current reading.

Rose Daughter

by Robin McKinley

having purchased Sunshine, and seeing a certain subtext in it, i went back and bought the second of McKinley's re-telling's of Beauty and the Beast. i haven't read the first, so i may be missing something, but this one is still a good story. though an earlier effort, it's hard not to be a fan of McKinley's flawed-yet-tolerating-no-bullshit heroines (i'm also a fan of The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, although less so of her Maid Marian in the Robin Hood re-telling she did).

also, happy memorial day.

so trendy.

even the government is getting in on this RSS thing. what's next? meteorologists podcasting?

please note: in the unlikely event that this does actually happen, i pre-emptively abdicate any and all responsibility.

also, it is extremely hard to type with a cat leaning on my arms.

tempted.

i'm not really much of a baker, but when i saw a recipe for caffeinated spice cake, i just had to try it. i am now splattered with batter.

somehow, i don't think either of those facts surprises anyone.

one advantage of having my own kitchen is that now i don't have to fight with anyone over who gets to lick the beaters ;)

there goes the weekend...

saturday afternoon after my volunteering, i got a call informing me that my grandmother went in to the hospital friday night. it appears it's nothing serious, but they keep doing various tests and she can't go home. so we went to visit her saturday afternoon, and now we're waiting for the results of her MRI so we can take her home today. my parents were out of town, so on top of being in the hospital for four hours, i was fielding frantic calls from various family members. and i still am, attempting to keep everyone up to date.

and somehow, we have to work in grocery shopping in here today or we have no food for next week. something tells me this may get hectic.

the best laid plans...

we did go see star wars after all, last night.

the cop who pulled us over for speeding even gave us a break because we said we were late for the movie.

it's friday night.

i am not going to see the new star wars.

stay tuned, faithful readers.

spring is in the air.

and apparently positively teeming with wildlife. i saw the heron again this morning, as well as several families of canada geese with their goslings.

also, we now have a company pet. one of the guys here was befriended by an adolescent squirrel which now lives in the warehouse out back and consents to be petted and climb around on most of us.

i have so far declined the honour.

global effects.

as if nigerian spam with hacked up english wasn't bad enough, i am now one of the many people getting german spam. reports say that the spam directs you to websites for "nationalist"/right-wing german political parties and neo-nazi websites. they seem to have the usual gripe, complaining about foreigners taking away jobs and spoiling the quality of living, and so forth.

however, one of the more interesting things i found was that if you send the der spiegel article through the babelfish, one of the subjects comes up as "Policy on Foreigners." this is really interestingly close to hitler's "Policy on the Jews." something tells me this is not a coincidence.

of course, the main problem with this spam is that it seems to be largely hitting english-speakers, who are looking at it, complaining about garbage, and deleting it. probably not the desired effect of the people who took the time to not only set up the websites, but also write a series of worms to distribute them. on the other hand, they're not being ignored, either, just ridiculed. i wonder which is worse?

wasteland.

last friday, we were thinking about going out, and of course the suggestion, "wanna go see a movie?" came up. i went to 3 or 4 different sites and after reading synopses and brief reviews, i solved the mystery of the disappearing box office receipts: THERE ARE NO GOOD FILMS OUT THERE.

with the possible exception of "Crash," but not everyone wants to see a serious film on friday night.

Rick McCallum, producer of the new Star Wars trilogy, thinks that Hollywood may have dug its own hole by over-hyping movies that haven't delivered.

"They've learned how to market and advertise movies so they can make $100 million," he says. "But audiences are getting wise to that. The only way you're going to be profitable is by improving the product and making good films."

gee, ya think?

missed oppurtunities.

while i was walking to work today, i saw a great blue heron in the perkiomen creek. i know what you're thinking: in perkasie?? yes. in perkasie. i really wanted to stop take a picture of it with my phone, but i was late for work already. in addition, we can't find the bluetooth dongle that will let me transfer pictures from my phone onto the computer anyway >_<

also, i left my keys at home today, so i was locked out. thanks to g, who came over and kept me company in my flakiness :)

fuzzy.

it's hard to work up the energy to make a long, insightful post about corporations, "digital identity," privacy and the destruction thereof, and free speech when you have a cat sitting on your lap nuzzling you sleepily.

my cat is sabotaging my blog! but he's so cute.

mmm...fat.

on the advice of the originally intended recipient, i'm going to be lazy and post this here:

Wizgeneric's Quick Guide to Cooking with Fat:

Fat is a requirement for all cooking. Not only can it add flavour of
its own, it also acts as a flavour transporter for the other
ingredients in the dish and helps them to blend.

1. Butter - milkfat. 100c/T
pro: tastes great. adds a creaminess to dishes other fats can't. adds a fluffiness to baked goods. less calories than other fats.
con: cholesterol and saturated fat. low smoke point, burns easily.
best for: eggs, potatoes, anything milk-based, baking, vegetables.

2. Extra Virgin Olive Oil - the first pressing from the olives. 120c/T
pro: tastes great, high in "good fats."
con: expensive, low smoke point.
tip: for frying in european dishes, and when flavour really matters, combine olive oil with butter. the flavour is phenomenal, and the olive oil will keep the butter from burning.
best for: tomato sauce, pan-fried chicken, potatoes (with butter), finishing steamed vegetables, cold in dressings.

3. Virgin Olive Oil - early pressings, but not the first. 120c/T
pro: still good flavour, high in "good fats," cheaper than extra virgin.
con: still retains low smoke point, not as rich flavour as extra virgin.

4. "Light" Olive Oil - later to last pressings. 120c/T
pro: cheap, high smoke point compared to other olive oils, still retains the "good fat" benefits of olive oil, essentially flavourless.
con: won't give you the flavour of the higher quality pressings.
best for: frying, stir frying, baking, anywhere you want a healthy oil without the flavour of ripe olives.

5. Canola Oil - also called Rapeseed. 120c/T
pro: nearly flavourless, cheap, high smoke point.
con: not entirely flavourless.
best for: deep frying, industrial uses. i personally don't use it at all, but it's used all up and down in restaurants and packaged foods.

6. Sesame Oil - pressed from roasted sesame seeds. 120c/T
pro: great flavour, a must for asian cooking
con: expensive! difficult to handle, low smoke point.
tip: add it in the beginning of stir fry to get it fully heated before adding the vegetables. sesame oil has a weird temperature range where it tastes burnt, but heated above that, it just gets nice and nutty. because it is so expensive, i usually do 2 parts light olive oil or peanut oil to 1 part sesame oil
best for: asian cooking or dressings.

7. Clarified Butter - aka ghee. ?c/T
pro: good flavour.
con: either expensive or labour intensive
best for: a must for authentic indian cooking. also really, really good for baking if you're feeling indulgent.

8. Other "vegetable oils" - corn, sunflower, safflower, soybean. 120c/T
pro: cheap and flavourless, really high smoke points. sunflower is getting attention for the same "good fats" in olive oil.
con: flavourless, most lacking of the "good fats" in olive oil.
best for: deep frying at temps over 400F. corn oil is traditional for latin american and caribbean cooking.

9. Margarine/shortening - solidified vegetable oil. 120c/T
pro: cheaper than butter, essentially flavourless.
con: trans fats!!
best for: well, given the research about trans fat recently, i'm not sure it should ever be used. no one's come out with a shortening vs. lard comparison, so i still use it for pie crusts and biscuits...any shortbread. some companies are coming out with trans-fat-free versions, which i have yet to try, but are probably healthier than lard.

10. Lard - pork fat. ?c/T
pro: adds an incomparable flakiness to pastries, shortbreads, and pie crusts.
con: saturated fats, cholesterol. personally, not a fan of the flavour.
best for: traditional pastries or pies.
tip: if i'm going to cook with pig fat, i'd rather choose a recipe that has bacon or sausage in it and just render the fat out of that.


11. Schmaltz - chicken fat ?c/T
pro: cheap, easily accessable.
con: saturated fats, cholesterol,limited use.
best for: traditional eastern european cooking, especially jewish.

12. Peanut Oil - 120c/T
pro: also good for asian cooking, cheap, high smoke point.
con: some people are allergic to it, not as much flavour
best for: deep frying, asian stir fries, combine with sesame oil.

13. Gourmet Nut oils - walnut, pecan, etc. 120c/T
pro: high in good fats, tend to retain flavour of nuts.
con: severly expensive, very low smoke points
best for: dressings. finishing steamed vegetables. don't even bother heating these.

current reading.

Eight Plays

by Tennessee Williams

The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, Sweet Bird of Youth, Night of the Iguana.

this ought to keep me occupied for a while. and no, i haven't finished The Silmarillion yet. i'm stuck somewhere in chapter XVIII: Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin.

unrealized potential.

while we were driving down to manayunk the other night for a hair appointment, we were listening to a podcast on his ipod from some guy in london who apparently had a fondness for bootlegs and red wine.

he spent several minutes between each song wittering on (his own word, in fact) about something or other which had caught his attention. in particular, the last song in his set sent him off about "the lonliness and ennui of the city." he was talking about the phenomenon of living in a major city, and yet feeling bored, lonely, and alienated.

what was interesting there was that he brought in a newspaper article he had read about the so-called "paralysis of possibility." he presented it as the unexplainable urge for people to not go out, not meet someone new, not see something new (and in a city like london, the article said, you could do something new every night), but to just come home and "sit in their little boxes."

i found it interesting that he stopped there. i'm not sure if he was just drunk or tired, or if it was a case of muddying the water to appear deep, but he just stopped with that essential indictment. i suppose it's also possible that the article stopped there too. but, from what i've read, most analyses of the situation continue, pointing out that the more we give people choice, the more they get afraid and/or overwhelmed. when you could go out and see something new every night, that very possibility overwhelms you with its enormity. it becomes easier and safer to not do anything, than to try to make the decision about what you're going to do and what you're going to miss.

i see it in my own life. it's much easier and safer for me to keep this job that i hate, that i very often describe as "soul-destroyingly boring," than to take that step to find a new job. my current one pays the bills. it's convenient. i can walk to it, which is sort of important when we only have one car. it's too easy to look at any other job and say, "well, it will be just as boring." or "i don't have a car, i can't get to it anyway." or "what if i have to take a major pay cut?" and so i don't use my education, i don't do what i love, because the status quo is easier. and less threatening. it's not that i'm bad at what i do, it's just that it's fairly obvious that my talents lie elsewhere and are essentially being squandered.

i wonder what society would be like if people were given the oppurtunity to use themselves to their fullest potential? no matter how much we talk about it, it's not something we're really interested in. it's much cheaper to pay someone to do something they hate, than to give them a fair salary for something they're good at. if your talent or passion tends towards something society has deemed superfluous or unworthy, then you're equally screwed. but i have to think, what if? what if we really rewarded (for instance) teachers for teaching and artists for art? what would we become?

woohoo.

mmf. it's been a hectic week. no posting from work makes blog get lonely.

but they gave me more RAM yesterday! w00t! now windows has progressed from "painful" to "almost usable." ;)