I had an enjoyable late lunch with LJ's Rattleback, at Bistrot du Coin just north of Dupont Circle.  The food was really good: I had a dish of spicy sausage, spiced veg, and couscous (Morrocan/Algerian influence?).  We caught up on each others' news, and chatted about a book he'd loaned me, Schizmatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling -- interesting science ( Read more... )

My goodness, it's been a while.  I've had several posts in my head I haven't gotten around to.  None of them are this.

Books:

• I think I've talked here about Jo Graham's Order of the Air series, but I don't see it in my book-tagged entries.  Pilots, WWI vets, magic, saving the world, loss, love, life, starts in the 20's with an archeological dig ( Read more... )

I saw the above-titled play Wednesday night with LJ's StevendJ ( Read more... )

• Movies: I saw Grand Budapest Hotel with my local sisters and we had a lot of fun chatting about it at an early dinner afterwards. I also enjoyed seeing Captain America: Winter Soldier, even though I haven't yet seen Avengers. But then, I've read enough Marvel Comics in my youth (thanks, elder sibs!) that I enjoyed Thor 2 and, earlier, Iron Man III ( Read more... )

Occasionally I run into stealth restaurants.  They're visible from the street; what I mean by stealth is the cuisine-within-a-cuisine.  I mostly seem to find this with generic-seeming Chinese restaurants, which have one page in the back devoted to what is clearly the chef's One True Cuisine.  The best Thai restaurant in the area went by some vague ( Read more... )

There's been lots of good stuff going on in my life since, um, Memorial Day weekend (my last general catch-up here):

• Artomatic with friends, twice!
• Hanging out in Annapolis with jeneralist etc.!
• Family vacation in NC:  beach, games with family, lunch with my old math teacher
• Work book club (I led an hour-long talk on Thomas Kuhn's *The Structure of Scientific ( Read more... )

I had to look up my Voicepost to LJ password since I'd forgotten it, then tried to make a voice post on Sunday, but must have hung up too soon? Anyway, what I said was more or less,

• Not going to talk about work right now, frustrating but I'm dealing with it
• On my way to Metro to pick up a college friend from Charleston, for hangout before her NIST ( Read more... )

For New Year's weekend, I drove with a friend up to Philly to visit jeneralist and the rest of her household, along with folks visiting from New England, Merry Olde England, other parts of PA, etc.  It was a fun house party weekend to ring in the new year, with board/card games (e.g., Qwirkle, Aquarius), music, geeky conversations ranging from the golden age ( Read more... )

I have received many pumpkins and squashes and sweet potatoes as part of my fall farm share from my CSA program.  I have also gotten a dozen eggs every other weeks.  I like cooking but don't consider myself a baker.  Still, at some point I decided to use up some roasted pumpkin*, eggs, and the pie dough I had left over from making cannolis, and ( Read more... )

• 1 small-medium white eggplant
• 1/4 cup pumpkin seed flour
• 1 T balsamic vinegar
• 1 T olive oil

1. Get home from work, turn oven on to bake at 350 (thanks for the recommendation, squishydish!), coat butternut squash (not part of this recipe) and eggplant in oil (I'm trying to use up my hemp oil, so I used that), stab each with a fork several times, put in glass ( Read more... )