I finally gave up on the lettuce soup. Much as it pains me to do so, I decided to toss it. It doesn't taste very good, is the main reason. I mean, it's edible, and it's probably even reasonably nutritious, so I feel a certain amount of guilt about throwing it out, but it is just . . . Not Good. It was a valiant effort to use up the vegetation in the fridge, but ultimately it's just taking up space in the freezer.
Everything else is tasty, though: I've been eating the curried carrot turnip soup quite happily. I've also been throwing in bits of other stuff--some leftover rice, for example, works very nicely, as would any kind of greens--and of course I add cheese. The next cooking project will need to use some beets, as I have the most of that. And the turnips, of course. I basically have until April or May to get through it all, i.e., until the 2012 crop starts up. I'll probably make some stuff this weekend, so I have lunches for work. (Oh yes, it's so very nice to be able to say that.)
In fact, I'm starting work today. My new boss called yesterday and asked if there's any way I could come in before next Thursday, and I said sure, so long as we work around a few lunch dates I have. So I'll go in this afternoon, most of Friday (Orange--I'll email you to see if you can pick me up after all), most of Monday, and all day Tuesday. I reserved Wednesday for seeing a friend and doing any last-minute chores. One of the things that I think will help is that NewOrg is funded by many of the same funding sources as OldOrg, so the contracts will be familiar, even if the specifics differ somewhat. NewBoss is overwhelmed, so wants me on board right now. Yes, it is nice to be wanted and, presumably soon enough, appreciated.
I keep fibrillating about commenting on the various political firestorms of the day, but I keep staying out of it. For one thing,Charles Pierce does it so much better than I could. For another, the forced-birth nuts are making me insane. Their insanity would be mindboggling if I hadn't spent the past 40 years having my mind boggled by them--though they do seem to get worse.
And Willard? The stripper of assets? The disgustingly rich do-nothing, who inherited most of his money, and then used that pile to make another pile, all without working a day in his life, and whose positions change with the weather? Or Santorum (whom Pierce consistently reminds us is a dick), the hypocritical creep? Or N. Leroy Gingrich, staff-banger supreme and pompous windbag? What can I possibly say? The notion that these assholes are serious contenders for the nomination for one of our two major parties shows just how much we have become beholden to corporate interests and far-right nutcases. The fact that so many of them are campaigning on shredding what remains of a safety net, and the fact that they get votes from people who would be negatively affected by said shredding, causes me to turn away and read whatever novels come to hand. I cannot fathom it, and I cannot stand it.
Also, this blog will be moving soon, to wordpress. I haven't figured out the details of it yet, but I"ll let you know.
Showing posts with label rantalicious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rantalicious. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Industrial Food
Time for another edition of Narya's Pet Peeves!
You may remember that my ex-in-laws had celiac disease (and a couple also couldn't do dairy, and one couldn't do soy or corn, either). I even had fantasies, for awhile, of having not one but two bakeries, one of which would have been gluten-free. (That particular fantasy required major lottery winnings.) It's a pain to manage it, though one gets used to it, and they did a great job of it. They own a store, as a matter of fact, that is all gluten-free, and they do a lot of mail-order business as well. I suspect they'll continue to face ever-stiffer competition, as many regular grocery stores are increasing their GF options dramatically. They have also been quite active in various celiac identification efforts. The condition seems to be on the rise, and not just because it was being under-diagnosed, though that's also the case. (I have my own suspicions about the increase, but I'll get back to them in a second.) Point being, I have a fair amount of close personal experience with people who really must avoid gluten at all costs; it's practically a poison for them.
None of this makes me peevish. In fact, I have a great deal of sympathy for people with celiac disease. As a result of hanging with them for the time I was with Chuck, I was able to see, first-hand, just how difficult it can be to get food one feels safe eating. It requires constant vigilance, particularly when going out to restaurants--even ones that claim to have gluten-free menus or options. If you throw the dairy-free needs on top of the gluten-free, like my ex bro-in-law, it can be a complete nightmare. Yes, Virginia, butter counts as dairy, so those veggies need to be steamed, or sauteed in oil (and, in his case, not corn oil).
Lately, though, I've been running into people who are claiming they are going without gluten, even though they're not celiac, because they have some idea that gluten is bad for them. They don't provide any evidence other than anecdata--somebody suggested it to them, possibly even a doctor, but no, they haven't been tested for celiac disease, or they've been tested and are negative. They've "heard" that gluten is inflammatory or something. Even this only mildly irritates me: people can eat what they want (even if their choices are stoopid). I'm seriously irritated by the lack of evidence for their claims, and suspect that the problems aren't with gluten, but whatevs.
What really puts me around the bend are people who claim that they're going "gluten-free" and then have something with gluten in it. Look, people: either you're gluten-free or you're not. If you are, then that Danish isn't something you can eat, and you had best be reading the labels of the salad dressing and every other damn thing. Gluten-free doesn't mean gluten-free-except-for-things-I-really-like. It means gluten-free soy sauce, and beer, and pasta, and all kinds of other stuff. It means that you can eat oats, but only if they haven't been contaminated by being grown too close to wheat. It means no bread, unless it's gluten-free. It means constant vigilance, not occasional dalliance. If you want to dally with gluten-free, that's fine, too, but then keep it to yourself. So, yes, this is an irritation to me: if you really want to do without gluten, well, okay, I'm not going to force you to eat my whole-grain, crusty, tasty bread, any more than I would try to force a vegetarian to eat meat. But then actually do without gluten, not just dabble in avoiding it. I may roll my eyes a little (secretly, and only if you're not actually celiac), but if it works for you and it helps you eat more healthy food, hey, go for it.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the supposed gluten sensitivity is related to the over-processed crap that many people eat. Industrial food--like the food outlined in the first sectoin of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," for example--isn't healthy food; it's fuel, for an industrial cog, i.e., the workers. (Yes, I realize I sound like a Wobbly.) I also suspect that the flours used in industrial food fuck with the gluten in the food in ways that may well be unhealthy without causing celiac disease. That's not a problem with gluten per se, but with the industrial agriculture and manufacturing processes.
I realize that many people don't have much choice; if you're poor, you need as many cheap calories as you can get. I can shudder at the thought of the "meat" product in fast-food tacos or hamburgers, but I'm also, despite my unemployed state, much more financially able to make different choices. Even people who don't need to maximize their calories per dollar are besieged by shiny packages and convenience foods and, if they didn't grow up seeing someone cook from scratch, they're less likely to see that as something they can do. People get overwhelmed, and I understand that: I'm more annoyed by the producers of that crap than by the people who eat it out of necessity or even out of desire.
And I think a lot of the "gluten is bad" that's in the ether these days is a result of the same industrial food machine. It's a new market, a new way to sell Product. Take some half-baked data fragment and inflate it into a full-blown epidemic, one that can only be treated by going on this new (expensive, of course) diet and buying these (expensive) products. It helps the people who really do need a gluten-free diet by making more foods available for them, but that's incidental; the real aim is to create a whole other market for the products.
You may remember that my ex-in-laws had celiac disease (and a couple also couldn't do dairy, and one couldn't do soy or corn, either). I even had fantasies, for awhile, of having not one but two bakeries, one of which would have been gluten-free. (That particular fantasy required major lottery winnings.) It's a pain to manage it, though one gets used to it, and they did a great job of it. They own a store, as a matter of fact, that is all gluten-free, and they do a lot of mail-order business as well. I suspect they'll continue to face ever-stiffer competition, as many regular grocery stores are increasing their GF options dramatically. They have also been quite active in various celiac identification efforts. The condition seems to be on the rise, and not just because it was being under-diagnosed, though that's also the case. (I have my own suspicions about the increase, but I'll get back to them in a second.) Point being, I have a fair amount of close personal experience with people who really must avoid gluten at all costs; it's practically a poison for them.
None of this makes me peevish. In fact, I have a great deal of sympathy for people with celiac disease. As a result of hanging with them for the time I was with Chuck, I was able to see, first-hand, just how difficult it can be to get food one feels safe eating. It requires constant vigilance, particularly when going out to restaurants--even ones that claim to have gluten-free menus or options. If you throw the dairy-free needs on top of the gluten-free, like my ex bro-in-law, it can be a complete nightmare. Yes, Virginia, butter counts as dairy, so those veggies need to be steamed, or sauteed in oil (and, in his case, not corn oil).
Lately, though, I've been running into people who are claiming they are going without gluten, even though they're not celiac, because they have some idea that gluten is bad for them. They don't provide any evidence other than anecdata--somebody suggested it to them, possibly even a doctor, but no, they haven't been tested for celiac disease, or they've been tested and are negative. They've "heard" that gluten is inflammatory or something. Even this only mildly irritates me: people can eat what they want (even if their choices are stoopid). I'm seriously irritated by the lack of evidence for their claims, and suspect that the problems aren't with gluten, but whatevs.
What really puts me around the bend are people who claim that they're going "gluten-free" and then have something with gluten in it. Look, people: either you're gluten-free or you're not. If you are, then that Danish isn't something you can eat, and you had best be reading the labels of the salad dressing and every other damn thing. Gluten-free doesn't mean gluten-free-except-for-things-I-really-like. It means gluten-free soy sauce, and beer, and pasta, and all kinds of other stuff. It means that you can eat oats, but only if they haven't been contaminated by being grown too close to wheat. It means no bread, unless it's gluten-free. It means constant vigilance, not occasional dalliance. If you want to dally with gluten-free, that's fine, too, but then keep it to yourself. So, yes, this is an irritation to me: if you really want to do without gluten, well, okay, I'm not going to force you to eat my whole-grain, crusty, tasty bread, any more than I would try to force a vegetarian to eat meat. But then actually do without gluten, not just dabble in avoiding it. I may roll my eyes a little (secretly, and only if you're not actually celiac), but if it works for you and it helps you eat more healthy food, hey, go for it.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the supposed gluten sensitivity is related to the over-processed crap that many people eat. Industrial food--like the food outlined in the first sectoin of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," for example--isn't healthy food; it's fuel, for an industrial cog, i.e., the workers. (Yes, I realize I sound like a Wobbly.) I also suspect that the flours used in industrial food fuck with the gluten in the food in ways that may well be unhealthy without causing celiac disease. That's not a problem with gluten per se, but with the industrial agriculture and manufacturing processes.
I realize that many people don't have much choice; if you're poor, you need as many cheap calories as you can get. I can shudder at the thought of the "meat" product in fast-food tacos or hamburgers, but I'm also, despite my unemployed state, much more financially able to make different choices. Even people who don't need to maximize their calories per dollar are besieged by shiny packages and convenience foods and, if they didn't grow up seeing someone cook from scratch, they're less likely to see that as something they can do. People get overwhelmed, and I understand that: I'm more annoyed by the producers of that crap than by the people who eat it out of necessity or even out of desire.
And I think a lot of the "gluten is bad" that's in the ether these days is a result of the same industrial food machine. It's a new market, a new way to sell Product. Take some half-baked data fragment and inflate it into a full-blown epidemic, one that can only be treated by going on this new (expensive, of course) diet and buying these (expensive) products. It helps the people who really do need a gluten-free diet by making more foods available for them, but that's incidental; the real aim is to create a whole other market for the products.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Reasons to Be Enjoying Unenjoyment
I spent the early part of last week cleaning and doing laundry and cleaning some more--plus going out to dinner with my furniture guy and with friends--and then . . . then I spent some time staring vacantly into space. I managed to get various small tasks accomplished, but I felt like I was doing them in a fog. Not surprising, I suppose. I even got a taste of schadenfreude on Friday, when I had lunch w/ an ex-coworker, who informed me that a proposal on which I did not work did not get re-funded (it's money the organization had been getting for multiple years). Yes, I know it's a little evil of me, but there it is. One of the advantages of the timing of my leaving is that there isn't anything due any time soon (except a big data report, about which I warned everyone), so it will be difficult--though, of course, not impossible--to blame me if there are issues with upcoming items.
As I vegetated last week, I realized a couple of things. First, this is the first time I've had two weeks off in a row since approximately 1994. Yes, seriously. I'm sure it will get old if it goes on too long (much the way it got old by the end of 1993, much less well into 1994), but a part of me was enjoying just being able to hang out. I will never be accused of being assiduous about housekeeping chores, but it was nice to be able to make a very long list of things to do and actually get them done, even while building in some baking and some slacking. There are still projects to be done--get more paint off of the sunroom brick; make curtains for the kitchen; clean up the desk in the back bedroom--but I accomplished a lot of crap.
Second, in case I have only mentioned this 472 times, sourdough is magic. It just kind of blows me away that I can use this goo to bake bread, with no added yeast. I've already gone through 10 pounds of flour, and I have resorted to giving away wads of stuff just to make room for more wads. Today, though, I made a batch of rolls that has extra fiber (in the form of barley flakes) and various fruity bits (cranberries, candied orange peel, date nuggets, dried apricots, and dried pears), and I glazed the rolls with a combination of ginger syrup and maple syrup. I'm thinking that these will become breakfast food; I haven't been eating well (or exercising, despite my resolutions to do so), and the Week of Slack has led to concrete strategies.
Third, the more I'm away from that job, and the more I think about the info I got on Friday, the more happy I am that I'm out of there. Yes, there is still a lot of fear and anxiety about finding a job, and yes, I realize this could be post hoc rationalization at its finest, but I think my gut is right about this one. The fundamental problem--and the problem at the core of my "separation" from the organization, I believe--is that the Head Honcho (my ex-boss) and his/her team don't know that they need to know things that they don't know. They think that they have it covered, and they cannot see beyond the bubble they've built. Personally, I think it's going to bite them, and the organization as a whole, in the ass, and I do not want to be around for that. When shit hits the fan, it splatters everyone in the vicinity, and there are people on that team who will do their level best to duck behind others when that happens. The thing is, if they manage to eliminate everyone outside the bubble, then they won't have anywhere to hide, or anyone to blame.
Don't get me wrong--I don't really wish for this to happen. For one thing, the bad karma generated by that kind of wish is not something I want to invoke. For another (much more important) thing, the people who are likely to suffer most, either in terms of reduced services or reduced staff, will be people who are way lower on the food chain. Even if the bubble team members lost their jobs (which I would be hard-pressed to predict), they will be better fixed, in terms of income and savings, for example, than line staff or program beneficiaries. And I think there's a very real risk here, because there are enormous changes in the works; many or most of those changes are systemic, i.e., outside of any given organization; and the changes will be centered around the part of the business that I was in but that the bubble team is not.
They could pull it off, of course; they are not stupid people, and they have at least a modest recognition that Things Must Change. But they are also systematically ignoring (or "separating" or reagarding as Negative Nellies) the people who know the most about the side of the business that will be changing the most and that will be the core of all the other changes. Bubble team members are doing a mediocre job transferring my knowledge and tasks to other people. And they are putting into moderately key positions people who do not know enough about the side of the business that will be the core of the new arrangements--but they are people who are subordinate to the bubble team, and are therefore Good & Knowledgable. There will be hiccups--as there always are--but the size and strength of those hiccups will be related, at least in part, to how much of the world outside the bubble they truly comprehend.
Here's another thing: there's no guarantee that, if I had been involved, the organization would have kept the contract that was lost--but I would have been Blamed, even if what was submitted was something that I did not fully support or something I did not think was what should be submitted. That's going to happen going forward, too. Contracts will be lost, or poorly managed, or whatever--it's a fact of life, particularly in an organization that now has no managers on my old side of the business (the other side is rife with them, but many are foot soldiers more than anything else, and no one has seen any urgency to get managers involved in my old side). It was one of the things that had become a serious challenge over the past year--not enough managers (and how often do you hear THAT said) to, well, manage.
My friend pointed out that I was doing three different jobs, with three different skill sets--not because I'm so spectacular, but because those tasks needed to be done. As we tried to mix our staffs and managers and directors and tasks together, I was increasingly being expected to follow a new set of rules (though finding out just what the relevant rule was remained an exercise in futility), hand off my tasks, and create a new job description/job for myself. No way is that going to work out well, unless the head person can communicate what s/he wants and the other members in the bubble are willing to break the bubble and build a new structure.
Yeah, as I said, failure of one kind or another was really the only thing that was going to come out of that, and I'm just as glad to be out of the way of the shrapnel. I'll figure out something, some way, somehow. I hope.
As I vegetated last week, I realized a couple of things. First, this is the first time I've had two weeks off in a row since approximately 1994. Yes, seriously. I'm sure it will get old if it goes on too long (much the way it got old by the end of 1993, much less well into 1994), but a part of me was enjoying just being able to hang out. I will never be accused of being assiduous about housekeeping chores, but it was nice to be able to make a very long list of things to do and actually get them done, even while building in some baking and some slacking. There are still projects to be done--get more paint off of the sunroom brick; make curtains for the kitchen; clean up the desk in the back bedroom--but I accomplished a lot of crap.
Second, in case I have only mentioned this 472 times, sourdough is magic. It just kind of blows me away that I can use this goo to bake bread, with no added yeast. I've already gone through 10 pounds of flour, and I have resorted to giving away wads of stuff just to make room for more wads. Today, though, I made a batch of rolls that has extra fiber (in the form of barley flakes) and various fruity bits (cranberries, candied orange peel, date nuggets, dried apricots, and dried pears), and I glazed the rolls with a combination of ginger syrup and maple syrup. I'm thinking that these will become breakfast food; I haven't been eating well (or exercising, despite my resolutions to do so), and the Week of Slack has led to concrete strategies.
Third, the more I'm away from that job, and the more I think about the info I got on Friday, the more happy I am that I'm out of there. Yes, there is still a lot of fear and anxiety about finding a job, and yes, I realize this could be post hoc rationalization at its finest, but I think my gut is right about this one. The fundamental problem--and the problem at the core of my "separation" from the organization, I believe--is that the Head Honcho (my ex-boss) and his/her team don't know that they need to know things that they don't know. They think that they have it covered, and they cannot see beyond the bubble they've built. Personally, I think it's going to bite them, and the organization as a whole, in the ass, and I do not want to be around for that. When shit hits the fan, it splatters everyone in the vicinity, and there are people on that team who will do their level best to duck behind others when that happens. The thing is, if they manage to eliminate everyone outside the bubble, then they won't have anywhere to hide, or anyone to blame.
Don't get me wrong--I don't really wish for this to happen. For one thing, the bad karma generated by that kind of wish is not something I want to invoke. For another (much more important) thing, the people who are likely to suffer most, either in terms of reduced services or reduced staff, will be people who are way lower on the food chain. Even if the bubble team members lost their jobs (which I would be hard-pressed to predict), they will be better fixed, in terms of income and savings, for example, than line staff or program beneficiaries. And I think there's a very real risk here, because there are enormous changes in the works; many or most of those changes are systemic, i.e., outside of any given organization; and the changes will be centered around the part of the business that I was in but that the bubble team is not.
They could pull it off, of course; they are not stupid people, and they have at least a modest recognition that Things Must Change. But they are also systematically ignoring (or "separating" or reagarding as Negative Nellies) the people who know the most about the side of the business that will be changing the most and that will be the core of all the other changes. Bubble team members are doing a mediocre job transferring my knowledge and tasks to other people. And they are putting into moderately key positions people who do not know enough about the side of the business that will be the core of the new arrangements--but they are people who are subordinate to the bubble team, and are therefore Good & Knowledgable. There will be hiccups--as there always are--but the size and strength of those hiccups will be related, at least in part, to how much of the world outside the bubble they truly comprehend.
Here's another thing: there's no guarantee that, if I had been involved, the organization would have kept the contract that was lost--but I would have been Blamed, even if what was submitted was something that I did not fully support or something I did not think was what should be submitted. That's going to happen going forward, too. Contracts will be lost, or poorly managed, or whatever--it's a fact of life, particularly in an organization that now has no managers on my old side of the business (the other side is rife with them, but many are foot soldiers more than anything else, and no one has seen any urgency to get managers involved in my old side). It was one of the things that had become a serious challenge over the past year--not enough managers (and how often do you hear THAT said) to, well, manage.
My friend pointed out that I was doing three different jobs, with three different skill sets--not because I'm so spectacular, but because those tasks needed to be done. As we tried to mix our staffs and managers and directors and tasks together, I was increasingly being expected to follow a new set of rules (though finding out just what the relevant rule was remained an exercise in futility), hand off my tasks, and create a new job description/job for myself. No way is that going to work out well, unless the head person can communicate what s/he wants and the other members in the bubble are willing to break the bubble and build a new structure.
Yeah, as I said, failure of one kind or another was really the only thing that was going to come out of that, and I'm just as glad to be out of the way of the shrapnel. I'll figure out something, some way, somehow. I hope.
Monday, June 27, 2011
The Takeaway Was . . .
My antipathy toward kumbayfuckingyah activities is well-documented and longstanding. Nothing I experienced last week has caused me to change my mind. I won't get into my objections to the day's events that were specific to our organization; those are internal, and a function of the work we're doing now to merge some service bits together. And I won't even object to some of the other training sessions I've had to attend recently; while they didn't do much for me, they clearly seemed to be valuable to many other people, and I don't want to harsh that. Sometimes you just have to sit through shit and do your best not to put a damper on other people's experience. I didn't succeed in that nearly as well as I would have liked, and I admit that it's a challenge for me, and one on which I truly feel I need to work.
However.
Two things in particular highlighted my opposition. The first thing was in relation to the afternoon's "team-building" exercise. Even though the team that I was on actually won (despite have two people, me being one of them, with official Bad Attitudes about the whole thing), I found the whole thing to be completely tedious and, more important, a complete fucking waste of time. I tried very hard not to let my attitude fuck up other people's chances to win, and, in fact, it could be argued that one of my contributions was instrumental in our winning. And I still think it was a complete fucking waste of time. Why?
Because teams don't get "built" by forcing people to work together on some stupid, pointless task. Every last person, except, of course, our would-be Galtian would-be overlords, recognizes that nearly everything we do is a group effort. Even my dissertation, which, of course, I had to actually write, relied on many other people for help, advice, a sounding board, etc., and those pieces were, in fact, crucial to my being able to write a goddamned dissertation. Should their names go on it as co-authors? Well, no, probably not, given the way we think about these things, and given that, without me, that particular piece of scholarship would not have occurred. But I absolutely believe that others' contributions were vital to my being able to do it.
Back to my point: the whole afternoon's exercise was just stupid and pointless. It accomplished nothing. Nothing was gained. No teams were built. We would have spent our time better if we had come together to take a crack at some of the issues the organization is actually trying to address, rather than what we did, and people would have ended up with a greater sense of real accomplishment.
My second serious opposition was to a different activity during the day, one wherein a speaker came in and talked about changes, and how to deal with them, and blahblahfuckingblah. S/he had a particular Model Of Change (of course), which was simplistic and not at all how I think about these things, but whatevs. I could suffer through that part by stressing about all the writing that wasn't getting done on the thing that is due this Friday and not listening much to the speaker. The thing that put me over the edge, though, was that each table was supposed to use this Model to write down some change in the past year that we experienced, and to analyze the change in terms of the Model.
I absolutely refused to do it.
I didn't say anything, but I didn't fill out my notecard, and I didn't say anything when we were all supposed to be Discussing It In Our Groups. I try, as best I can, not to piss too much on what others are doing, and, hey, maybe some people get something out of shit like that; not my place to say, and good on them if they do.
But I am profoundly uncomfortable talking about made-up shit like that, in groups of people at work. I will tell people very intimate things. I have had some very deep discussions with all kinds of coworkers. I share all kinds of shit. Nevertheless, I repeat, I am profoundly uncomfortable doing this kind of pseudo-group-therapy. I hate it. I think it's worse than pointless, and I have no interest in babbling about this shit to the people with whom I work. I think it's demeaning and degrading, and I think it's a distraction from the true issues that we face, from the true elephants in the room that everyone's ignoring.
Meanwhile, I spent substantial parts of Saturday and Sunday in my office, and today was nearly a 12-hour day and tomorrow and Wednesday are likely to be similar. In fact, I'll be lucky if it's just tomorrow and Wednesday, and not an all-nighter on Thursday as well.
Other than that? The kumbaifuckingyah event was wonderful.
However.
Two things in particular highlighted my opposition. The first thing was in relation to the afternoon's "team-building" exercise. Even though the team that I was on actually won (despite have two people, me being one of them, with official Bad Attitudes about the whole thing), I found the whole thing to be completely tedious and, more important, a complete fucking waste of time. I tried very hard not to let my attitude fuck up other people's chances to win, and, in fact, it could be argued that one of my contributions was instrumental in our winning. And I still think it was a complete fucking waste of time. Why?
Because teams don't get "built" by forcing people to work together on some stupid, pointless task. Every last person, except, of course, our would-be Galtian would-be overlords, recognizes that nearly everything we do is a group effort. Even my dissertation, which, of course, I had to actually write, relied on many other people for help, advice, a sounding board, etc., and those pieces were, in fact, crucial to my being able to write a goddamned dissertation. Should their names go on it as co-authors? Well, no, probably not, given the way we think about these things, and given that, without me, that particular piece of scholarship would not have occurred. But I absolutely believe that others' contributions were vital to my being able to do it.
Back to my point: the whole afternoon's exercise was just stupid and pointless. It accomplished nothing. Nothing was gained. No teams were built. We would have spent our time better if we had come together to take a crack at some of the issues the organization is actually trying to address, rather than what we did, and people would have ended up with a greater sense of real accomplishment.
My second serious opposition was to a different activity during the day, one wherein a speaker came in and talked about changes, and how to deal with them, and blahblahfuckingblah. S/he had a particular Model Of Change (of course), which was simplistic and not at all how I think about these things, but whatevs. I could suffer through that part by stressing about all the writing that wasn't getting done on the thing that is due this Friday and not listening much to the speaker. The thing that put me over the edge, though, was that each table was supposed to use this Model to write down some change in the past year that we experienced, and to analyze the change in terms of the Model.
I absolutely refused to do it.
I didn't say anything, but I didn't fill out my notecard, and I didn't say anything when we were all supposed to be Discussing It In Our Groups. I try, as best I can, not to piss too much on what others are doing, and, hey, maybe some people get something out of shit like that; not my place to say, and good on them if they do.
But I am profoundly uncomfortable talking about made-up shit like that, in groups of people at work. I will tell people very intimate things. I have had some very deep discussions with all kinds of coworkers. I share all kinds of shit. Nevertheless, I repeat, I am profoundly uncomfortable doing this kind of pseudo-group-therapy. I hate it. I think it's worse than pointless, and I have no interest in babbling about this shit to the people with whom I work. I think it's demeaning and degrading, and I think it's a distraction from the true issues that we face, from the true elephants in the room that everyone's ignoring.
Meanwhile, I spent substantial parts of Saturday and Sunday in my office, and today was nearly a 12-hour day and tomorrow and Wednesday are likely to be similar. In fact, I'll be lucky if it's just tomorrow and Wednesday, and not an all-nighter on Thursday as well.
Other than that? The kumbaifuckingyah event was wonderful.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Letters from Narya, Part II
Dear Blame-It-on-the-Hippies Child-Abuse-Apologists in the Catholic Church:
You are shameless at best, and possibly evil.
I am part of the so-called baby boom. The tail end of it, to be sure, but I was born before 1960 and I remember where I was when both Kennedy brothers were shot. I also remember what has been called the "sexual revolution," and, indeed, I would say that I benefited mightily from it. (And I don't mean in the objectified and pronulated way that young women today supposedly "benefit" from some changes in sexual mores that have the net effect of requiring that said women spend even more time and energy pleasing men.) While patriarchy was by no means overthrown--not even close--there were a couple of whiffs of fresh air before the megatheocraticcapitalist system clamped down again. In this somewhat fresher air, people--ALL people, not just people with a penis--felt more free to experience themselves as sexual beings for their own benefit. At no time was anyone encouraged to molest children.
This was never, and will never be, an acceptable expression of anything. The only institution that seems to regard sex with children to be acceptable is the Catholic church. Please do not protest that you do not find it acceptable, because your actions speak much louder than your words. For decades, you have turned a blind eye to its occurrence in your ranks, and you have protected members of your association who commit these crimes. It looks and sounds like a criminal conspiracy to me.
And it's not the fault of hippies, or of people having sex without a patriarchal institution giving its seal of approval, or of Woodstock. Stop blaming others because you have bred and nurtured a group of child molesters.
Thank you--
Narya
You are shameless at best, and possibly evil.
I am part of the so-called baby boom. The tail end of it, to be sure, but I was born before 1960 and I remember where I was when both Kennedy brothers were shot. I also remember what has been called the "sexual revolution," and, indeed, I would say that I benefited mightily from it. (And I don't mean in the objectified and pronulated way that young women today supposedly "benefit" from some changes in sexual mores that have the net effect of requiring that said women spend even more time and energy pleasing men.) While patriarchy was by no means overthrown--not even close--there were a couple of whiffs of fresh air before the megatheocraticcapitalist system clamped down again. In this somewhat fresher air, people--ALL people, not just people with a penis--felt more free to experience themselves as sexual beings for their own benefit. At no time was anyone encouraged to molest children.
This was never, and will never be, an acceptable expression of anything. The only institution that seems to regard sex with children to be acceptable is the Catholic church. Please do not protest that you do not find it acceptable, because your actions speak much louder than your words. For decades, you have turned a blind eye to its occurrence in your ranks, and you have protected members of your association who commit these crimes. It looks and sounds like a criminal conspiracy to me.
And it's not the fault of hippies, or of people having sex without a patriarchal institution giving its seal of approval, or of Woodstock. Stop blaming others because you have bred and nurtured a group of child molesters.
Thank you--
Narya
Letters from Narya, Part I
Dear Piano-Playing-with-the-Windows-Open Neighbor:
You suck.
I understand that you may be playing for your own enjoyment, and, on some level, I applaud that. If there are deities, they could could certainly attest to my own amateur status in nearly everything I do. I have played sports--and, for that matter, an instrument, many decades ago--and I never achieved a level of competence that would cause someone to mistake me for a professional. I had fun, though, and, while I was doing those things, I tried not to inflict my fumbling efforts on people who weren't similarly fumbling.
You, however, play--badly!--for hours and hours on end, and you subject unwilling others to your efforts. If I sit in my sunroom--possibly my favorite spot in the whole place--during the months of the year the windows can be open, I am forced to endure your tuneless banging away. Even the Loaner Cat sleeps with her paw over her ears so she doesn't have to listen. Stop it, please. Close the windows when you play, or I may be forced to figure out in which apartment you dwell--across the street, I believe--and come visit you with an implement of destruction in hand.
Thank you--
Narya
You suck.
I understand that you may be playing for your own enjoyment, and, on some level, I applaud that. If there are deities, they could could certainly attest to my own amateur status in nearly everything I do. I have played sports--and, for that matter, an instrument, many decades ago--and I never achieved a level of competence that would cause someone to mistake me for a professional. I had fun, though, and, while I was doing those things, I tried not to inflict my fumbling efforts on people who weren't similarly fumbling.
You, however, play--badly!--for hours and hours on end, and you subject unwilling others to your efforts. If I sit in my sunroom--possibly my favorite spot in the whole place--during the months of the year the windows can be open, I am forced to endure your tuneless banging away. Even the Loaner Cat sleeps with her paw over her ears so she doesn't have to listen. Stop it, please. Close the windows when you play, or I may be forced to figure out in which apartment you dwell--across the street, I believe--and come visit you with an implement of destruction in hand.
Thank you--
Narya
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Lemony Goodness
Yogi Berra noted that nobody went to Ruggeri's restaurant any more because it was too crowded. That's how I feel about going out to dinner around Valentine's Day. I don't have much of an opinion about VD either way; I do not participate in the craziness, I do not expect the men in my life to make gestures of any kind, much less big flower-and-jewel-encrusted gestures, and I tend to take the Twisty Faster view of it, that it's a big trade--baubles in exchange for access to vaginas, or, more to the point, access to a particular vagina. What it means, though, is that the restaurants are all clogged up with people engaging in this trade, which means I avoid it like the plague. The only drag of that is that Friend and I like to go out to dinner once a week or so, and lately weekends have been more convenient for that, but it's out of the question this weekend. (Chuck and I took the same approach to this.)
So I headed to Whole Paycheck yesterday, and got some tuna steaks, which I marinated in orange juice & peel, garlic, and fresh rosemary, a handful of shrimp (Friend likes shrimp), and three pounds of butter. And a bunch of other stuff, of course, because what's the point of a shopping trip if you don't haul 50 pounds of stuff on the el? I also braised some chard and collard greens with some pancetta and onions, and they were pretty tasty, too. I had bought a bunch of pancetta and I'd had the person slice it very thick, and then I froze it in approximately-two-ounce portions, and it has been extremely useful. Whenever I want a little of that bacony goodness, I just grab one of the portions and chop it up. It just occurs to me that I should have thrown a splash of balsamic vinegar into the greens, too . . .
And then I made up a recipe! Sort of, anyway, with some help from the chatline person at King Arthur. I was looking for a way to use the meyer lemons and make a cake, but with flour rather than almonds like the last time, and I wanted it to be very lemony, but I didn't want something that had a ton of fat in it. So I found a recipe (from KA, actually) that used buttermilk, and I reduced the butter, eliminated the buttermilk, and subbed lemon juice, water, and powdered milk, and used a lot of peel (about 10 grams--I ended up using the peel and juice of four lemons). I didn't have a mary ann pan (and had to look it up to figure out what it even was), but I suddenly remembered that I had a mini-bundt pan, and that worked beautifully. I topped the cakes with some whipped cream and raspberries and strawberries that Friend hauled over here from his freezer. The cakes were absolutely delightful; I suspect muffin tins would have worked as well (and were actually my first thought). Lemony and cakey and even a little chewy, because I buttered the tins very thoroughly. And, for once, I wrote down what I was doing, so I can actually make them again. I know! Who woulda thought!
Today I think it's going to be some venison steak, because I love me some venison steak. I have a head of cauliflower I need to use, and I'll see what grains I have floating around in the cupboard. And cookie-making needs to ensue, as well, so I can bring some to work tomorrow. I already mixed the dough; it's been chilling (literally) in the fridge since yesterday--I made a double batch. And I also bought a pineapple and two mangos, so I think I'll make a fruit salad, too, to take for breakfasts this week.
I think a lot of my food blogging is because work is still, as noted a steaming pile of stress. It doesn't affect me in some ways, but it does in others; one of the people with whom I work most closely isn't holding up his/her part of the work. Our old boss used to cover for him/her, or rope the person into line when I (privately) bitched enough about it, but the old boss isn't there any more, and Coworker is pulling the same old shit. Newboss is less tolerant--okay, not tolerant at all--and the rest of the team is getting really damn tired of the shit, too. It will come to a head sooner rather than later, I think, because Coworker thinks s/he can skate and it is just not going to fly. Newboss won't allow it or cover for it, and the rest of us are getting mighty tired of doing Coworker's work.
One thing that's been interesting to me is my own . . . complicity, I guess. I realized way back when that Coworker isn't able to do some of the things that would have been associated with his/her position--vital things, that really needed to be done--but also brought other strengths that we didn't necessarily know we needed. So, I took on some of Coworker's stuff--okay, a lot of it--which has worked out okay for me, because I've gotten experience that I would not otherwise have and some of it has been an interesting puzzle for me to solve, and I got my big raise as a result of it.
When Oldboss was around, I realized Oldboss wasn't going to confront Coworker in any meaningful way, and I recognized there wasn't anything I could do, short of quitting, and that I didn't want to do that. It was, after all, working out for me, even if it meant the labor distribution was somewhat unfair. When Coworker was getting too out of hand in some way, I'd bitch to Oldboss and get him/her to deal with it at least a little, and Oldboss also would cover for Coworker, in the sense of being present in the office when Coworker took many of his/her vacations and days off and whatevers. Newboss isn't willing to do that covering, and I'm finding that I'm actually rather relieved. I didn't like it before, but I liked Oldboss and there wasn't any way to really confront openly what was going on, other than my bitching about it, so I realized that and let it be. Now, however, it's coming out in the open, and I much prefer that, uncomfortable though it may be in some ways.
The other three of us on the senior management team are basically fed up with the whole charade, and Newboss is behind us on this, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Me, personally, I'm getting tired of people coming to me with things that are Coworker's responsibility--they do it because (a) Coworker isn't doing the thing, or is out of town or out of the office and/or (b) they know I'll get it done somehow. What Coworker doesn't realize is that it makes him/her look bad--people already questioned what Coworker actually contributes, and this isn't going to make answering that question any more pleasant for Coworker. The other thing Coworker doesn't realize is that I've been his/her biggest advocate, in some ways, pointing out the assets that may not be visible to everyone. Now, however, I'm sufficiently tired of my plate getting more heaped while s/he gallivants off somewhere, I'm less willing to come up with a cover story.
My main goal, through all of this, is to try to be clearheaded and fair-minded. I haven't been doing a great job at that, so far, but I'm working on it. I did realize that the thing that bothers me the most is that I get pissy and annoyed, and that's not a place I like to be. I don't like when I get that way--and my actions are my own responsibility. I don't care if it's "justified," it's not helpful or pleasant, either to experience or to be around. It's all a learning experience, I guess.
So I headed to Whole Paycheck yesterday, and got some tuna steaks, which I marinated in orange juice & peel, garlic, and fresh rosemary, a handful of shrimp (Friend likes shrimp), and three pounds of butter. And a bunch of other stuff, of course, because what's the point of a shopping trip if you don't haul 50 pounds of stuff on the el? I also braised some chard and collard greens with some pancetta and onions, and they were pretty tasty, too. I had bought a bunch of pancetta and I'd had the person slice it very thick, and then I froze it in approximately-two-ounce portions, and it has been extremely useful. Whenever I want a little of that bacony goodness, I just grab one of the portions and chop it up. It just occurs to me that I should have thrown a splash of balsamic vinegar into the greens, too . . .
And then I made up a recipe! Sort of, anyway, with some help from the chatline person at King Arthur. I was looking for a way to use the meyer lemons and make a cake, but with flour rather than almonds like the last time, and I wanted it to be very lemony, but I didn't want something that had a ton of fat in it. So I found a recipe (from KA, actually) that used buttermilk, and I reduced the butter, eliminated the buttermilk, and subbed lemon juice, water, and powdered milk, and used a lot of peel (about 10 grams--I ended up using the peel and juice of four lemons). I didn't have a mary ann pan (and had to look it up to figure out what it even was), but I suddenly remembered that I had a mini-bundt pan, and that worked beautifully. I topped the cakes with some whipped cream and raspberries and strawberries that Friend hauled over here from his freezer. The cakes were absolutely delightful; I suspect muffin tins would have worked as well (and were actually my first thought). Lemony and cakey and even a little chewy, because I buttered the tins very thoroughly. And, for once, I wrote down what I was doing, so I can actually make them again. I know! Who woulda thought!
Today I think it's going to be some venison steak, because I love me some venison steak. I have a head of cauliflower I need to use, and I'll see what grains I have floating around in the cupboard. And cookie-making needs to ensue, as well, so I can bring some to work tomorrow. I already mixed the dough; it's been chilling (literally) in the fridge since yesterday--I made a double batch. And I also bought a pineapple and two mangos, so I think I'll make a fruit salad, too, to take for breakfasts this week.
I think a lot of my food blogging is because work is still, as noted a steaming pile of stress. It doesn't affect me in some ways, but it does in others; one of the people with whom I work most closely isn't holding up his/her part of the work. Our old boss used to cover for him/her, or rope the person into line when I (privately) bitched enough about it, but the old boss isn't there any more, and Coworker is pulling the same old shit. Newboss is less tolerant--okay, not tolerant at all--and the rest of the team is getting really damn tired of the shit, too. It will come to a head sooner rather than later, I think, because Coworker thinks s/he can skate and it is just not going to fly. Newboss won't allow it or cover for it, and the rest of us are getting mighty tired of doing Coworker's work.
One thing that's been interesting to me is my own . . . complicity, I guess. I realized way back when that Coworker isn't able to do some of the things that would have been associated with his/her position--vital things, that really needed to be done--but also brought other strengths that we didn't necessarily know we needed. So, I took on some of Coworker's stuff--okay, a lot of it--which has worked out okay for me, because I've gotten experience that I would not otherwise have and some of it has been an interesting puzzle for me to solve, and I got my big raise as a result of it.
When Oldboss was around, I realized Oldboss wasn't going to confront Coworker in any meaningful way, and I recognized there wasn't anything I could do, short of quitting, and that I didn't want to do that. It was, after all, working out for me, even if it meant the labor distribution was somewhat unfair. When Coworker was getting too out of hand in some way, I'd bitch to Oldboss and get him/her to deal with it at least a little, and Oldboss also would cover for Coworker, in the sense of being present in the office when Coworker took many of his/her vacations and days off and whatevers. Newboss isn't willing to do that covering, and I'm finding that I'm actually rather relieved. I didn't like it before, but I liked Oldboss and there wasn't any way to really confront openly what was going on, other than my bitching about it, so I realized that and let it be. Now, however, it's coming out in the open, and I much prefer that, uncomfortable though it may be in some ways.
The other three of us on the senior management team are basically fed up with the whole charade, and Newboss is behind us on this, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Me, personally, I'm getting tired of people coming to me with things that are Coworker's responsibility--they do it because (a) Coworker isn't doing the thing, or is out of town or out of the office and/or (b) they know I'll get it done somehow. What Coworker doesn't realize is that it makes him/her look bad--people already questioned what Coworker actually contributes, and this isn't going to make answering that question any more pleasant for Coworker. The other thing Coworker doesn't realize is that I've been his/her biggest advocate, in some ways, pointing out the assets that may not be visible to everyone. Now, however, I'm sufficiently tired of my plate getting more heaped while s/he gallivants off somewhere, I'm less willing to come up with a cover story.
My main goal, through all of this, is to try to be clearheaded and fair-minded. I haven't been doing a great job at that, so far, but I'm working on it. I did realize that the thing that bothers me the most is that I get pissy and annoyed, and that's not a place I like to be. I don't like when I get that way--and my actions are my own responsibility. I don't care if it's "justified," it's not helpful or pleasant, either to experience or to be around. It's all a learning experience, I guess.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Snowmageddon Rising
Okay, so maybe they were right about this one.
If you can see out my front windows--which is difficult to do, because of the snow clinging to the storm windows and screens--you can see that the cars are nearly buried and that the street has no tire tracks. There are some footprints, but not even a lot of those. Apparently some of the public transportation is running, but everything is really buried. The most recent "special weather statement" notes that lake-effect snow is moving through the area: "INTENSE SNOWFALL WITHIN THIS BAND AND WIND GUSTS TO 40 MPH WILL DROP VISIBILITIES TO ONLY A COUPLE HUNDRED FEET. SNOW FALL RATES OF UP TO 2 INCHES PER HOUR ARE POSSIBLE AS THIS BAND MOVES SLOWLY EASTWARD." Being half a block from the lake has its down side, too. And Lake Shore Drive is closed. So, yes, staying indoors with the cat on my lap sounds like a fine plan, though I admit that part of me wants to at least go outside and trudge around the block, just for the experience. And I sort of wish I'd put together a preferment of some kind last night just to bake something today.
More likely, though, I'll fire up the DVD player or my Netflix instant watching thing and just make the cat happy.
Which would be fine. The ways in which work is stressful keep changing, which makes it interesting, in some ways, but also provides the sensation experienced by randomly shocked rats (or so I suppose). The good news is that the new boss is proving to be excellent. Very different set of strengths than the old boss, and, in some ways, ones that are more suited to my own style and inclinations. I don't want to sound disloyal--I really like my old boss quite a bit, and I'm very excited that s/he just got a new job. But--you saw that coming, didn't you--the new boss is better suited to the particular politics in play at the moment. OldBoss would not have gotten along at all with the new Big Boss, and, more to the point, would have had a hard time doing what the organization as a whole wants done right now. So, really, we're probably all in somewhat better places.
I must add that BigBoss makes me nervous, though. S/He has a style of operating that I don't like any more than I liked the style of the last person in that position, even though the two of them are very different in oh so many ways. On the other hand, as with the previous regime, my current boss does a fine job of protecting me and valuing my contributions and using my skills, so I will find a way to live with it. I also think that Newboss is doing, and is going to do, a better job of utilizing me, so that's actually kind of cool. We'll see.
And we'll see whether my mouth gets me in trouble. I'm getting increasingly impatient with a coworker (two, actually; one is at the central office), so I'm trying to regard it as an exercise in patience and such, but that is really not one of my best things. Actually, that's not quite accurate: I can be extremely patient in many circumstances. Where I get impatient, however, is when someone will neither lead nor follow nor get out of the way--when, in fact, someone gets IN the way, and then bitches about it. That makes me kinda nuts. The other person isn't holding up his/her end of the workload, IMHO, though s/he thinks s/he is; my feeling is that you shouldn't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
When push comes to shove, though, the Top Chef rule is what matters: cook your own food and don't worry about someone else's dish. The problem here is that I'm trying to do that, but we need those to people to do specific things and they're not doing them, which makes my job harder. Which is where my impatience and peevishness come galloping into the fray.
Ah well; lessons in buddhism, I suppose.
Meanwhile, though, it's time to make some more tea and settle in to watch something; I don't know what yet, but it pretty much doesn't matter. Or maybe that walk around the block first?
If you can see out my front windows--which is difficult to do, because of the snow clinging to the storm windows and screens--you can see that the cars are nearly buried and that the street has no tire tracks. There are some footprints, but not even a lot of those. Apparently some of the public transportation is running, but everything is really buried. The most recent "special weather statement" notes that lake-effect snow is moving through the area: "INTENSE SNOWFALL WITHIN THIS BAND AND WIND GUSTS TO 40 MPH WILL DROP VISIBILITIES TO ONLY A COUPLE HUNDRED FEET. SNOW FALL RATES OF UP TO 2 INCHES PER HOUR ARE POSSIBLE AS THIS BAND MOVES SLOWLY EASTWARD." Being half a block from the lake has its down side, too. And Lake Shore Drive is closed. So, yes, staying indoors with the cat on my lap sounds like a fine plan, though I admit that part of me wants to at least go outside and trudge around the block, just for the experience. And I sort of wish I'd put together a preferment of some kind last night just to bake something today.
More likely, though, I'll fire up the DVD player or my Netflix instant watching thing and just make the cat happy.
Which would be fine. The ways in which work is stressful keep changing, which makes it interesting, in some ways, but also provides the sensation experienced by randomly shocked rats (or so I suppose). The good news is that the new boss is proving to be excellent. Very different set of strengths than the old boss, and, in some ways, ones that are more suited to my own style and inclinations. I don't want to sound disloyal--I really like my old boss quite a bit, and I'm very excited that s/he just got a new job. But--you saw that coming, didn't you--the new boss is better suited to the particular politics in play at the moment. OldBoss would not have gotten along at all with the new Big Boss, and, more to the point, would have had a hard time doing what the organization as a whole wants done right now. So, really, we're probably all in somewhat better places.
I must add that BigBoss makes me nervous, though. S/He has a style of operating that I don't like any more than I liked the style of the last person in that position, even though the two of them are very different in oh so many ways. On the other hand, as with the previous regime, my current boss does a fine job of protecting me and valuing my contributions and using my skills, so I will find a way to live with it. I also think that Newboss is doing, and is going to do, a better job of utilizing me, so that's actually kind of cool. We'll see.
And we'll see whether my mouth gets me in trouble. I'm getting increasingly impatient with a coworker (two, actually; one is at the central office), so I'm trying to regard it as an exercise in patience and such, but that is really not one of my best things. Actually, that's not quite accurate: I can be extremely patient in many circumstances. Where I get impatient, however, is when someone will neither lead nor follow nor get out of the way--when, in fact, someone gets IN the way, and then bitches about it. That makes me kinda nuts. The other person isn't holding up his/her end of the workload, IMHO, though s/he thinks s/he is; my feeling is that you shouldn't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
When push comes to shove, though, the Top Chef rule is what matters: cook your own food and don't worry about someone else's dish. The problem here is that I'm trying to do that, but we need those to people to do specific things and they're not doing them, which makes my job harder. Which is where my impatience and peevishness come galloping into the fray.
Ah well; lessons in buddhism, I suppose.
Meanwhile, though, it's time to make some more tea and settle in to watch something; I don't know what yet, but it pretty much doesn't matter. Or maybe that walk around the block first?
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Snowpocalypse Now
I feel like I'm in the middle of that scene in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (yes, the one with Burl Ives and Clarice the girl reindeer) where the snowman says, "And then it hit." And you see things blowing all over the place. That's what it looks like here. My back window is completely snow-covered, despite the fact that it's on a covered porch (covered by the upstairs neighbor's porch, that is). The wind occasionally reaches 50 mph, apparently, which means some blocks are really difficult to traverse. I'm not particularly a weather weenie--not least because Friend gave me an old pair of his snow pants, which, given the disparity in our sizes, means they fit very comfortably over multiple layers of my clothing--and I even admit to being a little fascinated by things like this weather, but this is pretty brutal.
This weekend's cooking and baking adventures: wheat rolls; yet another attempt at an apple upside down cake (and this one's a winner); a variation on a whole-grain cinnamon roll (back to that one in a minute); and a venison stew, made with carrots, onions, garlic, celery, red wine, balsamic vinegar, some slow-roasted tomatos I had hanging around in the freezer, a can of tomatos, and, let's see, some fresh sage, a few cloves, a splash of regular vinegar, a splash of molasses, some maple syrup (I was experimenting with some sweetening), and I browned the meat in pancetta. It simmered for about five hours, and is extremely tasty and I think I've overcome the inherent dryness/toughness of venison. The cinnamon bread was from a KAF recipe for "cinnamon spiral bread"--a coil of bread put into a round pan. I decided to cut it into individual rolls, and fill it with apples, raisins, and cinnamon. But I think there's a problem with them; I"m not sure whether it's me or the formula, but it seemed to have way too much oats, and it really didn't raise much. They weren't inedible, but they weren't very good, either. Last night I made a cake with still more of the meyer lemons, and it came out pretty well; I'd make it again, though I'd decrease the temperature and increase the (already long) baking time.
Meanwhile, though, we're getting a bunch of snow--so much that the building where we work decided to close down tomorrow, meaning my company is closed, too. In some ways, that's a total pain for me: I have a dentist appointment early Thursday morning, and I had been planning on taking a vacation day on Friday, but, at the very end of the day, one of our funding agencies returned a budget and need some changes by Friday. If I get get it done Thursday afternoon, all will be well, but otherwise I'll have to change the vacation day. There were other things I wanted to get done this week that also won't happen, but this particular item is really necessary for reasons about which you do not care. (Trust me on this.)
But still--snow day!! I realized that most weekends or planned days off I start to fill with activities of one kind or another: chores, or baking, or cooking, or something. Because this came unexpectedly, I have absolutely nothing planned. I'll work out, maybe watch some movies or TV, maybe sit on the sun porch and drink tea and read with a cat on my lap, and that's it. I'm supposed to meet Brazen Tart for dinner, but who knows whether the restaurant will even be open. I presume we'll make the call tomorrow.
I've been putting the food channel on lately, when I have a desire for background stuff, so I have stumbled across "Worst Cooks in America." I find it absolutely fascinating, in a train wreck kind of way. "Chopped" kinda makes me nuts in a different way--mostly because I've yet to see an episode that I liked. "Iron Chef" is okay--I like that the focus is much more on the food. But no matter the show, if it's a competition, there are a few sentences you're sure to hear: "I just have to execute perfectly." "It's anybody's game." "I could go home for this." "I was really worried about the time." "You really got a wonderful smokiness (or some other adjective) out of that (food item)." Personal stories about how much this means. Dramatic pauses and dramatic music as time fillers, rather than a focus on the damn food.
The reality is--so to speak--I don't care about that shit. Of course you have to execute perfectly. Of course anyone could go home at any time; that's the fucking point. Questions about someone's "soul" are completely irrelevant; make good food for me and I don't care about your inner life. Show me the fucking cooking! (Which is what I like about Iron Chef and the later rounds of Top Chef.)
Anyway. I"m fading fast, so you'll have to add your own pet peeves.
This weekend's cooking and baking adventures: wheat rolls; yet another attempt at an apple upside down cake (and this one's a winner); a variation on a whole-grain cinnamon roll (back to that one in a minute); and a venison stew, made with carrots, onions, garlic, celery, red wine, balsamic vinegar, some slow-roasted tomatos I had hanging around in the freezer, a can of tomatos, and, let's see, some fresh sage, a few cloves, a splash of regular vinegar, a splash of molasses, some maple syrup (I was experimenting with some sweetening), and I browned the meat in pancetta. It simmered for about five hours, and is extremely tasty and I think I've overcome the inherent dryness/toughness of venison. The cinnamon bread was from a KAF recipe for "cinnamon spiral bread"--a coil of bread put into a round pan. I decided to cut it into individual rolls, and fill it with apples, raisins, and cinnamon. But I think there's a problem with them; I"m not sure whether it's me or the formula, but it seemed to have way too much oats, and it really didn't raise much. They weren't inedible, but they weren't very good, either. Last night I made a cake with still more of the meyer lemons, and it came out pretty well; I'd make it again, though I'd decrease the temperature and increase the (already long) baking time.
Meanwhile, though, we're getting a bunch of snow--so much that the building where we work decided to close down tomorrow, meaning my company is closed, too. In some ways, that's a total pain for me: I have a dentist appointment early Thursday morning, and I had been planning on taking a vacation day on Friday, but, at the very end of the day, one of our funding agencies returned a budget and need some changes by Friday. If I get get it done Thursday afternoon, all will be well, but otherwise I'll have to change the vacation day. There were other things I wanted to get done this week that also won't happen, but this particular item is really necessary for reasons about which you do not care. (Trust me on this.)
But still--snow day!! I realized that most weekends or planned days off I start to fill with activities of one kind or another: chores, or baking, or cooking, or something. Because this came unexpectedly, I have absolutely nothing planned. I'll work out, maybe watch some movies or TV, maybe sit on the sun porch and drink tea and read with a cat on my lap, and that's it. I'm supposed to meet Brazen Tart for dinner, but who knows whether the restaurant will even be open. I presume we'll make the call tomorrow.
I've been putting the food channel on lately, when I have a desire for background stuff, so I have stumbled across "Worst Cooks in America." I find it absolutely fascinating, in a train wreck kind of way. "Chopped" kinda makes me nuts in a different way--mostly because I've yet to see an episode that I liked. "Iron Chef" is okay--I like that the focus is much more on the food. But no matter the show, if it's a competition, there are a few sentences you're sure to hear: "I just have to execute perfectly." "It's anybody's game." "I could go home for this." "I was really worried about the time." "You really got a wonderful smokiness (or some other adjective) out of that (food item)." Personal stories about how much this means. Dramatic pauses and dramatic music as time fillers, rather than a focus on the damn food.
The reality is--so to speak--I don't care about that shit. Of course you have to execute perfectly. Of course anyone could go home at any time; that's the fucking point. Questions about someone's "soul" are completely irrelevant; make good food for me and I don't care about your inner life. Show me the fucking cooking! (Which is what I like about Iron Chef and the later rounds of Top Chef.)
Anyway. I"m fading fast, so you'll have to add your own pet peeves.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Evil Asshole and the New Overlords
It's difficult to determine just how many posts I have started and abandoned--some of them quite lengthy. But I get half way through a story, or some more-or-less-connected thoughts on something, and I just don't finish it. Tonight, though, I am determined to finish, and the yeast in the kitchen will make sure I have the time. I tested a recipe for Cooks Illustrated, for wheat bread, and I really rather liked it. I only made a couple of changes--all butter, instead of some butter and some oil; wheat bran instead of wheat germ; and I made rolls instead of a loaf of bread, because rolls are easier to freeze and grab from the freezer for lunch--and I rather liked it, so I'm making it again. One of the good things about it is that you start part of it 8 to 24 hours before the rest of it: a biga and a soaker. It says 24 hours, but I left this one for more like 30, and I'm sure it'll be fine. The down side is that it raises three times after you mix everything together, but you don't have to do much, so it's not too bad.
Anyway, it's on its final rising, and obviously hasn't baked yet, so maybe I'll actually finish this.
Work continues its stressful march. I think what was happening was that several people, including the finance person (not the one w/ whom I continue to work, and my opinion of that person has improved some), but the higher-up person, who is an evil asshole rat bastard. I didn't trust that person to begin with, but I have since discovered that Evil Asshole was one of the major promulgators of the various canards that contributed to my boss's departure. Luckily, I don't have to work much with EA; s/he has been kicked upstairs, is going on to Even Greater Things Within The Organization, blahblahfuckingblah.
In any case, EA (and others) basically told the New Overlord that we were all a bunch of incompetent boobs, with my ex-boss being the least competent of the bunch. So NewO and others had the idea, I think, that they'd get rid of my boss, and maybe a few other people, and so on and so forth. Except, oh wait, we're actually NOT incompetent! So maybe it might not be a good idea to shuffle us around like a pack of playing cards. The other crimp in the plans is that they keep adding administrative salaries to our budget. Well, fine, but where the fuck does everything think those dollars are coming from?
So I just try to do my job, and quietly point out that yes, the emperor is still without any fucking clothes. It's very tiring, though.
Luckily, I've been reading some really great books. In particular, I have finally discovered Eliot Pattison and Michael Gruber, and they are both completly riveting me.
I've also been doing my usual use-up-the-vegetables cooking: yesterday's side dish involved turnips, onions, garlic, potatos (which were, unbeknownst to me before I cut them, a lovely pinkish-purple inside), kale, and spinach, all of which came from the farm share except the kale, which came from friend's garden, and some gruyere. Didn't suck. And one night last week I used kale, turnip greens, and some other stuff. So, all in all, the farm share has improved somewhat, though I have had more damn lettuce this summer than ever in my life. At least it's not iceberg, and is a mix of various greens, but I am getting very sick of salad, even though I'll be eating it this week and likely next week and possibly the week after. I throw in some carrots and radishes (also from the farm share) and some cheese, and it's pretty tasty, but still. Enough with the salad, please.
Okay, the bread is not just baked but now cool enough to eat, so I'm going to go test some.
Anyway, it's on its final rising, and obviously hasn't baked yet, so maybe I'll actually finish this.
Work continues its stressful march. I think what was happening was that several people, including the finance person (not the one w/ whom I continue to work, and my opinion of that person has improved some), but the higher-up person, who is an evil asshole rat bastard. I didn't trust that person to begin with, but I have since discovered that Evil Asshole was one of the major promulgators of the various canards that contributed to my boss's departure. Luckily, I don't have to work much with EA; s/he has been kicked upstairs, is going on to Even Greater Things Within The Organization, blahblahfuckingblah.
In any case, EA (and others) basically told the New Overlord that we were all a bunch of incompetent boobs, with my ex-boss being the least competent of the bunch. So NewO and others had the idea, I think, that they'd get rid of my boss, and maybe a few other people, and so on and so forth. Except, oh wait, we're actually NOT incompetent! So maybe it might not be a good idea to shuffle us around like a pack of playing cards. The other crimp in the plans is that they keep adding administrative salaries to our budget. Well, fine, but where the fuck does everything think those dollars are coming from?
So I just try to do my job, and quietly point out that yes, the emperor is still without any fucking clothes. It's very tiring, though.
Luckily, I've been reading some really great books. In particular, I have finally discovered Eliot Pattison and Michael Gruber, and they are both completly riveting me.
I've also been doing my usual use-up-the-vegetables cooking: yesterday's side dish involved turnips, onions, garlic, potatos (which were, unbeknownst to me before I cut them, a lovely pinkish-purple inside), kale, and spinach, all of which came from the farm share except the kale, which came from friend's garden, and some gruyere. Didn't suck. And one night last week I used kale, turnip greens, and some other stuff. So, all in all, the farm share has improved somewhat, though I have had more damn lettuce this summer than ever in my life. At least it's not iceberg, and is a mix of various greens, but I am getting very sick of salad, even though I'll be eating it this week and likely next week and possibly the week after. I throw in some carrots and radishes (also from the farm share) and some cheese, and it's pretty tasty, but still. Enough with the salad, please.
Okay, the bread is not just baked but now cool enough to eat, so I'm going to go test some.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
In Which I Do Stuff
none of which is terribly interesting.
Although my neighborhood has its contingent of old crunchy-granola types like myself, there hasn’t been a city farmers’ market in the neighborhood until this year. (The city has markets in a whole lot of neighborhoods, and many accept food stamps.) The local market is on Sunday, and I’m not always around, so I didn’t get to it until today. It’s pretty modest--only a block long, on one side of the street--but the bakery is doing this market, as is the cheesemonger who also works the market near where I lived downtown. After putting a starter for some wheat bread on the counter and watching the Formula 1 race, I wandered over; I wanted to freeze a whole bunch of blueberries for use in my morning oatmeal. Did I limit myself to said blueberries? Take a guess.
My haul for today:
*about 10 pounds of blueberries
*two jars of Sun-Gold tomato jam
*one jar of strawberry-raspberry jam (both jams from the CSA that delivers my produce)
*two kinds of cheese--a parmesan-type cheese that had been soaked in raspberry ale, and a sheep and cow’s milk cheese that’s pretty wonderful--to bring the total to about 10 kinds in my fridge right now
*two loaves of pretzel bread from the bakery, most of which was cut into serving-size pieces and frozen
The bread dough is rising (this recipe, back to which I’ll return in a second, requires three risings) and I’m nearly done freezing the blueberries (I’m IQFing them). I have some others in the freezer that I need to use, but I have been less than pleased with their quality; they’re from Whole Paycheck, and I think they’re imported from China.
Which brings me to my next rant.
I had a 20%-off-everything coupon from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and decided to stock up on some things that I need, plus a few things that Friend is missing from his kitchen. (In my opinion they’re missing--he can fibrillate for, oh, years, over a simple $7 kitchen implement, which, when I’m cooking there, drives me batshit. In a good-humored way, I might add, but I took the cheese grater into my own hands.) When I got home and unpackaged the stuff, I confirmed what I suspected when I was shopping: Every. Single. Thing. was made in China. And last night, when I was making some frozen broccoli for dinner? Also from China (the Whole Paycheck store brand organic, IIRC).
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t have anything against China as a nation or against people who live in China. But we have millions of people in this country out of work, and family farms are struggling. Yeah, sure, I know that people will stock up on stuff at the place that makes the Waltons wealthy, and, more important, I know that there are quite a few people who can’t afford to be shopping at Whole Paycheck--or anywhere that isn’t a resale shop or a food bank. But at some point, people who can afford to do so have to put at least some of their money where their livelihoods are. (I insist on the afford to do so part, and I am not going to decide who falls into that category for other people; I’m admonishing myself, and myself only.)
And there IS stuff out there--I just asked the Google. Yes, it’s not from my usual online retailers (I do nearly all of my clothes shopping online, because I loathe brick-and-mortar stores). But it’s time to suck it up and commit to buying at least a percentage of my clothing from retailers who make their stuff in this country. Food is a little easier, especially w/ the farm share this year (though I have not received produce in quantities that enable me to freeze anything).
Anyway, the bread recipe. I’m on the Cooks Illustrated mailing list to test recipes, and I glanced at this one, saw it had a biga and a soaker, and thought it might be good to test. Of COURSE I made a couple of changes--I replaced some of the wheat flour with wheat bran, I used 2% milk instead of whole, I ended up adding a splash more milk (probably because of the wheat bran), and I’m going to make rolls rather than a loaf, because rolls are more useful for me. It’s a pretty simple recipe, though the 8-24 hours during which the biga and the soaker sit, plus three risings, require a time commitment and some organization. We’ll see if I like it; I can’t imagine why not.
The other thing I noticed again today is just how cluttered my apartment is. Some of it is because I am . . . not the neatest person in the world. That’s hard-wired; it’s not going to change a whole lot. But part of it is that I am still (!!) settling into this place. I need to buy some more furniture; hang pictures; figure out where stuff goes; get containers for various types of stuff (hello, recycling pile; you need to be in a bin please); and just arrange things in a pleasing and convenient fashion. Obviously these tasks are interconnected: I can’t dismantle the recycling pile until I have a container in which to put it.
Overall, though, I think I need a MasterList, because what I find myself doing is making multiple mental lists, together with ruminating on how to solve this or that storage or furniture issue, but I’m not actually prioritizing, pricing, etc. So, really, nothing much is getting done. On the other hand, by waiting, I’m able to move things around some, reorganize what I have, and better determine what I really want. Still, the MasterList needs to become a priority.
The other priority is getting into some kind of half-assed shape. The sample weight-training classes were useful, but the place itself is wildly inconvenient and the prices are pretty high, so that’s not going to be the solution. But eating whatever crosses my path, coupled with no workout program at all, turns out not to be a useful strategy either, if the goal is to fit into the clothes I own.
ETA: Just stumbled across this tonight. Says it better than I did.
Although my neighborhood has its contingent of old crunchy-granola types like myself, there hasn’t been a city farmers’ market in the neighborhood until this year. (The city has markets in a whole lot of neighborhoods, and many accept food stamps.) The local market is on Sunday, and I’m not always around, so I didn’t get to it until today. It’s pretty modest--only a block long, on one side of the street--but the bakery is doing this market, as is the cheesemonger who also works the market near where I lived downtown. After putting a starter for some wheat bread on the counter and watching the Formula 1 race, I wandered over; I wanted to freeze a whole bunch of blueberries for use in my morning oatmeal. Did I limit myself to said blueberries? Take a guess.
My haul for today:
*about 10 pounds of blueberries
*two jars of Sun-Gold tomato jam
*one jar of strawberry-raspberry jam (both jams from the CSA that delivers my produce)
*two kinds of cheese--a parmesan-type cheese that had been soaked in raspberry ale, and a sheep and cow’s milk cheese that’s pretty wonderful--to bring the total to about 10 kinds in my fridge right now
*two loaves of pretzel bread from the bakery, most of which was cut into serving-size pieces and frozen
The bread dough is rising (this recipe, back to which I’ll return in a second, requires three risings) and I’m nearly done freezing the blueberries (I’m IQFing them). I have some others in the freezer that I need to use, but I have been less than pleased with their quality; they’re from Whole Paycheck, and I think they’re imported from China.
Which brings me to my next rant.
I had a 20%-off-everything coupon from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and decided to stock up on some things that I need, plus a few things that Friend is missing from his kitchen. (In my opinion they’re missing--he can fibrillate for, oh, years, over a simple $7 kitchen implement, which, when I’m cooking there, drives me batshit. In a good-humored way, I might add, but I took the cheese grater into my own hands.) When I got home and unpackaged the stuff, I confirmed what I suspected when I was shopping: Every. Single. Thing. was made in China. And last night, when I was making some frozen broccoli for dinner? Also from China (the Whole Paycheck store brand organic, IIRC).
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t have anything against China as a nation or against people who live in China. But we have millions of people in this country out of work, and family farms are struggling. Yeah, sure, I know that people will stock up on stuff at the place that makes the Waltons wealthy, and, more important, I know that there are quite a few people who can’t afford to be shopping at Whole Paycheck--or anywhere that isn’t a resale shop or a food bank. But at some point, people who can afford to do so have to put at least some of their money where their livelihoods are. (I insist on the afford to do so part, and I am not going to decide who falls into that category for other people; I’m admonishing myself, and myself only.)
And there IS stuff out there--I just asked the Google. Yes, it’s not from my usual online retailers (I do nearly all of my clothes shopping online, because I loathe brick-and-mortar stores). But it’s time to suck it up and commit to buying at least a percentage of my clothing from retailers who make their stuff in this country. Food is a little easier, especially w/ the farm share this year (though I have not received produce in quantities that enable me to freeze anything).
Anyway, the bread recipe. I’m on the Cooks Illustrated mailing list to test recipes, and I glanced at this one, saw it had a biga and a soaker, and thought it might be good to test. Of COURSE I made a couple of changes--I replaced some of the wheat flour with wheat bran, I used 2% milk instead of whole, I ended up adding a splash more milk (probably because of the wheat bran), and I’m going to make rolls rather than a loaf, because rolls are more useful for me. It’s a pretty simple recipe, though the 8-24 hours during which the biga and the soaker sit, plus three risings, require a time commitment and some organization. We’ll see if I like it; I can’t imagine why not.
The other thing I noticed again today is just how cluttered my apartment is. Some of it is because I am . . . not the neatest person in the world. That’s hard-wired; it’s not going to change a whole lot. But part of it is that I am still (!!) settling into this place. I need to buy some more furniture; hang pictures; figure out where stuff goes; get containers for various types of stuff (hello, recycling pile; you need to be in a bin please); and just arrange things in a pleasing and convenient fashion. Obviously these tasks are interconnected: I can’t dismantle the recycling pile until I have a container in which to put it.
Overall, though, I think I need a MasterList, because what I find myself doing is making multiple mental lists, together with ruminating on how to solve this or that storage or furniture issue, but I’m not actually prioritizing, pricing, etc. So, really, nothing much is getting done. On the other hand, by waiting, I’m able to move things around some, reorganize what I have, and better determine what I really want. Still, the MasterList needs to become a priority.
The other priority is getting into some kind of half-assed shape. The sample weight-training classes were useful, but the place itself is wildly inconvenient and the prices are pretty high, so that’s not going to be the solution. But eating whatever crosses my path, coupled with no workout program at all, turns out not to be a useful strategy either, if the goal is to fit into the clothes I own.
ETA: Just stumbled across this tonight. Says it better than I did.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Wild Turkey Rag(u)
First, the inspection. By and large, it went fine. There are a couple of smallish things, mostly plumbing-related, but I hope they don't derail the thing. My understanding from others is that this isn't unusual; given my lack of experience, I will only be convinced when I take possession of the property. Or, rather, take residence therein; I won't take "possession," per se, until 2040, at which point I would be 81 years old. Which kind of freaks me out a little, so I'm not going to think about it.
I was further distracted/depressed on Sunday by news that a cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident this weekend--he was 54. His mother (who is my mother's first cousin, so i guess he's my second cousin?) and sister are favorites of mine (he lived on the west coast, so I haven't seen him in years and years), and it's just terribly sad. My parents are upset, too, not surprisingly.
Yesterday Friend and I hung out, watched hockey, played cribbage, and finally got around to doing some cooking. He had some wild turkey legs and thighs that he had cooked in his slow cooker last weekend; he has discovered that that method makes it easier to separate the meat from the tendony fibrous bits, and he likes to make gumbo with the meat. But he had more than he needed for the gumbo, so I got to use some of it.
I took two pieces of bacon and cooked them, mostly to render the fat. I removed nearly all of the rendered fat, as well as the cooked bacon, from the pan, and then sauteed a diced onion and several pressed cloves of garlic in the bacon grease. When they were done, I added some onions, shitakis, and wine sauce from last weekend's sauce for the venison steak, as well as the crumbled bacon. That cooked for awhile, then I added the shredded turkey, a drained and rinsed can of white beans, and a bag of frozen herbed slow-roasted tomatos from my freezer that I'd brought over there awhile ago. I added a splash of madeira and a splash of balsamic vinegar and I let it simmer away for a little while. I made some whole wheat fusilli, and, a minute or two before it was done, I added a bag of baby spinach (i.e., just long enough to barely cook the spinach). Sauce on top of the spinach/pasta mixture, with some grated cheese of some kind on top. (I have no idea what the cheese was; I'd brought it over, but quite awhile ago.) Extremely tasty, I must say. For dessert, last week's caramel plus bananas plus walnuts, except this time I had chocolate ice cream and Friend's freshly made banana bread over which to put everything, plus I fucked up the caramel sauce (crystallized the sugar instead of having a nice smooth caramel).
As i worked out yesterday morning in Friend's basement, I was listening to my iPod but also had the Food channel on for visuals (the sound was down). I was guessing that I was going to be able to follow along. One of the shows was something about five ingredients--I think no dish had more than five ingredients? In any case, yesterday's show featured:
1. oven-roasted grape tomatos, with garlic and olive oil
2. creamed spinach (with heavy cream)
3. beef filets stuffed and topped with a butter/stilton cheese mix
4. white chocolate mousse (egg yolks, cream, white chocolate, sugar)
All I could think was how much fat would be in that meal. My arteries ached just looking at it.
And it's not as though I never eat like that--Friend and I had French food Friday night. He had scallops with some kind of creamy mashed potatos and about a pound of butter, as well as a cream-based soup and a shared chocolate mousse for dessert, and I had coq a vin over black pepper noodles, and started with french lentils and carrots in endive, with some kind of wonderful sauce, as well as half of the mousse, and we both had plenty of bread with roasted garlic spread on it.
Both of us were stuffed as a result--I even took some home--despite not having had lunch that day. It was quite good, of course, but I truly don't want to eat like that more than once every couple of weeks. And that's what kind of irritated me about the TV show. It wasn't being presented as "special-occasion" food, it was being presented as everyday food--look, only five ingredients, so easy to whip up! Yes, i realize that grains and veggies and beans aren't all that exciting, at first glance, and don't make exciting television . . . or would they? Actually, I'd like to see that (I'd like to DO that): making quick, tasty meals that don't give you a heart attack. Even better--the leftovers heat for lunches, and/or can be combined to make whole new meals. Wouldn't that be a more useful cooking show?
I was further distracted/depressed on Sunday by news that a cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident this weekend--he was 54. His mother (who is my mother's first cousin, so i guess he's my second cousin?) and sister are favorites of mine (he lived on the west coast, so I haven't seen him in years and years), and it's just terribly sad. My parents are upset, too, not surprisingly.
Yesterday Friend and I hung out, watched hockey, played cribbage, and finally got around to doing some cooking. He had some wild turkey legs and thighs that he had cooked in his slow cooker last weekend; he has discovered that that method makes it easier to separate the meat from the tendony fibrous bits, and he likes to make gumbo with the meat. But he had more than he needed for the gumbo, so I got to use some of it.
I took two pieces of bacon and cooked them, mostly to render the fat. I removed nearly all of the rendered fat, as well as the cooked bacon, from the pan, and then sauteed a diced onion and several pressed cloves of garlic in the bacon grease. When they were done, I added some onions, shitakis, and wine sauce from last weekend's sauce for the venison steak, as well as the crumbled bacon. That cooked for awhile, then I added the shredded turkey, a drained and rinsed can of white beans, and a bag of frozen herbed slow-roasted tomatos from my freezer that I'd brought over there awhile ago. I added a splash of madeira and a splash of balsamic vinegar and I let it simmer away for a little while. I made some whole wheat fusilli, and, a minute or two before it was done, I added a bag of baby spinach (i.e., just long enough to barely cook the spinach). Sauce on top of the spinach/pasta mixture, with some grated cheese of some kind on top. (I have no idea what the cheese was; I'd brought it over, but quite awhile ago.) Extremely tasty, I must say. For dessert, last week's caramel plus bananas plus walnuts, except this time I had chocolate ice cream and Friend's freshly made banana bread over which to put everything, plus I fucked up the caramel sauce (crystallized the sugar instead of having a nice smooth caramel).
As i worked out yesterday morning in Friend's basement, I was listening to my iPod but also had the Food channel on for visuals (the sound was down). I was guessing that I was going to be able to follow along. One of the shows was something about five ingredients--I think no dish had more than five ingredients? In any case, yesterday's show featured:
1. oven-roasted grape tomatos, with garlic and olive oil
2. creamed spinach (with heavy cream)
3. beef filets stuffed and topped with a butter/stilton cheese mix
4. white chocolate mousse (egg yolks, cream, white chocolate, sugar)
All I could think was how much fat would be in that meal. My arteries ached just looking at it.
And it's not as though I never eat like that--Friend and I had French food Friday night. He had scallops with some kind of creamy mashed potatos and about a pound of butter, as well as a cream-based soup and a shared chocolate mousse for dessert, and I had coq a vin over black pepper noodles, and started with french lentils and carrots in endive, with some kind of wonderful sauce, as well as half of the mousse, and we both had plenty of bread with roasted garlic spread on it.
Both of us were stuffed as a result--I even took some home--despite not having had lunch that day. It was quite good, of course, but I truly don't want to eat like that more than once every couple of weeks. And that's what kind of irritated me about the TV show. It wasn't being presented as "special-occasion" food, it was being presented as everyday food--look, only five ingredients, so easy to whip up! Yes, i realize that grains and veggies and beans aren't all that exciting, at first glance, and don't make exciting television . . . or would they? Actually, I'd like to see that (I'd like to DO that): making quick, tasty meals that don't give you a heart attack. Even better--the leftovers heat for lunches, and/or can be combined to make whole new meals. Wouldn't that be a more useful cooking show?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
CondoMe, Part 2 (now with extra ranting)
Saw six more places today, plus drove past a few more. One was seriously nasty, plus in a seriously unpleasant neighborhood, plus there were air mattresses around, suggesting to me that people had been crashing there; scratch THAT fucker off the list. A second one was a "garden" apartment, which, no. I lived in one of those, and they suck, plus, in the neighborhood in which I'm looking, I absolutely would not live in a place that's that accessible to the street. A third one was quite stunning--really, really beautiful, plus it had several of the features that I desire greatly (washer and dryer; southern exposure; sun room; nice kitchen)--but it, too, was sort of on the first floor; it's one of those buildings where the real first floor is sort of half above ground and half below, and the actual apartment is a flight of stairs up. In the winter, it's really bright, but the big trees outside mean that it's going to be pretty dark in the summer (and it's only a block south of where I live now, so I know whereof I speak). Still, if it had been on the third, or maybe even second, floor of the building, I probably would have pulled out the checkbook.
The fourth one was in the same set of buildings as number three, and was actually on the third floor, but was in crappy shape, plus no washer and dryer (you had to go down three flights of stairs to the basement) and one could not be added. The layout wasn't exactly the same as the first-floor unit, and, in fact, was kind of cramped. The fifth one was really nice--lots of nice light, well-laid-out, etc.--but had an electric stove (one of those flat-top models, so not as bad as it could have been) and the walls were painted these incredibly dark colors. The main living room had chocolate brown and dark turquoise walls; the kitchen had dark red walls; the bedrooms had intensely green walls. Yes, I know you can paint, but this would have been a major job, in every room--and, really, if it hadn't been for the stove, I would have overlooked the paint. The sixth place was quite nice--third floor, lots of floor-to-ceiling windows, nice kitchen and baths, washer/dryer, good condo association--but it only had eastern and western exposures. Still, I wasn't ready to cross that one off the list just yet; that one was probably the keeper from today's adventures.
All in all, we're getting closer, I think, which is encouraging, given that we've only gone out twice.
But that's not what I wanted tobitch write about.
While trying to find out about yesterday's earthquake (I didn't feel it), I stumbled across a CNN story about cell phones and the plans that companies are selling. Apparently, if I understood it correctly, voice plans are getting extremely cheap. Data plans--e.g., for "smart" phones like the iPod and Blackberries and other suchlike devices--range from cheap to notso. Most phones are "web-enabled," i.e., some kind of internet service is (at least theoretically) available, but not all consumers actually use those services, and it seems to be those people that the cell phone companies want to target.
In other words, if I get a phone that has internet capability, but I don't actually want to use that capability, I may get charged a fee anyway and be required to purchase that capability--because, according to the cell phone companies, I "won't get enjoyment" out of my phone without it. And, oh!, my phone will be "more fun and useful" if I have a data plan.
To which I say: Bite me.
It's true that I have a device--my iTouch--that has wireless capability, and I use that aspect sometimes, when I'm in a location where I can get free wireless. My phone at least theoretically has that capability, but I've never purchased the service. I get the occasional text, but I think I've received fewer than 10 in the last two years, and that is fine with me. I don't tell people to text me, and I think my company charges 40¢ or so per text I receive.
The thing is, I don't want that service, by and large. The main reason is that I am so. fucking. tired. of sitting with someone and having him or her checking the blackberry, checking the phone, texting away, scrolling around, whateverthefuck. I've been in meetings where a quarter to a third of the people are texting, reading email, sneaking peeks at their phones, etc., and I think it is incredibly rude. I don't bring a novel to read during the boring parts of the meetings (though I may start doing that, to make a point). And the people at these meetings are not dealing with life-and-death matters.
The first person I ever knew who had a cell phone--and it was the size of a brick--was a doctor who did organ transplants, and that made sense to me. For situations like that, time is most certainly of the essence, and being able to reach everyone involved at a moment's notice is really lifesaving.
And admittedly I like having a cell phone; I think of it as a more-convenient (and more-expensive) combination of phone booth and portable answering machine, and it's very handy, especially given the number of hours I'm away from my house. It makes certain kinds of navigation easier and enables connecting on the fly. For example when Friend (who resisted getting a phone until about six months ago, when he succumbed and got an iPhone) is coming back from cheeseland, if I'm going to go to his house, he'll call me when he's an hour or so away so I can begin my trek to his 'hood, i.e., we're traveling simultaneously, rather than in sequence. (He used to have to wait until he got home to call me.)
But I see so many people tied to their devices--tethered to them, obsessed with them, constantly checking them. I almost got run over the other night because some guy was checking a phone in his lap at the intersection instead of looking to see if anyone might be crossing the street. (I wish they'd really start fining people for this shit instead of passing laws and then not actually enforcing them.) Really, people; what's that fucking important? It's as though people are constantly checking to see if there's something going on that's better than the person or event in front of them--which, if you ask me, is a way to breed permanent dissatisfaction.
I also think these technologies are further eroding the ability of people to read or write longer documents. I realize I'm wordier than many or most people, and I find that depressing. Some things can and should be brief, but some things benefit from a more extended discussion, and people who are used to communicating in spurts of fewer than a couple hundred characters seem to lose the will to follow along. Not everything can be communicated in a splash.
I also do not like the notion of being constantly available, particularly with regard to my job--even when I'm at my job. If I'm in the middle of something complicated and detailed, I am not going to drop everything just because you have a question, especially if it's something that you could have looked up for yourself. That's always a balance, of course, because all of us have things that are pressing sometimes, but I think that the texting crap merely promulgates the notion that one is always available for any question.
Anyway, the point is, I do not want those services. I don't need my phone to be "fun." And I get all of the "enjoyment" from my phone that I want or need, especially if I set it to vibrate and put it in my pocket.
The fourth one was in the same set of buildings as number three, and was actually on the third floor, but was in crappy shape, plus no washer and dryer (you had to go down three flights of stairs to the basement) and one could not be added. The layout wasn't exactly the same as the first-floor unit, and, in fact, was kind of cramped. The fifth one was really nice--lots of nice light, well-laid-out, etc.--but had an electric stove (one of those flat-top models, so not as bad as it could have been) and the walls were painted these incredibly dark colors. The main living room had chocolate brown and dark turquoise walls; the kitchen had dark red walls; the bedrooms had intensely green walls. Yes, I know you can paint, but this would have been a major job, in every room--and, really, if it hadn't been for the stove, I would have overlooked the paint. The sixth place was quite nice--third floor, lots of floor-to-ceiling windows, nice kitchen and baths, washer/dryer, good condo association--but it only had eastern and western exposures. Still, I wasn't ready to cross that one off the list just yet; that one was probably the keeper from today's adventures.
All in all, we're getting closer, I think, which is encouraging, given that we've only gone out twice.
But that's not what I wanted to
While trying to find out about yesterday's earthquake (I didn't feel it), I stumbled across a CNN story about cell phones and the plans that companies are selling. Apparently, if I understood it correctly, voice plans are getting extremely cheap. Data plans--e.g., for "smart" phones like the iPod and Blackberries and other suchlike devices--range from cheap to notso. Most phones are "web-enabled," i.e., some kind of internet service is (at least theoretically) available, but not all consumers actually use those services, and it seems to be those people that the cell phone companies want to target.
It began with Verizon Wireless. Last month, that company began requiring certain non-smartphone customers to subscribe to a data plan that costs at least $10 per month. Mobile experts believe Verizon's move marks the first step in a larger trend to make up for carriers' lost revenue from voice. . . . Verizon said it began to require new customers who purchase so-called "3G multimedia" phones to subscribe to a data plan in part so that they could get the full functionality out of their phones. . . . It's not just about increasing revenue, say analysts. [Hah! says Narya.] Carriers are banking on the consumer-friendly aspect: phones are more fun and useful with the Internet.
"The 'naked aggression' reason is to boost revenue to offset declining voice revenue," said Charles Golvin, mobile analyst with Forrester Research. "But carriers also realize consumers won't get the enjoyment out of their devices without data."
In other words, if I get a phone that has internet capability, but I don't actually want to use that capability, I may get charged a fee anyway and be required to purchase that capability--because, according to the cell phone companies, I "won't get enjoyment" out of my phone without it. And, oh!, my phone will be "more fun and useful" if I have a data plan.
To which I say: Bite me.
It's true that I have a device--my iTouch--that has wireless capability, and I use that aspect sometimes, when I'm in a location where I can get free wireless. My phone at least theoretically has that capability, but I've never purchased the service. I get the occasional text, but I think I've received fewer than 10 in the last two years, and that is fine with me. I don't tell people to text me, and I think my company charges 40¢ or so per text I receive.
The thing is, I don't want that service, by and large. The main reason is that I am so. fucking. tired. of sitting with someone and having him or her checking the blackberry, checking the phone, texting away, scrolling around, whateverthefuck. I've been in meetings where a quarter to a third of the people are texting, reading email, sneaking peeks at their phones, etc., and I think it is incredibly rude. I don't bring a novel to read during the boring parts of the meetings (though I may start doing that, to make a point). And the people at these meetings are not dealing with life-and-death matters.
The first person I ever knew who had a cell phone--and it was the size of a brick--was a doctor who did organ transplants, and that made sense to me. For situations like that, time is most certainly of the essence, and being able to reach everyone involved at a moment's notice is really lifesaving.
And admittedly I like having a cell phone; I think of it as a more-convenient (and more-expensive) combination of phone booth and portable answering machine, and it's very handy, especially given the number of hours I'm away from my house. It makes certain kinds of navigation easier and enables connecting on the fly. For example when Friend (who resisted getting a phone until about six months ago, when he succumbed and got an iPhone) is coming back from cheeseland, if I'm going to go to his house, he'll call me when he's an hour or so away so I can begin my trek to his 'hood, i.e., we're traveling simultaneously, rather than in sequence. (He used to have to wait until he got home to call me.)
But I see so many people tied to their devices--tethered to them, obsessed with them, constantly checking them. I almost got run over the other night because some guy was checking a phone in his lap at the intersection instead of looking to see if anyone might be crossing the street. (I wish they'd really start fining people for this shit instead of passing laws and then not actually enforcing them.) Really, people; what's that fucking important? It's as though people are constantly checking to see if there's something going on that's better than the person or event in front of them--which, if you ask me, is a way to breed permanent dissatisfaction.
I also think these technologies are further eroding the ability of people to read or write longer documents. I realize I'm wordier than many or most people, and I find that depressing. Some things can and should be brief, but some things benefit from a more extended discussion, and people who are used to communicating in spurts of fewer than a couple hundred characters seem to lose the will to follow along. Not everything can be communicated in a splash.
I also do not like the notion of being constantly available, particularly with regard to my job--even when I'm at my job. If I'm in the middle of something complicated and detailed, I am not going to drop everything just because you have a question, especially if it's something that you could have looked up for yourself. That's always a balance, of course, because all of us have things that are pressing sometimes, but I think that the texting crap merely promulgates the notion that one is always available for any question.
Anyway, the point is, I do not want those services. I don't need my phone to be "fun." And I get all of the "enjoyment" from my phone that I want or need, especially if I set it to vibrate and put it in my pocket.
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