On Conferencing

This is Little One's favourite toy, Love. Love has never had much in the way of stuffing, and as such, is easily shoved into a corner or under a pillow or into the pocket of Hub's vest, to be lost for a day or a few weeks, and then found again. Little One takes Love on many adventures, sleeps with him, watches TV with him...in short, Love is a close companion. Little One is sweet by nature, despite having Cranky and Crabby as parents, and Nasty as a sister, and thus, Love is his favourite toy.

Before I left for my current conferencing adventure, I took a quick phone camera shot of Love. Conferencing is sort of fun, sort of slimy, sort of interesting, mostly just a stress-inducing trip to another part of the country (or world) to discuss arcane ideas and research results that most of the world doesn't particuarly care about. It's hard to get fired up about the work when you know full well that it's not really going to change the world. It's not going to make a shred of difference when you make your coffee in the morning, it's not going to matter when you go to work, unless you're working for NSERC or the feds or someone who dictates whether or not we get research money. Most of the time the results are tiny tiny cogs in a massive machine, and much of the work we do today isn't going to contribute to anything right away.

I'm mostly talking about the synthetic chemists, because from what I can tell, in other chemical disciplines it seems that many small contributions make a huge difference. Synthetic chemistry is turning into a combinatorial process, where hundreds of reactions are performed by robotics, analyzed via automated systems, and then examined by a human. If you can afford the several million to set up this process, then you will get ahead quickly. If you cannot, and you do things the old-fashioned way, with people and glassware and the like, then your results will be much slower and you will come by them much more labouriously.

And yet still, we applaud those who've made a modicum of "progress" with their work, those who are recognized outside of this country, therefore warranting recognition within our own ranks. How Canadian of us to believe that once we are noted by others, we can be feted by our own.

Yes, I'm cynical and I always have been, even though I'm well-known within my circle and enjoy a fair bit of success on my own, I have a hard time believing that it's warranted. The conference starts this evening with the plenary lecture (which T and I are blowing off for a good dinner) and then the conference mixer, always an amusing event. I will try to document it as accurately as possible, because as I said in a previous post, I am attending in my new-found role as pariah and I am very interested to see how things go tonight and through the rest of the week.
*****
Some Comments About Making Pizza

Pizza is a many-splendored thing, something to be savoured and experienced, with a bottle of good cab sauvignon. It is not to be folded over and gobbled up whilst quaffing warm beer. One of the most appalling sights I have ever been witness to was a group of graduate students from Wayne State University, who would each take two pieces of pizza, put them face to face on top of each other, and eat the thing like a sandwich. Horrifying, as though by shoving the maximum amount of pizza into their faces they were enjoying it more.

Pizza, as far as I can tell, has evolved from bruschetta (it's not "brushetta", the "ch" in Italian is pronounce "sk", so it's "brrrruskettta" if you roll the r and elongate the t sound a little bit) which is bread with tomatoes and garlic and other stuff on it. So your pizza crust should be light, not chewy, not leathery, and it should support the filling. In order to do that you need a dough recipe that gives you a wet dough, something with a lot of elasticity. If you make the dough then great, but I would suggest finding a source. A local pizza place may sell their dough, an Italian grocery store is a good bet, and sometimes bakeries sell pizza dough also. I can include a dough recipe later, not today. For my own use, I have found an excellent dough that's quite wet, so when I roll it out I have to add some flour....add as little as possible when you roll the dough out.

Your oven needs to be at a high temperature, at least 425F, and you'll bake the pizza on the lowest rack. Baking fast gives you a good crust that won't fall apart while you're eating. This also means though, that you have to pre-cook things like onions, peppers and mushrooms. Mushrooms can be done in the microwave, heated enough to drive off as much water as possible (drain them afterwards, through a strainer to get rid of the water). Onions and peppers and whole cloves of garlic can be fried together until they're carmelized.

There is a rule that says that any given pizza should only have three toppings. I regularly break this rule in order to meld flavours for a specific end result. You have to experiment to do this, but once you figure out what you like and how flavours work together, you can go ahead and make the pizza you love. I generally make at least two, sometimes three small pizzas for supper. One is "Joe's Pizza" which has tomato sauce, meat (prosciutto or cappocollo) mushrooms and red peppers...this is the pizza you eat when you're starving. And cheese.

Okay, hold on. Don't skimp on the tomato sauce, and don't ever skimp on the cheese. You want good food, don't use NoName Pizza Sauce, and don't use cheap low-fat mozzarella. Firstly, mozzarella isn't cheese. Use fruilano, it's nice and mild and it melts well. Provolone is okay but can be a bit stronger than most people like.

Potato (pre-cook them in the microwave) and garlic and pesto is excellent, as is chicken (yeah, no shit, precook that too) and pesto. Of course I'm assuming you will put cheese on the thing, so I'm not mentioning the melty cheese, it's a given. Another good combo is red pepprs, sweet onion and black olives with goat cheese and a bit of fruilano. Wild mushrooms, garlic (cooked first, unless you like it raw, which I don't) goat cheese with either pesto or a mild tomato sauce, also good. I don't care about the meat on a pizza, but if you like meat then make an all-meat combo. I do often add hot pepper flakes to Joe's Pizza to give it some whang.

Pizza is often mostly a matter of personal taste, but it should be good taste and you should put some consideration into the food you're about to eat. Turn the lights down, open a good bottle of a robust red. Crunch away with a loved one and savour the moment.

Birthday, Visit, No Recipe

I'm lazy on the recipe front. In fact, I could almost say that it has prevented me from posting. Not that I haven't been cooking, because, as an unemployed one, I cook, I just don't feel like writing out a recipe.

I don't believe that I have ever used four commas in a sentence that short.

My sister was here, so that prevented posting because we were shopping all the time, except for when we were drinking.

The Big One turned seven on the long weekend just past, and that took much orchestrating and arranging, things I hate to do. We held a birthday party for her with little school friends, and that was a tiny bit of a fiasco but not too bad. I had to rush, because I took my sister to Pearson Airport for 11:30a.m., picked up stuff for the party from a grocery store and while there realized that I could buy neither cake nor ice cream because one of Big One's little friends has a severe nut allergy. While I know that an epi-pen works really well and I certainly know how to dial 911, I just wasn't interested in the kind of hassle all of that would cause. Thus, I arrived home at 1:00, made a chocolate cake (for which I am not giving you the recipe), cleaned the house up somewhat, iced the cake and then got my sister-in-law to drive me up to the school as I was running late. Gathered together the seven little girls (for the seven years of life that Big One has enjoyed) and walked down the hill, 1.2km to our house.

You'd have thought I'd asked them to roll the rock uphill forever, a la Sisophys, rather than just walk down a hill to the house. The wailing! The gnashing of baby teeth! and Big One striding along as though nothing was going on behind her (she led, I stayed at the back with the stragglers).

Little girls complain a lot, little girls run and scream a lot, and little girls eat a lot. I could have just stood at the kitchen door and thrown food at them, rather than prepare their little sandwiches and give them plates and the like. They ate: 14 sandwiches, two bags of potato chips, a bag of baby carrots, a melon, grapes, three litres of juice, and almost the entire cake except for two skinny pieces for Hub and I (and don't think they didn't ask if they could have that too). It was a bit appalling.

Luckily, many of their parents came to get them just a tiny bit early, so we were quit of them quickly. Big One was overwhelmed, and next year it's not eight little girls, just four.

Sunday we did it all again with family this time, and Big One was again overwhelmed but calmer and knew that she could escape without admonishments about rudeness. She held it together as long as she could, and opened presents and let everyone stare at her while she blew out the candles on the cake, but then she'd had enough. For a young girl she has a remarkable amount of poise and can hold it together pretty well, even when she's really done with all of the fanfare.

We're almost back to regular life, except that on Friday I'm heading to Winnipeg for the CSC national conference to fulfill my role as Inorganic Pariah. Should be lots of fun, just can't wait to see my PhD supervisor and ask him why on earth he couldn't just send a "Sorry to hear that" note about my job situation. I'm not asking for pity, just acknowledgement of existence. Also cannot wait to meet up with several other "friends" who've ignored my emails, even when I wasn't talking about anything except chemistry-related topics. It will be so exciting, I can hardly wait. I've never really been a pariah before, at least not a professional one, so really this should be an awesome experience that I can add to my list. I'm really looking forward to it.

And then after I'm done with that, I can hang out with BF1 and family members, and drop the whole pariah gig. Thing is, I actually don't mind that I'm not faculty any more. I don't miss the work and I don't miss the atmosphere all that much....if I have to go back to work I'd rather be in an academic setting, but that's just because I'm difficult to work with and it's better to be in a place where everyone else is difficult too.

Banana Muffins, Oh My God I Can't Believe It, and Thai Peanut Sauce

The banana muffin recipe that follows is from a little spiral-bound book called... wait for it .... Muffins, by Joan Bidinosti and Marilyn Wearring. Dino is Joan's husband and he was a prof at Western, retired by the time I got there. I bought the book on my "honeymoon" with my first husband, up at Riding Mountain National Park. We got a cabin up there and there was a tiny bookstore in the townsite, and this book was there. I'm a fan of muffins although I don't make very many different kinds. I do make these quite often, and they are spectacular, every time. Not oily at all (1/2c of oil) or heavy, these are really quite nice and pretty much idiot-proof; I rarely edit this recipe (no kidding!) although I might use some whole wheat flour instead of just two cups of white.

Joan's Banana Muffins

Preheat the oven to 400F. If you have a muffin tin that holds 12 muffins, that's great, but this recipe makes a few more than 12, so just over one batch. Oh well. Put muffin cups in, it's so much easier to clean up afterwards. If you don't want to do that, then grease all the little muffin cups. Then kick yourself and remember next time to buy the stupid muffin cups.

You need three tired-out bananas, mashed. You should have some plain yogurt or sour cream on hand. If you don't, then sour the milk with some lemon (how much? well, if you have three tablespoons of milk, squeeze in a wedge of lemon juice, stir it up. It should curdle within a minute or so. That's enough.) and let it sit for a few minutes while you do the rest of the stuff.


Beat together 1c white sugar and 1/2c canola oil.
Add two eggs, 1tsp vanilla and stir/beat thoroughly.

The recipe says to "turn mixer to low speed". We all know you're using a wooden spoon. You have to add something to the bowl, with stirring. I will tell you how to do this: take a tea towel, and wrap it around the bottom of the bowl. Now while you're adding and stirring, the bowl isn't moving. (thank you Michael Smith, Chef at Large...Chef at Home...wherever the hell you are.)

Mix together in a small bowl, 3T sour cream, or yogurt, or the soured milk, and 1tsp baking soda. See the bubbles? Carbon dioxide. Now add this frothy stuff to the banana mixture, slowly, with stirring.

Stir in two cups all purpose unbleached white flour until blended. Don't overmix otherwise flat muffins.

Fill the muffin cups, and bake for ~20 minutes, until the muffins are golden brown. Turn out onto a rack. Eat. Sigh.


So today I cleaned the carpets in our house, and to say that the water that I kept pouring out of the Rug Doctor was dirty would be such a huge understatement, I'm not even going to bother saying that. It was dirty. And now the carpets are clean, and I hope that Big One's allergies subside a little bit. We also moved the air purifier into her room, so I'm hoping that a clean carpet and better air quality will slow down the snot machine.

Cleaning carpets is a lot of work, and a lot of exercise, especially when you have lots of stairs. When I was walking up to get The Darlings after school, a woman whose house I walk past to get to the school caught up with me. The first time I saw Fran last fall I found her appearance shocking: she's tall, remarkably thin, her face is gaunt and her eyes are sunk in. She also seemed to be very energetic, and she is. She seems very nice, and we walked along at a quick pace because this is how I walk, and she said that she cleans houses for a living, and that her doctor wants her to get more exercise because she has osteoarthritis and it'll help to get more exercise, and this that etc etc. Just two women walking along to the school to get their kids. We're the same age. I kept thinking, "This is so nice of her, to catch up and talk to me. Not something that I would have expected," and I have to admit that a part of me didn't want company, but mostly I did. I hadn't talked to anyone else all day except that stupid Rug Doctor, and he wasn't a great conversationalist. I don't suppose I would be either if someone were swearing at me all day.

So Oh My God the carpets are finally clean and Oh My God someone talked to me. Two amazing things in one day. And also, Oh My God I bought a new cookbook today, "More of the Ace Bakery" because we like the Ace Bakery, and when I looked at it this morning I was hungry, and every single recipe made my mouth water. I am a sucker. I only buy two cookbooks per year, if that, and this one with its little bread recipes and its other little recipes for how to use bread was just irresistible.

Thai Peanut Sauce
BF1 asked me if I'd post this, and I thought it was odd, since we just ate this last night and I didn't remember mentioning it to her. That doesn't mean that I didn't mention it, just that I don't remember. It's easy to make, it can be used as a dip for vegetables or cooked shrimp, or it can be a sauce for chicken or vegetable stir fry. I'll just give the sauce recipe here, since I really really want to go to bed rather than write this. It's adapted from the original Moosewood Cookbook (1977, Molly Katzen) where the recipe is called Gado-Gado, which is an Indonesian dish as opposed to Thai.

Spicy Garlic Peanut Sauce
1c (or thereabouts) finely chopped onion
3cloves garlic, smashed and chopped finely. (or more, as you like)
1c good peanut butter (not crap. or Kraft.)
1T honey
1T chili garlic sauce, or 1T your favourite hot pepper sauce -- or more of these if you like spicier peanut sauce. (make sure it doesn't have a flavour that will confuse the peanut taste. We're thinking that hot and sour won't cut it, so don't use Ben's Super Acidic Hot Sauce: confusion city.)
juice of 1 lemon
1-2T freshly grated ginger
1 bay leaf (if you want)
2T cider vinegar (I never have this stuff. White wine or especially sherry work very well instead, and if I use these then I use 1/4cup, because they are good flavours, as opposed to cider vinegar, which is vinegar after all and ick. So I don't recommend it but this is what the recipe says, and I almost always change the recipe, and I'm telling you, sherry works best.)
1-2 cups water, depending on how thick you like your sauce.
2T tamari/soy sauce
butter for frying

In a saucepan, fry the onions in butter until translucent at about medium heat. Add the garlic, ginger and bay leaf, stirring for a bit so the garlic doesn't burn, cook for about 2 min. Add remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly. Keep at low heat for 30 min, stirring occasionally. You can use slightly higher heat, but it's easy to burn peanut butter so be careful.

Taste the sauce. Not hot enough? Add more chili sauce. Not enough of something else? add more of it and cook it up for a bit.

This goes really well over a vegetable stir fry consisting of carrots, brocolli and cauliflower. Mushrooms aren't great with peanut sauce, and neither are mushy vegetables. You want to warm them thoroughly, but don't go overboard otherwise they're doomed. We all hate vegetables that don't cooperate.

Okay, I'm asleep. Good luck with this.

The League of Catholic Women ... The Catholic Women's League ... The Women of Catholicism ....

Okay, no recipe tonight because I'm bagged. It's been a long day, and I've done many different demanding things, and I don't have the strength for a recipe. I did make banana muffins, yogurt, and strawberry jam today so it's not like I didn't cook. I also went to the Big One's classroom to help with math, shopping for dinner tonight, shopping for birthday party items for Big One. Who needs a salary?

What I do want to discuss is the Catholic Women's League, which I joined last night amidst much ritual. Why? for many reasons. A sudden burst of faith and awe of our dear lord? not so much. Other than that though, I joined up because I'd been invited, because I've met some of the women in the church and they're nice people, because I genuinely like Father Ken even though he's a bit on the conservative side, because I want to be involved in something that helps out the community, because I have a spiritual side that needs feeding, because I can't resist a good bout of ritual, because I want to meet people and because I am curious about religious women. I collect information about people, and these are people I don't necessarily know a lot about.

When I say "I collect information about people" I mean that I strive to understand people by interacting with them and studying their behaviours. I sound like some kind of psychologist, but I'm not at all. What if I ever do get around to writing a book though? I need to know as much about people as I can find out. So call my induction to the CWL a research mission.

I knew that there would be mass prior to the meeting, which was no problem, I like a short mass. I did not know that I'd be up at the front of the church, that I'd get a candle (similar to baptism except we had to give them back) and that I'd be 'pinned'. The mass wasn't particularly short then, and there were the extra little rituals like crowning Mary (Queen of the May after all). We had to indicate that we would follow the prescriptions for the laity as outlined by the Second Vatican Council, which, among other things, indicates that we should stand before the world as a witness to the resurrection and the life of the Lord Jesus and as a sign that God lives. (again, not so much, but I don't agree with everything the Church tells me to do so I can duck this.)

At the end we had to recite a pledge to our loyalty to both the members and executive of the CWL as well as promote the interests and growth of the CWL in every way. I have to admit a bit of unease at this point, because pledging that I'm going to go along and follow what I'm told to do doesn't fly at the best of times. "I promise to cooperate with the League Officers in all programs under their direction and to conform ....." I was getting woozy by this point, and with all the fibre of my being I was trying to figure out how to escape unnoticed. It occurred to me that I could crawl under the pews like the Little One does every Sunday... or if I were Spiderman I could spin some web and swing on out of the church. Those huge ceiling beams had to be good for something. Ye gods how am I going to get out of this?? I don't play well with others! I don't follow, obey, cooperate (with everything? all of it? you'll not see me at a Right to Life rally anytime soon) or conform, and all of those terms were in the League Promise. Anything? people? What's the fastest route out......

Oh, wait.

"...to the best of my ability...."

I'm saved. No need to invoke the superhero powers, I have an escape clause all built-in here. My abilities don't extend to any of follow, obey, cooperate or conform, so I'm in the clear. Whew.

Good thing, because I knew that after the stupefyingly boring meeting there were snacks and wine. One thing about the Catholics, they pass the libations freely. I spoke with a few of the women, some of whom knew Hub's family quite well, some of whom sit behind us at church on the weekends, some of whom didn't know him or me at all. It was fun actually, in the end. I wasn't quite the youngest person there, but close. Most of the women are old enough to be my mother.

In all it was fun. Next month (meetings are monthly) we have mass again and then a short scripture meditation, and then pizza! the Italian CWL members are making pizza! I am beside myself with anticipation. I was told several times that I'd never had pizza as good as the Italian ladies make it, and while I doubt that's true, I'm interested to see what they do. I know that at least one of the people who read here is looking for my pizza recipe(s), and they're coming.

***
On the weekend I was cleaning out some old bamboo from last year so that the new stuff would come up. The stalks are really quite large, and I got the Darlings to break everything up by jumping up and down all over them. After a while they decided that riding a bike through the remains would smash it all down to reasonable pieces...it's like crunching thousands of snails underfoot except without the slime.

Holes in the Pants and Carrot Cake

My son (Little One) is a sweet, outgoing little guy who talks constantly. He has no inner dialogue, thus for the rest of us, when something comes into the brain, we might pause, process, and choose whether or not to verbalize. My son skips the pause and process part and heads straight for verbalization. Much of the time this is highly amusing, but there are times when none of the rest of us can take it any more, and someone will yell, "Little One! Shut up!" Now he's four (almost five) and he knows that Shut Up is a bad thing to say, so he will explain very carefully that we are not to say Shut Up to each other, it's not very nice. He speaks very well and is quite articulate. He gets a lot of practice. Last week I said that Zio had put his car in the garage, pronouncing it "grage" (hard g, soft g, respectively) because that's how we said it, and I was told, in no uncertain terms, that, "It's a gar-age Mumma, not a grage. Grage isn't a word. Now say it properly, Mumma." "Grage," I said, because I knew it would make him nuts. I was admonished, and then told that I might not get any dessert if I didn't learn to speak correctly.

Anyway, this morning as we're going out the door, I notice that Little One has a giant hole in the knee of his sweat pants, and seeing as we're going out the door there is no time to change the pants. "It's okay Mumma. I like the hole. I made it. I made it on the day before today (he cannot grasp the notion of 'yesterday'.) and it's big. Daddy washed my sweatpants and hung them on the clothesline. He actually hanged them on Zio's clothesline before he fixed ours. I like my sweatpants. Are we taking the car? I don't want to walk to school, it's cold this morning. I can feel the cold on my knee, where the hole is. It's a big hole! Mumma, will you carry my backpack? Is my lunch in there? I have a sandwich for lunch, and do I have fruit? Are we at school now? (it's not very far, just 1.2km straight uphill, which is why he doesn't want to walk there.) Miss Scott says we have to be on time. If I do my work fast I'll get a lollipop. Candy is poison though, right Mumma? Can I have the lollipop for my dessert after supper? Okay! Bye!"
***
Much excitement is generated in this house over carrot cake. There have been requests for carrot cake instead of chocolate cake for birthday parties, although the childrens' little friends don't appreaciate the carrot cake nearly as much as my children do. The recipe shown below is from a book called The Dessert Scene by Rose Reisman, 1988. It is a self-published book, printed by Friesen Printing, Altona, Manitoba.

Carrot Cake (the original recipe is for a layer cake. This is unnecessary, in my opinion. I also don't make their cream cheese icing but concoct my own. I have made theirs and it's quite nice, but I prefer mine because there aren't any raw egg whites in it.)

grate up 1.5 to 2 c carrots and set aside. Grease and flour a 9" round cake pan. A square one works quite well instead. Preheat oven to 350F. You need some grated lemon rind for the icing, but you can go buy a lemon while the cake is cooling.

in a large bowl:

2 eggs Beat in a large bowl. I use the Kitchen Aid mixer.
3/4 c white sugar Beat in sugar until light and fluffy. You need a mixer.
3/4 c canola oil Add slowly while beating. How's your arm? Mixer...

in a bowl, stir with a fork the following ingredients. You're supposed to sift them together, but I'm not the sifting type:
1 c all purpose white flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon

add these dry ingredients to the oil and egg mixture and stir gently with a wooden spoon. Don't overmix this otherwise you'll have a really flat cake.

fold in the carrots. Add 1/2 c raisins if you are so inclined, and/or 3/4 c walnuts. I never add raisins or walnuts but if you must have cake with these items, go for it.

Bake for about 35-40 min. My oven is wacky, I often have to bake this cake for at least 45 min until the tester comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Icing
While the cake is in the oven, take 1/2 a block of cream cheese and soften it slightly in the microwave. It shouldn't be runny, that's way too soft. It just shouldn't be hard any more. 30 seconds is probably enough time. You can use more cream cheese if you like but I find that 1/2 a block is good. You also need just slightly more than 1/4 c butter, softened. Not runny! Your icing will be crap if the butter is runny. If it's hard it won't work either, so either let it soften to room temperature or soften it a bit in the microwave. You can't put the icing on the cake until the cake cools completely, so don't make this icing until the cake has been out of the oven for an hour.

So, back to that big Kitchen Aid mixer, or some mixer thing. You can probably do this by hand but I never do because it's a shitload of work. Put the butter in the mixer, add 1/2 c + 2 tablespoons of icing sugar and beat until the sugar is mixed in and things look fluffy. Add 1 tsp vanilla and the finely grated rind of one lemon, mix that in well and then add the cream cheese. Beat this mixture until all the lumps disappear. This takes about 5 minutes, depending on how soft the cream cheese was when you started.

Now sometimes I make this icing by first whipping up 1/3 c whipping cream with the vanilla and then adding everything else. Often I just use the butter and cream cheese and other stuff. As you like. Once you've made the icing, put the cake on a nice plate and put the icing on the cake. The amount you've made will just cover the cake, so don't eat any of it.

Everyone will love you when you make this cake, and it's dead easy.
***
On the news right now there's a report on how these (scroll down to Poppy Quarter) have caused a furor in the US because some military types thought that the poppies contained a transmitter of some kind, or some nanotechnological device. Man. How smart do they think we are?

Ron James and a Dry Martini

A couple of months ago, Hub and I saw Ron James perform here in town. He's a very funny little man from the East Coast and I love his shows. The CBC loves him too and he's on tv right now, "Quest for the West". He's got a typical east coast accent and he plays it up, even though he lives in Toronto all the time, anyway, he was on about eating Alberta beef, how he never stopped doing it even during the mad cow scare. "A lot of people commented on the fact that they weren't going to eat meat any more, "oooh, you never know what's in it, the hormones and the chemicals..." Well I now live in the large metropolis of Toronto, and I've just come through a summer of breathing a noxious concoction of everything from mouse turds to Martian dust, and I should be worried about a t-bone steak that I just ordered 68 jesusminutes ago? There's already such a buildup of chemicals and whatnot in my system, I'm lucky I haven't grown a set of tits and a tail!"

He goes on along a lot like that and to watch him is hilarious. He makes regional jokes, depending on where he's doing his routine...so while he was here he was on about the agricultural industry (this town is founded on an agricultural college) and some jokes people could take, and some they couldn't. Even watching that was amusing.

We should laugh at ourselves more often. Make a joke, and take one. Lighten up a bit.

A Nice, Dry Martini, with Variations

I am a big fan of gin; my mother used to drink it with orange juice when I was a kid and I would sip it. I like bitter flavours, I find them very refreshing. When BF1 and I were old enough to go to the bar, we would go out for supper on Friday nights and drink tom collins' afterwards, and then drive home ... but we were young and the laws were too. (The new Archbishop of Toronto is Tom Collins, grew up in the city we live in, left a post as Archbishop of Edmonton to come to the Big Smoke. His mentor was Bishop Carlo Martini. Really.) Anyway, I've spent a lifetime with gin in its various forms, and I have now, finally graduated to martinis. My favourite gins are Hendricks, Number 10 (by Tanqueray) and South, and when slumming I drink Bombay Sapphire. All of these are quite fine products, and each has their own particular flavour. It's not the same as scotch drinking of course, and that's a topic for another day.

So, for a dry martini, here's what I do. I have, from Paderno, a set of little teeny measuring spoons : a smidgen, a pinch and a dash, in order of increasing size. If I'm making one martini for myself, then I use a smidgen of dry vermouth....if it's gin bonus days at the liquor store and you get one of those little airplane-sized bottles of Martini and Rossi Vermouth, that's enough to last you about five months. Seriously.

Firstly, you take three ice cubes and put them in a little zip-lock baggie, and then you smash them with your meat mallet. You have no meat mallet? A hammer will do, but a hammer is so unwieldy and able to dent your floors or cause other problems. Get yourself a nice wooden meat mallet. Even if all you ever do with it is smash ice cubes for your drinks you've bought one of the most important tools for the kitchen.

Okay, so you've smashed the ice cubes. Now put them into your martini shaker....oh dear god, you don't have one of those either? Get thee to Home Outfitters, and while you're there get a meat mallet. You see? Multitasking.

But you're thirsty now! Okay, put the ice into a glass jar for which you have a lid. Or a thermos. Something. Now, one martini, right? Measure out two ounces of gin and add a smidgen of vermouth. Shake the stuff together enthusiastically, and strain into a nice glass that has two giant green olives on a stick in it. If you have some ice chips put them in with the drink too, and go sit somewhere quiet and take your first little sip of heaven. Ahhhhh.......

Variations: I have a good friend who doesn't bastardize his gin with anything, so he just shakes it up with some ice and then decants to his glass containing an olive or a curl of lemon rind, no vermouth. I have heard of this abomination called a "Dirty Martini" and my only comment is NO. Olive juice has no business in that perfect glass of gin. Don't do it. My dad says that the perfect martini is made by shaking the gin with the ice, and adding to a glass with a coating of vermouth. The way to do this is to add a bit of vermouth to your glass, and swirl around until the glass is coated, then pour out the excess vermouth. This is pretty close to a smidgen. Any attempts to "sweeten up" the gin are futile, just don't drink the gin if you can't appreciate its bright junipery flavour with just a touch of coriander...or in the case of Hendricks, rose petals and cucumber. Enjoy.

The Black Hole, and Yogurt

If bad things accumulate in your life, you may find yourself looking into the black pit of depression. It can actually feel as though you're looking deep into a really big hole, one that goes on for as far and as wide as you can see. Weird thoughts come into your head, things that you would never think about in normal times, but when at the edge of the pit, strangeness abounds. You might have physical manifestations of the blackness: unexplained sleepiness, dizziness, frantic waking periods, anxiety, doziness, inability to concentrate and other symptoms that, if you were in a normal state, wouldn't occur to you.

I'm not there. If you are, then talk to someone. Sometimes it's more serious than you think, and sometimes it's just a buildup of day to day slights. Sometimes it's the weather (hello? east coast?) and sometimes it's your own chemistry. These issues all have different degrees of severity, and all require different treatment methods.

On a completely different note, the New Jersey - Ottawa game is on, end of the second period and its 2-1 Ottawa. The CBC cut away to Kandahar where they've got the Stanley Cup at the base, and they're watching the game. It's 5:00a.m. there, and everyone is glued to the tv. Pretty amazing.

Tonight's recipe is from a mathematician friend of ours who makes her own yogurt all the time. Since we were spending upwards of $10/week on yogurt, I decided that making it would be a good idea, and it's something that I do every three or four days. It's easier than making key lime pie.

Yogurt (no sexual favours required)
You need a litre of milk (I use organic milk), a little bit of plain yogurt without flavour or additives (i.e. guar gum or other thickeners) and a thermometer, and then you need a big thermos.
Pour the litre of milk into a nice stainless steel pot, and bring the temperature of the milk up to 180F (82C), stirring every once in a while. You're not supposed to boil the milk, although in my absentmindedness I have and it still works out okay. Really though, don't boil it if you can pay any attention to it. Remove the pot from the heat, and let the milk cool to 115F (45C). Put 1/4 to 1/3 of the plain yogurt into a 2-cup measuring cup and then add a cup of the warm milk. Stir thoroughly, then pour this back into the pot of warm milk and stir some more until everything is homogeneous. Once it is, then pour it into the thermos and maintain the temperature of the milk at 110F (43C) for at least six hours. I got a "Big Bubba" coffee thermos at Cdn Tire and I keep it in a pot of hot water. The hot water is just out of the tap, since chances are that 43C or thereabouts is where your thermostat is set on your hot water heater. another way of keeping the yogurt warm is to put it in sterilized jars and then keep those in an oven with the pilot light on if you have a gas oven, or keep the jars in a pot of hot tap water. Whatever works for you. There are also such things as yogurt makers although we weren't able to locate one and I don't know if they're made or sold here any more. Even if they are, they'll cost more than my Big Bubba.

After the six hours, pour the yogurt (which is now nice and thick. Taste it! It's the best plain yogurt you've ever had!) into containers and keep it in the fridge. It'll keep for about two weeks. You can add fruit and other stuff to it, like honey or maple syrup if you want sweetness. You can warm fruit up in the microwave with some sugar over it to make a jam, then dissolve about 1/2 a teaspoon of cornstarch in cold water and add it to the hot fruit mixture. As it cools it'll thicken up, and once cool you can add it to your yogurt if you want to make flavoured stuff. You don't have to add the cornstarch but you'll notice that the yogurt is a lot thinner than you're used to, and if you like it thicker (or more familiar) then add the cornstarch. Whatever. Once you've got the plain yogurt, you're on your own, so experiment.

I read some chemistry t-shirts the other day on some site, I don't know what it was...but one of the shirts said: Chemistry is just like cooking, except in chemistry we don't lick the spoon!

(N.B. I should update the pictures, but I haven't seen or done anything of note lately. Things are much greener than on Good 'n Cold Friday.)

The Employment Insurance Office, and Recipe for Key Lime Pie

Today I went to the EI office to give them my records of employment. I drove up into the parking lot, through the exit of course, so it was a little bit curvier than it should have been, and since this is a small city it doesn't matter, it's not like anyone was trying to get out of the parking lot. There are many things in the same plaza as the Services Canada (which is what they call it now. Honestly. Can't we just still call it Unemployment Insurance and Human Resources Canada and quit using the doublespeak? It was definitely an Orwellian moment.) including a Salvation Army store, quite fitting actually. Go on the dole, grab some used duds to go to your next (non)interview in. Lots of stuff, most of which I ignored because I was trying to overcome the feeling of Not Wanting To Go In.

It's a terrible thing to have to go on unemployment. I've been paying into it since I was 16, but that doesn't mean that I should ever have to use it. It's for other people, not for me. It's for people who get laid off or who are abused at work or who are contract or seasonal, or who just can't stay there any more for a billion reasons. Not for me. I stood in line and waited, and the line wasn't long, just two guys in front of me, but one was taking a long time.

When it was my turn I sat at the desk of the nice lady with the flat look on her face and talked a mile a minute about my roe from one university being wrong, isn't it wrong? the start date is wrong, it's the date after my mat leave, it's not the real start date, that's wrong, isn't it? and I messed up on the money for the other one, I made it (ridiculously small amount) per year instead of over the six months, so that's wrong, okay? and there's a break because it's two separate contracts and the pay was different, can we fix that? I did it wrong. Is it fixed? Oh look, there's my file on your computer. There I am. And now we have notes on my file in your computer that say I did things wrong. Well, that's fine. Four weeks? Right. I can wait four weeks for something to happen with this. And in the meantime I'm looking for a job, you know? Because I don't want to be doing this, I guess no one does. Thank you, you've been very kind. Thanks. Thanks. I hope I don't have to see you again. Not that I don't want to see you again ever but I don't want to have to come here again. Okay? thanks. You've been very helpful. I'll leave now. Thanks.

It wasn't quite that bad, but close. About a third of that paragraph was going on in my head, the rest was spewing out all over the desk of the nice lady. She was very nice, but she also seemed to have been doing this job long enough to have a permanent "whatever you say" look on her face.

I'm in the works then, to collect unemployment. I know, it's been Employment Insurance for ages now, but it still isn't to me.

I got a call back from the headhunter today and the company to whom he'd submitted my information didn't want to interview me because my experience in their area of expertise is too old. No surprise, but another blow to the head today. Also heard from a good friend of mine that his wife is no longer living with him; he didn't comment further about it but it's another thing to add to the list of sad things that are happening right now.

Me, I'm sad. As I said to someone today, I'm not staring into the black abyss (and every time I write that word I think "abbess") of depression or anything like that, I'm just not very happy. The black abyss would cause another hair colour change; last time things got bad I went from my natural blondy-mousie hair colour to this current vibrant red that I'm sporting. I still like the red a lot, so I don't want to get to where I have to change the colour. That would be no fun.

On another topic, over at this site there's a push for something new to be created every day in May. I'm no artist...far from it...but I can post a recipe when I blog in May because I do like to cook, and I'm pretty good at it. Today's recipe is for something that everyone in this house loves: key lime pie.

Be warned, my recipe descriptions are somewhat unconventional.

Key Lime Pie: You need to buy a bag of those little key limes, and two cans of sweetened condensed milk. Here the limes cost about $4 for a bag, and there are about 15-20 in the bag. I've seen recipes where you're told that you can use regular limes, but they're lying to you. Regular limes don't have the flavour intensity that the key limes have. You also need to make a pie crust of some kind. I often use Jacques Pepin's short crust (sweet crust) although I've also used a standard pie crust or a graham wafer crust. If you don't bake much then I'd say use the graham crust, which is just crushed graham wafers and butter pressed into the bottom of a pie pan -- there's a recipe on the box of graham crackers. The short crust or regular pie crust both have to be pre-baked, and you let that cool while you're putting the key lime stuff together, as follows. (you need to preheat the oven to 350F, but it'll only take 10min at the very most for your oven to reach this temperature, so preheat it about halfway through the juicing in step 2.)

1) Use the fine side of a grater, and grate the rind (zest) of about half the limes. After the first couple, you might consider promising oral sex to your partner if they'll do this for you, but hold off, don't promise yet. Grate the limes yourself because you haven't yet gotten the lime juice out of the little limes. Just the green part of the rind, not the white part underneath, it's bitter. You need about two tablespoons of rind, if you end up with more then don't worry about it. Like I said, it should take about half of the little limes out of the bag to get this much rind.

2) You need to juice the little limes. There are many ways to get the juice out of citrus fruit, and since the key limes are small, many of these will become painful after not too long. This is a good time to promise the oral sex to a partner who likes that as much as they like key lime pie, if they will do the juicing. If you are without a partner, or they are not interested in helping you (and woe to them) then here's what you have to do. Cut the little limes in half and take out as many of the seeds as you can. You will not want to dig the seeds out of the juice, you will be angry about the juicing already, so seed the limes first. The limes are little, about an inch in diameter, and they are full of fucking seeds. Full. Now, you need to get the juice out of the little buggers, and if you have a reamer, that will work best. (really, it would never have occurred to me that there was a national reamers association, but there is. amazing.) You can get a reamer from any kitchen store. I have a nice glass one that's similar to the one we had when I was a kid. And the little limes? they slip right off that thing and you bang your knuckles a lot when you're juicing the little limes...and then your fingers get very sore especially if you have arthritis like I do and the limes are cold...Eventually, you will have juiced all the little lime halves, and as you do this by the way, you're pouring the juice into a measuring cup. You need one cup of lime juice. If you don't get a full cup of juice out of the bag of limes, you will probably have at least 3/4 of a cup, and you can top the rest up with water. Really, I promise it won't matter, but if you're a purist, then add some Reallime or something like that. Did you preheat the oven? If not, this is the time to do it.

3) whew. Now the easy part. In a big bowl, whip up two eggs and two cans of sweetened condensed milk, the lime juice and zest (rind) from above. Mix that up with a whisk so it's all homogeneous, and gently pour it onto the crust of choice. Bake at 350F for 30min or thereabouts. The centre of the pie should still be a bit jiggly but not liquid.

4) Let the thing cool for at least an hour before you eat it. We like our key lime pie a tiny bit warm around here, but that's ridiculous for most people, so once it's cooled down, cover it with plastic wrap (unless you like a skin on your pie, and some people do) and put the thing in the fridge to cool completely. Garnish with whipped cream if you like (I don't, but I'm not a whipped cream fan at all.) and serve to your adoring fans.

5) I did bastardize a recipe out of The Best of Fine Cooking: Cooking Fresh (2005) for this pie. Best to give credit where credit is due.