tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41318687058316315312011-10-19T11:20:25.156-06:00Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.comBlogger3681100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-75060178928811850102009-12-31T19:32:00.000-07:002009-12-31T19:32:47.677-07:00

Well, my reading goal for 2009 was to read 25 books. Not a lot, but in 2008 I didn't read very much at all, so it felt doable. And it was! I read 44 books total. (Why didn't I finish just one more? I'm only 70 or so pages from the end of one of my current reads.) Books Read, January through December, 2009 01 – J13 - Weather Makers, Tim Flannery, Review 02 – J15 - The Tales of Beedle the Bard,

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-32538920584659150532009-12-24T23:00:00.001-07:002009-12-24T23:04:26.616-07:00

My sister and I made piroshky today. It's a Russian sort of stuffed meat bun. I think there are as many ways to make piroshky as there are people in Russia, but my brother-in-law's method includes meat, cabbage, and of course dill. Here's a kind of sort of recipe and a how-to. Filling 1-2 tbsp vegetable oil 1 lg onion, diced fairly small 4-5 cloves garlic, minced 6 cups cabbage, sliced

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-10687345092049670522009-12-23T19:17:00.004-07:002009-12-24T23:04:49.526-07:00

These aren't quite as dry/hard as most commercial pfefferneuse I've had, but they're still drier than I'd prefer. (I like soft cookies best.) The flavour is pretty amazing though. Well, if you like spice cookies. And I do. Yum. Pfefferneuse Makes many dozen. (I made these in the photo a little larger than I've done in the past, but slightly smaller sized will result in about 9 dozen.) 3

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-13490378772675821542009-12-23T13:26:00.000-07:002009-12-23T13:26:19.480-07:00

Hey look! I made cookies yesterday. I don't know what inspired me to bake the day after getting my H1N1 shot because OW my arm hurts but I guess I just had too much to do. Today is officially Blame the H1N1 Shot Day. As in: "I'd love to help unload the dishwasher, but I can't really lift my arm up right now. Sorry!"In any case, I made four kinds of cookies yesterday - shortbread cookies (left

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-81922605105798320782009-12-17T20:20:00.003-07:002009-12-17T20:28:55.040-07:00

It's been quite a while since I've felt like talking about food. Since I've felt like COOKING food for that matter. I think in the last several months, I've only made two things I've thought were worth a damn. This is one of them. It's not so cold now, but we had a really cold cold-snap last week and I kept thinking about soup and how it was soup weather and then my iPod would be on shuffle

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-30558109388232587012009-11-28T20:08:00.000-07:002009-11-28T20:08:42.123-07:00

It's been quite a long while now since I read Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead, but since I've still got a couple books left in this universe to read: here's a quick blurb. Opening paragraph: Speaker for the Dead travels far into the future of Ender Wiggin's life. No longer the boy found in Ender's Game, Ender is a man who travels from one colony to another speaking on behalf of the

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-59092731021795316022009-11-27T21:59:00.001-07:002009-11-27T22:00:37.133-07:00

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham is a post-apocalyptic novel describing a society some thousand years into a future where some catastrophic event, called Tribulation by survivors in Labrador, has laid waste to most of the world, rendering much of North America uninhabitable or gone wild with mutated plants and animals. Animals and plants with mutations are destroyed; mutated people are either

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-28755045913071205962009-11-15T20:31:00.000-07:002009-11-15T20:31:09.971-07:00

Neil Gaiman's M is for Magic was a disappointment. I hate to say that because I love Gaiman and don't want to feel that way. And generally his books are so good that when I feel kind of iffy about something, I feel like it must be my fault rather than his. How could it be my fault when an author's book doesn't live up to my expectations? Well, in this case, I didn't notice that it was a

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-8268473423971277932009-11-13T21:26:00.000-07:002009-11-13T21:26:23.987-07:00

When William Gibson first wrote his cyberpunk novels, Neuromancer and the rest, in the early 80s the idea of the internet, of cyberspace, was so new and unknown that it might have turned into anything. It was all (almost all) speculation then, what the technology might become. Now that the internet has become a ubiquitous presence in nearly everyone's life, I don't think there's so much room to

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-38848553216775920392009-11-11T20:02:00.000-07:002009-11-11T20:02:37.776-07:00

I spent a massive amount of time today crawling around hands-and-knees on the floor pinning this sucker back together. I did it once before, two years ago, but after leaving the quilt rolled up and/or stuffed into one of those zip-up pillow bags and/or shoved from one storage location to another, it was in very wrinkled shape. So yesterday, besides sewing all those blocks for Modify

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-65460743120994025772009-11-10T19:28:00.004-07:002009-11-11T16:25:19.079-07:00

I've started following a new quilting blog called Modify Tradition, which is attempting to create a modern looking sampler quilt using traditional blocks. They're talking a lot about different elements that often appear in modern quilts, most of which has been pretty interesting. In any case, below the cut will be close-ups of each of the blocks and a little blurb about each. So first up

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-42775580455906550542009-11-08T17:41:00.003-07:002009-11-10T19:42:19.141-07:00

So I decided to blend my three blogs here into one. I haven't been keeping any of them as up to date as I'd like, so I suppose I thought maybe I'd keep on top of it a bit better if I don't feel as if I have so many things to tackle. If I update once a week on any of my given subjects - books, crafts, or food - I think I'll be happier than if I feel that I need to do something with all three.

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-70217486590972289612009-10-25T21:23:00.001-06:002009-11-08T18:38:16.373-07:00

One of my favourite websites, The AV Club has a monthly book club (link leads directly there), which I've never quite managed to participate in because either the book hasn't arrived on time, I haven't been interested in the book, or I haven't finished reading the book by the discussion dates. (In that last case was the lovely Little, Big by John Crowley. I never did write about that book

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-6373633051582567342009-09-15T23:49:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:39:27.571-07:00

So it's been a while. I don't know. You know, I cooked and took pictures and blah blah blah but I guess I needed a break. Maybe I still do. We'll see what happens, I suppose. I've had a craving for Indian food for a while and the last time I tried to make it - Butter Chicken from scratch - it really didn't work out. I mean, it was okay, but I do think my garam masala is dead (I don't make my

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-38569419327507152942009-08-17T16:39:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:40:17.732-07:00

When I bought Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (well, "The Ender Quartet," really) I knew next to nothing about it. I knew it is a highly regarded science fiction novel, originally published when I was a young child. (The story the novel was based on was published in 1977, the novel in 1985.) I knew too that it seemed to be a polarizing book – people loved it or hated it without so many opinions

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-11212861431616023352009-08-14T22:39:00.001-06:002009-11-08T18:40:54.146-07:00

Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes was the winner of Canada Reads 2009 on CBC radio. Basically, the idea behind Canada Reads is that a panel of famous Canadians each choose a book by a Canadian author, which they think Canadians should read. On the radio program, the panellists defend their choices, eventually eliminating four of the books and choosing a winner. I'm not really sure where it

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-14798013216745634392009-07-31T22:19:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:42:26.696-07:00

There's not a lot I won't try if given the right incentive, so when a co-worker friend offered me a hard-cover copy of Daniel Handler's Adverbs, free, since she couldn't remember either buying it or borrowing it, I decided to give it a try. I liked A Series of Unfortunate Events (with some reservations), so why not a novel for adults by the same guy? She did warn me that it was impossibly

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-60799437642375794102009-07-31T21:43:00.001-06:002009-11-08T18:44:43.402-07:00

So Miriam Toews' The Flying Troutmans. I was expecting, because of previous experience with Toews' work, that this would be a story about Mennonites and possibly also the clash between their culture and Canadian culture. I wouldn't have been bothered if that's what I'd gotten because I quite enjoyed A Complicated Kindness and it's something that Toews does well, that sense of connection to a

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-35438596299047524892009-07-30T21:23:00.001-06:002009-11-08T18:45:31.712-07:00

Like a lot of people, I'm a sucker for mostly anything with Neil Gaiman's name on it. (Not so much movie tie-ins or merchandise, but otherwise.) My latest bout of Gaiman-induced spending resulted in my owning M is for Magic and Interworld, a novel co-written with Michael Reaves. Interworld is an adventure story for pre-teens (at least it read about that level to me) featuring Joey Harker, a

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-85514097496835929392009-07-26T21:13:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.307-07:00

Two memoirs in such a short period of time is unusual for me, and two dealing with brain disorders no less. The first, of course, was The Man who Forgot How to Read, which I reviewed about a month ago, but read around the same time as this, Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet. This book deals with the way Savant syndrome, a form of Asperger's syndrome, and Synaesthesia combined in Tammet, record

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-53485394812585947052009-07-26T19:00:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:01:00.515-07:00

[I wrote this review in 2007. Just digging up some old stuff to add to the collection here. It might be interesting to read some of these books again and see if I've got a different perspective now. Probably I won't bother though.] I read most of Douglas Coupland's Eleanor Rigby in one go last night, laying in the bathtub and letting the water get cold around me. I think I absorbed a pound of

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-83151888973514275522009-07-26T18:52:00.002-06:002009-11-08T17:59:26.775-07:00

So jPod. jPod was my most recent favourite-new-tv-show-that's-bound-to-be-cancelled. And was. There were a lot of problems with jPod, mainly related to the fact that CBC was staffed by a bunch of poor-decision making tools. They advertised, but not enough that I ever learned what date/time the show as to premiere or even air. Then they moved it to a new night, mid-season, but once again didn't

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-16125741528508428982009-07-23T21:50:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.314-07:00

Kurt Vonnegut is one of those iconic American writers who it feels like everything I know has read except me. I recently bought a boat-load of books (well, okay, 11 or 12 of them, which fit in a smallish box delivered from an online bookseller's warehouse in Ontario), including Slaughterhouse-Five. I don't know why I choose that book in particular and I didn't even read a synopsis before buying

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-44505294381570346022009-07-23T20:54:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.317-07:00

When You are Engulfed in Flames is the 3rd book from David Sedaris that I've read. The first was Me Talk Pretty One Day, which had me laughing like a maniac in public places. It was a great experience and sing I'd come quite late to his books, I had several others to choose from to read next. Unfortunately, I picked up Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, which was only so-so. I can't really

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-91888785530427426162009-07-19T17:06:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:40:04.957-07:00

A while back now, I made a set of hand bags for a craft exchange I was doing online. I could make anything I wanted, and when I found this gorgeous collection of fabrics - August Fields from Amy Butler - it sort of snapped right into place. What I loved about it, especially, is how summery it is. The colours are gorgeous and the prints fun and if I'd made the bags a bit bigger, they're the

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-90647980975019163582009-06-29T17:55:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.319-07:00

I haven't got a particularly interesting story about how I came to read Ali Smith's The Accidental. I've never read any of her novels or stories before and I only got the book because it was free in a Buy 3 Get 1 Free sale. I couldn't find a fourth book I was interested in, but this one had a cover that reminded me of the cover of Jeffery Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides, so why not?It's quite

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-24819670402070096202009-06-29T16:13:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.322-07:00

I've been trying for two weeks to write a review of The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, but I invariably wind up with three pages that say nothing at all. Then I start over and the same thing happens again. It's driving me a little bit mad. The book is a children's or young adult adventure novel with elements of detective fiction and science fiction. It's a kind of hybrid I

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-27530460950628971232009-06-29T16:03:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.325-07:00

I pretty well always like young adult fantasy. Even though they're often very predictable, adventure stories are just fun. So the entertainment value is high and they let me indulge in the things I like about all fantasy – world creation, interesting magic (even if it's not called that), even the comfort of archetypal characters and the tropes of the genre and seeing them played with – without

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-64321979201814044862009-06-27T10:54:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:40:04.976-07:00

We've fallen a little behind in our block of the month on Livejournal due to some family problems with the person who has put together the BotM. It seems like things are getting better for her, so hopefully the rest of the year will be an improvement on the beginning. In any case, she recently posted blocks for April and May, so those two are included in this collection of eight blocks.

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-72435297212474127262009-06-20T14:37:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.327-07:00

I tend not to read a lot of graphic novels. I enjoy some of them and I love the combination of art and story, but so much of what I encounter seems either to be men's wank fodder or anti-social in a way that annoys me or too much the superhero thing or… or… or… So on CBC's website, I saw that the online book club was reading Skim, a graphic novel by cousins Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki. Their

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-91471734524233569232009-06-20T13:26:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.329-07:00

I have occasional, passing bouts of interest in memoirs and auto/biographers, but generally only in cases where I'm already a fan of the author or subject. I quite loved Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family, for example, but it's pretty unlikely that I'd have read it if I hadn't already read and loved his novels. A month ago, I'd never heard of Howard Engel, so The Man who Forgot How to Read

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-89472569431372249112009-06-19T20:05:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:24:35.860-07:00

Tonight's dinner (not pictured) was a comedy of errors, without any of the redeeming comedic value. (Meat gone off, a burned sauce, boiling water spilled on my tummy...) I started my evening tired, hungry and not feeling that well, and now I've lost two hours, am still tired, still hungry, still don't feel well, AND I have a burned stomach. Plus a sink full of dishes to wash. Sigh.I've not

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-38367884703291851072009-06-09T18:33:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:19:26.660-07:00

This photo is several days old now and when I look at it, I think that June isn't really the time of year to be making chili. But when I made this, it snowed. SNOW. In June. I feel pretty strongly about the fact that it should not snow, in the northern hemisphere, in June. But my sister assures me that it snowed in July once, a few years back.The thing about living in Calgary is that we have

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-22835636877937723922009-06-04T19:09:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:18:23.012-07:00

You know, this is not the most attractive picture, but it was pretty tasty. Even better on the second day, once the garlic had more of a chance to do its thing in the dressing.Basically, this is what it says on the tin: a combination of potato salad and chicken Caesar salad. But lighter than either and a really great dish for lunch. Essentially it's boiled potatoes and cooked chicken breast,

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-32575925383369399252009-06-03T20:43:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:40:04.923-07:00

Another set of blocks for my birthday blocks group. These are much smaller than usual - 6.5 inch blocks rather than 12-in ones. Which, actually, is why I've made four rather than just two.The request, this time, was for 2 6.5 inch blocks featuring stars or frogs or featuring fabrics with either frogs or stars on them. I did consider, for a while, coming up with a paper-pieced frog, but

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-67267555778176303042009-06-01T20:18:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:18:23.016-07:00

There is something intimidating to me about making curry paste. I'm not really sure what it is, but I never make my own curries. (I suppose I have made butter chicken from scratch in the past, as well as aloo gobi, but otherwise.) That cookbook I kept talking about in the last few entries, Jamie's Food Revolution has several not-entirely intimidating recipes for curry pastes, but... I don't

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-43103286847240751142009-05-28T20:27:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.331-07:00

My boss and I have often talked about William Gibson's books at work – he's a big fan of both cyberpunk and steampunk and though I know very little about either, I do have at least a passing interest in them and enough knowledge of Gibson's older books to have a conversation about them. He'd recently listened to an audiobook of Gibson's most recent novel, Spook Country, but hadn't really liked it

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-54255790405876980342009-05-28T19:37:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.333-07:00

I picked this one up as part of my continuing efforts to read all the winners of the Giller prize. (I've read 12, I think, of 16.) MG Vassanji is a two-time winner of the prize and his other winner, The Book of Secrets, is still on my to-be-read pile. (It's also on my mental to-be-bought list, but one day...)From The New Yorker, a description: In this novel set among Kenya's Indian diaspora, two

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-82587949173010607602009-05-25T21:36:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:28:04.266-07:00

I've had this window open for two days and can't seem to decide what to say. So here's the thing: I've been having stomach problems for quite a while and I, like anybody, hate going to the doctor. I couldn't hope to self-diagnose (and wouldn't bother trying - that's a good way to freak yourself out), but I decided to do an elimination diet for a bit and see if I feel any better while not

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-8335042678786127882009-05-22T19:59:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:17:18.981-07:00

So I found Oka cheese at the grocery store a while ago and bought it on a whim and then went, 'Oh crap, what do I do with this?' Oka is a cheese made in Oka, Quebec, a location I know more for the Oka Crisis in 1990 than for their cheese. But the long and short of it is this: Trappists monks at the monastery in Oka developed this cheese, which is "a surface-ripened semi-soft cheese," using

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-50873083480669590492009-05-19T21:42:00.004-06:002009-11-08T18:37:38.528-07:00

My brother-in-law brought home a big tray of cut vegetables from work a few days ago, which were good but beginning to dry out just enough that I didn't really want to eat them as they were. I thought that soup would be a good way to use up at least the carrots and celery - I don't eat raw celery anyway, I don't know if it's an allergen, but it makes my lips and tongue go numb if I eat it raw -

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-39888692710606262392009-05-17T20:38:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:37:38.531-07:00

I signed up a couple days ago for a website called Goodreads, which is basically a library website with social networking capabilities. I'm not quite sure why I signed up for it because I've been happily using aNobii for quite some time, but I guess there's no real harm in having two different libraries online. I've never used the social networking functions at aNobii and I'm not certain I

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-72414979906721514632009-05-14T15:06:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:40:04.991-07:00

These are the most recent quilt blocks that I've made for my birthday block exchange group. This block, called Depression Block at Quilter's Cache, is one of the nicest scrappy blocks out there, I think; it always looks really great when you use a ton of different scraps.A couple years ago, Jenn at Quiddity Quilts made a full quilt of this block, in blues and creams, but I can't find where her

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-74769027421339911212009-05-13T22:02:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:18:23.021-07:00

So I'm in Saskatchewan on holidays right now, which means that I've been eating a lot of lunches out and not really cooking so much. Well, that's not true: I have been cooking, but I've been cooking things I've cooked before. I've been making things for my parents that I've made and liked in the past little while, so I've done the pork skewers and Thai Chicken Salad. Tomorrow I'm going to

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-54974072254322838222009-05-02T21:22:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:34:20.691-07:00

This Cat Cora cookbook, Cooking from The Hip, is pretty quickly becoming a favourite cookbook. There's a lot of really tasty things in this book and it really is full of the sort of things that I can make with mostly ingredients that I've already got (or can fairly easily get) and can do in a short enough amount of time that I don't feel like I've wasted a bunch of my day on cooking and then

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-65849128228724045392009-04-28T20:13:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:36:21.939-07:00

1. Kraft shredded Parmesan cheese does not melt and disperse so much as melt and congeal. I really need to stop putting it in soups when I should know that's what happens. I like cheese, but I do not like a glob of parmesan when I'm eating soup.2. I probably deserve to have my imaginary home cooking license taking away because I made my own stock using a mixture of lamb bones and chicken

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-60328430981783708032009-04-26T21:15:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:23:59.373-07:00

I often think about cooking lamb, but it's not a very common thing to eat here. Even in a city this size, there are plenty of grocery stores that don't sell it and even those that do typically only sell particular cuts. (Lamb loin chops are the most common and usually you can find frozen ground lamb.) Because of that, and also I suppose because there aren't lamb farms around every hillside in

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-86794929817404780762009-04-24T22:26:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:34:20.694-07:00

I have a tendency to buy a lot of food related things and then never finish them. I have couscous, quinoa, buckwheat, amaranth, several varieties of rice, flax seeds, every sort of nut under the sun, jars of two sorts of pesto, two sorts of curry paste (maybe three... hm, I can't remember if I have a Thai green curry paste or not), Alfredo sauce, tomato sauce, a squeeze tube of tomato paste,

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-30112558095129723302009-04-20T20:00:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:27:36.218-07:00

I think I'm going to be full for days after this dinner, and I didn't even eat all of it. (There's a lot of food in that bowl. There's a lot more in the fridge. I'm usually pretty good about not cooking more than one day worth of leftovers, but forgot to cut down the pilau recipe.) When I was planning what to cook for the week, I had some vague idea about making ginger pork, stir-fried

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-79024879448469620262009-04-19T18:29:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.334-07:00

When I first started up this blog this year I knew that there would be certain books I'd find hard to write about, and I hoped that I'd just be able to get on with it anyway. This book - god is not Great by Christopher Hitchens – is not one of those hard-to-write-about books, but the six that I read between this book and the last one I wrote about… those ones were. With any luck I'll manage to

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-82395581908271254062009-04-18T19:02:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:19:26.669-07:00

My boss was on vacation this past week and whenever he's away, I always have these stretches of cooking nothing. I always manage to finish the work even when he's not there, but somehow I stress myself out about it enough that I can't bear the thought of coming home to do anything so complicated as cooking.I did, a few days ago, make something I was going to post about - this sort of steak

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-4006061947176283612009-04-12T20:51:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:19:26.675-07:00

Even though we don't celebrate Easter and Christmas as the days are actually intended, we do usually cook a family dinner on those sorts of holidays anyway. Easter kind of crept up on us this year and suddenly on Friday I remembered to see if my sister wanted to do something or not. We talked about buying a small chicken, but I had a pork tenderloin in the freezer, so I decided to make that

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-82606602867475110042009-04-11T21:53:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:34:20.696-07:00

Hey look! It's another Cat Cora meal!Once again, it was really delicious and surprisingly simple. As Cora says in the blurb before the recipe, this is a sort of California version of gyros, with fish rather than lamb and lettuce cups to replace the carb-heavy pitas that are usually wrapped around the filling.Although Cora recommends using a double layer of lettuce cup - radicchio and butter

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-66088338332596871372009-04-11T21:33:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:35:50.898-07:00

I've been sitting on this photo for a few days, trying to decide what to say. This was a pretty tasty dinner - chicken and baby bok choy cooked in a peanut and citrus sauce served over a mound of rice noodles.For a while I had been making a lot of recipes from a cookbook by Sandi Richard called The Dinner Fix and on the whole I'd liked most of what I'd tried, so I picked up another of her

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-24051150161306140062009-04-08T20:40:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:25:04.039-07:00

This is one of my old stand-by dinners for when I want something fast and easy and lazy. I often talk about how the foods I cook are quick and easy, but this is probably quicker and easier than anything I make (with the exception, of course, of freezer food like pizza pops or leftover chili). I would guess this is a 15 minute meal, perhaps 20 minutes if I decide to make potatoes as well (as I

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-61289357766212663232009-04-08T20:04:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:40:05.181-07:00

I had plans to get more than this done today, but I didn't really feel like doing laundry, and so I didn't get washed the fabric that I needed. Actually, no, it wasn't that I didn't want to do laundry, it was that I didn't want to IRON all the fabric that I needed. I watched old episodes of House instead and cut out everything I could in the colours that I did get washed. Fortunately those

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-28488167615156129352009-04-05T20:12:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:18:23.032-07:00

It's been a bit of a busy weekend, so this photo is a couple days old now. It was a sort of impromptu thing I made last Thursday and only moderately successful. The chicken is stuffed with spinach, onion, and some Havarti cheese, but I really didn't like the taste of the stuffing at all. The cheese was entirely useless since I couldn't taste it and the spinach had a sort of... muddy taste.

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-87156044587615848352009-04-01T21:27:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:40:05.218-07:00

Another two blocks for my Birthday Blocks group. These blocks came with the request for purple and green. Also for bright, which I'm not quite sure I managed (dunno). In any case, I wound up buying a fair bit of pretty cool fabric for these blocks and then promptly used almost none of it. Ah well, into the stash it goes.This block is somehow one of my favourite simple, old-school blocks to

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-77062529108140287822009-03-31T21:47:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:18:23.034-07:00

One of my restaurant pet peeves is when you order lasagne and you get a dish of mini-lasagne noodles mixed in with meat sauce and baked with cheese on top. That's not lasagne, that's noodles with meat sauce baked with cheese. I tell you this because even though my title says I made lasagne, really I made spaghetti with cottage cheese and spicy turkey meatball-tomato sauce baked with

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-53836094514091297472009-03-30T20:17:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:34:20.699-07:00

This is yet another Cat Cora recipe. There something a little bit surprising about just how simple the recipes in Cooking From the Hip are. I suppose I expected something a little more complicated, but these are (for the most part) meant to be things anyone could cook for any dinner without too much prep or complicated ingredients or anything. Which is nice, but it would also be nice to see a

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-63102009716577505492009-03-29T20:04:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:26:15.958-07:00

So my parents came up to visit this weekend and I told them not to come unless they came with my dad's pancake recipe and intentions of making some for me. So my dad made pancakes this morning before they left.SO GOOD. Yum.I wish there was a pancake making gene and that I'd have gotten it from my father because I have zero skill with pancakes. Flat pancakes, hard pancakes, chewy pancakes, raw

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-1099954553674141692009-03-27T22:50:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:40:05.232-07:00

I had a ridiculously, stupidly difficult time with these two blocks for my birthday block group. I feel quite terrible for the recipient because they're over a month late, and I truly hate to do that to people when they're relying on me to live up to a promise.The block request was for this block (or the paper-pieced one below) with snowflake or penguin fabric, but not Christmas fabrics. I

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-29627518765344224922009-03-25T20:25:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:34:20.701-07:00

These are another couple recipes from Cat Cora's Cooking from the Hip. It seems like I'm on a bit of a roll with her recipes right now, but I'm running into the point where most of what I still want to make involves fish, so I'll stop making so much of it so quickly - I can never quite talk myself into fish more often than once every week or two. a lot of the other things that I'm interested

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-65635814258520984742009-03-19T21:04:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:34:20.703-07:00

This is kind of sort of not quite another recipe from Cat Cora's Cooking from the Hip. I was going to make a recipe for spicy fish, but I forgot to take fish out of the freezer before work and there was nothing really appealing looking at the store on my way home. So I bought ground turkey instead and decided to make a Greek inspired burger.There is a recipe in the cookbook for Lamb burgers

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-18457664270723020552009-03-18T22:20:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:34:20.706-07:00

I don't very much like this photo, but nevertheless. I recently bought a bargain bin copy of Cat Cora's cookbook Cooking from the Hip. The book is broken up into four sections - fast, easy, fun, and phenomenal - which each have recipes for appetizers, main courses, side dishes, and desserts. I'm not quite sure how she decided which recipes went into which section, since I'm pretty sure (

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-17361071243627066292009-03-16T13:43:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:11:27.761-07:00

I've been craving pancakes the last couple days. I don't know that I've ever had a craving for pancakes before, but there it was. I didn't really know what to do about it because I am pancake-making impaired. I've never successfully made pancakes before. They always end up either burned, raw inside, or really thin and hard instead of fluffy and light. It doesn't matter if I try making them

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-87037847131880611512009-03-15T17:02:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:18:23.039-07:00

I thought I should have a fun end to my ridiculous colour-coded food odyssey, so I decided to do something a tiny bit crazy. Pink spaghetti.I didn't buy it like this, no. I made it myself; it's regular white (high fibre) spaghetti but I stained it with beet juice. What a mess. There were pink dots of beet juice all over the stove and my hands were bright red.I boiled up a smallish beet, then

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-9731140146649072462009-03-12T19:46:00.003-06:002009-11-08T18:17:18.997-07:00

This was luscious and velvety and deliciously good. I've never made or eaten carrot soup before, and was a bit nervous about trying it, but it was quite nice. I found the carrot flavour to be very intense, with a nice hint of curry. It was less difficult to make than I somehow imagined it, though of course I could have done without washing so many dishes (especially the blender).I don't think

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-70547968946650397572009-03-11T21:17:00.002-06:002009-11-08T18:18:23.042-07:00

Yep, it was yellow day today. Actually, it was orange day, but I didn't feel like making soup, so I bought some chicken breasts and a lemon for yellow day instead. I'll be glad when orange day is done because eating like this, even eating like this sporadically as I have been, is weird.The thing is that food goes together or doesn't regardless of colour. So just because lemon and mustard are

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-56816662347162865532009-03-08T23:31:00.000-06:002009-11-08T08:38:20.337-07:00

When I start reading a series I usually feel compelled to finish it, even if I don't like it all that much. Might get better, right? That was the case with Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series. I didn't really like it, but kept on picking up, reading, and being disappointed by the books. (I think I've maybe managed to break the cycle – there are at least two available now that I haven't read.) In

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-31230833928505376972009-03-06T18:13:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:40:05.248-07:00

This feels like it will end up as the world's yellowest quilt. I've talked in passing before about this block of the month group which I'm following on Livejournal and how I'd decided to use up ugly stash fabric on it. (The ugly fabric being the burgundy and the orange which are very greyed colours, not pure colours at all.) It's funny that I'm lightening up on my dislike the more blocks I

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-60900912859185259922009-03-05T19:08:00.003-07:002009-11-08T18:25:40.476-07:00

This is - finally - another part of the colour-coded food odyssey. I've had the eggplant in the fridge for several days but kept forgetting how early I'd have to start cooking it if I intended to eat any time before I should be going to bed. (Half an hour to salt the eggplant, 30 minutes for making the sauce, baking for 30-45 minutes...)Purple is a tough colour, food-wise. There aren't really

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-46859090320398660262009-03-01T19:39:00.004-07:002009-11-08T18:18:23.044-07:00

One of the things I most like to eat but hate most to make is butter chicken. I've got this really gorgeous recipe for it - or I think it's gorgeous anyway, but I've had as many different butter chickens as places I've eaten it at, so I suppose it wouldn't work for everyone - but it takes such a long time to make that I haven't done it in longer than I can remember. (Probably it was when I

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-37240604192908111622009-02-25T22:07:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:19:26.693-07:00

This isn't really quite so true to the colour coded food idea, but I didn't really like any of the options from the book and so I decided to do my own thing following the general idea. So roasted herb-encrusted pork tenderloin with crunchy, spicy green beans and rice.I've made this pork recipe several times, though I tend to use pork loin chops rather than tenderloin, but I'm glad I tried it

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-5057929221501064062009-02-24T21:09:00.004-07:002009-11-08T18:26:15.961-07:00

So we went to Redwater Rustic Grille for my sister's birthday on Sunday. And this is what we ate. I wish we'd had a better camera with us because the one we had with us does okay but not great. Some of the pictures came out quite grainy. And my sister (who shot three of these pictures) doesn't think to look at what is sitting around in the background or what angle would show things a little

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-9465071068179202882009-02-23T21:13:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:18:23.046-07:00

I think my bland beige boring white dinner kind of killed the cooking mood last week because this is the first time I've cooked since. (I did go to a nice restaurant yesterday though, which if I remember to get the pictures from my sister, I'll write a blurb about tomorrow.)So Day Two of the colour diet is red. A lot of their red recipes were for fish or veal. And if I'd made this last week

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-59379172469365514342009-02-18T21:36:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:24:35.870-07:00

I think I mentioned about a week ago that I've got a lot of unusual cookbooks, including a diet one that suggests eating a different colour of food each day of the week. I definitely agree with the idea that a person should eat as wide a variety of fruits and vegetables as possible in order to get all the nutrients we need from food, but I think eating on a colour-wheel is at best silly.But

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-14203272980345739662009-02-16T21:03:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:18:23.049-07:00

So for the first time ever, I decided to make my own chicken stock. Yesterday we made a roast chicken, so I used the stock and some roasted vegetables and... stuff to make it. It's got a much more intense flavour, I found, than the stuff you buy from a grocery store. And it doesn't have that sort of.. faintly metallic taste you sometimes get with the store bought stuff. I don't know if I'll

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-47183790589086459172009-02-16T06:01:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:40:05.265-07:00

I signed up this year for another exchange on Livejournal where we make blocks according to requests and then send them out in time for each person's birthday. Because there aren't a lot of us this year, we're making two blocks per person.For the first birthday, on February 10, the request was for 10 inch blocks made with purples. I feel a bit like I've done nothing but purples the last

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-71353203152151308962009-02-15T20:35:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:18:23.051-07:00

Here is a sad truth: I've cooked absolutely nothing in six days. What I mean by nothing is that it's possible that I... well, no. I don't even think I microwaved anything (other than pizza pops once). No leftovers. I'm not really sure what I ate. My stomach has been feeling weird and off lately, so I keep eating rice cakes and bland things, but maybe I just needed to eat some actual food? I

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-85520139606919250892009-02-11T18:43:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:38:20.339-07:00

Quite a long time ago I had my first experience of reading a book by Michael Ondaatje. It was In the Skin of a Lion and for years I considered it my favourite book. If I don't call it my favourite now, that's probably only because I don't really consider any book my favourite book. (Who can make such a decision? There are so many books.) Whenever I hear there is a new Ondaatje book coming out, I

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-56057600954351636492009-02-09T20:04:00.001-07:002009-11-08T18:18:23.054-07:00

I tend to pick up a lot of cookbooks in bargain bins at grocery stores. Sometimes I get really great cookbooks, like Jack Bishop's A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen or... this one cookbook I can't remember the name of, which is orange and in the kitchen downstairs. I use those books a lot and have had far more successes with them than failures. Sometimes I get sort of cracked out cookbooks, like

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-14656976583665892932009-02-06T19:59:00.001-07:002009-11-08T18:31:50.986-07:00

I don't really like the word fusion as applies to food, but "fusion chicken" was the name given to this recipe by someone at Better Home and Gardens. The recipe for this appears in a diet cookbook for BH&G and it's some of the best diet food going.So so good. It's a bit sweet and a bit salty and very, very flavourful. My sister and brother-in-law wouldn't eat it with the citrus salsa, but the

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-71658372416668888592009-02-02T22:09:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:18:23.059-07:00

So this chicken recipe was maybe the easiest thing I've done in a while. Just three ingredients: chicken, ginger, and an orange. I found the recipe in a French cookbook a few months ago but only just found the paper I'd scrawled the recipe on. This is what I wrote:Chicken w/ ginger and orange2 chicken thighs (bone-in)1 breast1 2-in piece of gingerroot2 blood orangesalt/pepperOven 350.Rub

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-8692533489713022872009-02-01T20:48:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:38:20.342-07:00

Books Read, January 2009J13 - The Weather Makers; Tim Flannery [review]J15 - The Tales of Beedle the Bard; JK Rowling [review]J20 - Criminal Minds: Finishing School; Max Allan Collins [review]J21 - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; F Scott Fitzgerald [review]J27 - A Spot of Bother; Mark Haddon [review]So I really didn't read a lot last year. I don't quite know why it happened that way, but I'm

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-13817959754182208862009-01-30T20:11:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:38:20.344-07:00

Mark Haddon's A Spot of Bother is another of my 84 cent books I picked up at Superstore back before Christmas. I had been interested in reading Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time but never quite got around to it, so when I found this book I thought it might do as a second choice for seeing what sort of books this author writes and if I'd be interested in reading

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-62617281932404969042009-01-27T21:02:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:38:20.346-07:00

The main reason I found myself reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is that with the movie release, the story was also re-released in its own paperback book. It feels like cheating to include such a short story in my list of books read, but hey… it has its own set of covers and its own barcode: technically it counts.The shortness is another reason I found

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-40904609870528543542009-01-26T20:37:00.003-07:002009-11-08T18:27:36.221-07:00

Another boxed rice pilaf. I keep trying out different ones, looking for something tasty and worth buying and I never quite find it. This one is pretty good, for rice from a box, but still not what I'm really looking for. (Probably a good thing, since the only place I know that sells it is no longer selling it.) It was somehow both too salty and too sweet, without having high amounts of sugars

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-80194785263553136592009-01-23T20:47:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:24:35.873-07:00

When i found this recipe in a pamphlet at work, I thought it looked pretty good. Fish, pasta, broccoli. All tasty things. But it turned out to be surprisingly dry and bland. It was work to swallow that dry whole wheat penne. And although the broccoli and the beans were both lovely, they just tasted... boring.I have the second half of this meal packed away for tomorrow, but honestly I don't

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-26268706488159122042009-01-23T19:08:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:38:20.348-07:00

Here is one true thing about me: I'm a book snob. I like to think that I'm not a book snob because I enjoy fantasy and I've read and enjoyed Science Fiction and I read a fair bit of young adult fiction. But the fact is, I'm a book snob about MOST science fiction and MOST fantasy and an awful lot of young adult novels and I'm a book snob about pretty well all the genres you can think of when it

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-31805180240889355072009-01-21T21:24:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:40:05.281-07:00

This for a while has felt a bit like a never-ending project, but finally, there's an end in sight. I've been working, off and on, on this quilt since August 2007.Right now it looks like I could finish it. I'm only one block short of having enough to make a decent sized quilt, but I'm still holding out for one more row and one more column. (I like quilts to either be square or to conform to a

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-8597632284305600772009-01-20T21:41:00.003-07:002009-11-08T18:18:23.061-07:00

I had the worst indigestion today, which pretty much never happens to me, and so I thought I wouldn't wind up eating dinner - again - because it was too uncomfortable. People who get indigestion all the time... How do they live with that? Ugh. But I've been playing WiiFit a lot lately and did again when I got home from work and it seems to have the added benefit of straightening out a lot of

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-90888023053100014862009-01-20T21:34:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:38:26.196-07:00

So. JK Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard. What's there to say about this? Well, I picked it up because it was cheap and had a lot of Airmiles attached to it at my work. And also, when I start in on a thing, I get obsessive about it. I can stop liking it, but I still have to complete the set. (Case in point: The Matrix? A very fine film. The follow-up? A very poor one. And yet, I own the

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-30756511614660861652009-01-18T20:20:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:38:26.198-07:00

Several months ago one of the grocery stores near me had a discount bin of books for 84 cents each. Most of the books weren't worth even 84 cents to me, but I picked up three or four just to try them out. One was a book by Bill Bryson, which turned out pretty good if not fantastic, but which I read during my year long off-period when I didn't read much and didn't write anything about any of it.

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-36182428102627287412009-01-16T19:30:00.003-07:002009-11-08T18:32:59.926-07:00

Quite a long while ago I discovered Hummingbird Cake. It's apparently something out of the American South, which might explain why I (coming from the Canadian prairies) had never heard of it. I had been looking for recipes for cupcakes with fruit in them and I found a cupcake blog with a lot of really cool recipes, including this one. Hummingbird cake tastes a lot like a more-cake-than-bread

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-78478592202633233252009-01-15T19:26:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:22:27.577-07:00

I'm playing catch-up a bit now, since this and a forth-coming entry are both from yesterday. Fortunately, I have no plans to cook tonight or tomorrow, so I shouldn't get too bogged down. So long as I don't go back to posting nothing, anyway.This was a lunch I made using up some leftover meat from the last time my sister made tacos. (It's a common Saturday night dinner around here.) There

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-20093923733027572172009-01-15T18:50:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:22:27.579-07:00

So, something like, oh, nine days ago, I said this: Tomorrow if I eat some of the leftovers, I'll try to take a proper picture.I did take a proper picture. Too bad I didn't also post that proper picture. Well, here it is now. This picture comes with 100% more greenery than I ate the day I made the lasagna. It also has extra cheese melted over top because you can never have too much gooey

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-24987238291632385912009-01-09T18:36:00.000-07:002009-11-08T08:40:05.303-07:00

These five quilt blocks are ones I made as a swap angel for the Birthday Blocks group on Livejournal. This block is called Rose Dream (I think) and is done by paper piecing. I am pretty familiar with paper piecing, and this is a very simple pp project, but somehow I found it incredibly difficult. It took three separate sewing sessions to get them completed because I kept hitting a point where

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-24859015011071791982009-01-06T21:47:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:22:27.582-07:00

What? That doesn't look like lasagna to you?So I took it out of the pan too early, and it hadn't set enough, and it really just made a big, sloppy mess on the plate. But it tasted quite lovely. This was a sort of... ethnically confused, mishmash of a dish. A bit Greek, a bit Italian, a bit... stuff I had in the fridge.When I was in junior high (grade 8, I think) I had to take a Home Economics

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4131868705831631531.post-75535124896455396592009-01-05T19:50:00.002-07:002009-11-08T18:30:21.081-07:00

I've had some motivation issues with cooking ever since Christmas and though I have been cooking, I haven't been particularly happy with anything I've made or interested by any of it. (I don't think I could name a thing I've eaten in the past week.) This was quite good, though, and I only really put in effort on... 1/3 of the plate. Maybe less.The pork is something I've made before, I may

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18309375626451755440noreply@blogger.com0