Said to the boy tonight, "She's my age. Am I ready to be President? No!"
His response: I think you'd be an excellent president. People would hate you but you'd do a good job.
I thanked him for the compliment. He repeated that I really would do a good job, but I'd be despised.
Why do I feel like that was a warm fuzzy?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Twitter?
I am completely mystified while trying to figure out how to make my twitter updates show up in this blogger blog. And it occurs to me--we got a proposal for a twitter book recently. I was skeptical. But aha! Perhaps this is why people need a twitter book. Meanwhile, I turn a tweet into a blog post just because I can. Because this is a tweet if ever I've written one.
Lunch 2
Well, breakfast really. Threw some marinated artichokes and a bunch of different kinds of shredded cheese into the food processor, spread the resulting mush onto rosemary bread, toasted it, sprinkled it with garlic powder, ate. Pretty yum, but not a 10 or anything. Definitely a solid 6 or 7.
For lunch, I actually had the steel-cut oatmeal that I'd been meaning to have for breakfast but got sick of waiting for. I'm going to have to try the oatmeal on a different setting of the rice cooker.
For lunch, I actually had the steel-cut oatmeal that I'd been meaning to have for breakfast but got sick of waiting for. I'm going to have to try the oatmeal on a different setting of the rice cooker.
100 Foods
I saw this food meme, created by Andrew at Very Good Taste, a while ago, and thought it looked like fun. Hmm, maybe subconsciously it's why I tried to log into this blog again. But anyway, 100 Foods for Omnivores...let's see if I can manage a copy and paste! (As expected the copy wasn't the problem, but fixing the formatting annoyed me.) One is supposed to bold the foods one has tried, and cross out the foods one will never try. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to do a strike-through. Eesh.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea (I'm sure I would try this, but unless it comes packaged in tea bags in the grocery store, I'm not going to make any effort to try. Nettles hurt!)
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (like many others, I have eaten alligator. But not crocodile. Does America even have crocodiles? Yep, I should know that.)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (Rory will not let me eat calamari anymore--he wants to study squid some day and believes that they are the intelligent animal that will take over the world after human life dies out. But Michelle and I used to make it together in London and it was probably the first truly exotic food that I ever ate. Exotic to me, anyway.)
12. Pho (With Pam in Seattle for the first time. Also had it here in Florida and got food poisoning. Alas.)
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart (Hmm, an interesting one. I think yes, but am trying to remember when that would be. My life doesn't offer too many street carts. Does the cart outside Home Depont count? It's not nearly as romantic-sounding, but it's a cart, it's on a sidewalk, it's a hot dog...)
16. Epoisses (A cheese I have not eaten? But it's unpasteurized, and I bet that makes it very hard to find in the US.)
17. Black truffle (Not in any real sense. I think I had some in a sauce over ravioli once, but I'm not going to count that since it was such a minute amount it couldn't be tasted. The restaurant was probably Citron, in Oakland.)
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (This reminds me of the dandelion wine Michelle and I made in Chicago. Oh, how nasty that was! But I think I've tried strawberry wine at a winery in California, too. Either way, I have this one.)
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries (Living on Pine Street in Santa Cruz, we'd walk down the alley and pick the fresh raspberries on our way to the beach.)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (Epcot Food & Wine Festival!)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda (This sounds yum. I might have to try to make it.
31. Wasabi peas (Can't say I like them, though!)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (In San Francisco, on the wharf. How cliché can one get? And yet it tasted great.)
33. Salted lassi (Lassi, yes. Salted lassi? I think no.)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea (I'm assuming this isn't tea made with clotted cream, but tea the meal with clotted cream for scones or some such thing. There was a tea shop in London that I so loved--I wonder if it's still there. It was actually on Oxford Street I think.)
38.Vodka jelly/Jell-O (Unbelievably, I believe I made it through college without ever trying this. And I'm never going to. But I don't know yet how to cross something out. I'll try some pretend HTML and see if that works...)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (Maybe at a Korean restaurant? But maybe not, too. I'm calling this one a no.)
41. Curried goat (I have eaten goat, but only Mexican-style, not curried.)
42. Whole insects (Inadvertently yes, I'm sure, but not on purpose, so that's a no.
43. Phaal (Tasted, yes, eaten, not really.)
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (Debating whether to cross this one out. For that matter, how would I know how much the bottle is worth if someone else serves me the whisky? If you pay $20 for a glass of whisky, then the bottle must be worth that much, right? And I have tried whisky that's supposed to be comparable to a $300 bottle, but I didn't actually pay that much. This one feels like a trick question. But I'll leave it as I would try it, but probably haven't.)
46.Fugu (An exercise in trust, and I am not that trusting.
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (I think I tried sea urchin in sushi once and hated it. But I'm not completely sure, so I'll leave it unmarked.)
51. Prickly pear (Mexico, with the Thomases.)
52. Umeboshi (I had to look this one up! A Japanese food that I've never even heard of, I'm appalled at myself. But it's a no.)
53. Abalone (As a parent, I feel really quite pleased that my son has eaten a food that I haven't eaten--and this one is it. It's been endangered as far as I knew since I've been old enough to choose my food, but he ate it this summer in California from the sustainable fishery there. He rocks, my boy!)
54. Paneer (I'm thinking this is bread? But I'm going to have to look it up. Oh, it's the cheese--yes, of course I've had that.)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (Probably a sip during an F. martini phase. Never liked martinis, though.)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (not even sure what that means.)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian Michelle and I bought some, all unwittingly, to eat on the train to France. The smell alone made me so sick that we wound up trying it early and throwing it away. Even now, the thought gets my gag reflex going.
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (Had funnel cake at Epcot just a couple days ago. It does not belong in the same link as a good beignet!)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73.Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76.Baijiu (Fifteen years ago, some of my answers would have been different. But at this point in my life, I'm not really going to drink strange alcohols, even for the experience.)
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong (Every day!)
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky (Another Epcot food! I think that might start to get embarassing.)
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. ( I wish!)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare (I wonder if there is a distinction between hare and rabbit. One wild, maybe, the other not? But I tried rabbit for the first time way back in my first year at college, in Canada, and I'm counting it.)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89.Horse
90. Criollo chocolate (This one actually isn't in wikipedia, but I assume it's crillo cocoa, rather than a brand name.)
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa (Also not in Wikipedia. I've got harissa paste in my cupboard for making chickpea stew, but I don't know what the rose part might change.)
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (Kinda, sorta, but I'm voting it has to be the real thing, pure. I had some coffee once that was mixed with Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, and it was just...coffee.
100. Snake
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea (I'm sure I would try this, but unless it comes packaged in tea bags in the grocery store, I'm not going to make any effort to try. Nettles hurt!)
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (like many others, I have eaten alligator. But not crocodile. Does America even have crocodiles? Yep, I should know that.)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (Rory will not let me eat calamari anymore--he wants to study squid some day and believes that they are the intelligent animal that will take over the world after human life dies out. But Michelle and I used to make it together in London and it was probably the first truly exotic food that I ever ate. Exotic to me, anyway.)
12. Pho (With Pam in Seattle for the first time. Also had it here in Florida and got food poisoning. Alas.)
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart (Hmm, an interesting one. I think yes, but am trying to remember when that would be. My life doesn't offer too many street carts. Does the cart outside Home Depont count? It's not nearly as romantic-sounding, but it's a cart, it's on a sidewalk, it's a hot dog...)
16. Epoisses (A cheese I have not eaten? But it's unpasteurized, and I bet that makes it very hard to find in the US.)
17. Black truffle (Not in any real sense. I think I had some in a sauce over ravioli once, but I'm not going to count that since it was such a minute amount it couldn't be tasted. The restaurant was probably Citron, in Oakland.)
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (This reminds me of the dandelion wine Michelle and I made in Chicago. Oh, how nasty that was! But I think I've tried strawberry wine at a winery in California, too. Either way, I have this one.)
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries (Living on Pine Street in Santa Cruz, we'd walk down the alley and pick the fresh raspberries on our way to the beach.)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (Epcot Food & Wine Festival!)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda (This sounds yum. I might have to try to make it.
31. Wasabi peas (Can't say I like them, though!)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (In San Francisco, on the wharf. How cliché can one get? And yet it tasted great.)
33. Salted lassi (Lassi, yes. Salted lassi? I think no.)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea (I'm assuming this isn't tea made with clotted cream, but tea the meal with clotted cream for scones or some such thing. There was a tea shop in London that I so loved--I wonder if it's still there. It was actually on Oxford Street I think.)
38.
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (Maybe at a Korean restaurant? But maybe not, too. I'm calling this one a no.)
41. Curried goat (I have eaten goat, but only Mexican-style, not curried.)
42. Whole insects (Inadvertently yes, I'm sure, but not on purpose, so that's a no.
43. Phaal (Tasted, yes, eaten, not really.)
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (Debating whether to cross this one out. For that matter, how would I know how much the bottle is worth if someone else serves me the whisky? If you pay $20 for a glass of whisky, then the bottle must be worth that much, right? And I have tried whisky that's supposed to be comparable to a $300 bottle, but I didn't actually pay that much. This one feels like a trick question. But I'll leave it as I would try it, but probably haven't.)
46.
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (I think I tried sea urchin in sushi once and hated it. But I'm not completely sure, so I'll leave it unmarked.)
51. Prickly pear (Mexico, with the Thomases.)
52. Umeboshi (I had to look this one up! A Japanese food that I've never even heard of, I'm appalled at myself. But it's a no.)
53. Abalone (As a parent, I feel really quite pleased that my son has eaten a food that I haven't eaten--and this one is it. It's been endangered as far as I knew since I've been old enough to choose my food, but he ate it this summer in California from the sustainable fishery there. He rocks, my boy!)
54. Paneer (I'm thinking this is bread? But I'm going to have to look it up. Oh, it's the cheese--yes, of course I've had that.)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (Probably a sip during an F. martini phase. Never liked martinis, though.)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (not even sure what that means.)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian Michelle and I bought some, all unwittingly, to eat on the train to France. The smell alone made me so sick that we wound up trying it early and throwing it away. Even now, the thought gets my gag reflex going.
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (Had funnel cake at Epcot just a couple days ago. It does not belong in the same link as a good beignet!)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73.
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76.
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong (Every day!)
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky (Another Epcot food! I think that might start to get embarassing.)
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. ( I wish!)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare (I wonder if there is a distinction between hare and rabbit. One wild, maybe, the other not? But I tried rabbit for the first time way back in my first year at college, in Canada, and I'm counting it.)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89.
90. Criollo chocolate (This one actually isn't in wikipedia, but I assume it's crillo cocoa, rather than a brand name.)
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa (Also not in Wikipedia. I've got harissa paste in my cupboard for making chickpea stew, but I don't know what the rose part might change.)
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (Kinda, sorta, but I'm voting it has to be the real thing, pure. I had some coffee once that was mixed with Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, and it was just...coffee.
100. Snake
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Everything Wants to Be Updated
Insanely frustrating day today. Microsoft Word just would NOT work. It's so easy to start taking our tools for granted, but without a word-processor, I'm almost useless. Without email and a word-processor, I'm completely useless.
So I come online to play some nice soothing video game, and Windows wants to update, iTunes wants to update, the virus software wants to update...and I would like to scream.
So I come online to play some nice soothing video game, and Windows wants to update, iTunes wants to update, the virus software wants to update...and I would like to scream.
Food and More Food
For lunch today: rosemary bread, smeared with 1/4 of an avocado, and two slices of tomato.
For lunch yesterday: black beans (about 1/3 can) with feta cheese, chopped tomatoes, green onions, and a vinaigrette dressing.
Ample reasons to work at home?
For lunch yesterday: black beans (about 1/3 can) with feta cheese, chopped tomatoes, green onions, and a vinaigrette dressing.
Ample reasons to work at home?
I upgraded my computer a few months ago. (Actually, I should say that the company I work for upgraded my computer a few months ago!) And for some reason today I decided to see if the struggles I had with updating the blog were resolved with the new machine. Obviously, I'm just typing away right now to see if I can type and I can format...but so far, so good. And I enjoyed reading what I wrote for the few brief posts from so long ago, so I think maybe I'll write a little more. Maybe ten years from now I'll check back in and be reminded of something fun!
There's a book called something like, "No One Cares What You Had For Lunch" about writing for your blog, and while I think that's true, I also think that *I* care what I had for lunch. And since no one reads this blog except for me, I can talk about my lunch. Or, in this case, dinner from last night. I made chili for the first time in...oh, maybe twenty years. It brought back good memories, of big pots of chili over the stove in that run-down house in Connecticut, and the chaos of living with lots of people. There wasn't anything specific about the memory--no conversation that struck me, no person who was particularly important, no incident of any great drama. It was just a white stove, a pile of dishes, and curious look into a giant pot. Food wasn't important to me back then. I think I would have preferred to find some other way of subsisting. But now food is one of my great pleasures. Unfortunately, yesterday's chili was...well, the recipe I followed (or semi-followed, which is really the best I ever do) was not exactly appropriate for my young niece or my mom or even my son. My first bite nearly blew the top of my head off. And I like spicy! So I spent the afternoon trying to tone it down. The secret finally turned out to be chocolate. The sources online suggested unsweetened baking chocolate or high-quality semi-sweet, but eh, I had Hershey's syrup for the niece and I used it. It turned out to be pretty good chili. Still with a definite kick at the end but with some sour cream and some cheese, everyone managed to enjoy it, except for Caroline.
I also baked bread. It wasn't perfect, but it was yummy enough and the loaf was gone by the end of dinner. And then I made a tomato and cucumber salad, thinly slicing tomatoes and cucumber and layering them and then drizzling with olive oil, sprinkling with salt and pepper. It should have been delicious, but drizzling olive oil works better when you have a carafe. I went straight from the bottle and it was more like a glurp of olive oil. Eh, but hey, it was still tasty. And it looked very pretty! Mom brought brownies for dessert and fortunately for me, they had peanut butter chips in them. If not, I could have munched the entire pan, but since I don't like peanut butter, I managed some self-restraint.
There's a book called something like, "No One Cares What You Had For Lunch" about writing for your blog, and while I think that's true, I also think that *I* care what I had for lunch. And since no one reads this blog except for me, I can talk about my lunch. Or, in this case, dinner from last night. I made chili for the first time in...oh, maybe twenty years. It brought back good memories, of big pots of chili over the stove in that run-down house in Connecticut, and the chaos of living with lots of people. There wasn't anything specific about the memory--no conversation that struck me, no person who was particularly important, no incident of any great drama. It was just a white stove, a pile of dishes, and curious look into a giant pot. Food wasn't important to me back then. I think I would have preferred to find some other way of subsisting. But now food is one of my great pleasures. Unfortunately, yesterday's chili was...well, the recipe I followed (or semi-followed, which is really the best I ever do) was not exactly appropriate for my young niece or my mom or even my son. My first bite nearly blew the top of my head off. And I like spicy! So I spent the afternoon trying to tone it down. The secret finally turned out to be chocolate. The sources online suggested unsweetened baking chocolate or high-quality semi-sweet, but eh, I had Hershey's syrup for the niece and I used it. It turned out to be pretty good chili. Still with a definite kick at the end but with some sour cream and some cheese, everyone managed to enjoy it, except for Caroline.
I also baked bread. It wasn't perfect, but it was yummy enough and the loaf was gone by the end of dinner. And then I made a tomato and cucumber salad, thinly slicing tomatoes and cucumber and layering them and then drizzling with olive oil, sprinkling with salt and pepper. It should have been delicious, but drizzling olive oil works better when you have a carafe. I went straight from the bottle and it was more like a glurp of olive oil. Eh, but hey, it was still tasty. And it looked very pretty! Mom brought brownies for dessert and fortunately for me, they had peanut butter chips in them. If not, I could have munched the entire pan, but since I don't like peanut butter, I managed some self-restraint.
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