Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Food for thought

1.  Some of my favorite writers are also the wackiest:  Carl Hiaasen,  Janet Evanovich.  They never fail to make me laugh.  Like this paragraph from Evanovich's Top Secret Twenty-One:
"God bless," my father said, offloading half a cow onto his plate.  He added a mound of mashed potatoes and four green beans, then poured gravy over everything. My father never got the memo about red meat, colonoscopies, or heart disease.  His philosophy was that if you never went to the doctor, you never found out there was something wrong with you.  So far, it was working for him.
 This makes me laugh.  Sorry about that.          

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Back in Bidness...

1.  With help, the problem relating to access to Xtreme English has been fixed. 

Monday, March 23, 2015

hoo boy.....

1.  I've had Xtreme English as my blog for about 9 years!  And then Google told me I had to buy a domain from them, so I did, and pfft!  Can't get into Xtreme English any more.  I can use this one, XE Xpress, but not the mother blog....

Saturday, March 21, 2015

A Day in the Life.....

His name is A....., and he works in the back of the pizza slice shop 
on U Street in front of which his book stand sits.  I've been taking 
a small bag of books to donate to him every day this week. This aft 
when I was taking another bag down there, a nice man caught the 
elevator door for me with his cane at Col. Heights metro. 
He asked about the books, and I told him about A....'s little stand. 
He asked me if I had any books by John Grisham.  I said I didn't 
think so, but he was welcome to look through what I had. He dug 
around and pulled one out..."Yoga!" he cried, delighted.  He shook 
my hand...."I'm J......," he said, "I'm Mary," I said, and off he 
limped to the gates. 
 
2.
Books I'm keeping....I've put two on my dining room table/workspace 
for further investigation:
Feed Your Soul by George Fowler and Jeff Lehr.--an interesting book 
given to me by one of Sally's friends.  What's interesting is how 
it meshes with what I'm learning about food as I get older.  For 
example, there's a recipe titled "Unexpected Companions," which is 
about a sandwich made out of leftovers:  whole grain bread/bun, 
avocado, roasted chicken, and zucchini-garlic sauce.  As I read it, 
it seemed to me to be like bahn mi, which some old friends from Iowa 
adore now that they're living here and have access to many Asian 
restaurants. I may have an avocado in my fridge, do have
roasted chicken, can improvise the sauce (mayo is good), add whatever 
veggies I want, Bingo!  I know from glancing through Kramerbooks 
yesterday that making a proper bahn mi relates to HOW you assemble 
it. First open the bun, add a smear of sauce on both open faces, 
then slices of avocado, then slices of chicken, veggies. I have some 
pickles I want to use, then more sauce, if you want, Close the sandwich, 
and it's ready to eat! very simple, very delicious. Very flexible! 
Cheese, pork roast instead of chicken...
  
Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative 
by Austin Kleon. One of those impulse purchases for $10.95 plus tax 
that I couldn't resist. The Table of Contents is interesting--I simply 
could have read it in the bookstore, but I wanted to have it for a 
while. The first page in the first chapter, "Steal Like An Artist," is
a quote from Pablo Picasso:  "Art is theft."  You learn this when you 
cook, btw.  Am I stealing Julia Child's dinner?  No.  I'm copying her 
process and wanting to share her esprit!!  Further along in the book, 
in the chapter "Start Copying," the writer Wilson Mizner says 
"If you copy from one author, it's plagiarism, but if you copy from many, 
it's research." 


Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Cabbage, continued....

1.  Today is the big day for cabbage in Irish households.  Remember this song?

https://youtu.be/TCQbksGz67U?list=RDTCQbksGz67U

2.  colcannon:  mashed potatoes mixed with shredded cabbage (cooked), cream, and a big knob or two of butter.

3.  I've already had my cabbage today for breakfast, but there's potatoes yet to go.

4.  No more drunken revelries for me.  having a nice cup o tea.

5.  Happy St. Patrick's Day, All!!

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Soup.....

1.  I've been looking for a good recipe for cabbage soup.  Cabbage is still "only" 69c a pound here.  The recipe I found for the "best cabbage soup ever" had half a head of shredded cabbage and a pound and a half of ground beef + catsup, and 1/4 cup of brown sugar.  Sounds more like goulash.  I'm sure it's tasty, but not exactly soup. 

2.  I know...borscht!--the good old country recipe we had in ND.  It had beets, cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and possibly carrots.  Have given away all my old ND recipe books, but I can probably improvise.

3.  Soup!!  It's what's for breakfast!

Friday, March 13, 2015

thank god it's friday music only once a week!

1.  Cop Car's blog is featuring "bonaparte's retreat" today--and I have NEVER HEARD IT BEFORE.  She also says that she is not allowed to sing in the car or in the house when anyone else can hear her.  HMPH! 

2.  When they were very small, my NJ grandchildren always said "NO SING-GING" when I struck up a tune.  I did like to sing around the house, but I abstained there, at least.  I don't sing much around the house now because I live across the hall from a professional singer (Little Margie Clark).  I do sing on the way to and from the metro station.  My favorites recently:

3.  "Green Green" by the New Christie Minstrels <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jom1n67_QOY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> and

4.  "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone" by Bill Withers (....<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tIdIqbv7SPo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Monday, March 9, 2015

So much for tidying up.....

1.  The place does look marginally better, but the WEATHER OUTSIDE has been calling for the past two days.  Temps in the 50s!!  Ice gone!!  Walking is possible and NOT exhausting (trying to stay upright).  Also, I shredded the tip of one finger on my right hand two days ago, and I can't do much
housework!  ha. 

2.  I remind myself that this is why I do not work in a professional capacity in a restaurant kitchen.  I'm always chopping myself.  Too much of MY blood flowing.  Although I do love to cook.  

3.  I was not cooking when the mishap occurred, however.  I stupidly poked at a fat envelope jammed
in my shredder.  The envelope hung in there, but my finger was sliced and diced.  Urk.  Luckily I  have just the right first aid materials to deal with this:  a new bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a couple of boxes of big woven fabric bandaids to keep the wound protected.

4.  And so it goes....The most recent New Yorker magazine had a "cartoon" showing a mail truck very much like the current USPS trucks, but the logo on the side read JUNK MAIL.  Hmph.  This is what
it's coming down to:  stuff to feed the shredders and cards for/from grandmothers.

Friday, March 6, 2015

Tidying Up....

Sally sent me a wonderful book for a recent xmas or birthday:  The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up:  the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing, by Marie Kondo.  Published by Ten Speed Press, Berkeley.  Ok.  So months and possibly years later, I'm getting into it.

1.  First step:  Discard everything all at once and completely before you do anything else.  Ha.
2.  In the kitchen, once I got close to the wood on the wooden table, I found a letter I wrote 3.5
years ago, but never mailed.  The envelope was missing.  Anyway, I read it, and who knows?  I may have meant to send it to you, gentle reader.  Here it is:

July 26, 2011
So, nu?
Moving is heck!!  My laptop is in the new abode, and my batteries--actually one battery--in the Blackberry is fading, and the charger is in the new place, too.  This is the price I pay for being so acquisitive.  Too many chickens to count & keep track of.

Anyway, I thought of you this eve as I read a great book, Train your brain more.  I am
reading it by hand, turning the pages myself, etc.  The author, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, a big gun in neuroscience, shows lovely charts that picture various areas of the brain that light up when they are active.  And here's how they stack up from lots of areas lit and bright down to least lit and dim:

1.  Solving simple calculations quickly.
2.  Reading aloud.
3.  Writing.
4.  Silently reading.
5.  Solving simple calculations slowly.
6.  Watching TV.
7.  Solving difficult calculations.
8.  Thinking (as in meditating).

There is no entry for pushing buttons to turn pages on a Nook.  I pass this on to you lest you slide into a stupor while reading.  I suggest you read your Nook out loud.  V. good for brain. :)

Yrs. truly,
M.E. C........
author, artist, and hoax
That's it.  You'd be amazed at what several hours of tidying up does for your place.  How do you pick what to discard?  (You can't throw out EVERYTHING)....If something does not give you JOY, pitch it. Don't even think of starting to organize anything.  Just clear it all out!  I pitched the letter, btw, now that I've made use of it.


Sunday, March 1, 2015

wintry mix today

1.  By "wintry mix" our DC Weatherbug usually means snow mixed with rain and ice.  It's all of that today.  Just crept out to the recycling bins to drop off old newspapers and plastic bottles--a test run to
see if I could possibly take the soup to my friend's house in GT.  Don't think so.  I got in and out of here OK, but there are no cobblestones here,  as in GT, and there are strong metal railings by our front steps (not present in GT).  So I guess I'll wait till tomorrow, when the temp will be in the 40s--enough to melt much of the ice.  The soup will keep just fine--it's been in the fridge since yesterday.

2.  I welcome this lion-like entry of March.  With luck, it'll go out like a lamb--no sleet, no ice. I remember my first March here, when it was 70F or so on St. Patrick's day!

3.  In the meantime, I've been thinking it might be nice to have a cane with a spike on the tip (to stick
in the ice).  Don't know if they make these things for people who are not going to climb mountains.  All the walking aids I've ever had have tended to trip me up.  Perhaps a geographical move might be
easier, though it's been cold in Florida this year.  No ice, though, right?

4.  Day before yesterday, I was sitting on the couch doing a crossword puzzle, and I drifted off to sleep.  In my dream, I stepped on an icy patch on the sidewalk, and I woke up when I felt myself
falling--off the couch.  argh.  That's a first.