Time Wasting Hamsters from Hell

Ack. I don't play computer games, I'm not that kind of geek.

These little guys are driving me batty though....

after all, so many of us have nothing else to do except blow our minds on flying hamsters.

(It is indirectly the Yarn Harlot's fault that I have gone here.)

Without Words

Darlings, there is much going on, and yet I can't seem to find all the words to talk about it. I am still working, and while I am having some fun with the boyz, it is a difficult adjustment. I mean really, I have to be places at times and I have to do things for other people. I suppose that the money aspect of it all should mean something to me, but the only thing it has meant so far is this:



and while that is a lovely shoe (Fluevog: Teapots Darjeeling in olive green) and I cannot wait until it (the pair actually. I am not a monoped) arrives, it doesn't really sum up the entire impact of my workaday life. Work is all around me nowadays, and while this used to be a completely normal state for me, I had let it go. No more the 20-hour days of chemistry, whether reading, doing, thinking about doing, telling other people to do........no more of that.

Here I am again then, leaving for work at 06:30, racing back home to pick up children from care by other people, racing to put dinner out and then to head out the door again to lead my other life of volunteer and organizer and knitter and yoga student. During the day I think think think, and learn new things about how one maintains an NMR spectrometer, and about how you can model disordered solvent .... depends on which day it is and which lab I'm working in. One day big magnets, the next day X-radiation. Need to deduce the structure of a molecule? I can do it.

I possess rather obscure talents that (by my best estimate) fewer than 0.001% of the population have, and probably only about 0.01% of the population can talk about with any certitude. I'm not sure if this makes me very special or very freakish, which therefore makes me special but not in a good way. I hang out with guys ... and let's face it, it's mostly guys, oh all right, men, and in fact right now there's only one other woman on staff... anyway, these guys who are super-geeks, and I like them. I even married one of them. I like them because I'm one with them.

I will try to drop the italics now.

When I'm not at work or doing work at home, I'm marvelling at how the house has descended to a level of slovenliness that is beyond even my tolerance. I marvel at it, but I don't necessarily do much about it.

I have been battling raging headaches, which some of my colleagues indicate are probably migraines, but I refuse to adopt that moniker because I don't suffer enough to admit that I might have migraines. I don't get terribly nauseous (just a little bit) and I don't lose my vision and the lights don't bother me one way or the other, and I am completely functional, it just feels like my head is being drilled. I suspect that if I didn't have such an aversion to drugs that I wouldn't suffer much...when I was in Winnipeg a little while ago my sister gave me an aspirin and I felt much better. Aspirin are good! especially when Tylenol makes me mental and ibuprophen doesn't do much for headaches.

I digress from my original point here, which is that I don't have enough words to describe what's going on with me. Seems to me that I've used up a few words here, wouldn't you say? I've not even scratched the surface of what I want to say, but before I started writing this I was tired and now I'm tireder so I quit, I'll go to bed and hope that I find the time and the brainwaves to write a coherent post about the confusion and difficulty of a major life change.

In the meantime, admire those shoes.

Believe it or not.......

I'd likely switch the playfulness and power aspects, but this is a cute little thing to take up thirty seconds of your time:

The Recipe For Hilary

3 parts Playfulness 2 parts Power 1 part Creativity Splash of Mania Sip slowly on the beach

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

How to Deal with Staff in an Academic Institution

I have been a staff member before, and it's usually a lot of fun and this time is no exception. We have to laugh otherwise we'd break down in tears all the time....Since I've been each of student, faculty and staff in a university setting, and since I'm doing the staff gig now, I'll explain a few things about it.

Staff arrive at about the same time every day, and leave at about the same time every day, except when they don't. Someone monitors how many days of vacation they have and how many hours they work. They are often unionized but not always, depending on whether the union vultures have penetrated the walls of the particular ivory tower. I'm not fond of unions, not because I don't think workers need protection, but because I don't think that unions actually offer any protection. The halcyon days of the effective union lifting up the downtrodden worker.....well, they don't fit the academic setting. They are stupid in fact. Explain to me why the CAW represents the staff at a university; other than some of the engineers who are making super lightweight solar powered vehicles, we're not a car manufacturer.

I'm actually not even in the union due to my casual employee status, which means I can be terminated at any time, or I can quit any time. I'm not in any danger of losing my current position, believe me.

So the staff arrive and leave at about the same time every day. There are certain things that are routine, but much of the job is putting out fires (sometimes literally) and solving mechanical problems and pushing instruments to do more than they were meant to do so that the frontiers of someone else's research can be moved back (we get our names on the papers, usually), and instructing students, and we take 20 minutes for lunch at our desks, when we're usually interrupted....it's not the same as a faculty job, but we work very hard without much in the way of free time for the eight hours we're at work, and then we go home. Most of the students and many of the faculty don't keep "normal" hours, so they might complain that we're not there past 4:00 or 5:00 or whenever we leave. If I start work at 7:30, however, and leave at 4:30? that's okay with me. I answer my email in the evening, if there's any to answer....and on the weekends we'll go in if there's an emergency or if we have to check an instrument or if there's a power shutdown or what have you. Most of us don't slack off. Some people do, sure, that happens everywhere.

On Wednesdays (at the U where I'm currently working) many of us go for lunch to a residence cafeteria that has quite good food, and we vent. We complain about faculty, we moan about the students, and we slag the administration when it's appropriate (usually it is). We rarely say anything about other staff members, because that would be rather bad form, but this past Wednesday there were a few disparaging words said about the person I'm replacing. She's a nice enough person, but she's pushy and ... well, she reminds me of a dog who will bite you when it's scared. She doesn't realize that most people see through her behaviour and just go along with it, but it can be quite grating and if there's one thing I learned early on in this academic game, it's this:

Never peeve a staff member.

I mean that. Never. If you want anything actually done in the department, you almost always need a staff member of some kind to assist you. Need files from five years ago from a summer student who only worked Tuesdays and alternate Friday afternoons? A staff member will know how to locate those. Need data that's in the locked drawer of a filing cabinet in a closet behind a door that says "Beware of the Badger"? Guaranteed a staff member will not only remember collecting the data, but they know how to get it out of that drawer, off that floppy disc, and into a usable form. Need to pay a student out of a grant that's only got $45.13 in it but you need to use that up before you shift over to your other account?

You get the picture. In many cases, a department would come to a grinding, painful halt if all the staff walked out the door. The wailing, the gnashing of teeth, would be heard for miles. News of the departure would rock the rest of the academic setting.

People who can otherwise go for coffee two or three times a day, would not be able to do that anymore. Consider the tragedy.

As it turns out, the person I'm replacing has peeved another staff member. Now, just because you are a staff member doesn't mean that you're exempt from the cardinal rule stated above. In fact, if you want to remain in the clique, and thus, if you want to actually continue to do your work so that other people can do research and so that faculty don't come screaming down on your head like a bunch of ring-wraiths, you really had stay on the best side of your comrades-in-arms. PIR (Person I'm Replacing) is failing on that count, and failing badly. It's one thing to peeve another staff member, it's quite another to peeve:

The Administrator.

I cannot stress enough how dangerous this can be. The Administrator is the Keeper of the Ring, the one person in the department who knows all the rules, who knows how much money everyone has (to the penny), who knows when to say No to ridiculous requests and when to say Yes to the same ridiculous requests. The Administrator is the person who you never, ever, annoy. You are gentle with The Administrator while still getting what you want in a timely manner. Perhaps you inquire as to their children, or you appear hapless in their obviously superior parenting skills. Perhaps you just appear hapless. This is enough to endear you, if you do it right. Whether you like The Administrator or not (and ours is quite likeable) you are unfailingly polite, generous and forthcoming. You never demand, but you learn to couch requests with a soft batting of lead-in, such as, "Is it possible for you to fit this in this week? I'm so sorry I've not had a chance earlier to get in to see you...I'm so glad you're efficient, especially during this crazy busy time, but could you...? (insert request)" You must be careful not to cross the line into unctuousness here, because they can sniff a fraud and incompetence like a pig snuffles truffles. Not that The Administrator should ever be confused with anything porcine, and not that you should ever venture into their office with that image in your head, because you are likely to say something inopportune and then your chances at a go at the bottomless Valley of the Information that You Desperately Need are shot. You might as well head to the pub for all the good it will do you to stand and stammer.

You know then, that PIR has annoyed The Administrator. PIR has only transgressed slightly, but it has been noted, and her request has fallen to the bottom of the pile. Another word of warning:

Email can be easily misinterpreted.

Your tone may not be someone else's tone. The other day one of my "bosses" (and that is such a crazy term. Really. One of my bosses is my husband and the other is the manager of a facility remarkably similar to a facility I used to manage. I don't actually answer to anyone, regardless of their bossman status, so I find it amusing that I even have supervisors. For the most part, they also find this amusing.) sent me an email telling me not to do something that I wouldn't have done in a million years. When I saw him at lunch, I said that I was going to reply that I wouldn't be that stupid, but that probably doesn't fit into the GLP (Good Lab Practice) manual. I did say "duh" in the message, and he indicated that he knew full well that I knew not to do this particular thing, but now it's documented. And calling it stupid is probably not part of GLP, no, and by the way, he knew that a particular sample coming in was heat sensitive, so I hit him with the GLP thing, and then called him a derogatory term and yelled at him for having pie for lunch.

This does not peeve a staff member, this endears you to them, as long as you're not a dork about it. The other day a student asked me if my supervisor was available, and when I said no, he said, "Oh. Well maybe you can help me then."

Whereupon I so didn't help him that I think I wasted four hours of his time. This wasn't quite on purpose.

You see? The staff are a powerful sect. They mostly have PhD's just like everybody else. They mostly can do things that the faculty and students either can't do or don't want to do, and they are thus, indispensable. They are often quite happy to help, and they are often very busy. Treat them with respect and deference (whether you feel like doing it or not) and you will always get what you want, when you want it, or at the very least you'll get an explanation for why you don't have it.

Or, you know, you could go out on a limb and annoy someone. Then let's see where your files land.

You're Not the Boss of Me

On Monday morning while Hub and I were walking along to work, it occurred to me, and I made the observation, “I am not the boss.”

For those of you who don’t know me, this might seem like an innocuous enough statement, since most of us actually aren’t the boss. There’s usually a higher-up who’s going to turn around and tell you what to do and when it’s due and how they want it done.

My last nine years of work, I told me what to do and when it was due and how I wanted it done. And I told other people the same thing, a lot. I was the boss. I made the decisions. I ran the place to my liking, and I made the standards. I hired, and I fired, albeit the latter happened only once.

Well, now I’m not the boss, and that’s half okay. On the half where I don’t know as much as everyone else, it’s fine not to be the boss because I don’t want to make any wacky decisions that will send people’s research into a massive unforgiving tailspin. I have a lot to learn, a lot of training to do, and so not running the place is great with me. I spend a lot of time around big expensive superconducting magnets, and the software to run these things has changed since I last did any of this work. One of the magnets is older and isn’t shielded as well as the others, so the stray magnetic field is strong and it extends out further. (If you know anything about magnetism, when I’m underneath the thing I’m getting hundreds of gauss, according to Hub.) It’s enough to magnetize a quarter so that it will attract another quarter. It’s also enough to knock out my hearing aids, which is kind of funny unless you’re me and you have to keep replacing the batteries every time you get out from under the magnet. It is the scene of much amusement…..reaching underneath to adjust the shims on the magnet, suddenly my hearing is gone. Look up to check the computer screen to see if I’m getting close to the shims, hearing good. Hearing gone, hearing good, hearing….gone…because batteries can’t take that too often. So I spent the rest of the morning asking people to repeat themselves and making up my own jokes out of what I thought they’d said because I couldn’t hear anything. Tres amusent.

That lab, I don’t mind not bossing. In the other lab, I mind it very much. I used to run a lab very similar to that one, and I made the rules…but the person who runs this lab lets other people come in and dictate his time, and thus, they think that they’ll also dictate mine. The lab has to run completely differently because it’s an X-ray crystallography lab, and most people don’t know very much about crystallography except that they want the structures of their molecules and they want them now, because now is when they’re used to getting their data. Sadly, things do not work this way, even if the boss has made it seem as though this might happen. People have been fooled, or they’ve been coddled into thinking that they can make demands on our time.

For example, when it is time to eat lunch, it is time to eat lunch. It is not any other time, because if it were another time, it would not be time to eat lunch. Lunch is a very important time of the day, and there is really nothing that should stand in the way of lunch. Lunch should not be delayed by profs who want their four year-old data, no matter how much you like said profs and no matter if they are friendly and funny. They are neither of those things when they are standing in the way of lunch, and unless they are offering to buy lunch and are talking to you on the way to the place that provides lunch, they are in the way, and that is bad. It is bad enough that after five minutes of assuring them that you will dig up their data and re-solve it and get it into a publishable form before the end of the week, you have had enough of their friendliness and either want them gone from your sight or would like to see them carving up an arm or something for you to snack on while the conversation continues. And continue it will, until you finally just tell them that they have to leave because all the boys have gone for lunch and now I am late and at lunch you have to tell one or both of your new bosses that they cannot allow this any more and that when it is time to eat, it is time to eat and it is not time for consultation or talking on the phone or reading email or answering email or anything else.

Lunch, or eating time in general, is one issue. My other issue is with students. I do remember being a student, and I remember the supervisor who wants the data yesterday, when you’re so hung over that you don’t even know what yesterday was made of, never mind where the data is, and could you please please stop talking to me all the time? I also remember being panicked because I didn’t have new data that week because nothing had worked and I’d spent the week regenerating solvent stills and cleaning out a glove box and a fridge and a fume hood, so data wasn’t forthcoming from the cleaning but might be next week, COULD YOU PLEASE STOP BUGGING ME….but that was me as a student. There are other students who do their work one piece at a time, and so when there’s a slowdown in the data, there’s nothing to do except wait, impatiently, for the data to come. So this week, when Student A and I were setting up an experiment and we did it wrongly because neither of us knows the software very well and we screwed up Student B’s data integration, “Oh Well,” is what I thought, because B must have something else to do while A collects his data….the computer can’t be rebooted during A’s data collection, which is what needed to happen. This did not deter the mighty B, who was in the lab for most of the day, wanting his data. The re-integration didn’t work because the thing hung up right at the spot where A and I jumped in with the wrong command. So there’s nothing you can do, you have to wait until A’s data collection is finished. I said, “B, this is not happening today,” whereupon he replied, “Okay then. Tomorrow,” and walked out of the lab.

Two things: 1) B left before I could reply, but no, Tomorrow is not when A’s data collection will be finished. Day after tomorrow, too bad so sad. 2) I didn’t work on the “tomorrow” that B meant, so I couldn’t tell him to get lost.

See, if I were the boss, people would not be allowed to bug me like this. If I were the boss, I’d not spend my time in that lab, and I’d hide in my office. If I were the boss, I’d tell people that when I’m meeting with someone to work on some interesting experiments we’re performing, you do not get to join us and bug me about your data, because your data is not my concern when I’m meeting with someone else, and your rudenss is overwhelming me.

Sigh. I am not the boss.

Plays Well with Others

The other day I was looking for some paperwork. I looked all over the house for the particular papers, to no avail. I also looked at a book my mother had kept for me, full of birthday cards and some of my elementary school report cards. From Grade 1 to Grade 5, two comments recurred:

Hilary is very quick at math.

Hilary’s creative writing is excellent. She writes very interesting short stories.

I don’t know what one does with a double whammy in math and creative writing; it also turns out that I did well in French, but I think that’s related to the math. Is one supposed to turn out to be a writer, or a mathematician? Since I turned out to be a PhD chemist with a slight flair for writing … my supervisors through grad school and beyond always commented on my writing skills rather than my scientific skills … I guess we can conclude that there’s the answer to that question can be found between the lines.

I’d just as soon not be a chemist any more, and I’d prefer to volunteer my spare time “to the greater good” rather than to gainful employment. I’d also rather write than be a chemist….and I remember very clearly, as a child, writing when I wasn’t reading. Math and science were just sidelines.

So why, as an adult, would I choose science? Several reasons, one of the main ones being that I knew that as a scientist I would always be able to get a job and support myself. I could be independent. I could escape a bad relationship. I could make my family proud of me. I could have an identity as a woman in science. I could have an identity, period.

I just don’t need that identity any more. When I left my job and didn’t get a subsequent one in my field, I was devastated for a short time. I was also free. I knew I was free, even as I was trying to figure out how we were going to make ends meet because I wasn’t working any more. I knew I could finally just sit back and figure out what it was that I wanted to do with myself…and what I wanted to do, was to make a difference. Volunteer, or find paid work that was truly fulfilling. Knit for charity. Walk my kids to school. Sit in the sun.

And yet, I find myself employed for the next six months or so, doing science as a highly skilled technician. I don’t feel any attachment for the job, and I will be happy to walk away from it when the contract is over. How odd that a year ago I was hoping against hope that I’d be considered for an academic position, in fact, that I’d be continuing my work as a chemistry professor. I think that a lot more people were upset that I didn’t get a job than I was, and since they were upset so was I. Alone, I was relieved.

Guesthouse

"This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness....
Welcome and entertain them all for
Each has been sent as a guide from beyond. " Rumi

This is a quote that my yoga teachers have been using quite a lot. It started back in December sometime, when my own teacher led a class using this opening, and continued on with comments about the sacredness of the body, and how it is the vessel for the soul. The body does so much work, and we are so hard on it, sometimes not feeding it properly, sometimes overworking it, sometimes underworking it….and so often we see “ourselves” as being separate from the body. We refer to our minds as though they are separated beings from their own living vessels, as though the blood flow and the breath are lesser processes than the consideration of one’s existence, or the application of the quadratic formula.

The truth is, obviously, that we are not separate bits, and that if the blood doesn’t flow and the autonomic nervous system doesn’t regulate your temperature, and if you can’t breathe, nothing else is going to work. If you don’t take care of your soul-holder, it will break down.

I had a chat with my priest along these same lines, and while he didn’t quote Rumi, he said the same things that the yoga teachers had been saying. Many people think that there is nothing of substance to be learned from Christianity, that the eastern teachers said it first and did it better. Certainly, many eastern teachers were there before Christ, but Christ also did a really good job at explaining a path to enlightenment/everlasting life/whatever your term. People get far too caught up in worrying about literal belief in The Bible, and whether or not they have to be born again into the arms of Christ Jesus (or something like that, honestly I don’t know too much about radical Christians. Catholics don’t concern themselves with being “saved” or “born again” because Christ is part of the trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.) and don’t read The Bible for its allegorical value. Even St. Augustine determined that all of Genesis was a metaphor for an inner journey, and he did that a long time ago. (I’ve got his book, Confessions, but I don’t know when he lived. I could wiki that but it’s late and I have to go to bed.)

I am wandering around in this topic, not sure if I’m making a point or not. Many things are weighing in right now, not least of which the whole getting to bed thing, because tomorrow I’m going to work. It’s not permanent work, and I don’t want it to be, but it’s work nonetheless, and I’m struggling with it. I’ve spent so much time the last few months giving to other people, and now I won’t be able to do that so much. I’m only working four days a week, but it still feels like an imposition on the path I thought I’d chosen. Apparently the path is not something I get to choose, it is instead laid out for me.

In reference to the quote at the top of this entry, the visitors at the door over the past few days have been rather nasty little trolls, and I’ve been fighting with them. I wonder if it actually makes a difference to just let them in, have a chat with them over a cup of tea…even if they are objectionable.

Holidays and a Recipe

The holidays are now in the past. We went to Winnipeg, stayed out at BF1’s place rather than at my mother’s place. BF1 has a big house and three bathrooms, and when you’re bringing four people into a home, you like to be able to get to the can when you need to get there. I also really didn’t want to put my mother out, and this way, she could take the kids (yea) while Hub and I partied. This is the first time my mum has taken our kids, and it was excellent.

I got to take BF1’s truck out a few times, alone, and the expanse of the land, the grey light in the afternoon (daylight from 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m….maybe), the light snow blowing across the highway, makes one feel all alone in the world, like you could drive forever and not get anywhere. We don’t drive fast, at or just over the speed limit (100kph, maybe 90 sometimes) and the people leave their Christmas lights on until February. Keeps the cold winter at bay, and alleviates the darkness a little bit. By mid-Feb, you start to feel like the dark is closing in on you, even as the days get longer. The appearance of the lone house that still has its lights on is a welcoming, warming sight……….unless you’re so deep in your SAD winter that you just mutter under your breath about the power-wasting idiots who can’t just take the damn things down already. Except yours are still up too, because it’s been too cold to get out on a ladder to take the lights down, and you might as well flick the switch and turn them on for a few more weeks, what the hell.

We don’t often use white lights at Christmas. When I was in Scottsdale Arizona one year, my aunt was very excited because everyone used white lights. Oooh, they all use white lights, aren’t they gorgeous? and no, I didn’t think so. No colour? Then again, no snow either, so the white lights sort of mimicked that. Here we use coloured lights and white lights; we’ve got lots of snow.

We did an overnight trip to Kenora and stayed in my sister’s big house. She heats the house with the fireplace and a pellet stove, and it gets really warm and cozy…we slept upstairs in her room and she slept by the fireplace so she could keep it going all night. In the morning we all looked out the expanse of windows over the lake, hoping for sun to bounce off the frost on the trees…but to no avail. Still, you can’t deny the serenity of country living and an expansive view….until five terriers start barking because a cat has wandered past their crates in the basement.

Despite the fact that we had to be somewhere every single day, we had a really great trip and never felt particularly rushed. In the background, the death of Hub’s brother-in-law lurked, and Christmas eve morning held a bit of a pall since that was the funeral morning and we weren’t there. We knew that everyone back home understood that our holiday had already been planned months in advance, but it was still a difficult decision to leave on Friday when Danilo passed away.

Seems a similar thing happened in the summer when Angie passed away. Maybe we should quit planning holidays to go and visit my family…..

Hub’s sister is getting rid of her husband’s things, many of which are worn out and not worth keeping and so her children are discarding them. Danilo, however, was a great wearer of the fedora, and he had an extensive collection of gorgeous hats. Unfortunately, his head was also about the same size as mine (tiny), so the grandchildren are wearing Nono’s capelli, and are thrilled to play gangsters.

We got back from the prairie driving extravaganza on Sunday the 30^th, and got a visit in with Hub’s brother next door, and his sister when she came by later. The kids were all excited about their new toys, (more Christmas presents!) but left them at Zio’s so that they would have something to play with there. On New Year’s Eve I cleaned the house all day and tried to unpack everything—to no avail, since much remains unpacked—and made a dinner for BF2 and his friend, who drove up from Niagara, where they were staying. When BF2 was living in London he often went to the market where he knew he could get fresh pasta, and commented on a particular ravioli with squash in it. So I made the following:

Squash Manicotti for Four

You need:

1 package of fresh pasta in sheets. I used Oliveri although if I had the time, I would make my own.

1 small squash. Cut the thing in half or quarters and bake at 325^oF for however long it takes for it to soften up. I used an acorn squash and it took about 45 minutes.

1 container of ricotta

spices to your taste: ½ t salt, ½ t fresh ground pepper, ½ t allspice, ¼ t mild curry is what I used, you might want to add garlic but my tomato sauce had garlic in it so I didn’t.

1 egg

1 or 2 c seasoned tomato sauce (which of course was from the stuff I made this summer. Use something of good quality if you don’t have your own stock.)

½ c whipping cream. Not necessary but it was New Year’s eve.

9 x 13 in glass baking dish

You mix, in your food processor:

Scrape out the cooked squash, add all the ricotta, the egg and the spices and process away to a smooth paste. Now of course you’re hoping that you avoid salmonella poisoning when you taste this mixture, but if this is a concern then add the egg last. It’s only there to keep the filling from running out of the pasta and all over the dish anyway, and it won’t affect the taste. I did not fear salmonella (or rather, I forgot about the raw egg problem and tasted anyway) and tasted and adjusted until I got a flavour I liked, not too sweet and not too bland.

Preheat your oven to 400^oF.

You assemble:

The instructions on the pasta indicate that you should soak the sheets for 2min in cold water before using. Naturally I read this after I’d already assembled everything. I think it would have been a good idea to at least wet the things, although I didn’t have any trouble with the pasta and it cooked up just fine. As you like on that one. If you aren’t using any sauce then you’ll have to soak the sheets, but that would be crazy. If you make your own pasta then don’t soak anything.

The pasta sheets are the wrong size for manicotti, so you cut them in half….if you want narrower manicotti, then cut them lengthwise, and you’ll make four/sheet with a little leftover when you roll the filling. If you cut the sheets crosswise then you’ll get wider manicotti and you’ll make two/sheet, and you’ll still have a bit of pasta to cut off at the end. Of course this depends on how much filling you use.

If you’re using it, add the whipped cream to the tomato sauce. Spread a layer of this on the bottom of the pan, enough to cover but not so much that the pasta is going to swim in sauce.

Okay, so you’ve cut the pasta in half the way you like it. Add a heaping tablespoon of filling about 2.5cm from the beginning edge of the pasta, and roll over until the two edges overlap by about a cm, and slice off the extra pasta. Put the roll in the pan. Keep doing this until you’re out of filling or pasta, or the pan is as full as you need. Count on three rolls per person, plus or minus one. (I ate two, everyone else ate three.)

Cover the manicotti with more sauce, again, you don’t want the stuff swimming in sauce but remember that the pasta is going to soak up much of the liquid. I didn’t quite have enough at about 1.5 c total. Put a layer of (fresh, if you can get it) mozzarella or fruilano (if you can’t get fresh mozzarella) on top of the manicotti and sauce, and cover with foil.

Bake for 35 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes.

Serve up with salad and bread (if you like), crisp white wine or a light red if you prefer. We had a sparkling prosecco and then some cabernet franc, so touched on both.

New Year's morning:


Happy New Year to all.