Category Archives: Food

That Kind Of Day

Lunch: Two servings of bacon, and leftover whipped potatoes fried in the second round of bacon fat.

It was hard not to lick the plate. It was only a saucer, but still.

In other news, Gretchen Yanover’s Bow and Cello is absolutely exquisite. Lovely atmospheric, relaxing, meditative-y kind of stuff. She’s a brilliant musician who uses looping technology to enrich and deepen her already sensual music. Beautiful.

Also, hello annual February thaw. I have the heat turned off and windows cracked open to air out the winter-dead rooms.

Weekend Roundup

Yes, hello, Monday, nice sunny Monday. How are you?

Saturday morning I had a cello lesson, which went well. The newly adjusted-and-rented 7/8 performed very nicely. My teacher feels the C string could be even better, but it’s not crucial at the moment. It feels good to be working on nuances in pieces instead of struggling with technical stuff. Except for that one shift in that one piece, which I know I can do but never happens in a lesson. My teacher made a good point: We both know I can play it, so why am I stressing in a lesson? If I played it perfectly every time we wouldn’t be working on it, would we? It’s hard to focus on the things you’re doing right when you do things wrong. I need to work on recognising the successes more than the okay-so-that-bit-wasn’t-perfect-this-time parts. And she also gave me this pearl of wisdom: The next note you’re about to play is always be the most important one. That means not dwelling on the one you just played and criticising yourself because it wasn’t as good as you wanted it to be, because it takes away for the energy you should be directing toward that next note. Food for thought. (I swear, I would be so lost in this new way of discussing music if I hadn’t done years of energy work and meditation in a spiritual context.)

Saturday afternoon HRH went out to pick up my cousin downtown, who had a weekend layover in Montreal. For dinner I tried to slow-roast two rolled rib roasts from the farmer, but it didn’t exactly succeed (see, I am not saying it failed!) for a couple of reasons. One, I doubted the slow-roast instructions and decided to roast it for two hours at 250 degrees instead of one hour at 200 then turning the oven off entirely. Two, the second roast was inedible due to the amount of gristle and sinew marbled through it. Which is a risk one runs when buying directly from a farmer who butchers his own stuff, I suppose, because it’s not regulated the same way supermarkets and pro butchers are. Anyway, the first roast was all right, just half of it was overdone to my taste. The kick-ass gravy I made made up for some of it, though, as did the nice creamy mashed potatoes and carrots half-steamed then sauteed in butter. And there was pecan pie for dessert, except the shell cracked and the filling seeped through to glue the crust to the glass pie pan, thereby ensuring that every single piece had to be pried out in several bits. It tasted good, though, and the home-made pastry was quite acceptable: very crisp and light. And we really, really enjoyed my cousin’s visit. The boy dragooned him into playing with trains and Lego and all sorts of things.

Sunday morning we met the Preston-LeBlancs for lunch at the hot dog and French fry restaurant we love for its artery-clogging deliciousness. I had an ensemble lesson later that afternoon, which was also a lot of fun because we were reviewing the early Suzuki pieces we’re playing at the Sun Youth fundraiser next Sunday.

Than last night we had the second session of the new steampunkian horror game Tal began in January, and I got another two inches of my lap blanket done (I suspect I will need an even longer circular needle to work the size I’m aiming for comfortably). I also started a knitted lightsaber yesterday during the boy’s nap. And I found the missing bamboo circular needle! It was at the very bottom of one of my works-in-progress bags under some books.

So overall a very enjoyable weekend. And I’m bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning and ready to edit at least four more stories today, as well as read a first draft for a new contributor. Correspondence and news have all been handled, so away I go.

Apropos Of Nothing

Someone bring me a margarita. A proper one, with the ice all crushed in it.

No, nothing to celebrate. I just think a nice, cool, lime margarita would go down really nicely about now. Good for the throat, you know. Oh, hey, if we need a reason, how about we celebrate the fact that I m upright and functional?

I just did a bunch of author maintenance stuff. Now, back to the anthology ms.

Unrelated Reviews Of Things

I played the 7/8 yesterday for my entire practise time. It was that good. Usually I get frustrated with the lack of response I expect to get and switch back to my own instrument.

It’s… resonant. A bit less clear on the C string, but that can be adjusted. It has really nice tone colour. There’s a good balance across the four strings, nice response, and did I mention it’s resonant? Holy cow. There were times when it sounded uncannily like my cello. In general it sounded much, much more developed than the last one. At least, it sounded that way from behind the instrument. We’ll see what happens when I cart it to my lesson Friday night.

I kept hitting adjacent strings because the bridge/fingerboard combo is less curved than mine. I initially thought I’d want that increased but then realised that most cellists probably wish it was the other way around in order to use the minimum amount of effort/energy possible in switching strings. It’s even easier to play than the last one in a physical way, too; the action is even sweeter. (The action was pretty much the only thing I liked about the last one.) What I find interesting is that they’re both 2007 instruments, so they’re roughly eighteen months old, and yet this one sounds so much more played-in. Just goes to show how wide a variety you can find within the same model and production year.

I’m looking forward to hearing it played by my teacher. You hear completely different things when you’re sitting in front of the instrument being played than what you hear from behind it.

And now that I’m potentially close to finding The One True 7/8, I’m panicky. I don’t really need to change instruments. I love how my instrument sounds, and I like how it handles. (I may just be used to it; a 7/8 might handle even better once I adjust to it.) What if I switch and it’s a bad decision? (I sell the 7/8 privately and don’t take much of a loss on it because 7/8s are hard to find, or even sell it back to the luthier for not much of a loss.)

I took pictures last night because she’s really, really pretty. I spent more time that I ought to have because I couldn’t really capture the colour correctly. But here’s an idea of what she looks like. The first picture is the standard comparison shot of my 4/4 and the trial 7/8 (standard, ha; I haven’t done this since I brought the first one home last July, but it shows you the colour difference and reminds you of the proportion differences as well; it may not look like much in this tiny pic but click and you’ll see there’s about an inch of difference at the base, a half-inch at the top of the body, and a good inch of the scroll). The second is a full shot of how she looks, and the third is a close-up of her ‘dimples.’ I’ve touched up the last one colour-wise to give you a better idea of her true colour:


I’ve just realised something: I’ve started calling the cello ‘her’ instead of ‘it.’ That’s the first time this has happened. Hmm. This could be dangerous. (Or appropriate. Who knows?)

And now to shift topics entirely: I have realised that I have not yet given any kind of review of my stand mixer. That’s mainly because all I’ve used it for so far is to mix and knead bread dough. It does this very, very well indeed. I am positively in love with how easily the dough slides off the dough hook after the kneading is finished. It mixes and kneads very well, yielding a satiny smooth dough that rises and bakes up nicely. I do miss kneading by hand, but being able to watch the dough hook do it is the next best thing. First of all, it isn’t hidden away like dough inside the bread machine is, so I get to watch it and it’s strangely relaxing. The hook really does a nice job gathering it up and constantly rolling it around. It also doesn’t make an unholy banging noise the way the machine does. I’m also fully in control of how long the kneading process goes on for.

I do like the way the head lifts, and how the different beater attachments go on and off; it’s all very simple and well-thought out. All the attachments and the bowl are super easy to clean, thank goodness. So far I’m very impressed. The only drawback I’ve found so far is that the thing weighs a bloody tonne, and because I don’t have space near an outlet in which to store it, I have to lift it and move it when I want to use it. I only need to move it a couple of feet but the height of the counter robs me of most of my lifting power, and there’s that fibro thing too. I may look for a power bar with an extra-long extension cord for the kitchen.

That’s all from here at the moment.

Sunday

I originally titled this post my usual Weekend Roundup before I realised that I’d already covered Saturday on, well, Saturday. I so rarely journal on weekends. Anywhats!

Sunday was… interesting. I want to say fun but there was Tired and Lingering Illness involved, which is never fun. I woke up with the boy around six-thirty and he tried to snuggle in bed with us but kept waking himself up by coughing or trying to pet the cat, so around seven HRH got up and took him off to do morning stuff. I rolled over and got another two hours of sleep, which I desperately needed to help kick the stupid flu. When I woke up again at nine I thought that I’d have a leisurely morning with a cup of tea and maybe knitting in the sun, but around nine-forty-five I walked into my office to get something and saw a stack of books with a sticky note on top, which reminded me that the boy and I were due to pick Paze and Devon up and go to register for the new monthly children’s Pagan playgroup that’s just starting up. Ack! So I called Paze to push our meeting time back, packed up the box of books I was donating to the resource centre, and threw the boy into his snowsuit. The info session was fabulous; not only did the kids have a fun time exploring the room, meeting other children, dancing, drawing, and playing with various things like masks and the drum, but I discovered that one of the educators running the group is a wonderful woman I know from some of my workshops a few years ago. It was marvelous to see her, and to know that she and her equally delightful co-educator were handling the group in every way I could have thought fun and appropriate. Even better, while parents will attend the first session along with the kids to help ease them into the routine, we get to drop them off for subsequent sessions, which means Paze and I get a child-free coffee date once a month!

The major drawback to the morning out was that I took my glasses off to wash my face before I left and forgot to put them back on. I only noticed when I was halfway to Paze’s house, after my right eye had felt like it was working harder than the left. I’m still not used to wearing glasses full-time. (I thought I’d been wearing them for about nine months and was at a loss to explain the not-used-to-it-yet-ness, but a quick search of my archives reveals that I didn’t get them till the end of August, so it’s only been four months. Okay. That’s not so bad.)

Sunday afternoon I went through the Nigella Bites cookbook that Aurora lent to me, and we made tiny pork meatballs and tomato sauce from it for supper. In return I gave her a pile of beginner flute books on permanent loan to help fuel her newly rediscovered passion for her flute after taking several years off. I am thoroughly enjoying being a music-enabler for people. I stopped by my luthier this weekend to drop off the last trial 7/8 (you know, the one I got in early December that was due back the 26th, but they were closed for two weeks? Yeah, that one.) and it turned out that they had a new 7/8 that had arrived, so we just switched the cellos in the case, scratched out the old serial number and entered the new one on the trial contract, and I went back home with another cello. (I’d kind of been looking forward to having only one instrument case in my office, but hey, I take the 7/8s when I can get them because they’re hard to find.) I took it out as soon as we got home and it’s just lovely: a deep chestnutty-red colour (none of the orange stuff I dislike!) with two little knots on the front that look like dimples. It’s certainly my second favourite-looking instrument so far in this epic search, the first being the chocolate-amber one that was bought out from under me back in May. I played the first section of the Lee sonata, and from what I can hear from behind it the sound is nice, too — much more focused than the last 7/8, and certainly well-balanced across all four strings. We’ll see what happens when I bring it to my next lesson and my teacher plays it for me so I can hear what it sounds like from in front of the instrument instead of behind it.

Once the boy was in bed HRH and I headed out to the initial session of the first RPG I’ve been involved with in two moves. (I can’t remember what that translates to in years. Long enough that I have no idea where my dice went.) I baked focaccia, which vanished awfully quickly (note to self: next time do a double batch), and brought my knitting, which turned out to be a brilliant move on my part. I got a good quarter of Bodhifox‘s hat done, finishing the bronze portion and switching to the blue. (I may have done about five rows too many of the bronze; we’ll see. It won’t matter in the long run, but at the moment I am critical of the decision to do a full four inches instead of three and a half.) It was great, because I got work done and could focus on what was going on in everyone else’s turn in a way that I hadn’t expected, and didn’t get bored or drift off to sleep (not from the lack of interest in the story, but from Teh Tired and Sique). Knitting keeps one part of my brain busy as well as my fingers, so my mind doesn’t wander from what’s going on. It’s really interesting. The only drawback is that I’m mildly concerned that I may distract other players, although Karine did make a successful roll to save against Fascinating Shiny Things when the flashing needles began to relax her overmuch. Too bad I didn’t get to the row where I needed to start decreasing, because she wanted to know how that would happen.

(I suspect I will be knitting many scarves. Or maybe I’ll find the yarn for my lap blanket before the next month’s session and work on that, because it will be straight stockinette and easy to do while being engaged in other things. Yes, the lap blanket it shall be.)

It felt really, really good to be sitting in the room with close friends, working through a story together, even if my rolls did suck. I need to get myself back into rolling-multiple-consecutive-sixes-on-my-Force-die fighting trim. Also, steampunkian horror with an awesome soundtrack! What’s not to love?

I am cautiously optimistic about the day. I feel not quite at one hundred percent, but pretty close. I’m still cold, but that’s not unusual at the tail end of any illness of mine. My chest doesn’t hurt when I breathe any more, which is very welcome indeed. So I’m going to close a few tabs in my browser and make myself another pot of tea, go curl up in the living room in the sun, and finished the freelance assignment that’s due today. Tomorrow I finish and hand in the proofs of the book, and then the next two days are scheduled to work on Orchestrated. As a test run my cello lessons have been switched to alternate Friday nights and Saturday mornings, so I have all day on Thursday to work for now.

I think that’s it. Have an excellent day, Gentle Readers.

A Boxing Day Retrospective Upon Christmas Cheer

First of all, I am thankful for the many blessings we enjoy simply by virtue of living in one of the most affluent countries in the world. We’re not wanting for a roof over our heads, food on the table, clothes on our backs, boots on our feet. (Well, actually, yes we are wanting those boots at the moment, because HRH’s pair wore through last winter and have not yet been replaced, and mine developed a hole that lets in all the cold icy slush two years ago and I discovered that the right heel on my backup older pair had crumbled away to absolutely nothing when I put them on in lieu of the holed ones, but I digress. We have money to buy new ones thanks to Christmas generosity.) We also live in a country where socialised medicine keeps us healthy, even if people grumble about waiting lists. We have our immediate family alive and well and able to be with us on a special day.

We are, I know, lucky in comparison to something like 97% of the world.

Also, I have a stand mixer. Which probably 99.8% of the world does not. So you see how I am extra-blessed.

I learned a valuable lesson this year. Just because Santa cuts down on the amount of presents under the tree (and he did, he really did, for which I am also thankful), that does not mean that the total amount of money invested in gifting others decreases proportionately. Because I have not even dared to total up the value of the gift cards that were hung on the tree or tucked in to the Santa sack that has replaced individual stockings. Let us just say that since I talked HRH down from a 42″ flat-screen TV to a much more practical 36″ screen, the gift cards from Best Buy that each set of parents gave to HRH pretty much covers the purchase price. (I think they didn’t want HRH to feel left out because I got a stand mixer. Did I mention that Santa gave me a KitchenAid stand mixer? In brushed chrome?)

New soft flannel jammies, a hat/scarf/gloves set, gift cards to HMV and Indigo and Tim Hortons, new sheets and tea towels and oven mitts… it was a lovely gifting all round. Curiously, we did not receive books or DVDs or CDs, but we did get the gift cards so we can make our own choices there. I don’t think there has ever been a Christmas when I did not receive a tangible, physical book as a gift. I am in an odd sort of withdrawal and rapidly granted the boy’s request to go to the bookstore on Boxing Day. (I’ve already finished the book Aurora gave me at Yule. I am twitchy, although my mother brought a handful of ones I haven’t read down for me to read and I read half of one last night.) I suspect the boy has more than a few of my book-obsession genes, because he asked me several times yesterday if the bookstore was open yet. Of course, in his part of the bookstore there are shelves of Thomas trains and accessories, and I suspect that his gift certificate will go towards expanding his collection. Still, there are books in the same place, and it’s nice that we share enthusiasm for a common destination. I have also noted that people seem to have Gotten Wise to the whole HRH-passes-his-chocolate-along-to-me thing because there is Less Chocolate this year. I will cope. Mostly because my Yule stocking was sponsored by Saxon Chocolates. Also, my mother brought down her almond bark and double chocolate cookies.

The boy had a wonderful day despite being ill. He had a quiet morning watching WALL*E until the grandparents came over, and then did a great job handing presents out although he was quiet and increasingly less enthusiastic in general. He drooped a bit more and more as time passed and started feeling warm to the touch, until he was curled up in HRH’s lap, murmuring to me, “May I open another one, please?” He remembered his pleases and thank-yous despite feeling awful, though, and once all his gifts were open he found my hand and drifted off to his bedroom to curl up under his comforter with BunBun. He slept for an hour while we finished opening our gifts and when he woke up he played with some of his new toys (Santa brought him Mavis and Emily, two engines for which he has pined for about six months — thank you, eBay) and ended up drifting back to his room to lie on his bed and listen to a storybook or work on a puzzle or curl up under the comforter again, shivering. His cheeks were a brilliant red, he was clingy (but only Mama or Dada would do) and when I eventually took his temperature it was hovering just under 101 F. We let him direct his activities and kept an eye on him. He (sensibly) refused all food except a raw carrot (inspired by me peeling them for dinner) and some juice, and stated repeatedly when anyone said the word “turkey” that he didn’t want any, despite assurances every time that he didn’t have to eat if he didn’t feel like it.

Dinner was fabulous, as usual (why pretend modesty here? although I cannot take all the credit because my mother in law made her most excellent mashed potato dish and this year made a mashed sweet potato side that was drowned in cherry brandy!). The only failure this year were the rolls made with the organic six-grain stone-milled flour rolls, which over-rose on their second rise and fell back in on themselves. I baked them anyway and we had sort of bread wedges with a heavy crumb, and they weren’t awful but they weren’t the lighter rolls I’d wanted. The perfect turkey and gravy more than made up for it, though. The boy watched me make gravy while HRH carved the turkey (white slices that dripped with juices! heaven!), and when flopped over HRH’s shoulder said that he didn’t want any turkey scraps from the carving board but his little mouth was opening every time he watched HRH nibble on one, so HRH just popped a piece into the boy’s mouth next time it happened. The boy’s eyes went round as he chewed and he decided that the turkey was pretty darn okay. He ate the equivalent of a whole slice while in HRH’s arms, had some bread and water when we all sat down to dinner, then asked to be excused to play while the adults ate their meal. He came back when we were done, his cheeks a much more normal colour, and asked for dessert. His fever had broken, and he only spilled a spoonful or two of chocolate ice cream on the older-than-me linen tablecloth. He also ate a home-made shortbread cookie, so was evidently feeling much, much better (he hadn’t asked for a single sweet all day, you see). Then he discovered the box that the stand mixer had come in and proceeded to shriek with glee as he was pushed or pulled around the house in it while others cleaned up, so the grandparents got to play with him in regular Liam mode for the final hour or so. And the clean up went quickly too, when I’d decided that I only use my Royal Doulton china and good silver one time per a year and putting them in a dishwasher once every 365 days wouldn’t ruin them, so there was just the pots and pans and serving dishes to wash. (We saved the god-gods-that-many sea of stemmed crystal glasses to wash by hand after everyone had gone.)

Even the turkey stock smelled fabulous. It was a really very excellent turkey year. (We scraped the last spoonfuls of the brandied sweet potatoes into the stock pot, too. Waste not, want not!)

I cried a bit when my parents left, like I do every Christmas. We see them so rarely, and my mum and I are so close, that brief visits like this, however lucky we are to have them, just aren’t enough.

When everyone had gone the boy found the guitar that we had given him as the last Christmas present that morning. At the time he had pushed it away and said he didn’t want it (this was just before he took my hand and went to curl up in bed of his own accord, so we knew he didn’t mean that he didn’t want it, really, he meant that he didn’t want to play with it right then), but now he was thrilled with it and dragged it into the living room to play it. He kept trying to rest it on his shoulder like a cello. So as a lovely end to the day HRH and I were treated to a Christmas concert. Next week we will have to make a trip to Jimi’s music store to get a new set of strings for the guitar, since they’re the original strings and I broke the high E when trying to tune it before wrapping it on Christmas Eve.

This morning the boy ate two bowls of cereal and had two glasses of milk at breakfast, so he seems to be back to normal. He has already reminded me that I promised to take him to the bookstore. It’s a lazy day; everyone’s still in pyjamas. I will now go through my book wish lists and note down the titles I really want to pick up today (Apart from All the Windwracked Stars and Red Seas Under Red Skies, that is!). And I won’t use the entire gift certificate; I’ll save some for a rainy day.

I hope you all had or are having as wonderful a celebration of whatever kind you hold with family and friends.

Merry Christmas!

The turkey is brining, the stuffing is made, the rolls are doing their first rise. Today’s best Christmas present so far was the boy waking us up at seven instead of some ungodly hour as is his usual wont. The downside of this is that he’d thrown up in his bed at some point during the night and hadn’t told us. Ah, well. Both HRH and I had collywobbly tummies last night, so it only makes sense that the boy did too. Everyone is in much better health today. It must have been something we ate yesterday.

The boy brought his stocking to our bed and said, “Thank you!” every time he pulled something new out of it, and “Ah, cool!” when he’d liberated whatever it was from the tissue paper in which it was wrapped. He then bounded into the living room and pouted only a bit when we told him we were waiting for both sets of grandparents to show up before we opened the sea of presents under the tree. Yes, Santa came last night! I thought he’d been sane and had cut down on the number of gifts he’d dropped off, until I remembered that the local grandparents hadn’t brought over their set of presents yet. Oh well. At least the boy’s the very appreciative type and sincerely thanks the gifter both before and after he’d unwrapped something.

As is traditional, Nigella is my co-pilot today. Her cooking times suggest that I cook the bird for about three hours, while Butterball tells me to do it for four. I trust Nigella more. Besides, I can always push dinner back by a half-hour if I need to roast it a wee bit longer.

It’s nine-thirty. I should probably change out of the t-shirt and jeans I’m wearing into something a bit more classy before the grandparents arrive at ten. Although my socks are red and my t-shirt is green!

I send you all love on this lovely sunny winter’s day, and I hope everyone’s Yule week has been and continues to be as blessed as ours is.