Category Archives: Food
Bean salad
I’ve been eating canned soup for lunch for months and am tired of it, so for the past several weeks I’ve been bringing in bean salads instead. This lentil and tuna salad from the New York Times sounds strange but … Continue reading
Wacky Cake
Some months ago my husband decided he wanted chocolate cake, but had trouble finding a recipe that called for cocoa rather than chocolate. (He eventually found one. That was the night of the icing fire.) After that I asked my … Continue reading
Food, Harry Potter, and Links
Adventures in food labelling Found at the grocery store: Ready-to-Eat peaches — First, they still have to be washed, so technically they aren’t ready to eat. Second, what would constitute non-ready-to-eat peaches? Green ones? Blossoms? A potted peach tree (just … Continue reading
Food Update
Apparently I’m two or three months behind on cooking posts. Stuff I can still remember making lately, for a generous definition of lately: * Mexican tomato soup with cornmeal dumplings: Kind of interesting. If I make it again – and … Continue reading
Beef Stew with Poblanos, Tomatillos, and Potatoes
I’m behind on food posts (again). Recent weeks have seen tuna/salmon noodle cassarole, chicken pot pie (twice), chicken cutlets with maple dill sauce (Cooking Light, Dec. 2006, too sweet, not going to make it again), and Beef Stew with Poblanos, Tomatillos, and Potatoes (also the most recent issue of CL), which I have now made twice and am going to be making again next weekend (in the crockpot next time).
We’ve been doing a lot of cooking on weekends and eating leftovers during the week. So much easier than cooking after work. Continue reading
Fantasy vs SF; Joy of Cooking
Links:
• ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sartorias on kids preferring fantasy to sf (specifically the YA versions). Her theory sounds pretty reasonable to me (though there’s a difference between science fiction that focuses on the science and sf that focuses on the story, and I definitely prefer the latter), and also explains why I like fantasy better (though I always liked sf too): science was fascinating, sure, but it was also mundane and normal, the sort of thing that people did for a career – a large proportion of the adults I knew as I kid worked in the space industry, so the idea of people going up in spaceships was not very far-fetched. Magic, on the other hand, was completely exotic.
• The NYTimes reviews the 75th-anniversary edition of the Joy of Cooking, which came out last week (article dated Nov. 1 and hopefully still available):
The bad news is that this new version forces a decision. Which “Joy” do we want? Do we keep our mother’s vintage copy from the ’60s? The reliable and popular version from 1975? The smart, chef-driven 1997 book? Or do we clean house, get with the times and buy the new book, which has much more reference material along with a cloying coat of nostalgia?
[...]
All that being said, the new version is the most complete and current “Joy” you can buy. If I didn’t have my trusty 1975 version, I would shell out $30. But for the number of times I actually dip into “Joy,” the ’75 will suffice. After all, a meringue is a meringue and cuts of beef don’t really change.
Still, cooking is a highly personal thing, and the book that fits best depends on your demographic, your kitchen skill and your existing cookbook collection. Those who want a book that reminds them of their mothers and includes the pecan-laden angel slices they remember from childhood might prefer a vintage edition from the 1950s, or the 1963 revision.
My brother, the best cook in the family and someone who prefers not to mix sentimentality with information, is the kind of cook who would appreciate the smarter tone, multicultural depth and thorough exploration of technique in the 1997 book.
My household is a three-Joy household: My parents gave me the 1997 version (which I use for all my basic recipes) and a two-volume paperback from 1964, which I should investigate more thoroughly. My boyfriend has the 1975 version, which has a better pancake recipe than the 1997. I have annotated my 1997 pancake recipe with the 1975 ingredients.
I was amused that the writer mentioned the tuna casserole recipes in each edition, since I made the 1997 version last weekend. It calls for making a butter/flour/milk/cheese sauce, while the 1975 and 2006 versions use cream of mushroom soup. I’ll stick with my 1997 book, thanks.
Goals for the week:
5 days of exercise 4Add Isri’s scenes to the synopsis of Shadow Play
Nanowrimo behind by 1022 words
Writing Summary:
Nanowrimo is off to a good but slow start. After about 3200 words I got to the scene that will probably be the beginning, and I also figured out what the plot is. By next weekend I want to be a little bit ahead.
Sunday: plotting on shadow play
Monday: ditto
Tuesday: plotting on seliveon’s book
Wednesday: 1810 words, sel’s book
Thursday: 1710 words, sel’s book
Friday: 1000 words + plotting
Saturday: 1125 words + plotting
Exercise Summary:
Sunday: walk, 1 hr
Monday: walk, 45 min
Tuesday: none, lazy (got off two bus stops early though)
Wednesday: aerobics, ~30 min
Thursday: none, lazy
Friday: walk, ~1 hr
Saturday: none, lazy (and just busy)
This week:
5 days of exercise
1667 words/day for nanowrimo Continue reading
Roasted Chicken with Dried Plums and Shallots
Roasted Chicken with Dried Plums and Shallots, Cooking Light, Sept. 2006. Mmmmmmmm. I’ll be making this again. It has prunes. And fennel. And shallots. Mmmmmmmm. I *love* fennel. It calls for four chicken breasts; I had two packages of three, … Continue reading
Pork Chops with Syrup
Ok, it’s really Pork Chops with Cherry Preserves Sauce (Cooking Light, Aug. 2006). But I should have read the recipe more closely before I decided to make it, as the sauce is just cherry preserves and a tiny bit of vinegar. Waaaaaaaaaay too sweet.
Next time I’ll stick with the pork-and-plums recipe I love so much from a previous issue. That fruit sauce is dried plums+wine+chicken broth. Much less sweet.
And I thought I was lucking out since cherry preserves were on sale. Continue reading
Peach Tapioca
Writing is such a pain in the rear.
I’d hoped, when I started this book, to save myself from the endless round of rewriting that I had to do on the previous book. No such luck.
This week I finished typing in the revisions I’d scribbled onto printouts of chapters 4-6, then reread the book so far (it ends in early chapter 9). Unsuprisingly, it gets off to too slow a start, so I’ll be deleting the last scene of chapter 1 and the second scene of chapter 4. Yay, more rewriting.
I also have to rewrite chapter 8, since I made a big change in chapter 7 to keep all my characters from getting killed.
Would anyone like to loan me a new writing process? This isn’t as tedious as poring over the thing trying to add more description, but it’d be nice to write a scene and not have to rewrite it, or delete it, later. (My cuts files already have two chapter’s worth of words in them, and that doesn’t include the old version of chapter 1 or stuff that only got heavily rewritten. That means I’ve cut nearly 20 percent of what I’ve written. Fantastic.)
Anyway, today I am going to whip chapters 1 and 2 (now called chapter 1) into shape, and then write more of chapter 9. (I finally started writing new story again on the airplane [1]. It’s been ages. (I will probably cut it again later.))
Yesterday I did no work on this book but did a million other things. Including making Peach Tapioca. That wasn’t what I wanted to make (I need to hit the grocery store), but it was pretty tasty:
Peach Tapioca
1 15 oz can peaches, undrained
enough soy milk to make 1 c of liquid
~2 TBSP quick tapioca
cinnamon and brown sugar to taste
Mix everything in a saucepan and let it sit for several minutes. Bring to a boil, stirring occassionally. Turn off heat and let sit for ~20 minutes.
[1] This would have been easier if I had a non-wireless keyboard for my Palm. I had a laptop, but it seemed too much trouble to drag it out for the short Chicago-Detroit hop. Continue reading
In which I eat sauerkraut and like it
Last night’s dinner was choucroute, more or less, from (as usual) Cooking Light. Pork chops, (turkey) sausage, and an apple, cooked in sauerkraut and beer. I hate sauerkraut, but for some reason every time I run across this recipe it … Continue reading
