forestofglory

*"Bits and Bobs" is what I call my lots small unrelated things make a post posts. Feel free to comment on only one or two points.

*I've been having many thinky thoughts about DW culture and Tumblr and change but nothing that's solid yet. I've been in retrospective mood thinking about fandom and the past. I'm not quite in transformative works fandom though I've been adjacent to it for years. (I think I'm finally comfortable saying I'm in SFF fandom but for years I would have said I was fandom adjacent there too.) But I've been thinking about my fanish activity online now and it the past. I have really concluded anything. Maybe if I do I'll write a longer post

*Its been raining a lot here. I'm glad we missed out on the polar vortex though -- that looked way too cold. I'm hopeful that we will have another year of not a drought anyways.

*recently I've been trying to learn how to make egg-in-the-hole, you know toast with the egg cooked in it. Sometimes it works better than other times. Luckily it tastes fine even when the egg does go where I want it to go. I think the sliced bread we get is a bit too squishy and I want to get some more nice sourdough and try again with that.

Yesterday was my mothers annual "I survived cancer" tea (17 years!) I offered to help out. R was going out for the day and dropped me off at the family home at 9:30ish. My Dad and Brother were just about to take a walk to a bakery about a mile and a half away, so I said I'd go along. And I did and it was nice.

We got back around 11 and I started making scones for the tea. I hadn't made scones in a while, and the recipe is only a list of ingredients plus an oven temp, and baking time, but I remembered how it went and make good scones.

The I tried to make french macrons. The batter came out the wrong consistency, so that the cookies don't look right or have quite the right texture. However the are still quite tasty. I sandwiched then with chestnut paste and will serve them at tonight's seder.

Around noon I took a break to eat something.

Then I made tea sandwiches, cucumber and cream cheese; and salmon with watercress butter. For some reason this took a long time. I cut the crusts of then cut the sandwiches in fourths, squares for cucumber and triangles for the salmon.

Then I helped but various other foods in plates and bowls. Strawberries, and tiny little tea cookies, and tomatoes, and some dips, and I don't remember what else. Then I got to chill on the sofa for a little bit.

At 3 the 1st guest arrived. We were still bringing the food out the the garden, and making tea. The party itself was quite nice. I had good time talking to people I had not seen in a while. (One of them has a foster cat she is looking for a home for -- I wish I could take her.)

Then after the part stopped by my sister-in-laws place to bring her some leftovers. The came back and boiled some eggs to be made in to deviled eggs tonight.

I'm hosting a seder tonight at 5:30. 16 people are coming, two of whom cook professionally. I'm also quite tried for yesterday.

I slept in this morning (lately I've been reading books in my dreams, and they are awesome, so when I wake up I'm sad that said books aren't real. This morning I was dream reading and awesome Vorkosigan book, that was sequel to another awesome book, and then I woke up and neither existed. It was sad.)

I was about to start on the chicken soup for tonight when my nephew asked for ride to school, because his bike had a flat tire. So I did that got back started the soup, and made the matzoh ball mix. I'm supposed to be updating the Hagadah now, but instead I'm writing this and a reading the internet.

I own a melon baller, and use in fairly regularly. This is not because I eat my melons in prefect little spheres, but rather because I learned for my mother that melon ballers are one the easiest ways to core and apple. For those who are unfamiliar with melon ballers, these devices consist of and stick with two sharp edged metal half-spheres at either end. To core and apple with one, you cut the apple in half and then use the melon baller to scoop out the core. It is considerably easier to do it this way then to just use a knife.

I made challah yesterday. It was the 1st major cooking project I've tried in this kitchen. Generally when I've stayed at R's mom's house before I haven't done any cooking at all -- if I wanted a big cooking project I went over to my mother's house and used her bigger and nicer kitchen.

Anyways I learned that the oven is finicky. I also burnt the 1st batch. The 2nd batch came out ok.

Also we've set up a dinner roster and Friday night's are my night to cook because I like to make exciting things for shabbat, though I didn't really this week. I made lentil soup -- just a basic one. It had onions, carrots, celery, red lentils and spinach. Being new to the kitchen and also making bread I didn't want to make anything too complex. Still it was well received.

I'm home again. It's great to be back -- flowers are blooming, the weather is lovely and there are strawberries to eat.

The last two days of driving where not very exciting. We didn't stop anywhere interesting along the way, and where generally a bit tried and cranky.

I do feel that I won at eating this trip -- I didn't eat a signal grilled cheese sandwich!

So last night I roasted a chicken for the 1st time. It wasn't as simple as the internet has been telling me it is but it was delicious.

I suppose I made the process less simple for myself by by adding extra steps, but really all of those steps improved the final product. Anyways I made brine Thursday morning. Thursday evening I went to put the chicken in the brine an relished I needed to defrost it 1st, so I could remove the gut. Friday afternoon I make stock with the guts and neck, and simple stuffing. Before I put the chicken in the oven I rinsed it, oiled it and stuffed it. The actual roasting process was simple. Once the meal was cooked I made gravy. I severed the chicken with the leftover stuffing and mashed sweet potatoes.

I baked sandwich bread yesterday for the 1st time in awhile. I've been mostly making challah instead. It came out decently. I also made tomato rice soup, we don't have a blender or anything so I used the food mill. Which was hard work. The soup came out with little chunks of veggies in it. Which R liked but I'm not so sure about.

Today is the 1st day of real classes. I'm feeling a bit nervous about it.

Friday night I went to a seder. I planned it with some friends. My friend M was excited about using her table linens and knows more people them me, so she hosted. I was in charge of the menu. Planning a vegetarian seder is a bit tricky, and I'd never done it before. I did a bit of prep before hand (see last post). I had few things I knew I wanted to make. (And had asked R to bring a yummy quinoa dish) but I knew my friend was getting her veggie box Thursday so we didn't plan everything ahead. Planning the menu the afternoon of the meal was a bit scary but everything worked out great. Here is what we ate:

Carrot and Celery sticks with (store bought) dip -- this was to keep us going during the bit before the meal.

Frittata with caramelized onions and Parmesan cheese
Roasted asparagus
Broccoli with a soy dressing
Mashed sweet potatoes
Matzoh ball soup (brought by someone else)
southwest quinoa (brought by R)
Haroseth
Mataoh, plain and whole wheat

The French Macaroons -- which where a hit (yay!)
Ice Cream a pint each of chocolate and salted caramel from bi-rite
Chocolate sauce
Raspberries

There was also going to be sauteed chard, but we forgot to cook it until the last minute and then decided there was too much other food to bother.

I also enjoyed the ritual part of the Seder. We had three Haggadot, with different numbers of copies. The where "seder in the bar" -- very short and basic haggadah one of M's friends put together -- 10 copies as it was only about 10 pages long. A traditional Haggadah that I fond on my parents book shelves --3 copies. The Velveteen Rabbi's feminist hagadah -- one copy.

So we mostly used the short one, but digressed a lot. I read a few bits from the VR hagadah, and we read a few bits from the traditional Haggadah, including my family's favorite bit that no one else knew about. This is the bit where the Rabbis are discussing how many plagues there where and go on about the hand of God and the finger of God.

We also digressed to tell personal stories about our families and favorite Midrash.

R had never been to a seder before so I recruited him to ask the 4 questions which he did with style. I think he had and ok time, but was bored by some of the longer bits.

I got a real letter in the mail today! I love getting mail more then is perhaps reasonable so that made me happy.

It has been very sunny and warm here. I'm still not adjusted to back to the lack of winter.

The number of books I am reading at once seems to be growing. I find this somewhat alarming. I am currently reading 4 books. One fiction (just at the moment Nova by Samuel R Delany); One general non-fiction (Strawberry Fields by Miriam J. Wells); One book with R. (Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld); and one Jewish Non-fiction which only gets read on Saturdays, as part of my making up for not having got any official (Jewish education Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages by David Kraemer).

Which reminds me, yesterday was Tu B'Shevat (the new year of trees) and I tried out a new recipe to celebrate. It is from the french Jewish cook book I got my mother for Xmas. It is bread/cake thing full of dried fruit. I thought it tasted nice, but it was a bit doughy in the middle even though I baked it longer then the recipe said. I wish there was a good fool prof way of telling when bread is baked through.

Yesterday I put in a zipper for the 1st time. (With help form my mom.)

Rosh Hashanah starts at sunset. I've just put a batch of round challah with fruit in into the oven.