Thoughts Like Music

What, no party?

rethought@gmail.com — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:21:49 GMT

I think my computer should somehow reward me when I reach 100 footnotes.

Maybe play a little victory tune...or something.

Singin', oh yeah.

rethought@gmail.com — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:46:18 GMT

I'm basically chained to my desk for the next 5 days. Thesis writing: it burns!

Yesterday, for the ecumenical service, we had a guy from the Word Festival speak. I can't seem to get excited about the Word Festival and his long, long, long, long sermon didn't help. It did help that a guy with twin girls sat down near me and we played peek-a-boo during parts of the service.

I was pleased that we sang 'Kingsfold', 'Repton', and 'Cwm Rhondda' for the hymns. There was one other, but eh. Those three are some of my favorites.

The anthem was something forgettable, but easy to pick up since I'd missed rehearsal last Tuesday evening. I think the easiness was picked to accomodate the people smashed from the music ball the night before.

Mass in the evening was super long. We had not only the usual kyrie, gloria, psalm, gospel acclamation, memorial acclamation, communion antiphon, sanctus, agnus dei, regina caeli, salve regina, and four hymns, but also the sequence 'Veni Sancte Spiritu'. Of the four hymns, two had 7+ verses, so lots of singing.

When I intoned the Kyrie, I felt like my chest was going to explode. The previous cantor was a soprano. Since I'm an alto, the organist lowered the piece, I think by a tone and a half. Unfortunately, that meant that towards the end of lines, I was having a hard time having enough air to sustain the notes, plus keep them loud. Which of course made me nervous and compounded the air-intake issues.

The homily for the day was an anti-abortion one. I don't even know precisely what I want to say about that. You could tell the congregation wasn't totally agreeing with him because people shift around a lot more. The things I notice from the organ loft...

Things went well until the Agnus Dei, at which point I was confused because Father skipped around in the missal a bit. I was trying to find my place and the organist gave me the tone for the Agnus Dei and I had to fumble for my Liber before beginning.

I spoke with the organist after and he seems happy enough with what I did, but I'm a little frustrated. I think it will help that he's going to raise the tone of the Kyrie and I'm going to dog ear the 'de Angelis' bits in my Liber so I can open to them quickly.

Exciting times, no?
Right then, back to work.

Mum

rethought@gmail.com — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:16:03 GMT

Happy Mother's Day.
I love you.

Food Friday: Paris

rethought@gmail.com — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:01:41 GMT

French cuisine...the best in the world?

Depends on the person of course, but the reputation of French chefs and their cooking is, deservedly, legendary.

But, what to do if you don't eat meat? Does that mean that one is confined to onion soup and crêpes?

Not if you make a point of searching out veggie restaurants, it doesn't!

ybunny and I ate last Tuesday night at a vegetarian restaurant on the Right Bank called Saveurs Végét'Halles.

While slightly tricky to find, it was worth the wander.

Everything was tasty and definitely a treat for the eyes as well.

I also discovered that seitan doesn't have to be disgusting. Hurrah.

ybunny decided to gross me out a little and go for carrot and ginger juice, I opted for The Rouge.

We started with hummus and an olive tapenade with cuts from a baguette.

the tapenade, the hummus was presented similarly

For mains, I had seitan steak while ybunny ordered the chicken fillet.
Mine came with lentils, mashed potatoes, mangetout and mushrooms, and a green salad. His came with lentils, bulgar wheat, and a green salad.

We ate in almost complete silence as there were no words to waste on the deliciousness of the moment.

Even though we were already quite full, we had to try their desserts.
I was disappointed that they'd run out of pear tart at lunch time, but ybunny was delighted that they still had some of the red berries crumble. I got chocolate cake as a consolation prize.

While mine was great, the crumble was perfection. Crunchy and crumbling on the crust and sweet yet tart for the filling with a mango sauce drizzled around it. Both were served with physalis.

Great...now I'm hungry again. :)

Je suis arrivé

rethought@gmail.com — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:18:36 GMT

I am arrived back from France.

ybunny and I had a great time.

Will update about it tomorrow.

FYI: Food Friday will be Food Saturday Evening this week. :)

Off...to...somewhere

rethought@gmail.com — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:48:16 GMT

Decent supervision.

Again, I make up words and that is NOT OKAY.
(Unsurprisingly.)

Tomorrow, ybunny and I leave for Paris. We'll be there until Friday afternoon-ish.

I'm excited, but I'm also a bit 'meh'.

Food Friday: Food Links

rethought@gmail.com — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:04:49 GMT

A good food blog contains lots of pictures.

Unfortunately, most of the time, I am without such niceties.

Recently, I can blame this on a connectivity problem with our Mac Mini, aka the computer the pictures live on.

I like food pr0n as much as the next person.

So, I'll give you a few links of where I get my fix.

Bento
Lunch in a Box

Bento Anarchy

Bento Lunches

No, I don't make bento lunches myself, I don't have the time or equipment, but I think the intricacy of some of them are awesome.

Cakes
Cupcake Bakeshop

Cupcakes Take the Cake

Jintrinsique

Gluten-free
Gluten-free girl

Gluten-free Goddess

Gluten-free Blog

Veggie
Vegetarian Organic Blog

Misc
Potlikkery

I come back to these, though I do peruse new ones every so often. :)

You know you wanna share. Where do you see gorgeous, drool-worthy food?

Ascension Day

rethought@gmail.com — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:25:31 GMT

FYI, it's Ascension Day.

The Mass chants for Eastertide (but not Easter day itself) are 'De Angelis'.

We switched over from using 'Orbis Factor' once Lent was over.

Today, as you might presume, we were to do 'De Angelis'.

I sang the Kyrie for 'De Angelis'.

The organist played 'Orbis Factor'.

There was a bit of confusion and extemporanising, but we got there in the end.

I guess that's what happens when you get two Protestants together doing the music for Mass...accidents happen. :)

Otherwise, the organist and I rocked the chapel. \m/

Drive on, nothing to see here.

rethought@gmail.com — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:37:59 GMT

Photo by neonwilderness

Yeah, baby!

First time. Hee.

Book Reviews: 27-37

rethought@gmail.com — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:06:25 GMT

So far behind!

Okay, for anyone keeping track, I'm going to put asterisks by the books I've read previously since I'm allowing myself to read some that are not new to me.

I thought that it would be easier to do all new content, but I find that sometimes I just really want to allow myself to sink into prose that I know to be delicious rather than try something that might not be to my taste.

27
The Discworld Companion by Terry Pratchett and Stephan Briggs

I think this goes back to my love of reading dictionaries and encyclopedias. (Side note, how irritating is it to be 8 and trying to read all the entries in a volume and have not enough lap to hold the rest when you want to cross reference?)

Funny, in that Pratchett-esque way. Also a good way to fall asleep.

28
Druids: Preachers of Immortality by Anne Ross

I picked this up in the Lake District. There seemed to be a lot of things to connect to Druidism down there, more so that up here. Though, I'm sure that's just my perception and probably not factual.

I found the book difficult to follow, but it wasn't because the writing was bad, it was obvious that the author knows her stuff. I think it was because I haven't ever read anything about Druids before and so constantly had to remind myself of the people/places/gods that had been mentioned previously.

29
The Pocket Guide to Scottish Words: Scots and Gaelic by Iseabail Macleod(Isn't that a great way to spell Isabel? Hee.)

I was loaned this book by a friend from church.
This was in response to my O.o look when she asked me to dicht the tables.

I have to say that Scots words are impossible to learn from a book. Especially since they are pronounced different ways in different areas. I'm starting to notice more and more when not only are accents bad in movies, but they aren't consistent.

That said, I myself have not acquired a Scottish accent, and it's a crying shame.

30*
Pyramids by Terry Pratchett
(Yeah, lots of Pratchett. Blame ybunny. He had them before I even met him.)

I don't like this one much. Though, I was able to get through it this time.
I do like the idea of camels being mathematical geniuses. (Genii?)

31*
Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

I just like Granny Weatherwax.
Like every other person out there.

32
Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy

I saw Circle of Friends ages ago, because at the time I had the predictable crush on Chris O'Donnell.

I thought this made a better book that Circle of Friends, which I read last year. The details of how people grew apart and together were very well thought out.
I gather these are kind of beach novels, but since I don't do the beach thing, I read it without one.

33*
The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

Kay's plot line are always rich. They almost always start out with about 5 different scenarios that eventually wind up as part of one big end scene. This was no exception.

However, instead of his usual historical-fantasy genre, he branched out in something that could be true. It's a thinly disguised version of the interaction of Wales and England as well as the threats to the Isles from the Vikings.

Every time I read one of his books, I think, 'I must have missed that'. It's like getting an extended version of a movie without paying for the whole thing again. :)

34*
King's Blood Judith Tarr

Although I often hope for another novel set in Egypt from Tarr, as I've said previously, anything she publishes, I'll buy.

This one is set in England and give a semi-alternate history of William the Conqueror's descendants.

I can't say anymore about this book, because if I do, I'd ruin it. If I can suggest one book worth buying of the 37 so far reviewed, I'd say this is the one.

35*
Movies in Fifteen Minutes by Cleolinda Jones, aka cleolinda

Most of you know of her community m15m. I linked to her recap of 300 a while back.

Anycase, she saves the big guns for the book (Braveheart, LotR, Spider-Man, The Matrix, etc.)

Hard to find either side of the pond, but all but impossible in the US.

36
Monks, Miracles, and Magic: Reformation Representations of the Medieval Church by Helen L. Parish

I have to say, if you want something explained, ask a medievalist. Am I right, almariel? :)

This book boils down to the same arguments made against Christianity for appropriating pagan rituals. In the same way, Protestantism appropriated Catholic rituals/imagery.

The complete denial of all things Catholic by Protestantism is laughable at best and a quick skim of history shows that even Luther didn't break away as far as people might have liked for him to have.

This book would have been an easier read if I was a Church Historian, but alas, that ship has sailed.

37
Dubliners by James Joyce

I enjoyed these short stories, but I've always been a fan of the short story. (I put the blame for that squarely at Dorothy Parker's feet.)

While I enjoyed them, I can't say that I really liked them, however.

'A Mother' in particular made me squirm.

I think I'll reserve any more comment on Joyce in general until after I've read Ulysses.

Whew. I shouldn't put this off for so long.
I am now caught up, hurrah.

Huh?

rethought@gmail.com — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:04:44 GMT

I don't understand how COPAC works sometimes.

Search query (keywords): moses king

Results: (third entry)
Sound recording, Aretha Franklin, 'Young, Gifted, and Black'.

I love me some Aretha, but it seems as though quoting her might not get me very far in my thesis...

The good, the bad, and the bizarre

rethought@gmail.com — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:33:30 GMT

I'm working on my paper 'o doom. I will finish, but I will be a quivering mass of semi-hysterical crazy by Friday, I'm pretty sure.

1. The good.
Package from graphxgrrl arrived today. Cookies!
And, I was just thinking, 'hmm, I'm hungry' and the postie rang.
So, good timing, graphxgrrl, good timing.

2. The bad.
This happened a while ago, but I was reminded of it yesterday and it pissed me off at the time, and remembering it pissed me off again.
I often say things, the recipient of my communication doesn't listen/doesn't understand/doesn't care, and thus I am ignored/reprimanded/condescended to. In my opinion this is hugely unfair. Yes, I get the butthurt from this. *sigh*
The incident: We were singing $MUSIC and we didn't have enough copies to go around. The choir has 30-odd members.
The choir master said, 'I know the school owned 50 copies of this originally'.
I said, to the assistant conductor, 'why don't we photocopy a few so we have enough right now, since we own more than enough but can't find them'.
He apparently wasn't listening closely and reamed me out about music and copyright and publishers starving to death.
It he had listened, it all made sense. I'm not suggesting copying music that we DON'T own copies of, sheesh. I tried to explain what I meant, but he wasn't listening any more then than when I made the suggestion originally.
We get to suffer and share one piece between 4 people in the altos because the music librarian suffered a fit of alphabetic amnesia when filing? Lovely.
I know, I'm a big baby about this sort of thing. *headdesk*

3. The bizarre.
After the ecumenical service yesterday, I walked back to my office to leave my hymnal.
There were two people that can only be described as 'neds' walking the other direction with a baby carriage past the front of the chapel.
There were about 20 people, who had come for a christening, standing out by the founder's tomb. These people were all Scottish.
One of the neds yells, 'Gae tae f---, ya Yugoslavian vampires'.
I literally stopped in my tracks and pondered this wide-eyed.
There might be context there that I don't understand, but as far as I could tell it was just totally random.

That book meme

rethought@gmail.com — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:16:58 GMT

Today has been a long day.

Just winding down at the moment, more about real life tomorrow.

There's apparently rules for this. Basically, these are books people like to say that they've read or keep on their shelves to look smart.

I'm following winterbadger's idea and giving them a bit of a different categorization than the original meme.

Things on the list I am reading right now
Dubliners

Have, but have not read
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (got the recommendation from Jake, haven't read it yet)
Catch-22
Life of Pi : a novel (both this and the next were bought by ybunny, who has read them, I just haven't gotten around to it.)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Haven't heard of previously
Yeah, I've got my head in the sand.
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Blind Assassin
Quicksilver
The Historian : a novel
Anansi Boys
To the Lighthouse
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
White Teeth
Gravity’s Rainbow

Have read
Crime and Punishment
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion (This rambles too much for me. Too many characters with nothing to hang onto. I felt like I needed to make a chart to keep people straight.)
The Name of the Rose (I love this book.)
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
The Odyssey (have read over and over)
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies

The Iliad
Emma
Great Expectations
Atlas Shrugged (I hate this book)
Memoirs of a Geisha (disappointing)
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West (good, but I wouldn't read again)
The Canterbury Tales
Love in the Time of Cholera
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo (perversely, I like this)
Dracula
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
Sense and Sensibility
Mansfield Park
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Prince
A Confederacy of Dunces (not funny, although I was told multiple times that it was)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (interesting, but not sure if it's all true)
The Scarlet Letter
Persuasion
The Catcher in the Rye (not as scandalous as it is make out to be)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (I always cry for Esmeralda)
The Aeneid
Watership Down (It's a roodoodoo, it runs on it. :D )
The Hobbit
The Three Musketeers

Haven't read, don't care
Mrs. Dalloway
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Middlemarch
Dune
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences

Haven't read, might read
Anna Karenina
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Kite Runner
Middlesex
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Brave New World (on the 100 books list for this year)
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
A Clockwork Orange (on the 100 books list for this year)
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath (on the 100 books list for this year)
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
The Satanic Verses (on the 100 books list for this year)
The Picture of Dorian Gray
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
The Sound and the Fury (on the 100 books list for this year)
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved (on the 100 books list for this year)
Slaughterhouse-five
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Lolita (on the 100 books list for this year)
Northanger Abbey
On the Road
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

Food Friday: Online Groceries

rethought@gmail.com — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:59:30 GMT

FYI, I'm tremendously sorry for the lag in replying to some of your comments. Lots is getting pushed to the side during this crunch time.

I was talking to drjoan about the rise in prices for food in the US. It's amazing that a 10lb bag of rice used to cost around $8.50, now is heading towards $25. It used to be that grocery shopping when I was back in the US made me despair of UK prices.

Jake noted that in Alabama a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk is around $5, before tax.
Here, for the rough equivalent of a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread, both organic, is $6.96. Yes, that's more, but it's starting to narrow.

An overall grocery shopping trip is still more in the UK, but again, it's narrowing as well.

Our usual modus operandi for groceries is to buy basic veg (cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, etc.) at the Aberdeen Market from the farmer's stand there. Sometimes the eggs come from there as well.

We buy milk, cheese, and yogurt at our local Somerfield.

We're trying to coordinate joining a farm share based in Aberdeenshire. (My schedule has made this difficult recently.)

But, the rest we have delivered via online groceries, usually from Sainsbury's. (Not that Tesco isn't good, so far their delivery people have irked me.)

We stock up on kitchen roll, toilet roll, cat food (wet and dry), kitty litter, tinned veg and soup, frozen sundries, and cleaning supplies.

For Sainsbury's, the delivery fee is £5. Considering the price hikes in bus fare over the last three years (a student day pass when I arrived was £2. It is now £2.30.), paying the delivery charge saves either bus fare for two people (for us both, £5.10) or for two days worth of me going back and forth (£4.60).

There was a grocery delivery service in Chicago as well. I don't remember the name, but I think it had a green pear as a logo. It seemed so decadent to get groceries delivered.

Now, it seems like the normal thing.

Recently, I've had two deliveries in two weeks time. Both were because we were offered £10 vouchers that had expiry dates. But usually, it's a monthly or even bi-monthly thing.

My friend C says that of course online groceries are normal. What's weird is that I bought groceries for Tom online before I moved here. She says it boggles her mind that we managed to 'live together' before we lived together. :)

Online groceries? Any thoughts?

List-o-rama

rethought@gmail.com — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:36:29 GMT

So, list. Listy McList.

1. I was almost crushed yesterday at the library. The basement contains all the old volumes of just about everything. Because they're short on space, they have shelves on a system that allows for only two aisle-gaps at a time. When you needs to get to books between shelves that are together, you check the next row down to see if anyone is there and then shove the row down.
Except that yesterday, Dorky Looking Boy didn't look and almost squashed me between French History and Yugoslavian Sociology.

2. This week is all about the Masoretic Text of Exodus. This is the kind of thing I live for. The rest of my phd work can go hang.

3. I'm tremendously behind now on my books for 2008. The thing is, I've not stopped reading, but I felt the urge to read a few books I've read before. So, I debating whether to just let them count or what.

4. I participated in a MRI study about singing. Basically, I spent 40 minutes inside an MRI machine vocalizing. Pretty neat pictures in the end, but I wouldn't volunteer for this again. Randomly, the same afternoon, I was given a £5 voucher for doing a quick thing for the Computing Science people on positive reinforcement and automated responses.
I don't know either.

5. I was speaking to one of the phd students in medicine. We were talking about the proliferation of knowledge and how the idea of a 'renaissance man' is almost impossible in today's world. We started talking about how some take this so far that they refuse to look at research that is more than five years old. (Definitely more a problem in her line of research than mine.)
She said, 'I take comfort in bacon.'
I honestly didn't know what to say to that. I just burst out laughing.
She realized what I thought and started laughing as well.
And yes, it makes more sense if you realize she was talking about Bacon.

6. Sometimes I wonder why I can't get things done. I'm guessing that two-and-a-half hour board meetings don't help.

7. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have to play for church at the weekend. For once, I wish we could stick to the rotations. This is giving me (more) white hair.

Food Friday: Ramen Noodles

rethought@gmail.com — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:53:13 GMT

I have a whale of a headache, but I suppose that's what I get for doing all my errands in one fell swoop.

One thing that seems to be a shared experience between dorms in the US and the UK is quick noodles.

In the US, the most prevalent are the various one that fall under the general heading of ramen noodles and, in my experience, the ones I hear most remembered from dorm life in the UK are collectively known as pot noodle.

I started with ramen noodles when I went away to boarding school. I'd had them before then, but mostly as a something to eat when sick.

But, during my first stint in a dormitory they took on a pervasive aspect I never could have anticipated.

People used them for food, obviously, but they also have barter value (I'll lend you my new black heels if you give me those two packs of oriental flavor, etc).

While pot noodle seems to be a 'boil kettle, pour in water, stir' situation, ramen was best if made on a stove. This is converted to interesting and not entirely successful microwaving experimenting.

I honestly hated microwaved ramen, so, on a whim, I tried just eating the noodles dry.
And I discovered that they were EXCELLENT. Mmm.

Nowadays, with my dorm days behind me, I still like to have raw ramen on occasion.

Luckily, there's a grown up version.

Cabbage and Ramen Salad
1/2 head raw cabbage, shredded
1 package ramen noodles, noodles broken up in the package, seasoning sachet discarded
1/4 cup chopped green onion
~1/4 cup slivered almonds

Toss all ingredients and serve with either a raspberry vinaigrette (or plain vinaigrette if you're not into the raspberry).

nb: If you serve immediately, the cabbage won't have the chance to sweat. But, if you're making ahead, shred the cabbage into a colander, salt generously and allow to sit until some of the water has leached out.

A good Friday

rethought@gmail.com — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:34:45 GMT

Supervision went well!

I am 'massively improved' which pleases me pink.

Now, off to errands after a lunch with clairdeluney.

Office Detritus

rethought@gmail.com — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:54:08 GMT

I find bits and bobs of all manner of things in my office.

Today, I needed to move my monitor.

A bit of back story: I absolutely hate people looking over my shoulder at my computer screen. Even if it's ybunny. Just one of those quirks, I suppose.

I wanted it to face further away from my office mates. So, I pulled the monitor toward me...and it went dead.
On the one hand, I was excited, because I hate this monitor and making breaking it would get me one of the swish flatscreen ones that both of my office mates have. On the other, FLAIL! I HAVE WORK TO DO!

So, I started fiddling with it. I picked up the base to see what the cord was wrapped around, and a small piece of yellow paper came unstuck.

The note said, '[Name], when you get down and discouraged just remember that you have many people that love you and care for you. There's nothing better to be doing than learning. -[Name]'

I know who it was addressed to. He's finished and he seems like such a together and confident sort of person. It's nice to think that he had worries as well.

(I do feel a bit as if I'm snooping on my own office, though.)

Oops...

rethought@gmail.com — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 05:06:07 GMT

Well, I hope ybunny makes his flight.

He thought it was at 12:30 pm.

Actual flight time? 6:15am.

Good thing Norway should still be there when he makes a flight.

Food Friday: The Love of Cornmeal

rethought@gmail.com — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:05:14 GMT

I need to put 'beat illness lethargy' on my checklist. Sheesh.

Well, ybunny goes to Norway tomorrow.
So, as a send off, we made spoonbread.

Every wondered how to use cornmeal to your best advantage?

Spoonbread
1 1/2 cups cornmeal, rough ground for preference
3 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (I used 1 of cheddar and a 1/2 of grana padano)
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 425F/200C. Grease a 10x10 (or similar) casserole dish.

Separate eggs. Put whites in a metal bowl.

Melt the butter.

Mix egg yolks and milk. Pour mixture over the cornmeal in a medium saucepan. Heat on medium low. Add the melted butter. When the mixture is warm, add the shredded cheese.
Stir until the cheese is mostly melted.
Remove from heat.

Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until they form semi-firm peaks.
Fold into the cornmeal mixture.

Pour into the greased pan, bake for 30-40 minutes.

The spoonbread is done when it has a light brown crust on top, but still jiggles slightly when the pan is removed from the oven.

Variations:
low cal/fat: use skim milk, margarine for butter, low fat cheese, or leave out the egg yolks

spicy: finely chop a whole jalapeño pepper, fold in at the same time as the egg whites

The recipe is gluten free as long as you check that the cornmeal is corn only and not blended with wheat flour.

It's delish. :)

a list, because, well...just a list.

rethought@gmail.com — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:00:39 GMT

1. ybunny and I still don't feel right. I'm still coughing and feel like death.

2. Probably more a corollary to #1, but I really have a hard time writing at the moment. The mental exertion makes me feel worse.

3. I got some condensed milk to put in the freeze dried coffee I have in my office, because it is the BITTEREST EVER. But, even the condensed milk isn't sweet enough to take the edge off that stuff. It's the Clipper Fair Trade coffee, which I used to like. Maybe just a bad jar.

4. Discovered last night that one of the guys I went to elementary school with is in the Georgia State Penitentiary for child molestation.
Unsurprisingly, he seemed the sort, even at 14 which was the last time I saw him.

5. I got to my office today to see that one of my church members that is doing his Masters in Geology left me a note at my office desk. How sweet.

6. I should have 30 books read by the end of the week. Four books by Friday? Unlikely. *ponders including a couple of cookbooks*

7. It's actually been six months since we were married last Sunday. Yes, that's right, I can't count. Thank goodness I'm in the Liberal Arts College.

8. Although it is five months away, I'm excited about drjoan and golfbisquit's visit. We're going up towards Wick, since that's the last bit of Scotland I've not been to.

9. I really dislike having office mates. I'd rather go back to living in a dorm that working like this. Yes, I know, I'm a heinous bitch.

10. 10k words by next Wednesday? Possible, improbable.

Food Friday: Temporary Aversion

rethought@gmail.com — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:23:31 GMT

I'm such a foodie.

Saying that makes it a bit difficult to admit that, when I'm honest with myself, my favorite food is pizza.

That's not to say that I don't love all manner of casseroles, curries, stirfrys, soups, salads, desserts and so forth.

I think I realized that pizza was my favorite when started eating at Lupi's in Chattanooga. So very good.
It's a local pizzeria that makes their dough from scratch¹ and has a list of ingredients that covers most of their front wall.

Whether making my own crust and sauce to ordering takeaway and all levels of pizza preparation in between, I probably eat it three times a month.

But, when ybunny suggested it for supper last weekend, I felt a bit queasy.
The feeling continued up until today when we went for lunch to Pizza Express.

It wasn't just from being sick, although everything made me queasy while I was sick.
This was a specific aversion to pizza.

Even now, with lunch probably still cogitating in my stomach, thinking of pizza is still a little sick making. Such an odd development.² (Though, I only had to look at ybunny's, since I had cannaloni.)

Ever love a food and then go completely off it?

¹ - Once when I was there on a date, we stayed until just as they were closing. One of the guys working the ovens asked if we wanted the rest of the dough from the day. I took it to my dorm and baked it, except, I must not have worked it enough, because it rose...into a tower of baked pizza dough. Very odd.
² - Honestly, it would probably be best if the aversion stayed because it has continually been one of my diet breakers.

Book Reviews: 24 and 25

rethought@gmail.com — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:06:09 GMT

24
Anthony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough

This woman is one of my two favorite authors. (The other is Judith Tarr, fyi.) They both write history that makes me feel like I'm not only there, but that I'm learning something as I'm being entertained.

Unfortunately, this one just didn't do it for me like the rest of the Masters of Rome series has. McCullough has been accused of being in love with the idea of Caesar. I don't quite believe it, because I think her treatment of Sulla and Marius were just as painstaking and well crafted. But, I think if she was in love with Caesar, she was in a state of blah with Octavian and Anthony. And honestly, that's what it should be called. Cleopatra is just sort of a side story in the whole thing.

Doesn't matter though. No matter what she or Tarr publish at this point, I'll buy it.

25
Ireland (Horrible Histories Special) by Terry Deary and Martin Brown

We picked this up when we were in Kilkenny. ybunny read it while we were traveling around Ireland. Then, it languished on our bedroom shelves for two years.
I needed something light to wrap my brain around while sick, so I had a go.

It's...cute, in its way. Not a great history, but trivia filled.

I would like to read their version of US history at some point. Could be amusing.

Hey look, I'm one-fourth of the way through with this. Woo.

Food Friday: The Loss of Appetite

rethought@gmail.com — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:19:34 GMT

Regardless of how many people actually read Food Friday, I'd made a New Year's resolution to keep up Friday posting.

But, then, there were things that happened the last few weeks.

I can't even remember back to two Fridays ago.

However, last Friday was the beginning of most of this horribleness that is the flu/bronchitis/crawling death that ybunny and I have both had.

We've both been apathetic to food since then.
And, lemme tell you, it's hard to get excited about food when you're not really eating it.

So, fingers crossed that we'll be recovered by next Friday and I can go back to half-hazardly keeping my New Year's resolution.

We're almost at 'bring out your dead' level

rethought@gmail.com — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:36:50 GMT

ybunny and I should put a sign on the door saying, 'Virulent: enter at own risk'.

He got sick on Thursday, I got sick last night/this morning.

To amuse ourselves, we've watched telly until we're sick of it.
I have played, enjoyed, gotten irritated with, and now quit Facebook's Knighthood game. I might go back to it. We'll see.

There was and is snow. Pity I can't properly enjoy it. *throws pity party*