listening after dark

Wednesday's child is full of woe...

...or so they say.

But I have dark chocolate raspberry cake and the day off. Not woe.

Blog? what blog? Lists are the thing

>>> The semester is under way, and I don't feel overwhelmed at all (yet). So I suppose that is a good thing.

>>> I have been exhausted lately. Work is busy, winter is dull, my dreams are bizarre.

>>> So much of what I do revolves around library/libraries/librarians.

>>> I wonder how many people think "nonfiction" means "not true." It's a common mistake.

>>> Sometimes my ego enjoys being tickled. For example, being evaluated as a saint after teaching a very challenging class (two hours of 16 people asking 16 different questions about digital photography, computers, cameras, email, etc.).

>>> Cooking is such a relief. This month's experiments: lots of artisan bread, Judith Jones's boeuf bourguignon and apple tart, potato/leek/bacon/clam chowder, breaded mustard chicken, other treats I'm forgetting. Speaking of treats, the Two Fat Ladies make me very curious about British cuisine...and pretty much every other sort of cuisine.

>>> Also, much of my recent pleasure reading/watching has been centered around food and the food industry:
• Dishwasher by Pete Jordan
• Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica
• Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
• Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
• My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki
• Spain...On the Road Again
• Two Fat Ladies

>>> Not only food, but travel and the West. Despite grad school, I have been able to read a surprising number of fun books. Audiobooks help, because I can listen while cooking, eating and cleaning. My apartment has actually been cleaner, because it's a good excuse not to do homework. It's much easier to justify not doing homework if I'm cooking or cleaning. Those are essential things. I must eat. I must have clean dishes, clean clothes and swept floors.

>>> Winter is when I seem to plan vacations. I will be heading to San Diego in April for a friend's wedding, and to Montreal in August for my brother's wedding (even though he's already been married for a year — really, it will just be a party). There should also be several camping and backpacking trips wedged in between. The two-week January thaw is leading me to think that spring is just around the corner. When in fact spring arrives in late May, following several months of fluctuations (snow, rain, wind, melt, more snow) and followed directly by summer. But I think I love Wyoming. Maybe not Casper, particularly, but Wyoming, certainly.

Brevity

School, blah blah

The semester is nearly over. Just a final to take this weekend, and then one more class next Thursday. I think my grades will be just fine. And I think I may have learned a few things in the past few months.

As of December 11, I will have three weeks of freedom! Which will include work, of course, lots of good food and knitting and books, and a visit to Walla Walla to see family over Christmas.

In early January, it's back to class, with two new offerings: reference and information technology. Sounds fun, right?

Food obsessed?

Just when I was thinking I was eating too much junk (just after Thanksgiving), I came down with some kind of raging, maniacal stomach bug. Three days of nausea and stomach pain later, I've lost 5 pounds. Not that I had any pounds to lose. The past 36 hours, I have been enjoying beige and white foods: crackers, rice, oatmeal, banana, ginger ale, baked potato, chicken broth. Dull dull dull!

However, tonight I made my first risotto, and I allowed myself to have a few bites. I'll save the rest for tomorrow's post-final victory dinner. It tastes delicious.

Perhaps unintentionally, I have been reading food-centric books: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, and Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. This summer I read A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. These have made me want to try French food I can't pronounce or visualize. But where in Wyoming does one find truffles or unusual mammal innards?

Not much else

Aside from work, classes, homework and eating, my recent weeks have been fairly uninteresting. I haven't mentioned the weather yet. See? That's how uninteresting. Well, I suppose that's unfair. I find my life interesting, mostly, but it hasn't been very eventful: I walk to work, I answer questions at the reference desk, I eat my lunch, I answer some more questions, I sort some books, I make phone calls, I deal with email, I meet with volunteers, I come home and eat, do homework, go online to class, write and read and read some more (sometimes even for fun).

And that's about all. For now.

Bicycle season is over

On the last day of September, we had our first snow: wet, messy and not ideal for bicycling home at 9 pm. Since then, I have traded my bicycle and messenger bag for a backpack and good walking shoes. This Wednesday night, it snowed again. And more on Thursday night. And all day today.

As of 6 pm, there's about 4 inches of snow on the ground, and it's still coming down. Last I checked, it was 18 degrees. It is supposed to be 8 degrees tonight.

But this is Wyoming, which means it will probably be 70 degrees in a couple of weeks. Or days.

See the hazy blotches in the photo? That's snow falling sideways, blown by the wind.

With the change in seasons, there are some good points, hunting season being one. No, I haven't taken up a shotgun. But Wes is getting some use out of his arsenal. He especially enjoys bird hunting and also enjoys trying new recipes. In the last week I've eaten blue grouse kabobs, sage grouse stew, duck in plum sauce, and wood duck and sausage stew. I could get used to this. In fact, we've struck up a trade deal: I share my homemade bread and he shares his wild game. Works for me.

Another fringe benefit of the colder, stormier weather is the decreased temptation to abandon my homework for outdoor fun. Of course, now there are the temptations of hot drinks, blankets, good books and movies. I must resist!

This weekend, for example, I must:

• Take a three-hour online midterm, worth 40 percent of my grade (it's not multiple-choice), for my Tuesday class.
• Study for said midterm.
• Read (skim) several articles and a textbook chapter, totaling approximately 200 pages, also for my Tuesday class. This is not light reading.
• Research for a 50-page group paper due at the end of the semester for my Thursday class. My group has a meeting Sunday night, and we'll all have notes to share.
• Write my usual weekly assignment — again, for my Tuesday class. (Are you seeing the pattern?)
• Read another 100 or so pages for my Thursday class.
• And, if I have time (hah!), read through my research and begin writing another paper for my Thursday class

I'm probably missing something. But in order to determine that, I will have to begin. And as I've eaten my supper (wood duck and sausage stew, with homemade Italian herb and garlic bread) and just put my laundry in the dryer, I should probably get started.

However, as a disclaimer, I will say that graduate study is not all tedium. I am reading some great things and, most important, learning a lot about the history and context in which libraries operate. When I step back and consider what I have learned so far, it starts to make sense. But reading article after article about FRBR, metadata, authority control and whatever else...well, that's tedium.

Quirkyalones, pizza, anniversaries, wine and garlic

Wine and garlic

Tonight I made penne alfredo with chicken, mushrooms, zucchini, garlic, lemon, parmesan...basically, all good things. I've been wanting to cook more lately, possibly because during the week I usually don't have time, due to work plus classes plus homework. (You usually want something more when you can't have it. Leftovers for lunch and fried egg sandwiches for dinner can only last so long.) Probably watching Julie and Julia last weekend made that culinary desire a little stronger. So tonight after work (it's Saturday, right? working Saturdays confuses me), I got all the necessary supplies, put on my Etsy chile apron and put the Chardonnay in the freezer.

I haven't made this recipe for a few years. It was one of the first recipes I modified to make my own, back when I was still living with my parents. Tonight I realized I'm a much better cook than I used to be. I'm better at making adjustments during the cooking process, cooking things in the right order and, especially, cooking by nose. I add things without thinking. I don't think much while cooking, actually. I listen to my favorite music, sing along, and get lost in chopping, stirring and sauteing.

I browned the mushrooms in butter. Yes, fabulous butter. I added chicken, garlic and zucchini, then more butter and cream. I zested a lemon, then squeezed the juice into the bubbling creamy mixture. I lost a few seeds in the sauce. Oh well. I mixed butter, olive oil, black pepper, parmesan and basil in a bowl, then spooned it onto slices of French bread to warm in the oven. I sliced a garden tomato (thanks to my neighbor for a big bag of tomatoes he couldn't finish) to eat with my pasta, bread and wine.

By the time I finally eat, I'm often beyond the point of hunger. Somehow the end result isn't always the most essential part of the process.

Anniversaries and pizza

So I'm working backward from my title. So what.

Yesterday was Wes's and my four-year anniversary. Now, we've never been big on celebrating our anniversary, mostly because we couldn't figure out which day it was. Long story. But now that we know, we thought we might do something. Turns out, with work and everything else, we didn't plan anything out of the ordinary. So last night we had a Papa Murphy's pizza and beer. Played a couple of games of backgammon, talked about our weeks, called it a night. That's the best kind of celebration.

Quirkyalones

I've searched my blog archive more than once, and I can't believe I've never used the word "quirkyalone." Several years ago (during college? after?), I came across the term. Today I thought of it again, so I browsed the book we have at the library. It's amazing how perfectly it describes my personality. The website says: "Quirkyalones are people who enjoy being single (but are not opposed to being in a relationship) and prefer being single to dating for the sake of being in a relationship. It’s a mindset." It's also much more. Read more on the quirkyalone site if you're intrigued.

I'm thinking of this now, in light of four years of dating, not following the "normal" trajectory that most people seem to take for granted. I get frustrated when I feel the need to defend not yet being married or engaged, or explain our future plans. Perhaps I should buy multiple copies of the quirkyalone book and hand it to people who ask.

Is it so strange to be living separately, taking vacations alone or with our respective friends and family, doing many things separately? I was such a strange child, all my life, that I played alone for hours, read books, went on long bike rides and hid out in the tree house. My family always thought I was odd, and probably too private. But they let me be, mostly. I never dated. I never wanted to date. It was enough trying to understand my own life and emotions. Wes was the first person who understood that – because he's the same way.

This is not to say that I never feel lonely, or that I don't want marriage and children someday. But my ideas about the world have always been so internal, and probably unrealistic, that it takes some time adjusting to reality. Also, I like my space, my time, my big bed. It confounds me that some people aren't like me. Just as, I'm sure, I confound them.

Lentils, wheat bread and other delights

This week I've been reading Urban Hermit, in addition to the novel I read at work during lunch and the other two books on my night stand that are waiting for returned attention (see the "Reading Now" list at right, though the Vonnegut is an audiobook, so it doesn't count; I started it while road tripping and now it's an accompaniment to knitting or yoga).

Back to the point. This guy, Sam Macdonald, decided that to save money to pay off his debts, he would eat only 800 calories a day for a month. He decided lentils would be his protein, along with hard-boiled eggs and cheap canned tuna. Well, he describes the lentil in such a way that, had I not long loved that legume, I would probably not want to try it.

To say that lentils taste like dirt would be to state the case exactly backward. Dirt, it turns out, tastes like lentils. I am confident that, had the lowly lentil plant never evolved, the world's soil might today deliver a palate-pleasing sensation akin to ripe cantaloupe, fresh honey, or perhaps a Twix bar.

While Macdonald's writing is sometimes too self-consciously modern (periods setting off incomplete sentences or sometimes single words for emphasis, as in, "I wanted. To eat. Everything."), I often laugh out loud at his phrasing. I'm just a few chapters in, and it promises to be an interesting read. This is but one peril of working at the library. I now have many more books on my must-read list.

All that to say, I love lentils. I like the earthy, textured flavor. But then I also love carrots, which Wes thinks taste exactly like dirt. To each his own (brand of dirt). As for wheat bread, I've always preferred it over plain white bread, though I can easily eat a whole loaf of fresh, crusty-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside French bread. Maybe wheat bread is technically healthier than white bread, but I mainly eat it because it tastes wonderful. I use my mom's recipe in my bread maker and I always have a good supply of dense, nutty, slightly sweet wheat bread.

Almost every day for the past couple of weeks I've eaten a banana, an apple and an orange, plus whatever vegetables happen to be in my lunches and dinners. I don't usually go out of my way to eat vegetables, though I like them. But I'm addicted to fruit. Because it's fantastic.

My thought in all of this is that maybe eating "healthy" isn't always a conscious, painful choice. I just happen to prefer a lot of things that are considered good for you. I also love chocolate, red wine, pasta, pie, pizza, pork ribs and beer. But I don't eat those things all the time. My basic necessities include apples, peanut butter, bread and plain yogurt. I usually only feel the need to go grocery shopping when I'm running out of one or more of those essentials.

What are your necessary foods?

New favorite salad

In a burst of creativity last night, I came up with the following salad, which I'm eating again for lunch today. I would include a photo, but it's pretty much mutilated by now. I just happened to have all these items on hand, which is why they went into the salad.

Spinach Surprise Salad
two handfuls spinach
1/4 cup cooked chicken breast, chopped
2 tablespoons sliced cucumber
1 green onion, chopped
1/4 cup pomelo (or pink grapefruit), separated into chunks
2 tablespoons shredded cheddar
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
2 tablespoons walnuts, chopped

Sesame Herb Vinaigrette with a Kick
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1-2 teaspoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon sesame seeds
1/4 teaspoon poppyseeds
dash black pepper
dash dried basil
dash paprika
dash dried red pepper flakes (that's the kick)

Best damn chocolate cake—and it's even vegan

The cake recipe is from Leah, and the frosting I invented. I made some modifications to the cake, as noted. My other favorite chocolate cake recipe has the usual eggs and milk, as well as coffee, which gives it a really rich, moist texture. But this one is really good and, as a bonus, really easy.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used about 1 1/4 cups unbleached, 1/4 cup whole wheat
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used 1/2 cup, as Leah suggested)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• (I also added about 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg, allspice, cloves and cayenne—I could have used even more of each, as the flavors came through only slightly)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar or lemon juice (I used the vinegar)
• 1 cup water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease one 9x5 inch loaf pan. (I used an 8x8 pan. Perfect fit.)
2. Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add the oil, vanilla, vinegar and water. Mix together until smooth.
3. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Chocolate Blackberry Frosting (amounts are approximate)

• 1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup frozen blackberries
• 1/4 cup milk (or water, if you want to keep it vegan)
• 1-2 tablespoons cornstarch, either added at the beginning or mixed with a little water and then added near the end (so it doesn't clump)
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients in a small saucepan and slowly bring to a simmer. Cook and stir until melted, mixed and slightly thickened. Adjust ingredients to taste. Allow to cool slightly (or not at all, if you're impatient like me), then spread on cake.

If you try it, let me know what you think!

Intrigue and Italian food (i.e., look, I have friends!)

Friday night a friend and I hosted a murder mystery dinner party at my place. We made all kinds of Italian food, drank a lot of wine and all employed Italian accents of varying believability (they evolved from Italian to Irish to Russian).

During college my dorm had several murder mystery nights, though they didn't involve much homemade food or any wine. I think my favorite was the Mexican-themed one when one of the girls played the miner Rusty Pick's mule, Montezuma (invented by her, for lack of enough characters) and I was Cactus Flower, the killer.

However, late nights have become painful for me. Guess I'm getting old...

Happy music

My mom shared a link with me a while ago for a video of people around the world playing a song together. It's lovely, as she said.

This French-speaking girl's fairy tale is also delightful.

Speaking of delight, I'm almost done knitting this sweater! Just the collar to go. I'm kind of impressed with myself. I guess that means I'm experienced? (At knitting.)

This blog has become a lot about knitting and food, eh? I guess that's what I'm enjoying the most lately. Though in a couple of weeks I'll be starting a social dance class at the college. I'm excited for that. And I'll learn more next week about volunteering at the public library, in preparation for my grad school plans next year.

Oh, and whomever is in charge of filler music for Wyoming Public Radio is way cool. They keep playing music from some of my favorite movies: Amélie, About a Boy, Little Miss Sunshine.

But back to food...I'm recently re-addicted to the versatile Reuben sandwich. I make it my own way:

Dill rye bread
Sliced ham or pastrami
Sliced cheese (pepperjack, provolone, swiss...)
Lots of sauerkraut, drained
Mayo, spicy mustard and creamy horseradish, spread all together on the bread
Some ground parmesan for kicks
Sliced onion if you feel like it

Combine all those wonderful ingredients and toast the sandwich over medium heat in a pan with melted butter, flipping to brown both sides. Eat immediately with, advisedly, a cold beer and some oven fries (sliced potato cooked with olive oil, black pepper, cayenne, sea salt and paprika—at 375 for about 30 minutes).