I've really been enjoying Adagio's Foxtrot tea blend, but my bag of it is nearly gone and it's currently out of stock. (Also, I don't want to make an order and pay shipping just for one type of tea. I could make it a full shopping 'trip' and probably hit the free shipping minimum, but the amount of tea I have both at work and at home is kind of ( Read more... )

The Palazzo: It earns the 5-star hotel rating with its giant suites and ridiculous number of flatscreen TVs. Unfortunately we were running around so much that we didn't get to fully enjoy the luxury of the room. I was glad of the cushy bed and elegant bathroom, though.

Phantom of the Opera (or "Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular"): I enjoyed this ( Read more... )

I'm flying to Las Vegas tomorrow for
( Read more... )

Apparently I am very touchy about wine in cooking. I've used it maybe 3 or 4 times now. The first time, the wine flavor was way too strong, even when I followed the recipe (an orzo side dish) exactly, so I started reducing the amounts called for by recipes. But then I used the full amount when I made my first attempt at a risotto, since I hear wine ( Read more... )

My dinner for the past couple of nights has been a blackened grilled flank steak salad with a red bell pepper honey vinaigrette, based on these recipes from use real butter. I tried it on a whim, because I had all the ingredients on hand, but ... wow. It's really tasty. And fast - the vinaigrette is just a chop-and-blend, and while you do have to ( Read more... )

I want to blather on about various things, including my horrendous chain of fuck-ups in the kitchen over the last two days, and my reactions to reading the (Cass) Batgirl series, but I don't really feel like I'd have much of a point. Not that you need a point to post on your own journal, I guess ( Read more... )

Park51, a proposed community center that would be built near the former World Trade Center and include a mosque, got the go-ahead today. This is YAY.

However, the amount of opposition this project has faced is pure racist bullshit ( Read more... )

I've gotten to the point where I haven't posted anything in so long that I feel like what I do end up posting ought to be significant in proportion to the amount of time I haven't blogged. But then I feel intimidated, so I don't write, so I feel like my next post should be even more significant, and so on ( Read more... )

I was going to write an entry about my angst over failing to save the world (insert self-mocking hyperbole here) due to how my employment by an institution results in my complicity with the institution, and how I know it must be possible for me to use my (limited but existent) power as a cog in the machine to do some substantial good, but I haven't ( Read more... )

I always take recipes from allrecipes.com with a grain of salt, because I often run into recipes here that suffer from "Flavor your dish with a jar of processed X and a packet of pre-made Y" syndrome, which, as I've already complained about, is not what I'm looking for when I attempt to make healthy(ish) homemade food. But it's not impossible to ( Read more... )