some mental preparation time for whatever's going to happen to him next. (Your regularly scheduled slightly less frivolous programming will resume next week when the temperature has resumed a reasonable level.) Tags: polls, silliness
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Look, I gardened today. Only until it got too hot, which was rather early, but better some than none. 1) Fish fertilizer smells truly dreadful. I forget this a little and am reminded every year when I apply it to the roses. 2) I have a love/hate relationship with the ferns along the east border. On one hand, I love that they fill up holes between plants. On the other, I hate that they overgrow plants I'd like to be able to see. It seems as though every time I go out I'm having to rip some out from around Blanc Double de Coubert and the spirea. 3) There's a fine, fine line between wearing enough to be protected from thorns and wearing too much for the heat. I think I didn't quite figure that out right today. I ended up in my exercise bra, biking shorts, and sandals; now I have scratches all over me except on my hands and forearms, which were properly attired in my pruning gloves (my very, very hot pruning gloves). Tags: garden, pictures, roses
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Three favorite roses (right now; might be different next week): - Graham Thomas- Gertrude Jekyll- Maiden's BlushThree minor miracles: - the evergreen clematis I planted last year died, but the clematis I'd previously had planted there and accidentally pulled up came back from the roots and is clambering up the gazebo - the Quatre Saisons rose G. accidentally stepped on came back and has one bloom - the apricot tree came back from what appeared to be the brink of death and sprouted lots of new twigs and leaves Three problem areas I need to work on: - the back bed where the grass is encroaching into the border - under the snowdrop tree, which is really hard to weed - the whole area by the driveway and the workshop Three herbs I harvested and dried this week: oregano, Greek oregano, catnip Tags: garden, roses
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