(no subject)
i am finding that cooking two meals a day from scratch for one to three people (always mom, usually dan, and sometimes em) is not only a lot of work but it is also very time consuming. though i do enjoy it greatly, i end up procrastinating on my schoolwork in favor of my culinary pursuits.
i was planning on doing a comic in lieu of a paper for my history class. i already did the cover; it's called "TWO PARTIES UNDER ONE ROOF: bad chinese as a metaphor for guomindang and communist party relations" and has a picture of sun yatsen and mao zedong glaring at each other under a traditional chinese pavilion. the "two parties" reference is from the putative chinese character for trouble or war: two women under one roof. totally inaccurate, but widely held as true--it was on a t.v. show at one point, and spread from there--the saying actually comes from fifteenth century england. nevertheless, i thought it would make an amusing metaphor, as having those two parties under the one roof of china certainly caused plenty of trouble and war! however i just do not think i will have the time to finish it before school ends. i think i will probably end up doing it anyways over the summer; maybe i will ask my teacher for his email address and i will send it to him for his own amusement.
latest cookery hijinks: invented a low fat/cal cannoli crisp; made up a low fat/cal salad dressing (strawberry-peach balsamic--the fruit puree gives a nice, unctuous mouth feel that allows you to use almost no oil at all) ; learned how to tell when a fish is cooked properly by touching it; made my mother's favorite rice wine vinegar cucumber salad and have several ideas for improvements (turn it into a slaw, modify the dressing slightly to make a vinaigrette for regular salad, add watermelon or maybe green apple, thinly sliced to the original recipe--i think it would complement the cucumber nicely); bought scallops and intend to not fuck up cooking them because they are pretty damn expensive. must learn to make ceviche.
i wish i had an unlimited budget from which to work (as it is, i end up buying a lot of the ingredients out of my own pocket) since it would certainly lend itself to wider variety in the kinds of meals i could prepare, but i think as summer sets in and i get my garden up and running, my produce expenses will certainly reduce. i am planting snow peas, dwarf carrots, tomatoes, several varieties of peppers and squash, and strawberries. i am trying to convince my mother to let me rip out what is left of our blackberries (dan did quite the number on them two years ago and they haven't done well since) and plant sugar pumpkins. they are smaller and less fibrous than the big halloween type pumpkins; the flesh and seeds are both delicious... homemade pumpkin pie or soup, or roasted up with squashes... yum. i wish our apple trees were of a better variety; sadly, they are a bit small and sour, and the bugs, bees, and deer usually eat most of them. still, i think i could make applesauce from them.
maybe instead of a history professor i should be a personal chef? hmm. my problem is that there are too many things i enjoy doing--i can think of twenty careers that i would be perfectly happy pursuing. being an autodidactic polymath is fun, but somewhat inconvenient.
WHERE HAS THE SUNSHINE GONE?
it was eighty-five on saturday; i could smell the apple and dogwood blossoming, and the lilac flowers are budding... now it is forty-four and crappy. summer summer summer i cannot wait for summer.
i was planning on doing a comic in lieu of a paper for my history class. i already did the cover; it's called "TWO PARTIES UNDER ONE ROOF: bad chinese as a metaphor for guomindang and communist party relations" and has a picture of sun yatsen and mao zedong glaring at each other under a traditional chinese pavilion. the "two parties" reference is from the putative chinese character for trouble or war: two women under one roof. totally inaccurate, but widely held as true--it was on a t.v. show at one point, and spread from there--the saying actually comes from fifteenth century england. nevertheless, i thought it would make an amusing metaphor, as having those two parties under the one roof of china certainly caused plenty of trouble and war! however i just do not think i will have the time to finish it before school ends. i think i will probably end up doing it anyways over the summer; maybe i will ask my teacher for his email address and i will send it to him for his own amusement.
latest cookery hijinks: invented a low fat/cal cannoli crisp; made up a low fat/cal salad dressing (strawberry-peach balsamic--the fruit puree gives a nice, unctuous mouth feel that allows you to use almost no oil at all) ; learned how to tell when a fish is cooked properly by touching it; made my mother's favorite rice wine vinegar cucumber salad and have several ideas for improvements (turn it into a slaw, modify the dressing slightly to make a vinaigrette for regular salad, add watermelon or maybe green apple, thinly sliced to the original recipe--i think it would complement the cucumber nicely); bought scallops and intend to not fuck up cooking them because they are pretty damn expensive. must learn to make ceviche.
i wish i had an unlimited budget from which to work (as it is, i end up buying a lot of the ingredients out of my own pocket) since it would certainly lend itself to wider variety in the kinds of meals i could prepare, but i think as summer sets in and i get my garden up and running, my produce expenses will certainly reduce. i am planting snow peas, dwarf carrots, tomatoes, several varieties of peppers and squash, and strawberries. i am trying to convince my mother to let me rip out what is left of our blackberries (dan did quite the number on them two years ago and they haven't done well since) and plant sugar pumpkins. they are smaller and less fibrous than the big halloween type pumpkins; the flesh and seeds are both delicious... homemade pumpkin pie or soup, or roasted up with squashes... yum. i wish our apple trees were of a better variety; sadly, they are a bit small and sour, and the bugs, bees, and deer usually eat most of them. still, i think i could make applesauce from them.
maybe instead of a history professor i should be a personal chef? hmm. my problem is that there are too many things i enjoy doing--i can think of twenty careers that i would be perfectly happy pursuing. being an autodidactic polymath is fun, but somewhat inconvenient.
WHERE HAS THE SUNSHINE GONE?
it was eighty-five on saturday; i could smell the apple and dogwood blossoming, and the lilac flowers are budding... now it is forty-four and crappy. summer summer summer i cannot wait for summer.