Couscoussier
We're long overdue a journal entry after a period of hectic programming on a tight release schedule for Julian. In Februrary, we celebrated Valentine's Day by visiting the Museum of Fine Arts to tour the Egyptian section. We spent several hours engrosed in Old Kingdom artifacts and for dinner made River Cafe lobster with spaghetti. We gifted eachother with a lucky dragon tie and blu ray of Master & Commander for Julian and blu rays of Dragon Hunters and Transiberia for myself.
As it is often said, March came in like a lion and is headed out like a lamb. Twice this month we have had rain storms resulting in substantial local flooding. This past week several local rivers, including the SuAsCo watershed, reached two feet above flood stage. In Waltham, several major streets were closed, our creek was swollen and water was seen gushing out of manhole covers. An aquaintance in Quincy lost their vehicle when their parking lot flooded, drowning their vehicle past its headlights. In contrast, the past few days have been warm with gentle winds. Snow drops blossomed in the start of March and have been followed by patches of crocuses. Daffodills should be arriving before long, and we hope to both be well enough to enjoy Spring as we have been under the weather with a seasonal bug.
We celebrated our anniversary at home with a lovely beef stew with suet dumplings. Bojan and Sue sent us a cherry red four slice Dualit brand toaster and we're in love. With a whopping capacity of 130 slices an hour this toaster is hard to beat. Toast is delightfully crisp on the outside and moist on the inside, ready for judicious application of butter, jam or nutella. As an added bonus, Julian should be able to avoid burning his arm by not having to make toast in the oven. From Tony and Lika we used an Amazon gift voucher to get a stainless steel couscoussier. We made our first couscous meal in the new pot tonight from Paula Wolfert's "Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco". To make a Small Family Couscous, a chicken is poached with onions and spices in the base while couscous bathes in the rising steam. An accompanying sauce is made by slowly frying red onion and spices until nearly caramelized with raisins and fried almonds. Although these new additions were already undeniably fantastic, our joint anniversary gift to eachother was a conglomerate of pasta creation tools. We replaced our old failing pasta machine (belonging to Julian's grandmother) with a red Atlas Wellness machine and a bonus of a variety of attachments (linguini, sphaghetti, lasagna rici). Lighter in weight than old models and made from special alloys, this little pasta machine is a real workhorse in the kitchen. The roller is smooth and easy to use, producing fine sheets of pasta literally within minutes. We also added in a handcrank cavatelli maker to make shell shaped pasta or little gnocchi and a spatzle plate. Understandably with these new kitchen toys, many of our dinners lately have been Italian.
Although we've been short on time lately, we watched the fifth season of Weeds and several movies (Breakpoint, Dead Calm, Once Upon a Time in China) Julian finished both Tomb Raider and Half Life and is grinding away at PGR Racing. After Fable 2 I've been focusing on a new jRPG called Last Remnant. We've also been watching some of our Great Courses DVD's. I finished the lecture series on Egypt and we have been following classes on Religion in the Ancient Mediterranian World and the History of Rome.
As it is often said, March came in like a lion and is headed out like a lamb. Twice this month we have had rain storms resulting in substantial local flooding. This past week several local rivers, including the SuAsCo watershed, reached two feet above flood stage. In Waltham, several major streets were closed, our creek was swollen and water was seen gushing out of manhole covers. An aquaintance in Quincy lost their vehicle when their parking lot flooded, drowning their vehicle past its headlights. In contrast, the past few days have been warm with gentle winds. Snow drops blossomed in the start of March and have been followed by patches of crocuses. Daffodills should be arriving before long, and we hope to both be well enough to enjoy Spring as we have been under the weather with a seasonal bug.
We celebrated our anniversary at home with a lovely beef stew with suet dumplings. Bojan and Sue sent us a cherry red four slice Dualit brand toaster and we're in love. With a whopping capacity of 130 slices an hour this toaster is hard to beat. Toast is delightfully crisp on the outside and moist on the inside, ready for judicious application of butter, jam or nutella. As an added bonus, Julian should be able to avoid burning his arm by not having to make toast in the oven. From Tony and Lika we used an Amazon gift voucher to get a stainless steel couscoussier. We made our first couscous meal in the new pot tonight from Paula Wolfert's "Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco". To make a Small Family Couscous, a chicken is poached with onions and spices in the base while couscous bathes in the rising steam. An accompanying sauce is made by slowly frying red onion and spices until nearly caramelized with raisins and fried almonds. Although these new additions were already undeniably fantastic, our joint anniversary gift to eachother was a conglomerate of pasta creation tools. We replaced our old failing pasta machine (belonging to Julian's grandmother) with a red Atlas Wellness machine and a bonus of a variety of attachments (linguini, sphaghetti, lasagna rici). Lighter in weight than old models and made from special alloys, this little pasta machine is a real workhorse in the kitchen. The roller is smooth and easy to use, producing fine sheets of pasta literally within minutes. We also added in a handcrank cavatelli maker to make shell shaped pasta or little gnocchi and a spatzle plate. Understandably with these new kitchen toys, many of our dinners lately have been Italian.
Although we've been short on time lately, we watched the fifth season of Weeds and several movies (Breakpoint, Dead Calm, Once Upon a Time in China) Julian finished both Tomb Raider and Half Life and is grinding away at PGR Racing. After Fable 2 I've been focusing on a new jRPG called Last Remnant. We've also been watching some of our Great Courses DVD's. I finished the lecture series on Egypt and we have been following classes on Religion in the Ancient Mediterranian World and the History of Rome.