What I've been up to recently
First, I would like to discuss the wonders of coconut milk. See, I was making a pie the other day with lots of fresh berries, and Rombauer* recommended putting a bit of granulated tapioca in with the berries to absorb some of the moisture. So I bought a box of tapioca, but the recipe used only a few spoonfuls, and I needed to do something with the rest of the box. It had a recipe on the back for coconut milk tapioca, so I went out and got some coconut milk, and that used the tapioca nicely, but then I had leftover coconut milk. Today, however, Daniel and I were cooking dinner, and we had some sauteed vegetables that were nice and all, but were going to be very boring. So we threw in a bunch of curry powder and the coconut milk and some dried Thai chili peppers, and WOW! Conclusion: if you have coconut milk and curry powder, they turn every dish of sauteed vegetables into something amazing. Don't be shy, though! Use lots of curry powder (a couple of tablespoons, probably---we didn't measure)and lots of coconut milk. Coconut milk is cheap, too! I'm going to have to start keeping it in the kitchen more often and experimenting with it. I've already tried to make cookies, but they didn't turn out so well: coconut milk essentially does the job of butter, but the flavor lost by omitting butter is not counterbalanced by the flavor added by the coconut milk, so overall they were pretty bland, and the texture suffered.
On to books. I think I've mentioned before that I'm reading Trollope. Well, I've had a lot of work this past semester, and he was a prolific writer, so I'm still reading Trollope. Since I finished school two weeks ago, I've read The Eustace Diamonds, Phineas Redux, and I've started The Prime Minister. The Eustace Diamonds is really a wonderful book. The most obvious comparison is with Vanity Fair---in fact, Trollope makes the reference himself---in terms of flavor and major plot arc, but it is not as earnest or moralizing, and it has a lovely, tight plot arc that stands alone quite well, but still includes all the other major characters from the other Palliser novels, and I think is really quite good. I cannot, alas, say the same of Phineas Finn, which reminds me quite a bit of the second part of Henry IV: the author realized he had a good thing going with one of his characters, and so wrote another book without quite deciding what he was going to do with it.
In Phineas Redux the titular character from Phineas Finn is brought back, but where Phineas Finn had another lovely, tight plot arc with excellent characters, Phineas Redux has a bit of a sprawling plot that doesn't really go anywhere, and so many of the characters that were really strong in the first book go mad, like Mr. Kennedy, or go crazy with love for Phineas, like Lady Laura Kennedy, or eventually get him finally to marry him, like Madame Max Goesler. Laura was better as the strong, worldly woman who understood the realm of politics and, although she married for money and political capital rather than for wealth, went into it with her eyes open and was in control of her regrets for having rejected Phineas. It's also in poor taste to say that she got old and ugly when she's barely 30 in the second book, and because of how she is now old, Phineas, who is exactly the same age, cannot even begin to contemplate marrying her. And I really, really liked Madame Max Goesler as the wealthy, beautiful, elusive widow whom everyone wants to marry and no one can ever catch in the previous Palliser novels---not just from Phineas Finn. Having her now fall into Phineas's arms saying, "At last, at last!" when he confesses his love completely ruins her. And it was awfully cruel of Trollope to kill off Phineas's lovely little Irish bride whom he marries at the end of Phineas Finn just so he can re-enter politics in Phineas Redux and capture Madame Max. And speaking of Phineas, at first he was this young, foolish, naive man who wants to enter politics and sort of stumbles down the right path because he's friendly and manages to make friends with the right people. But by the second book he's practically a Mary-Sue: tall, handsome, manly, and all the women are falling in love with him, to say nothing of the admiration entire population of England that he gains when he stands so firmly and courageously at the bar during his murder trial. (He's innocent, of course.) Very tiresome.
I must say, though, I thought Kennedy's descent into madness with jealousy for his wife, even though he does nothing before he dies to change the will in which he leaves everything to her, as the honest husband should do regardless of his relations with his wife, was quite good. I can only hope that The Prime Minister, which is next, is good. It probably will be: Trollope's original plots tend to be good; it's the ones he makes by rehashing unfinished threads (or even finished threads) from previous books, like the Lily Dale part of The Last Chronicle of Barset, or all of Phineas Redux, where things fall apart.
Aside from cooking and reading, however, I have been hiking! Daniel and I took lots of photographs on our previous hikes, and it would be too complicated to separate the pictures up by date of hike or location, so I will separate them up into
Flowers
Most of these were seen on Mt. Diablo. I'll start there.
The blue flower is called blue dicks (that is for both singular and plural. Think of it as a mass noun.) The white flowers are woodland stars.
These little pincushion folks are sanicle---white and purple.
Chinese houses
Scarlet larkspur. There is also a purple variety, called royal larkspur, which we do not have good pictures of. Scarlet larkspur, however, shows up everywhere. In some areas entire hillsides are covered with it.
Shooting stars. I think these guys are so cool!
Mountain lilac. It comes in many different shades, from almost white to dark blue.
Checker lily. Also called mission bells, this flower is said to smell like rotting meat, because it attracts flies to pollinate it. We couldn't smell anything.
Wind poppy. We couldn't identify this at first, so we emailed a Sierra club hike leader, and he told us what it was, and that it's pretty rare. We counted ourselves lucky to have seen it.
Then Daniel went back (while I was writing final papers) and realized the Sierra club guy just hadn't been looking hard enough (the purple are Chinese houses):
Globe lily, or Mt. Diablo fairy lantern. At first we thought these were endemic only to Mt. Diablo, but then we found some in Briones regional park. We're still willing to accept endemic to Contra Costa County. Aren't they fabulous?
And they grow very thickly in some areas. Mt. Diablo even has a little trail called the Globe lily trail, and it doesn't disappoint.
Soap plant
Bitterroot
Mountain violet. Not very violet, I admit.
Thistle blossoms. Very pretty.
Sticky monkey flower. There are a number of different varieties. This one is so named because the leaves are slightly sticky. Daniel really likes it, and since we've been planting things in our yard, we made sure to get a little one of these guys. We also have another one with dark maroon flowers. which seems to be doing quite nicely. This bush covers hillsides in Briones, and is very common in Pt. Reyes and on Mt. Diablo as well.
Dudleya. Not a flower, but a beautiful picture. We got something for our garden that was called dudleya, but it doesn't look anything like this.
In Pt. Reyes there are flowers called pussy ears. Aren't they fuzzy? That's blue-eyed grass next to them.
Pt. Reyes also has blue pimpernel. There is a counterpart scarlet pimpernel, which is more orangey-pink than scarlet, and it's much more common. There's some in a yard across the street from us, but we don't have any pictures.
Tidy tips
Tidy tips and goldfields
These are mariposa lilies. They are absolutely stunning---equally beautiful inside and out.
And our first thought when we saw these in Briones was, "Gosh! They look like mariposa lilies, only yellow!" Our flower book helpfully identified them for us as yellow mariposa lilies.
Critters
This is a gopher snake in Briones regional park. It was lying so still that at first we thought it was dead, and felt bad about taking pictures of a corpse. Then some other hikers with poles came along and nudged it with the poles and it slithered away, so we felt better.
This is a garter snake we saw in Pt. Reyes. Daniel spotted it. He has very sharp eyes.
Red-winged blackbird. These folks are everywhere in coastal meadows.
We've decided that this fellow is a western bluebird.
At the lagoons in Briones, we found people catching newts! They would let them go again, of course, but Daniel got to hold one, and was completely thrilled. I don't know how the newt felt about it, but he probably wasn't as happy as Daniel was.
and
Views
This was on the way up to the summit of Mt. Diablo. There were some amazingly impressive hills, but something above photographs means that steep parts of the landscape completely lose the depth contrast, and there is no way to impress on someone how absurdly steep the trail was short of taking them there. This one came out pretty well, though. It wasn't the trail itself, but parts of the trail certainly were this steep.
View from higher up the mountain.
This is what the mountain looked like from Briones. I've climbed the summit of it (that's the tallest peak on the right) in two ways: once up the right-hand side, and once up the side facing us to the middle notch, called Prospector's Gap, and from there up to the summit. Daniel did a hike up the four tallest peaks. You can't see it all easily in this picture, but it did take him from the very leftmost portion of the mountain up to the little peak on the left (Mt. Olympia), up to the top of the left-most hump (North Peak), down to Prospector's Gap, up to the summit, and from there to the final peak, Eagle Peak, which isn't really visible in this picture. Then back again. The people on the hike with GPS systems were very disappointed to learn that it was not quite 15 miles (14.79), and not quite 5000 feet of elevation gain (4981 ft), but I can't comment, because I was writing final papers while he was doing this.
My husband, the conquerer of Mt. Diablo.
*That is, Irma S. Rombauer, the author of The Joy of Cooking. I have no idea why I refer to that cookbook as if I've spoken to the author, but it's what my mother always did, so it's what I do.
On to books. I think I've mentioned before that I'm reading Trollope. Well, I've had a lot of work this past semester, and he was a prolific writer, so I'm still reading Trollope. Since I finished school two weeks ago, I've read The Eustace Diamonds, Phineas Redux, and I've started The Prime Minister. The Eustace Diamonds is really a wonderful book. The most obvious comparison is with Vanity Fair---in fact, Trollope makes the reference himself---in terms of flavor and major plot arc, but it is not as earnest or moralizing, and it has a lovely, tight plot arc that stands alone quite well, but still includes all the other major characters from the other Palliser novels, and I think is really quite good. I cannot, alas, say the same of Phineas Finn, which reminds me quite a bit of the second part of Henry IV: the author realized he had a good thing going with one of his characters, and so wrote another book without quite deciding what he was going to do with it.
In Phineas Redux the titular character from Phineas Finn is brought back, but where Phineas Finn had another lovely, tight plot arc with excellent characters, Phineas Redux has a bit of a sprawling plot that doesn't really go anywhere, and so many of the characters that were really strong in the first book go mad, like Mr. Kennedy, or go crazy with love for Phineas, like Lady Laura Kennedy, or eventually get him finally to marry him, like Madame Max Goesler. Laura was better as the strong, worldly woman who understood the realm of politics and, although she married for money and political capital rather than for wealth, went into it with her eyes open and was in control of her regrets for having rejected Phineas. It's also in poor taste to say that she got old and ugly when she's barely 30 in the second book, and because of how she is now old, Phineas, who is exactly the same age, cannot even begin to contemplate marrying her. And I really, really liked Madame Max Goesler as the wealthy, beautiful, elusive widow whom everyone wants to marry and no one can ever catch in the previous Palliser novels---not just from Phineas Finn. Having her now fall into Phineas's arms saying, "At last, at last!" when he confesses his love completely ruins her. And it was awfully cruel of Trollope to kill off Phineas's lovely little Irish bride whom he marries at the end of Phineas Finn just so he can re-enter politics in Phineas Redux and capture Madame Max. And speaking of Phineas, at first he was this young, foolish, naive man who wants to enter politics and sort of stumbles down the right path because he's friendly and manages to make friends with the right people. But by the second book he's practically a Mary-Sue: tall, handsome, manly, and all the women are falling in love with him, to say nothing of the admiration entire population of England that he gains when he stands so firmly and courageously at the bar during his murder trial. (He's innocent, of course.) Very tiresome.
I must say, though, I thought Kennedy's descent into madness with jealousy for his wife, even though he does nothing before he dies to change the will in which he leaves everything to her, as the honest husband should do regardless of his relations with his wife, was quite good. I can only hope that The Prime Minister, which is next, is good. It probably will be: Trollope's original plots tend to be good; it's the ones he makes by rehashing unfinished threads (or even finished threads) from previous books, like the Lily Dale part of The Last Chronicle of Barset, or all of Phineas Redux, where things fall apart.
Aside from cooking and reading, however, I have been hiking! Daniel and I took lots of photographs on our previous hikes, and it would be too complicated to separate the pictures up by date of hike or location, so I will separate them up into
Flowers
Most of these were seen on Mt. Diablo. I'll start there.
The blue flower is called blue dicks (that is for both singular and plural. Think of it as a mass noun.) The white flowers are woodland stars.
These little pincushion folks are sanicle---white and purple.
Chinese houses
Scarlet larkspur. There is also a purple variety, called royal larkspur, which we do not have good pictures of. Scarlet larkspur, however, shows up everywhere. In some areas entire hillsides are covered with it.
Shooting stars. I think these guys are so cool!
Mountain lilac. It comes in many different shades, from almost white to dark blue.
Checker lily. Also called mission bells, this flower is said to smell like rotting meat, because it attracts flies to pollinate it. We couldn't smell anything.
Wind poppy. We couldn't identify this at first, so we emailed a Sierra club hike leader, and he told us what it was, and that it's pretty rare. We counted ourselves lucky to have seen it.
Then Daniel went back (while I was writing final papers) and realized the Sierra club guy just hadn't been looking hard enough (the purple are Chinese houses):
Globe lily, or Mt. Diablo fairy lantern. At first we thought these were endemic only to Mt. Diablo, but then we found some in Briones regional park. We're still willing to accept endemic to Contra Costa County. Aren't they fabulous?
And they grow very thickly in some areas. Mt. Diablo even has a little trail called the Globe lily trail, and it doesn't disappoint.
Soap plant
Bitterroot
Mountain violet. Not very violet, I admit.
Thistle blossoms. Very pretty.
Sticky monkey flower. There are a number of different varieties. This one is so named because the leaves are slightly sticky. Daniel really likes it, and since we've been planting things in our yard, we made sure to get a little one of these guys. We also have another one with dark maroon flowers. which seems to be doing quite nicely. This bush covers hillsides in Briones, and is very common in Pt. Reyes and on Mt. Diablo as well.
Dudleya. Not a flower, but a beautiful picture. We got something for our garden that was called dudleya, but it doesn't look anything like this.
In Pt. Reyes there are flowers called pussy ears. Aren't they fuzzy? That's blue-eyed grass next to them.
Pt. Reyes also has blue pimpernel. There is a counterpart scarlet pimpernel, which is more orangey-pink than scarlet, and it's much more common. There's some in a yard across the street from us, but we don't have any pictures.
Tidy tips
Tidy tips and goldfields
These are mariposa lilies. They are absolutely stunning---equally beautiful inside and out.
And our first thought when we saw these in Briones was, "Gosh! They look like mariposa lilies, only yellow!" Our flower book helpfully identified them for us as yellow mariposa lilies.
Critters
This is a gopher snake in Briones regional park. It was lying so still that at first we thought it was dead, and felt bad about taking pictures of a corpse. Then some other hikers with poles came along and nudged it with the poles and it slithered away, so we felt better.
This is a garter snake we saw in Pt. Reyes. Daniel spotted it. He has very sharp eyes.
Red-winged blackbird. These folks are everywhere in coastal meadows.
We've decided that this fellow is a western bluebird.
At the lagoons in Briones, we found people catching newts! They would let them go again, of course, but Daniel got to hold one, and was completely thrilled. I don't know how the newt felt about it, but he probably wasn't as happy as Daniel was.
and
Views
This was on the way up to the summit of Mt. Diablo. There were some amazingly impressive hills, but something above photographs means that steep parts of the landscape completely lose the depth contrast, and there is no way to impress on someone how absurdly steep the trail was short of taking them there. This one came out pretty well, though. It wasn't the trail itself, but parts of the trail certainly were this steep.
View from higher up the mountain.
This is what the mountain looked like from Briones. I've climbed the summit of it (that's the tallest peak on the right) in two ways: once up the right-hand side, and once up the side facing us to the middle notch, called Prospector's Gap, and from there up to the summit. Daniel did a hike up the four tallest peaks. You can't see it all easily in this picture, but it did take him from the very leftmost portion of the mountain up to the little peak on the left (Mt. Olympia), up to the top of the left-most hump (North Peak), down to Prospector's Gap, up to the summit, and from there to the final peak, Eagle Peak, which isn't really visible in this picture. Then back again. The people on the hike with GPS systems were very disappointed to learn that it was not quite 15 miles (14.79), and not quite 5000 feet of elevation gain (4981 ft), but I can't comment, because I was writing final papers while he was doing this.
My husband, the conquerer of Mt. Diablo.
*That is, Irma S. Rombauer, the author of The Joy of Cooking. I have no idea why I refer to that cookbook as if I've spoken to the author, but it's what my mother always did, so it's what I do.