(no subject)
Goddamnit. I was going to go all out making stuff this weekend. Then. My brother decided not to come home for dinner tonight, and my dad caught a stomach bug again. So I can't do anything that isn't bland tonight (which I didn't realize until after I got home from grocery shopping, and so we're having a randomly thrown together cross between French onion soup and chicken noodle soup with leftover orzo for dinner tonight). Tomorrow, my dad's taking his girlfriend out to dinner and my brother's picky and won't eat anything new. And Sunday is the Superbowl, so I'm not allowed to make anything other than hot dogs or hamburgers, or they'll scream bloody murder.
The irritating part of all this is that I have absolutely no interest in eating any of this. None. I'm curious about the thing I made tonight so I'll probably have a bit of it. But I probably won't bother forcing myself to eat any of the hot dogs and hamburgers, because I am so beyond fed up with eating that crap. I should make them make their own food for stuff like that, but meh. As long as I cook and do the grocery shopping, I can make myself whatever I want on my dad's dime without any complaints. (Within reason, of course. If I started making myself lobster bisque for lunch without offering my dad and brother some, my dad would be having a long talk with me.)
Actually, if I could, I think I'd give up meat for a while. Or at least not make it the focus of my meals. And salads. God, I'm bored of salads. But in all honesty, it just isn't worth the amount of complaints I'd get. I think I've made...what, two vegetarian dishes in all the time I've been cooking, and both times my family whined. Repeatedly. I'll just stick to doing what I have been, I guess, and making meals with a lot of vegetables and some meat, and giving my father and brother most of the meat.
The Dance of Spices by Laxmi Hiremath. A very nice Indian cookbook. I haven't tried any of the recipes, and damnit, it doesn't look like I'm going to be trying any of them any time soon, but the author's very good about explaining the why of recipes as well as the how. And I enjoyed her stories about each recipe and her childhood in India.
Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore by Bethany Hughes. Actually finished this the day before yesterday, but forgot it when I was writing the list. Interesting, but not all that well written. The author was so determined to cover all aspects of Helen, historical, mythological, and opinions on her later that she jumped around too much. By the end, I kept losing track. Still, it was interesting. And I totally called the Eleanor of Aquitaine comparison before she even got there.
Armageddon Inheritance by David Weber. I mentioned reading it yesterday, but now it's on the list officially. Yay.
Also, I'm giving up and putting Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl on the list. I finished reading the main portion of it a week or two ago, but the second half of it is entirely short summaries of homosexuality/transexuality in as many different species as he could find data on. And I've been working through that, slowly, but it's kind of been relegated to be my bathroom reader. Which means it'll take me a year or two to read it. Still the first part really is fascinating, because it touches on stuff like myths and legends of genderbending animals and how those myths and legends are sometimes grounded in reality. And the problem with getting unbiased reports of lesbian deer, for example, in a scientific culture that assumes that a) damnit, that male deer mounting that other male deer with an erection and ejaculating onto that other deer's back is totally a dominance display really! and that b)if you think otherwise, you're gay. If it weren't so prejudiced and an example of the kinds of attitudes that really do cause problems, the lengths people go to explain something is nonsexual would be downright hilarious. Or I just have a terrible sense of humor. You know. One or the other.
Edit: By the way, for bland sick people food, the chicken orzo not-soup came out rather well. Go me.
The irritating part of all this is that I have absolutely no interest in eating any of this. None. I'm curious about the thing I made tonight so I'll probably have a bit of it. But I probably won't bother forcing myself to eat any of the hot dogs and hamburgers, because I am so beyond fed up with eating that crap. I should make them make their own food for stuff like that, but meh. As long as I cook and do the grocery shopping, I can make myself whatever I want on my dad's dime without any complaints. (Within reason, of course. If I started making myself lobster bisque for lunch without offering my dad and brother some, my dad would be having a long talk with me.)
Actually, if I could, I think I'd give up meat for a while. Or at least not make it the focus of my meals. And salads. God, I'm bored of salads. But in all honesty, it just isn't worth the amount of complaints I'd get. I think I've made...what, two vegetarian dishes in all the time I've been cooking, and both times my family whined. Repeatedly. I'll just stick to doing what I have been, I guess, and making meals with a lot of vegetables and some meat, and giving my father and brother most of the meat.
The Dance of Spices by Laxmi Hiremath. A very nice Indian cookbook. I haven't tried any of the recipes, and damnit, it doesn't look like I'm going to be trying any of them any time soon, but the author's very good about explaining the why of recipes as well as the how. And I enjoyed her stories about each recipe and her childhood in India.
Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore by Bethany Hughes. Actually finished this the day before yesterday, but forgot it when I was writing the list. Interesting, but not all that well written. The author was so determined to cover all aspects of Helen, historical, mythological, and opinions on her later that she jumped around too much. By the end, I kept losing track. Still, it was interesting. And I totally called the Eleanor of Aquitaine comparison before she even got there.
Armageddon Inheritance by David Weber. I mentioned reading it yesterday, but now it's on the list officially. Yay.
Also, I'm giving up and putting Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl on the list. I finished reading the main portion of it a week or two ago, but the second half of it is entirely short summaries of homosexuality/transexuality in as many different species as he could find data on. And I've been working through that, slowly, but it's kind of been relegated to be my bathroom reader. Which means it'll take me a year or two to read it. Still the first part really is fascinating, because it touches on stuff like myths and legends of genderbending animals and how those myths and legends are sometimes grounded in reality. And the problem with getting unbiased reports of lesbian deer, for example, in a scientific culture that assumes that a) damnit, that male deer mounting that other male deer with an erection and ejaculating onto that other deer's back is totally a dominance display really! and that b)if you think otherwise, you're gay. If it weren't so prejudiced and an example of the kinds of attitudes that really do cause problems, the lengths people go to explain something is nonsexual would be downright hilarious. Or I just have a terrible sense of humor. You know. One or the other.
Edit: By the way, for bland sick people food, the chicken orzo not-soup came out rather well. Go me.