G+ Migration Blog

So I went and tried one of the places that serves shrimp and grits. tl;dr is would eat again. Long form: 1. I am so over industrial restaurant design. It's well done and they can get away with it as a brand new restaurant here for two reasons: it's in an area that is genuinely post-industrial, and it's in the downtown of a city whose history literally peaked at the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries, so this is arguably literal local flavor. Otoh, metal chairs are just freaking uncomfortable and it is potentially too dark to see your food at night. During the day because the street facing wall is glass, if you are on that side of the restaurant, there is plenty of light from outside. It is worth noting that they are only open for dinner, except for the weekend brunch thing. 2. I wish I had money and a driver. They have lots of interesting bourbons and some scotch, as well as a few cocktails I'd be interested in trying. 3. They do refill your coffee without charging ...

Kind of terrifying, glad I don't have to rely on this as a way of life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qGvC3vqaA&feature=player_embedded

Recent posting by one of you reminded me - Jan is when Robbie Burns nights are. So I looked and I missed the two locals I could find listed. Both were big formal deals and expensive, though. While that can be fun, I like the quiet ones in pubs and things. Oh, well, another year. :)

Dinner: Baked cod with sumac, za'atar, and "persevered" lemons in a bit of olive oil, baked cauliflower in a tahini, olive oil, ras el hanout coating, with a tahini, lemon juice, ras el hanout drizzle. Would eat again.

That Mauritius link reminded me of what I would really have done if I'd won the lottery: http://dukealumni.com/sites/default/files/docs/learn_travel/travel_programs/trip_pdfs/Madagascar2016-web.pdf http://dukealumni.com/sites/default/files/docs/learn_travel/travel_programs/trip_pdfs/Madagascar2016-web.pdf

They finally suckered me into looking at a Collection that is totally worth looking at - Mauritius. A place I would love to go and probably never will. It's gorgeous. https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/0M0Ex

Holy moly, Batman! If you look long enough, you might find anything. There are two (two!) bakeries that make king cake (traditional and modern) here. One is a relatively new place (from 2004) that got started making cakes and cupcakes and is fairly established, now. The other is possibly the last remaining old Polish bakery in the city. I mean, the bakery dates back to 1895, and the eponymous Mazureks bought it in 1933 (they sold it in 2012, but the name stayed).  I don't know when they started making king cakes, but their other stuff is really good - and they sell paczki (black raspberry filling with rum glaze) all year on Fridays and Saturdays. Now the only problem is that I am the only one here who would eat the king cake. And I do not need to eat an entire king cake. I mean, it's really just a big giant cinnamon roll .... no, nope, can't eat an entire king cake by myself. Bad, very bad http://www.mazureksbakery.com/index.html https://www.facebook.com/BlackbirdSweets/ti...

The half-moon is decidedly bright tonight.

Oh, hi. Still up. Again.

What happens if you suddenly reorganize your g+ postings into collections? Do worlds collide?

Hm. Photo at bizarre angle. Oh, well. This is what I've taken to calling the Trader Joe's quiche, otherwise known as a mushroom leek quiche. When I'm feeling lazy, I get 1 box of frozen pie crust, 1 bag of frozen "mushroom medley", 1 bag of cut frozen leeks, 1 container of "crumbled goat cheese" and make a quiche in a pie plate. It's a pretty big pie plate (9.5 or 10"). For this version I used 1 crust, wrestled into the plate, blind baked. Heated through the mushroom and leeks, with the addition of some chervil, marjoram, tarragon, and thyme. Mixed 4 large eggs with a 1/2 cup of cream and 1/2 cup of milk. Cooled crust and veggies a bit. Layered about 2/3 of veggies in crust, sprinkled container of goat cheese over, poured egg mixture over, and baked. Ta-da, quiche.

Hey, theater geeks. What do you know about If/Then ? Other than it's a  musical and Idina Menzel was in the Broadway cast, I mean. Is it worth going to Toronto to see it?

Sigh. 2016 is already fired. That is all.

Don't freak out at the clickbait headline. This article barely and toward the end starts to touch on what essentially means we make a lot of assumptions and are bad at accepting that we are wrong. This has consequences. It relates to things like how we've been manipulating food supply and what people eat for decades and that has significantly failed in its purpose - to decrease the number of deaths from heart disease. Now, technically, the numbers are falling over time, but not like they should be. If it's failing middle class white people, it's failing people of lower socio economics and deeper tans even moreso. Or our approach to addiction. Yes, it kills people. Turns out, still not as many as some other things. Also, the assumptions behind a phrase like "despair deaths" make me want to smack people. Saying that addicts died of despair is to ignore what evidence we do have and what addiction actually is. Stupid assumptions lead to stupid conclusions. Surpris...

Oh, hi. Still awake. You?

Now this is science:  https://www.themaplenews.com/story/maple-candy-research/12/

Galavant is something probably no one else is watching, but it functions as a sort of mindless brain candy that can still amuse me. It's uneven, and really needs less of the 10 year old potty humor, but it also has a rather lot of callbacks and shout outs and some occasionally high level satire. There are also puns, some of which deserve kudos, and it sends up all sorts of musical theater tropes. Also, I just realized that one of the actresses is the same who played Daisy on Downton Abbey. The opening of one of the recent episodes had the characters at a crossroads with signs that pointed to The Grove, Caves of Sporin, Red Keep, and Portlandia. The first musical number was a really good patter song parodying patter songs ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kIPc7l6nF0 ). It's also part of a whole sequence that is straight The Princess Bride . The Miracle Max stand in is named Neo, Neo of Sporin. Not the best pun ever.  Then there's a whole bit with the hero actually dying (...

Having sampled several of their products and visited their tiny little home base, I can say that I definitely approve. This is tasty chocolate with a nice texture. Plus, the bars are $6 at their place, $7 elsewhere, so measurably less expensive than more nationally known bean to bar types. They even sell a 99% baking bar, which I am seriously considering using next time I bake something with chocolate. http://darkforestchocolate.com/ http://darkforestchocolate.com

Cute:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMjYstS8l_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMjYstS8l_Y

I was trying to think of a possible backstory for Gochugaru, and found this:  http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/16736/20150917/sea-monster-giant-wolfish-caught-near-fukushima-plant.htm http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/16736/20150917/sea-monster-giant-wolfish-caught-near-fukushima-plant.htm

I heard a friend of mine quoted on the radio as a keynote speaker at a conference on the heroin/opiate/narcotic crisis and it encapsulates all the wrong perspectives/attitudes/judgments on this. The sound bite was, "Better a little pain than a lifetime of addiction." There is so much wrong with that I don't even right now. Flames, on the side of my face.

"By what ugly turn of fate is it so simple and natural to display our ugliest selves to the people who, by birth or circumstance, are fated to be our intimates? A family, even the most loving one, is not an easy or pretty union to join." Emily M. Keeler in the National Post reviewing a book called Bone and Blood.

It'd be nice to sleep through the night and not wake up every hour. Just saying.

Just noticed a typo in a recipe calling for "persevered" lemons. bwahaha

I like to listen to "q" on CBC radio because it's often got interesting content. I didn't know about this documentary or the director or the (very) long film it talks about. After I heard this I wanted to see the documentary, but no one is screening the Oscar documentaries around here (they're only screening the animated shorts). http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-monday-january-25-2016-1.3418267/how-making-shoah-nearly-killed-claude-lanzmann-1.3418354 http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/adam-benzine-holocaust-lanzmann-oscars-1.3421083   http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-monday-january-25-2016-1.3418267/how-making-shoah-nearly-killed-claude-lanzmann-1.3418354

Sour cream is not as tangy as I remember.

More reasons to stop treating people as if they are lazy criminals. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/what-does-a-calorie-measure/427089/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/what-does-a-calorie-measure/427089

Always amused by lucifer and crucifer in church. Also by the irony of the name lucifer meaning light bringer, or light carrier. Vaguely related to someone else's post.

Well, I guess it is kinda hard to work on a bridge with tons of water and debris flying at you. (These are primarily pedestrian bridges and they do need work. Because you know what's really bad for tourism? Killing tourists if a bridge collapses under them.) http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/01/25/us-officials-may-temporarily-turn-part-of-niagara-falls-into-trickle.html http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/01/25/us-officials-may-temporarily-turn-part-of-niagara-falls-into-trickle.html

Ion, it turns out bundt cakes are a finicky pain in the ... pan.

So I guess I didn't have to go have this chocolate glazed peanut butter creme filled donut at Paula's and take a picture of it?

Another list of incredible sounding food and places to eat it. I can dream, can't I? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/dining/beyond-soul-food-african-american-chefs.html?rref=dining&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Food&pgtype=Multimedia http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/dining/beyond-soul-food-african-american-chefs.html?rref=dining&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Food&pgtype=Multimedia

I guess the good news about the Mast Bros. fracas is that everyone is now highlighting all the bean to bar and small chocolate makers in the US (and elsewhere). You'd think there's already an insane number of chocolate companies out there, but no, and I have tried A LOT of different kinds of high end chocolate. Of these, though, I have only ever heard of 3, tasted 1.  While I haven't had this particular list's bar made using it, I know the specific Marañón type of cacao. It's the plant that was supposed to be extinct, then somebody found some and there was a super limited production (of which I had some when I was in Vancouver). Apparently, it has rapidly expanded and there are now several companies making chocolate bars out of it. So I've had chocolate made from that specific varietal of cacao, just not this company's chocolate made from it. Does that count as a half score? Anyway, something else to keep a list of for when I have money. http://www.nytimes.c...

Fancy pants food I need an excuse to make: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Pomegranate-Meringue-Rose-Tart http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Pomegranate-Meringue-Rose-Tart

This is the absolute best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIiHg2i1y6I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIiHg2i1y6I

Oh, god, oh, god, please tell me these taste terrible so I don't want to eat them. http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/cinnamon-bun-oreos#.fr8bdM46Y http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/cinnamon-bun-oreos#.fr8bdM46Y

It was above freezing this afternoon, so I got my car washed. What an exciting life I do lead.

Dinner. I tried making Tunisian chakchouka, or shakshouka, which is also Israeli (I think it is in Yotam Ottolenghi's "Jerusalem" cookbook). Anyway, easy, tasty, just takes some time so the sauce can do it's thing. Then you put the eggs into little wells in the sauce, cover it, and they kind of poach. I cooked it a little too long, so all the yolks weren't runny, but I didn't want uncooked whites. I also gather it is supposed to be somewhat spicy. Since my mom has to be very careful about that, I used super mild hot peppers (anaheims) which are so mild they almost aren't hot peppers at all. I think having some heat really helps, and my dad and I put ground black pepper, chili flakes, and sriracha on when we ate it. I'd at least use poblanos next time. This version: 2 Tbls olive oil (coincidentally Tunisian) 1 lg onion fine dice 2 anaheims, de-seeded, lg dice 1very large red sweet pepper, lg dice 8 cloves of garlic, cut into chunks 2 14oz. cans no salt ...

Oh, great. My mother is off on another one of her rants about how this is her house, and how we only have this house because she worked and etc. All of which is really fascinating since it's all partly true and partly her still not dealing with my dad having cancer and not dying. I mean, I get that close relationships have their ups and downs, and people have times when they can't stand each other, and people get annoyed, or angry, or irritated, or frustrated. I just really, really hate tit for tat toxic accounting games. P.S. They both contributed to having a house, details not forthcoming, but there you go. P.P.S. I know when I'm seeing someone (not) dealing with psychological and emotional issues, but it's still really unpleasant. (The observing is bad enough, the potential attempts to co-opt you into it is I can't even.)

A friend of mine took some really neat photos. I like the eerie night ones, as well as the backlit rime ice tree branches. Originally shared by Mays D https://goo.gl/photos/9BKiVzQH8ViWGUGu8

I love it when the focus is right.

Some frost and snowflakes from this morning.

You know what the best thing about this storm is? The news has stopped talking about the stupid politics for entire minutes at a time! #liningsandlemonade

Went out to move my car without a coat or rechecking the temperature. It's, uh, colder. #Darwinlovesme   #oops

I'm kinda loving looking at the guy in the down coat and goggles. He's half snow. http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/is-the-worst-of-the-storm-over/ http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/is-the-worst-of-the-storm-over

So I tried the new poutine place 'cuz it was on the way back from my interview this morning. Meh. The fries are really good fries, the cheese curds are squeaky, the portion sizes are good. The gravy is, ok. I'm not so sure I like the flavor of it. Thing is, the gravy is not hot enough to melt the cheese curds, or the cheese curds are not the best possible cheese curds, because it's supposed to melt into this delicious melange of almost like a mashed potatoes with melted cheese and gravy thing. Not quite, you should still be able to tell there are components, but the components shouldn't be so sturdy they never meld into one another. Would not eat again.

Educational, if a little depressing. https://thebillfold.com/a-story-of-a-fuck-off-fund-648401263659#.l5u215mos https://thebillfold.com/a-story-of-a-fuck-off-fund-648401263659#.l5u215mos

The celery root soup was actually last week's, but I'm slow. This is really this week's SOTW, which I made for tonight's dinner. I give you: Alpaca Stew. No, really. There's a lot of alpaca farms around here, now, and they are good for more than wool. So I got some meat at the winter farmer's market. It tastes lighter than beef, but definitely like a red meat. The farmer told me that it's very lean (it is), so it kind of either needs to be cooked hot and fast (i.e., not well done), or low and slow for a long time. Obs stew, so chose last one. This recipe would work with a lot of kinds of meat, I'm sure. I kinda made it up as I went along. It made about 2.5+ quarts. Ingredient Totals: 2-4 Tbls olive oil 1 lb. alpaca meat 2 cups Trader Joe's 2015 Vintage Ale* 10 cups beef stock 1-2 carrots about 2 sticks celery 2 large onions 3 cloves of garlic about 1 tsp dried marjoram about 1.5 tsp dried thyme 2 big sprigs of dried rosemary (so probably 1-2 Tbls) 1/...

Illustrative of an attempt at communication between me and my mother: Preface: There've been all kinds of printer problems, here, and we are on the third printer in not quite that many years. My mom likes having one that prints and copies and faxes, so she keeps getting those. I haven't tried using the newest one, which is less than a month old, and I didn't know if my mom had tried, or if it had worked. So I tried asking a yes/no question. My mom does not do yes/no questions. Please enjoy the following transcript: Have you printed anything with the printer? I copied something with the printer. Ok, but have you printed anything with it? I told you, I copied something with the printer. Ok, but the print function and the copy function aren't the same. The printer's working. So you printed something with it? I copied something. I haven't printed anything with my laptop. Have you printed anything with your desktop? It doesn't work with the desktop. So you haven...

Dear Journalists - You are looking a little jaundiced. Read the articles you are exciting the public with, please. That study being touted as how beards are so hygienic and less gross with bacteria? Wrong. The study was done because of ongoing efforts to minimize or eliminate hospital acquired infections. Or at least control them. So it only looked at hospital workers, who are known to be colonized with MRSA at a higher rate than the general population, unless a more recent study has negated that. The abstract even says, "Overall, colonization is similar in male healthcare workers with and without facial hair; however, certain bacterial species were more prevalent in workers without facial hair." That's right, your beard is not magic. But, but, prevalent! Ok, let's look at what they reported: Table II lists hairy and nekid and p-values. Where were there p of less than 0.05 difference between the two groups? 1. Staph aureus on lip - the general one, which we all have a...

My lunch - curry ramen. Went to the new ramen place, again. I was sad that they have stopped doing soba. They said it doesn't keep for very long and they weren't selling enough of it. :( But they had this new curried thing so I tried it. Except that to me it's terribly salty (a lot of things taste too salty to me), it's really yummy Japanese curry broth. This version is vegan, but you can get egg, or meat, or whatever if you want it.

What you get for mocking the Ice Gods - just enough snow fell to conceal the slick of ice beneath, right at the bottom of the steps. Fortunately my dexterity score plus saving throw enabled me to successfully deploy a calcium chloride attack and escape uninjured.

Good advice for winter driving, if it were still legal: Spike your tires, not your drinks.

Credit for finding this goes to Jeffrey Huo http://the-toast.net/2014/12/08/defeated-tolkien-estate/ #i http://the-toast.net/2014/12/08/defeated-tolkien-estate

SOTW - Soup of the Week: Celery Root. I happened to have some cream around, so that's the whiter shade of white swirl. I have no idea how you are supposed to make this soup white. You would only be able to use a tiny bit of each leek and each celery root after you trimmed all the green, brown, beige, and celadon colored bits off. Actually, maybe this is celadon colored. Anyway, it's quite healthy aside from the cream I added in this picture. Or I should say, nutritious. It's a very light but tasty soup. Lots of variations available: cook with some butter instead of part of olive oil, use white instead of black pepper, add pear or apple along with celery root. Etc. What I used: 6-8 cups of chicken broth 3 small celery roots, peeled and fibrous bits trimmed off, cut into small to medium dice 4 small to medium leeks, just the (ha) white bits cut up 2 cloves garlic, smashed or sliced 3-4 Tbls olive oil 1/4 tsp ground chipotle dash black pepper 1 tsp nutmeg Soften up the leeks i...

THEY HAVE PLUSHIES! https://shop.dumbwaystodie.com/

Highly suspicious, yet wanting to try the two local restaurants touted as serving "Southern" food. P.S. both are, in fact, supposed to be serving Louisiana food, which I would not generically call southern. One is insanely overpriced: $8 for hushpuppies, $20 for a muffaletta, just as examples. The other one is not as overpriced, but includes things on the menu that are supposedly southern by virtue of pepper jelly or andouille sausage on the side. I also did not know that ahi tuna tacos were southern or louisianian or whatever. But both claim to have shrimp and grits. One claims gumbo and creole bouillabaise, one jumbalaya. I am sorely tempted because these are all tasty things I can no longer get. Two asides: 1) Soul food, fried chicken, and bbq are easily available. This was  a stop on the Underground Railroad. In fact, the last stop before Canada. Thus, there is a long and glorious tradition, etc. It might not all be in the best neighborhoods, but this is not a problem. Sp...

What the heck is with g+ booting me out randomly? Bite me, google gremlins.

Any of you in the path of the Nor'easter get your french toast supplies now.

Listening to radio in car - I didn't even think about this. Lifting the sanctions on Iran means we could get saffron, caviar, pistachios and carpets! I mean, the carpets will probably be ridiculously marked up, so whatever, but next to Kashmiri saffron, the stuff from Iran is great. The nuts would have a totally different flavor (as would nuts from Greece or Turkey) from the California ones. Caviar, though, might mean beluga. Although that's probably still an environmental concern (don't wipe out the sturgeon!), I've had it. Holy cow. That is, like, just, soooo rich and creamy and not at all like the stuff you usually get on a buffet. Ok, so I could only probably afford the saffron, and then only because you don't buy much at a time. But that's still really great!

This name is just going to confuse people. http://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dvbd/bourbon/index.html http://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dvbd/bourbon/index.html

Gorram mosquitoes. #notthepoint   http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/13/zika-2/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/13/zika-2

Took a new yoga class tonight. I'd been wanting to take one with this instructor but she doesn't teach often. Anyway, eclectic music choices, including a section of musicals where she asked if people recognized one of them. I'm all, that's Lea Salonga but it's not Les Mis. Because, duh, it was Miss Saigon. Oops.

What Sarah Palin and Donald Trump have in common: you can see Russia from neither of their personal properties.

Good news/bad news: Finally made it back down to the little business incubator with all the awesome food stands. Good news - the bao place has expanded and now has things like bao with sweet black bean paste and many kinds of dim sum. I had this awesome stuffed tofu thing with oyster sauce. Unbelievably inexpensive, too. Bad news - the Laotian place may be closing because the owner, who it turns out is a licensed accountant, was finally able to get a full time job. Unfortunately, this means she will not be able to run the food stand (well, unfortunate for us). She's trying to find a family member to keep it open, but may not be able to. As sad as losing the food is, losing the coffee she and her family bring back from Laos is tragic. I am telling you this is the most delicious, smooth, rich, tasty coffee. Like, this could be a huge trend it's so good, they could mark it up enormously. Maybe not to civet poop levels, but, you know. I don't know why the hip and trendy have no...

Oh, dear. Then again, it could explain a few things. I mean, most chocolatiers (not the same as a chocolate maker) use somebody else's chocolate to make their goodies, and if they are really good at it, that's fine. It's like a bakery using flour and butter and sugar that somebody else made. No big. Unless you claim that you are milling the flour, churning the butter, and doing whatever it is that you do to sugar cane to make sugar in addition to doing the baking but you aren't. Apparently, they have recently sort of apologized and really may be bean to bar at this point, but now their product is not necessarily considered so good. With all the really amazing chocolate out there, including bean to bar chocolate maker chocolate from all over the US and the world, they have some major competition. http://qz.com/571151/the-mast-brothers-fooled-the-world-into-buying-crappy-hipster-chocolate-for-10-a-bar/ http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/12/mast-brothers-chocolate-scandal...

Mm, wind chill. #minusminus

Morning.

Drooling on the television, again. Galavant was renewed for another season. Leading to the critically important question:  incredibly dumb or brilliantly satirical? To help you decide, the lyrics and a YouTube of "My Dragon Pal and Me". http://galavant.wikia.com/wiki/My_Dragon_Pal_and_Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw4POUPuXG8 http://galavant.wikia.com/wiki/My_Dragon_Pal_and_Me

They say some of y'all are kindly offering to share your single digit temps with us, depending on how the air aloft flows. Thanks so much! but you know you didn't have to.

They claim we've had a total so far of 3" of snowfall. It's sufficiently deep that visually we do not have a bottom step outside, and the step above that is rapidly disappearing. That suggests a minimum of 6". We also have those posts and reflectors along the edge of the driveway so you can find it for snow plowing purposes and there is quite a bit more than 3" missing. Interesting.

IR nerd. This is awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1soJQ_rGgNU#t=382 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1soJQ_rGgNU#t=382

What am I doing?

Dad is home. We shall update as circumstances dictate.

Reasons I like my dad, x of y in a series. He continues to have follow on stuff from what happened and has recently had it lead to incidental hey, what's that on your heart? things. He has weird artery stuff, but they had to resort to old school poking around inside to decide exactly what was what. A coronary artery of some sort (not the main one) was severely narrowed. Normally, if they're going to poke, they also plan to do something at the time. But he still has cancer, so they poked, collected info, and sent him home while they confabbed with the collection of doctors. Five doctors later (this is necessary for him, now), they decided they would try the usual balloon and/or stent thing, if they could do it. So they planned that for this morning. They told him he would be kept at least overnight, but the usual you can't eat after midnight, and you can only have liquids afterwards for 24 hours. This is why I like my dad - We were joking about how beer, wine, liquor, etc. w...

#lolBorder  The smugglers thought they'd take advantage of the flood of people crossing to the US from Canada to buy Powerball tickets yesterday. Smuggler 1 was caught with over $2K of counterfeit US money. Smuggler 2 was caught with about $60K worth of marijuana neatly tucked into a foosball table. Of course, who knows who and what might have gotten through. #oopslol

Having a hard time not using a Roz voice (from Monsters, Inc.) on my mom - Do whateeever you want, whateeever makes you happy.

The definition of disappointment - I saw a business named Gado Gado in Ellicotville, NY. It's a town, well, the town in ski country, so it's one of those towns. You know, lots of cute, trendy little places to spend money because apparently if you ski you are wealthy. So lots of little eateries, along with the shops. Anyway, I'm all excited. Wow, Indonesian food! Must have! Yeah, no. It's a women's clothing boutique. What?!? Ide, srsly. Like, there's things with "namaste" on them, and what I'm guessing are Javanese or Balinese Buddha heads, and "energy beads" scattered around amongst the clothing. So, what, the owner went to Bali or Java on their honeymoon? Lame.

This nonsense needs to stop. How do we stop it? (Recent bombings in Istanbul and Jakarta) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35312794 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/world/europe/explosion-in-istanbul-tourist-district-kills-at-least-10.html?_r=0 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35312794

NO. NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo No. No. No.

Having dream (not nice) you are being stung by a giant hornet, waking up and realizing it is your neighbor's industrial snowblower - at 3am .  What the? I could totally understand 5 am, but 3?? smh

I am torn about my #waybackwednesday post choice. It's a remake of a French song from the 60's from the same genre as that French song that Draper's wife sang on Mad Men. The lyrics are ... a little bizarre. But it's so peppy! The instrumental work on the remake is really good, but there's an acoustic live version that's even better only without most of the lyrics. The official promotional video snippet is visually amusing with a hip granny dancing in hat, gloves, etc. The best visual, though is the video for the original version - hysterical for the guy doing the 60's dancing in the background (is he ok?!) Oh, well. Here's the 2015 version with the singing and the back up. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2pg4r9 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2pg4r9

I heard this on the radio the other day, and I was all, what? But it seems that the United Church of Canada's liberal policies have led it to a bit of a dilemma. It seems you can decide you are an atheist and you're welcome to attend services and hang out and do stuff with church groups, but you don't want to go there if you are one of its ministers. I mean, that seems obvious on the surface, but apparently it's more complicated? According to some, the timing on pulling the trigger on this issue falls close to her expressing an opinion in public on the Church's public statements about the Charlie Hebdo incident. I don't know that that's really the deal, but I found a link with her letter and the UCC's statement and it is interesting to read. (I could only find a very partisan link, but the content of the letter/prayer are presumably accurate). That's the second link, if interested. She sounds like someone who is thoughtful, at any rate, whether you a...

What a lovely, looming, lowering wall of cloud that is approaching us from the south.

Judging by the sound, the geese have suddenly realized that this is not a good place to stay the winter. Little late for migrating, guys.

I'm going to go find someplace warm to hide. All of our temperatures from now until sometime on Thursday are going to have a 1 in front of them and only 2 digits.

Oh, good, Iran is being jerks. This'll be fun.

Well, the weather has certainly unimproved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_clipper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_clipper

It's definitely snowing now.

Weather update: the Southtowns got pasted, but we only got a little snow last night and it's mostly been sunny today. It is good I salted, though, or the driveway would still be a sheet of ice. They are saying the bands are supposed to be moving north, but maybe by the time they do they will have dissipated. The wind's been harsh, though, wind chill being a thing, and all.

This is the picture of the cake that was supposed to be the one that google showed you. #stupidgoogle

December was a month long delay in everything, but I'm starting to catch up. This is from Thanksgiving. One of my favorite pastries, well, cakes, is Marjolaine. It is a type of dacquoise, which is meringue with ground up nuts in it. This link will give you a little background (the cake has history), as well as an image with the original recipe toward the bottom. http://hubpages.com/food/Restaurant-de-la-Pyramide-and-Their-Famous-Marjolaine-Cake Anyway, thought I'd try and make a thanksgiving version, so, not a Marjolaine, because, by definition, it has to be that cake to be a Marjolaine. However, it's still a layered dacquoise, and inspired by, so, you know. The original plan was to use pecans for anything requiring nuts, make a layer of pumpkin mousse, a layer of pecan praline buttercream, a layer of cranberry cream, and "frost" it with a pumpkin ganache. No plan survives contact, etc. I saw what color the mousse was when made with pumpkin and not altered with so...

I feel I should offer possible trigger warnings on this. I can haz opinions that society kinda does this. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/09/cancer_stigma_don_t_blame_patients_for_their_disease_no_matter_what_the.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/09/cancer_stigma_don_t_blame_patients_for_their_disease_no_matter_what_the.html

Next on our soup list: Chicken Wild Rice. Normally this has a brick of butter and a cow of cream in it, and I love that, but this is an attempt at healthier eating, so it is slightly less rich and therefore also less thick than the usual wild rice soup. Final contents: 2 Tbls butter 2 Tbls olive oil 1-2 lg onions, minced 1 lg shallot, thinly sliced 2 lg cloves garlic, thinly sliced 3-4 sticks of celery, minced 1 lg carrot, minced 1/4 cup of flour 1 cup of sherry 2 quarts of chicken broth 1/2 tsp dried thyme 1/4 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp onion powder 1/2 tsp dried marjoram 2 bay leaves 1 tsp cornstarch 1.5-2 lbs poached chicken, shredded and cut up 4 cups cooked wild rice 8 oz sliced mushrooms cut up (the ordinary white kind) 1. Usual sauteeing of aromatics 2. Flour makes roux (sprinkle over the sauteed veggies) 3. Deglaze with sherry, add broth 4. Add herbs, etc. 5. Decided was not thick enough, so tried taking out some hot soup, mixing it with cornstarch, then adding that back in 6. O...

Oh, yeah, it's a freakin' sheet of ice out there. I carefully waited until the rain turned to snow and the temp dropped below 30 before going out to salt the driveway. Notwithstanding there have been high wind warnings all day. So my back now hates me a little because in order to make sure some of the salt ever made it onto the driveway, I had to sprinkle it hunched down so it was only about an inch or two away from it when it came out of the jug I was using to spread it. Fun times.

Tightly locked. I have learned that I do not deal well with mentally and emotionally ill people. Like, if I had no hope of any of this ever changing, I'd be one of those people who gave their kid or parent or whomever up to the state for care. Because otherwise there would be at least one additional person who ended up in the care of the state, i.e., me. I have so much more sympathy for people who do that, now. JFC I just wrote and deleted a longer, more specific vent, and it's not fair for it to be forever on the internet, so it's deleted, but omg, I feel like my sanity is threatened sometimes. I also really start to understand the anger that builds up. I'm all socialized, and stuff (people took me to the dog park growing up), so nothing pathologic will happen to society at large, but it is way too easy to see how someone who doesn't have that internal structure in place takes it all out on everyone else. It's kind of terrifying, really. I am sane. I know I am ...

Which is worse? Eating a bunch of: edit for reasons of full disclosure: I may have the munchies.

Oh, look what I found. http://forvo.com/word/schoof/ http://forvo.com/word/schoof

Technically, it started raining Friday night, but there were some breaks on Saturday and it wasn't bad. However, last night, it really started raining, and it is predicted to continue precipitating until at least a week from Tuesday. Today is special, though, because we are supposed to get one of those 40 degree temp drops that put us well below freezing by this evening. With the rain, if that freezes onto everything, we will be coated in ice. Thrillsville.

Other thing from radio discussions about the gun thing. Debating whether or not the public should be shown some of the photos that the President says are so horrible from Newtown (or any mass shootings, really). Arguments against include privacy (of victims and families), also exploitation. I wonder, though. I remember what we were taught in school about the effect of photos during the Civil War, and the Vietnam War. People were horrified. Arguably, it influenced our eventual withdrawal from Vietnam. Was it prejudicial? Yes. Exploitative? Yes. One of the discussants was a war correspondent who tried to articulate some of how horrible what you can see a weapon do to a body was, and how that had affected his view of guns. Maybe people need to see some of those photos (of the shootings). I'm sure it wouldn't change some people's views, at all, but right now, a lot of people are operating without what might be critical information.

Interesting perspective on the gun thing on the radio. If I heard correctly, the number of guns sold since Obama became president is significantly up. According to some, it's because they are afraid he's going to take their guns away (I still wonder, if you didn't own one before, how could he have taken it away?). However, the discussion suggested that there could be other, less open things at play. For lack of a better way to put this, he's black/african-american. He's a face for the idea that the non-white people are coming to get you, which is not at all a new or original idea in this society. I never thought about it that way, but I wonder if that isn't some of what is going on with this.

Never flip channels while bored and drooling. Tripped over the Shannara TV thing and experienced an inability to move away from the trainwreck. Somebody tell me my taste in literature wasn't this bad in junior high, or maybe this is not exactly how the book goes? Don't remember, don't want to look it up. Thoughts in random order while watching: 1. Ok, I guess that's the color I thought the elfstones would be. 2. So much patriarchy. 3. High school prom girl elf fantasy. 4. Needs more pouty lips. 5. The list of fetishes just keeps growing. 6. It's not AGOT; it's a bad fanfic of a fanfic of a Twilight fanfic shot in NZ. 7. Chauvinist demons. Nice. 8. Acting! Thank god! Oh, nevermind. 9. Are all druids this hot? Sorry, I got distracted. 10. Wow, so many whiny teenagers, even the grown-ups. 11. Hey, that was almost a scene between two women! 12. Seriously? That's how you stage a fight between a druid and a demon? There's a lot of naked, wet, wet and naked. Yo...

"For the love of God, Montresor!" No, truly, where has this been all my life? As part of my soup making quest, there will be wild rice soup. I've made versions before, but just ordinary ones. The fancy ones tend to use sherry. I've never bothered, nor have I used it in other things it's often used in, like mushroom soups. I suppose that's partly because it's not necessarily readily available, and partly because the fino and manzanilla and "cream" sherries I'd had before didn't really do anything for me, taste wise. Maybe my palate is more sophisticated now (lol). However, I decided to take a shot at finding some for the soup to come. Turns out there's a small but reasonable selection available. Did some reading beforehand to decide what I might want to try and decided amontillado, both for flavor reasons and for longevity once opened reasons. The helpful winespert at the store pointed me at this and I approve. It's not probably ex...

In an attempt to reclaim my eating habits, I decided to make more soup. I wonder what happens if I make it a collection and call it soup of the day/week? Anyway, this is a white bean chicken chili. It is good. I think it is mild but flavorful, others may feel differently. It ended up containing: 2 finely chopped up onions 5 cloves of garlic 1 jar of Trader Joe's Hatch Valley Salsa 1 quart low sodium chicken broth 1.5 tsp ground cumin 0.5 tsp dried oregano 0.5 tsp dried powdered chipotle 2 bay leaves 0.5 tsp onion powder 0.5 tsp garlic powder 0.25 tsp ground black pepper 0.5 tsp powdered sweet paprika 1-2 Tbls lime juice 4 cans of no salt great northern beans (white cannellini or navy beans also work), drained 1.5 or so lbs. poached chicken, shredded 3 roasted poblano peppers, large dice 1 small bunch cilantro, chopped up 1. Sauteed onions and garlic in about 2 Tbls olive oil. 2. Added salsa. The TJs salsa was because I've already used up the supply of roasted poblanos from this...

Funky frost on my car window yesterday morning.

Um. Is it good that people respond in less than 24 hours by telling you to keep specific dates open for interviews, or is that pro forma? #whydoyouask   #ohgodohgodohgod

Ugh. This getting up thing is so not.

Belated posting. A very cute 1 year old Santa.

Ohgodohgodohgod I just submitted the final thingy for the thingy I am hoping to get an interview for which should have been in a month ago even though the deadline is really next week Friday but got delayed because my life is crazy and this is something I am hoping will get me out of the crazy and ohgodohgodohgod #noImnotstressed #whydoyouask

If you are planning any travel for 2017, you might want to know that the admission to all of Canada's national parks will be free in honor of the country's 150th anniversary that year. It's not all that expensive, anyway, but, you know. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/park-passes-free-canada-150-1.3389451 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/park-passes-free-canada-150-1.3389451

About that Sacher torte - well, other than the fact that it is disregarding my carefully curated photo order. Using hipster jam? Best thing ever. Go grow your own apricot trees, asap. As for the cake itself, it was an adventure. As many times, now, as I've made sponge (or whatever you are supposed to call them) style cakes, i.e., no chemical leavening, only abused egg whites, it is possible to conclusively say that they are fussy, sensitive little beings whose lofty promise frequently coalesces like a white dwarf upon cooling. Oddly, their textures are almost universally delicious, even so. That said, all the recipes I found for this have it being a slightly drier (not dry) and lighter cake, although quite rich. Further, I wanted jam, so I went with the Official Version No. 2 (it could be No.1, it doesn't matter), wherein we split the cake and have an extra layer of jam between in addition to the outer coating. I did not boil and strain the jam because it's jam and I wanted...

Oh, look, my battery is running down. My half-done, not finished worky stuff will have to wait while I go do something else. Guess I will go see if I can buy sherry (for cooking, you lushes). I hate not being able to function my brain.

In case just one style isn't enough: http://www.delish.com/food/news/a39042/king-cakes-from-around-the-world/ http://www.delish.com/food/news/a39042/king-cakes-from-around-the-world

P.S. It's just about a month to paczki.

Happy Epiphane everyone!

Ow. I overdid it at yoga on Monday night. Ow.

Have hit afternoon lull and don't dare drink coffee at this hour.

Random useful info: http://www.ahealthiermichigan.org/2011/10/11/the-nurtional-value-of-egg-whites-versus-egg-yolks-what-do-you-use/

Answer to query: Routine follow-up finds stuff not there 6 months ago and they have discovered some new and exciting follow on issues for my dad involving his coronary arteries. Most of them are ok, but he probably needs a stent to one of them and they are debating what kind because of various issues, including a tendency to bleed and his blood chemistries still not being "normal" because blood cancer. It's actually a really nice place and people are consulting a panoply of people because he now has a panoply of doctors, a phenomenon with which some of you are familiar in these situations. We were just amused at the irony of having a restricted menu that is completely inconsistent. Except that eggs are clearly BAD 4 U. Well, egg yolks. Also, they kept asking do you have high blood pressure? no. do you have diabetes? no. do you have high cholesterol? no. Really? no. Aw, come on. no. Seriously? The answer is still no. Because my dad was and is bizarrely healthy in many ways...