Grey Christmas

White Christmas, bah humbug .... this is the view from my window today.

In Wisconsin, we're having a grey, slushy Christmas, with rain on top of about a foot of snow. The big winter storm is dumping tons of snow on Minneapolis & the Dakotas, but it's mostly north and west of us here in WI & IL, where we've been getting ice and rain and wintry mix. The National Weather Service called it a "complex" storm system; the best description we've heard so far was a reporter on NPR yesterday, who called it a "variety pack of nasty weather".

We heard that NPR reporter when we were on the exit ramp from the Beltline around 5:00 p.m. yesterday, about 10 minutes from home. Even though I stressed and worried, the travel back from Chicago turned out just as Mark (the optimist in the family) predicted - we missed the worst of it, and were driving in just plain rain, not ice. When we got to the train station in Harvard, the car was sheathed in ice, but it was so warm - 36 or 37 degrees - that the ice just slid off the car. The car was stuck in its parking spot, but because there were 3 of us, I drove and mark & Ethan pushed, and we got out pretty shortly. One of the tires was low, but 2 gas stations and 5 quarters later, we were on the road.

And we are having a perfectly nice little Christmas - waffles cooked on Mark's new waffle iron that I gave him for breakfast, with bacon & fried apples. Beef tenderloin, roasted potatoes, and trifle for dinner. And Lora Brody's ruggelach for snacks. I'll add more pix after dinner.

Big Day

So yesterday I sold the Passat, and got my cast off.

I should be happily on winter break, but because of all the running around, I did not finish grading, even though I worked till almost 10:00 last night. I still have 8 students' work to read. So here I am sort of back at it, at 6:30 a.m.

I guess that's this year's theme - not quite what we expected. We planned a trip to Chicago - we have tickets to see the Addams Family, with Nathan Lane & Bebe Neuwirth - but a big storm is threatening the whole midwest. Weather.gov calls it "complex" - it's supposed t be snow and rain and ice all mixed up. The plan is to take the train, but we have to drive about an hour and a few minutes to Harvard IL to catch the train. And it's not just me - John & Al are flying to California today, and Ethan is coming with us to Chicago. I think Ethan got the biggest disappointment for Christmas - he was supposed to be in Mexico right now, but got a concussion in hockey - and not even in a game, at a scrimmage, just a glorified practice, and the doctor said he shouldn't fly.

Mark, our optimist, says that if all the weather works as predicted, not only will we miss the worst stuff, so will John & Al - they're flying out of Minneapolis, and it's not supposed to be so sloppy up there, all snow for the Twins. And my grades aren't due till the 29th - maybe NOT finishing can act like my library book. I always take a library book - and make the kids do this too - when I fly, because it means I'll have to get back to return it. Let's hope it all comes off as scheduled.

Snow Day

So last night we got about a foot of snow. There were blizzard predictions, tho - high winds and whiting out and drifting - most of which did not happen because the snow was too heavy and wet. It's 27° out there now, supposed to keep dropping, (it has been all day) and a high of only 7° tomorrow. Everyone freaked out and the Madison Schools and the university announced they'd be closed today by 10:00 p.m. last night. The buses aren't running, most streets are not plowed. Mark shoveled for three hours this morning - I got excused because of my thumb. I have a blue cast now; came home with it yesterday afternoon.
I made the ruggelach dough and pecan bars so far today - and waffles for breakfast at 1:00 when Mark was finally done shoveling. The cast is actually more comfortable than the splint, there's no big piece of metal jabbing my palm like the splint. It's also more secure - I feel more like it's in the right place and I won't rehurt myself. But I don't quite have an oppose-able thumb on my right hand - I can't really clamp my right index finger and my thumb together. So I am fucking awkward, or as Mark so much more kindly says, "you're not fucking awkward, your cast is fucking awkward."

The grinding down part of the winter

So here it is February, really cold today and yesterday & last night, though "warm" last weekend, 35ish, so all the snow is frozen, icey and grey. It's supposed to be warmer still this weekend, and maybe rain - I've heard a lot of people mention how excited they are for the "nice" weather - I think I'd rather have snow and 32 degrees, than rain and 44 ... but that's just my curmudgeonly self. I always feel like that in late winter - when the snow starts to go, I want it back to cover all the ugly stuff up, kind of like wanting to keep on wearing your heavy sweater to cover up your winter flab.

I'm waiting for plumber, because Mark's been unhappy with the water pressure in the upstairs apartment, and has even collected a little baggie of grit to show the plumber, in an attempt to figure out what's up. I had a real breakfast, oatmeal with dates & banana and the luxury of 2 tablespoons of heavy cream, yummm, because I am out of 2% milk. I didn't take pictures, but it looked a lot like this bowl of oatmeal from last February -
Eaten out of the same bowl and everything.

I think I wish I lived in Seattle, where they are debating the ethics of non-paying guerrilla riders - of which my bro is one - crashing a fundraising ride put on by a bicycle lobbying group (or really, my bro's ragtag crowd has their own ride, that they do pay a fee to be in, the same day and place as the bigger one)

... not sure which camp I'd fall into if I did live in Seattle, but sure seems to me like the .83rs have a better sense of humor.

I think, if I was there, I'd probably pay the $30 to the advocacy group for the bib, and not wear it.

Buried Future, Withering Youth, Unprotected Sex

We haven't gotten much snow in the last two weeks - we had the horror of rain on top of 2 feet of snow, right after Christmas. We got a few inches of new snow, but not enough to cover up all the grey melted and re-frozen stuff, then we had an ice storm, and got glazed with a nice thin sheet of ice, last Saturday night.

Today at noontime, I walked up State St., kind of a dreary day, and the ground was grey packed frozen snow with lots of cigarette butts. There were flyers advertising an upcoming show taped to kiosks and lamp poles, and the three bands are called Buried Future, Withering Youth, and Unprotected Sex. On the trip back down State, the young woman walking in front of me was wearing some kind of leggings under her mini skirt, I'm sure made from some extremely long polymer substance, but that looked like flat black rubber. It was all entirely too punk rock, even for me.

Happy New Year Everybody

Isn't there some type of superstition that as your New Year's Day goes, so goes the rest of your year? (maybe I made it up ...)

If that's true, I think I'll have a pretty good year - I cooked a brunch for a lot of people - 39 in 2 seatings - and everything went pretty much the way I planned it. Except the clean up. That dragged on for what seemed like forever.

I made shirred eggs, baked in little dishes with a splash of cream, and grated cheese (it was Beemster aged Gouda, that I swear said made in WI on the package, but I can't find proof online right now). Even cold, which was how I ate mine, they had this wonderful flavor - I am sure it was the cream.

There were hash browned potatoes - I boil the potatoes the day before, chill overnight, then grate and fry them in a combo of olive oil and [salted] butter - works a dream for a big crowd.

I sort invented what I called black-eyed pea-laf - the recipe is from Joy of Cooking, for hoppin' John, but I made it vegetarian, with veggie broth instead of chicken, and chopped kale instead of bacon, and added a topping of buttered crumbs, a bit like cassoulet.

I made cranberry filled cimmy buns - from Gourmet, Nov. 2001 - isn't it funny how certain Gourmets have a ton of good recipes and you use them over and over, while you never make a thing from others.

I put out a ham, from Nueske's, and there was bread for toast, juice, and fruit.

I didn't really finish cleaning up until almost 5:00 p.m. - including mopping up the entry way at my house, since it was so disgusting from everyone in & out last night in muck and snow - I think I should get into PJs now and watch a movie on DVD and drink champagne - or maybe go out and see a movie ...

happy new year!

"Should we talk about the weather?"

In the words of the R.E.M. song, talk about the weather is superficial party chatter, but what else is there? (and I also just found out - shouldn't be a surprise, I guess - that I always loved the ease of simply Googling a song lyric, and now all the sites that provide lyrics are selling you ringtones to stay afloat).

Anyways, here in WI, on Friday night and all day Saturday, it was in the 40s and we got rain on top of 2 feet of snow. It was disgusting - my basement leaked, and all the high white snow banks turned grey. There was billowing fog, and I was worried about my kids, flying back from CA.

Last night I looked out the window before I went to bed, and the rain had changed to snow, and there was about an inch of new flakes covering the nasty grey. From a high of 44°, the temperature dropped to 22° overnight.

Probably the worst part, though, is how exhausting all these rapid weather changes are, to me anyways. It's like going through entire winter, freeze to thaw, and then doing it all over again (I know, I was kvetching about this already).

But also, superstitious as I am, and especially with the kids traveling, it's also all about wondering just how weird it's really gonna get - what could happen next? The power was out all up and down one of the major thoroughfares in Madison yesterday morning - no banking, grocery shopping or latte sipping could be done. And I never heard for sure, but it must've been weather related. People were stranded in airports all over the country. And today, my iPhone didn't work - AT&Ts network was out.

It's creeping me out. Still, the sun on new snow this morning was certainly a comfort - looked just how WI in winter's sposed to. Kinda like this walk for coffee on Christmas morning, back in our last winter.

Pavlova for Christmas

Last year for dessert for Christmas dinner, I made real Christmas pudding, steamed for hours & hours, and flamed (though I did use the "substitute butter" option, rather than suet - cow-based fat is cow-based fat, right?).

So this year, since my best girlfriend Rach has gone gluten free, I made a Pavlova, or Schaum Tart, or kiss tart Rach's mom's dessert - meringue with fruit & cream - I bought kiwi and banana and pineapple, but the pineapple was not ripe enough yet.

I made a lemon & tangerine curd, and layered that in the tart with chunks of kiwi & banana.

We didn't get a tree this year; instead I got out my mom's lite brite tree - ceramic, lights up with a 60-watt bulb.

The rest of dinner was:
Heidi's onion dip (I didn't have enough sour cream & Greek yogurt, so I used mayo and ricotta to make enough white stuff to go with the onions) with carrots, celery, peppers, and beauty-heart radishes, and corn chips
Eye of round beef roast, browned in garlic, then just roasted in a hot oven
sweet sour purple cabbage with apples, from Waitrose; their last year's Christmas lunch
roasted red potatoes, from my CSA box
the kiss tart
a tray of cookies

After everyone went home, I lit the menorah, had the last [large!] glass of wine from the 2nd opened bottle, and cleaned up while running through the "Cs" in my iPod - which got me to Jerry Garcia's Cats Down Under the Stars. The only version I had was by The Dead, remnants of the Grateful Dead, with Warren Haynes singing.

So I started trying to find free online with Jerry - it was harder than expected, disappointing, tho I listened to Mason's Children, but mostly found later JGB recordings, no Jerry. And, remember that large glass of wine - I woke from sleeping on the couch at 3:41 a.m., with only the vaguest recollection of what I had written - I had to turn on the computer this morning to find out. I was especially curious as to what I'd done with the pictures. Turned out I had edited and re-named them and filed them as I normally do, but no real great ones in the bunch. And the desktop was littered with downloads of JGB.

Here's a little slide show of pix; a little disappointing. And, what's really disappointing is the weather - snow turned to rain last night, and now there a crusty layer of icey yuck out there - I salted, and need to go shovel now.

The Christmas stollen that ate New York

I decided to make stollen, German Christmas coffee cake, because it used to be in the goodie boxes my grandmother sent us. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe, because it's the most like what my grandmother used to send (actually, I am pretty sure the Joy recipe IS the recipe she used). I had a vague recollection that the last time I made it (1988? Al's first Christmas) that it made a lot, and I flirted briefly with the notion of making only half.

But, I thought, oh it's Christmas be lavish - make the whole batch. So, I ended up with S T O L L E N - a LOT of it. I only sugared one, figuring I'd need to freeze the other.

The house smells really Christmas-y - too bad it's just about time to head out and shovel more snow.

Snow, snow, and more snow

We got a foot of snow Friday morning, and another 4 or so yesterday. I feel like all I've been doing is shoveling, and struggling to finish grading my students' final papers. My renter is in Texas, so I have two houses to shovel. And this morning, it has turned bitter cold; I had to take Kaylah to work at the mall at 6:45, and it was barely light when I got back. I've been taking iPhone pictures of the snow.

Oddly satisfying

This week, I've been using up party leftovers - starting with simply eating stuff like cocktail meatballs and wienies in poppin' dough for lunch - and proceeding to poppin' dough pizza topped with the canned pizza sauce I bought to go with the stromboli, that we ate on Sunday night, late for supper, after I packed cookie boxes all afternoon (and it was a different climate back then - rain).

Monday, I think it was, I made a pasta with broccoli sauteed in white wine (several open bottles of wine left, of course), some pureed butternut squash (for the Cafe Flora-style Quesadillas, I used the necks of the squash, cubed and roasted; I baked the bulbs of the squashes at the same time and got about 1 1/2 cups of good puree), a little cream, and lots of parmesan cheese.

On Thursday, when everyone in Madison was in crazed snow warning phase (kinda like what my brother experienced in Seattle a few days before), though the foot of snow did not actually start falling until about 1:00 a.m. Friday morning, I had a women's group meeting at the house, and they had a lovely spread: Heidi's onion dip with chips and crackers and carrots, beauty heart radishes and a handful of grape tomatoes; hot artichoke dip with toasted pita triangles (both dips left from the party, but I added a little onto the volume of each); a torta, made from the last of the marinated goat cheese, ricotta, pesto and what was left in the jar of juliened sun-dried tomatoes; banana bread sandwiches with cream cheese; a fruit platter with the pomeganate I never put out; and of course, a cookie platter. Oh, yeah and a little baked Brie with cranberry chutney inside that puffed up quite nicely even after being stored in the fridge for almost a week, and looking dried out - I brushed it with water all over, to soften up the puff paste so it could really puff. I took most of the food over Wednesday night, so I could bus on Thursday - and cleaned up when I went over to shovel on Friday.

Friday I made peanut noodles with a topping of crispy tofu with finely sliced leeks, radishes, celery and peppers, polishing off the last of the peanut dip, and the last of the dip veggies.

And somehow, I have also been able to construct platter after platter of cookies to take to events like the two tough meetings I had, the one Tuesday night that went way late, and I had to drive home in snow, and Wednesday, midday. On Saturday, I even sent off one last cookie box to John & Al's dad, so the kids don't have to cram cookies into their luggage when they head for California tomorrow.

OK, enough

Here in Wisconsin, we just had an entire winter in the course of about 10 days. We had a heavy snowfall, a snow day, then some fairly extreme cold. Over the weekend, we had the thaw - up to 46 degrees yesterday - and then rain. The rain stopped, the wind blew, and the temperature dropped to zero by this morning.

Yeah, heck, we've not only had one winter, we're right back into a second one now.

Omnivore's 100 game

[description from Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini]
The Omnivore's Hundred is an eclectic and entirely subjective list of 100 items that Andrew Wheeler, co-author of the British food blog Very Good Taste, thinks every omnivore should try at least once in his life.

[instructions from Andrew]
Here’s a chance for a little interactivity for all the bloggers out there. Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

I'm adding **, because my bolding is not showing up so well - there're 38 items out of the 100 I have never eaten, and only two - whole insects, and road kill - that I would never, ever try ...

**1. Venison - in a sandwich, lots of salt & pepper & mayo on ww bread, eaten with the fellow who shot the deer
2. Nettle tea
**3. Huevos rancheros - at the Plaza Cafe in Santa Fe
**4. Steak tartare - cannibal sandwiches in Milwaukee, WI
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
**7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp - does catfish count?
**9. Borscht - made by my Grandma Mollie
**10. Baba ghanoush
**11. Calamari
**12. Pho
**13. PB&J sandwich
**14. Aloo gobi
**15. Hot dog from a street cart
**16. Epoisses - maybe fake, though ...
17. Black truffle
**18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - cherry, gift from a little Italian man who shoveled snow off our walk in Pittsburgh
**19. Steamed pork buns
**20. Pistachio ice cream - straight from the carton, even
**21. Heirloom tomatoes
**22. Fresh wild berries - used to pick the blackberries in the vacant lot next to my house, and make a pie
**23. Foie gras
**24. Rice and beans - the first time, at the French Market in the Quarter in N.O.L.A.
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
**27. Dulce de leche - made bars from it, even
**28. Oysters
**29. Baklava - made by my father's grateful patients
**30. Bagna cauda
**31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
**34. Sauerkraut - best on a hot dog on the Staten Island ferry
**35. Root beer float - Michael's Frozen Custard
36. Cognac with a fat cigar - only without the fat cigar
**37. Clotted cream tea
**38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O - wine jelly, and plenty of cherry jello
**39. Gumbo
**40. Oxtail - tapa, at Jaleo
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
**44. Goat’s milk - more often in cheese than a glass, though
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
**47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
**52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
**54. Paneer
**55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
**56. Spaetzle
**57. Dirty gin martini - but I much prefer a twist of lemon
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine - I know what it is, though, and I watched Tony Bourdain eat it on TV
**60. Carob chips
**61. S’mores - these I make in the microwave all the time; even Nigel thinks marshmallows are a good guilty-pleasures component of the well-stocked pantry
**62. Sweetbreads - just a bite of my mom's
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
**66. Frogs’ legs
**67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake - all of the above
68. Haggis
**69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
**71. Gazpacho
**72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
**74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
**77. Hostess Fruit Pie - and Tastee Cakes, which are, or were, better
78. Snail
**79. Lapsang souchong
**80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
**82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
**87. Goulash
**88. Flowers - nasturtiums
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
**91. Spam
**92. Soft shell crab - at Long Beach Isalnd, my dad's favorite
93. Rose harissa - like Clotilde, I've had harissa, but not rose
**94. Catfish
**95. Mole poblano
**96. Bagel and lox
**97. Lobster Thermidor
**98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee - ? how did a coffee fiend such as myself miss this one?
**100. Snake - only from a can

Of cabbages, birthday cakes, & energy bars

Yesterday I was invited to two 50th birthday parties, both out in the country, almost 50 miles apart. One was for a woman who's been a teacher for both my kids, and has the same birthday as John - we always try to do something for their birthday, ever since they met when John was in 3rd grade, about 14 years ago. But I got invited to the other one - for the architect half of the architect & librarian gay couple that used to be the gay boys down the street, but are now the gay boys out in the country - first, and David (the librarian) asked me to make the cake.

So I went to that party - it was a surprise (that worked; I just found one of the little sparkly star confettis we threw at the b-day boy in the back hall), it was at this fabulous house, I had heard about it before, another gay couple, a huge old place beautifully restored, with museum quality art, slate roofs, 2 cases of champagne cooling on snow in the sun room, and real fireworks. It took two guys an hour and a half to set them up, and 10 minutes to shoot them off. We left right after the fireworks, before the real serious drinking set in.

David said make your favorite birthday cake, so I did - yellow cake, with white icing and a layer of raspberry jam in the middle, and lots of chocolate icing on top, with kind of a louche white swag of the white icing around the edges. In some respects the cake was just for show - it was definitely guy food, protein, not too much carbs - lots of nuts and & cheese & a few crackers when we got there, David tea-smoked a turkey, someone else brought chicken mirabella with prunes & olives, there was a ham and a big bowl of cold shrimp, something (crab salad?) in endive leaves, and a few grain & corn salads. But we lit the candles and sang, and I carved and passed, with plastic spoons when the forks ran out.

March is the month of birthdays, and my brother's doing another bike race for his birthday this year, the 327 Words Taco Truck Time Trial. I can't go, but today I made energy bars for him to give out, and they're all boxed to ship tomorrow.



And I finally wrote up the cole slaw recipe.

Hamentaschen & almond puddles

How did that happen? Today is Purim, Good Friday, and the last (maybe) big snow storm. And spring break. I took the day off, and among other things, made Hamentaschen, using the leftover filling from the Italian fig cookies I always make at Christmas, Cucidate, and some almond filling I had in a can from King Arthur flour - I had used it with raspberry jam to make my version of Heidi's mega scones for the yoga and tea in February.

Well, the fig ones are pretty much properly three-cornered, but the almond ones unfolded themselves in the oven, and are round ....

Just one of those cooking unpredictable-ness things that happen to even us experienced cooks ...

Now I guess I better start shoveling.

A life in food

I've always thought that the best food writing isn't really about food - it's using food as a way to talk about everything else.

Usually I'm disappointed in my ability to make talking about food BE talking about everything else - the problem with blog writing is that it's just not everyday that you have some great insights to relate. Yesterday in the car I was thinking that somehow, if I record what I cook and eat, maybe it will tell my life story - somehow -

This weekend the theme was cooking for kids, but not shopping a lot.

Friday Al and I spent two hours at the urgent care and got sent home with some vicodin, kind of a dilute vicodin w/tylenol, but still, not at all what we expected - which was antibiotics for his lingering flu - infection. We were there from something like 4:45 until almost 7:00, so I was not the only one having a cell phone call with a family member about what there was to eat. John got in from Milwaukee, and wanted to heat up the leftover bow tie pasta with roasted butternut squash & onions & goat cheese - on the phone, I was giving him directions on how to lightly dust the top with smoked paprika (smoked paprika with winter squash or sweet potatoes is a common Cafe Flora combo). Meanwhile, the woman a few seats over waiting with her sick mom was discussing ramen noodles with her husband, so I felt pretty la-de-dah, smoked paprika, isn't that nice. I ate the last of the pasta when I got home; Al had mac & cheese - I had made it last weekend and stored in the fridge for kids, and it came out perfect, BTW, the crumb topping was buttery and cripsy; John just did not want to wait.

On Saturday, I made eggs & toast for John and Matt - the 2nd sleeping lump under the blankets in the living room turned out to be Matt, not Al. I made a loaf of home made bread on Friday night, especially to use for eggs & toast toast. When John was younger he preferred Brownberry, he didn't like how I couldn't get the home made sliced thin enough, but he's old enough to like homemade now. I spent the morning while all the kids were sleeping reading library students' assignments, but that meant I could make a batch of granola, and I had some of that with an apple and Brown Cow maple yogurt for my breakfast. Al slept until 2:00, so he never had breakfast.

For Saturday dinner, I made beans & wieners - I had two cans of baked beans in the closet since way last summer, and that pack of little wienies from the freezer, that I bought in January, that probably made the Packers lose - so I mixed that all up, and baked it for a long time, and kids just dug in. The little wienies got all caramalized and had this wonderful puffy but chewey texture that (with apologies to Michael Pollan) I am sure only highly-processed foods can achieve. I ate mine while watching snow falling on cedars on DVD. [Monday I sealed up the DVD to go back to Netflix, and got in the car with a pile of stuff, my computer, a pile of books to go to the library, free samples of the power bars a la Heidi I think I want to send to my brother's 2008 bike race ... and now I can't find it - I hope I put it in the return at the library, and they will mail it back to Netflix for me]

Al has always liked the quick biscuit cimmy buns from Cooks Illustrated, so I made those Sunday morning. John had a spinach & Swiss cheese omelet with more of that whole wheat toast. I had a cimmy bun and a grapefruit, and Mark and I had an argument over the upstairs furnace, which, sometime in the night on Saturday, had stopped making his apartment warm.

Later Mark & I walked down for coffee at the closer Starbucks, and even later we walked to the Mexican restaurant (Texan really, it's run by a guy from Austin TX, who's just as much a musician as a chef). John called while we were walking to say he'd made it safely back to Milwaukee, and was pleased to hear that Mark & I had made up enough to go eat tacos. (although I'm sure that Mark was less than pleased at my rudeness; I spent a good chunk of our walk on the phone with John)

We're still a little prickly, but today the furnace is fixed and we have the house to ourselves, so eventually it'll all be OK. We mostly have differences of style, not substance - so not really supposed to count, but oh-so-annoying, especially in this last month of a long hard winter.

Ice and snow

I'm sitting at the computer listening to gobs of ice fall off the roof. It's nice and sunny out, 25 degrees and fair, and I have been thinking about going for a walk, but I am still feeling not quite up to par. I want to plan spring menus, shake off the winter doldrums, and cook lots of food for my kids, but in reality, Al's in Madison, but off at a movie, Mark & Ethan are running errands, and John is in Milwaukee, not scheduled to be back here until next weekend - in other words, even if I want to cook, not many eaters around. And I think John's not-girlfriend, who had gone home to Iowa, has finally got back to Milwaukee, because he hasn't been calling me so much since Wednesday.

I'd like to make a stirfry, with a sweet sour sauce from Mollie Katzen, and cashews; and mac & cheese, but Mark seems to want to go to a movie, and I'd sort of like to go the Steven Sondheim's Follies, at the Union Theater tonight.

So mostly I'm trying to make the most of my Saturday, and trying to figure out how.

After the flat last Friday, this Friday (yesterday) Al got the car stuck in the snow - about 3 blocks away, in front of my walking friend, Pat's, house - on a bad turn where people get stuck all the time. When Al called to tell me he was stuck, he only had to describe his position for about 10 seconds, and I knew exactly where he was. Brad, Pat's husband, and a passing runner helped, but even with 2 people digging and 3 people pushing, the front wheels of the front wheel drive car were stuck going down hill, so I had to call the auto club again for a tow. The big truck with the flashing lights turned out to be great dinner theater for Pat's and their visiting friends' kids - the only downside was that my stomach was still way too iffy for the cocktail or wine they offered while I waited. And I really didn't feel up to the salmon and green salad with beets and goat cheese either - not to mention the fact that I still have a gigantic bag of salad greens leftover from Monday's dinner, the majority of which is probably going to end up in the compost.

Here's snow pictures from last week's Saturday a.m. walk to the Willy St. Board retreat.

Too much to write about

I woke up half-sick on Sunday, and I'm only just starting to feel almost better - nasty symptoms, headache, vaguely queasy and not wanting food, but at the same getting that rumbly stomach that feels like it's going to eat itself if I don't, tired - the last two nights at about 10:15, I just had to immediately go to bed; do not pass go, do not read a book, just hit the pillow. I must be recovering - tonight after class, while I was waiting for the bus, a girl next to me opened her to-go cup of student union chili and it smelled good; a few hours earlier when I walked into the over the noon hour faculty meeting where someone was finishing off a salad with parmesan cheese, all I could do was remember how mom used to say it smelled like vomit, and try hard not to.

It was a bad sick, though, because I never really stopped doing anything - I had a dinner at the house on Monday, so I cooked all day Sunday, during the ice storm that deposited 3 inches of slush with 4? 5? 6? inches of snow on top - shoveled some of it, too, after a walk to the corner store for more flour.

During the day Monday, after shoveling that additional who knows how many inches of snow on top of the now-frozen slush, I worked at home, until the dinner. 10 people canceled and one got added, so all the food I had prepared for 23 was shared among only 14 ... It was nice to stay in, but I just did not feel that good - the high point was probably taking the two loaves of the Cook's Illustrated almost no knead bread out of the oven - they were perfect even though one of them was destined for the freezer. The low point was John calling saying he and the car'd just been in a little fender bender.

Tuesday I went out and voted for Obama. I guess I am still a little put off by the criticism that he's empty words, but I decided that I have been in way too many situations where someone in charge has carefully laid out all the cogent reasons why we can't do some very good idea - or at least why it will be so difficult - hell, I've been that person myself often enough. What's wrong with saying things that just make people feel good? Isn't that what a leader is supposed to do? He (or she) can hire others to get the hard things done. Worked for Regan didn't it?

I heard an NPR commentator, visiting British business scholar (I think, but I can't find it), talk about how you Americans are simply being unrealistic to expect to find a leader and a manager in a president, and that made sense -

Even the remnants of the Grateful Dead united for Obama (it was kind of like Phil Lesh & friends plus Bobby & Mickey) - on February 4th, they played a show at the Warfield in San Francisco, introduced by Barack himself [although I now understand that Obama was actually participating via videoconference, which explains how he could look out at a sea of Deadheads and say "young people like you" - he really wasn't looking out at all]. I have the show in my iPod now, thanks to the Internet Archive.

Skiing mini-break

We went up to da U.P. to ski - man, they have a lot of snow there.

We skied at a place called ABR, that is reputed to be some of the best XC skiing in the Midwest, and the rumour surely must be true - it was beautiful, the only problem was not enough time to ski a fraction of it.

We also got to check out two coffee bars, one apres ski, and the other avant de drive home - the before driving one was obviously the Christian coffee bar. Contemporary Christian music burbling along in the background, slogans everywhere, and 3 kids being home-schooled. It was nice and big, with plenty of tables to use your computer on the free WiFi. Oh, and they had this pale pink toilet paper that looked reddish when it got wet - unnerving ... We preferred the cluttered-with-magazines, wicker chairs and faux fiesta ware at the other place, without the big tables and the Christian overtones.

I tried to take pictures of the sunlight at the end of our ski day, with mixed success.



Today was one of those "aw, shit, why did I ever take 2 days off, I have too much to do" type back to work days, and tomorrow I am supposed to drive to Brookfield for a librarians' meeting, with 1 - 3 inches of snow in the forecast.

Snow Day Vegan Ginger Cupcakes

We're having a snow day in Madison - the snow started last night, and some things canceled, but the really heaviest snow started this morning, and it's still coming down. We shoveled about 4 inches before work, and just did about another 8, or who knows, 'cuz it drifted, after dinner.

The Madison Schools are closed; they even closed the University, at 3:30 - and Mark just told me that there were places where the snow was up to his knees on his walk home.

I came home about 2:00, and shoulda done some paperwork-type stuff I have hanging around - I'm supposed to write up a meeting I attended, close to 3 weeks ago, and I also should finish my forms for foster parenting. But I talked to John and he & Megan were enjoying their snow day, watching the Office on DVD, lying in bed drinking coffee and eating Milk Duds, so that inspired me - I ate some chocolate, drank coffee and watched a movie on DVD, Zach Braff's Last Kiss. It was a little too much of a combo of silly and intense - lots of scenes of people having earnest relationship conversations, and the music's not as good as Garden State. It was filmed partly in Madison, there was a big wedding at a fancy house out in Maple Bluff (might've even been the Governor's Mansion) but once the fun of looking for Madison scenes wore off, and I couldn't recognize any of the extras, I bailed.

I tried out a recipe for vegan ginger cupcakes, as an experiment for the next one-dish dinner. I used my favorite Mollie Katzen gingerbread, left out the egg, and used soy yogurt instead of dairy yogurt called for in the original. Rach and I talked about doing a drizzled frosting on these, but they sank a bit in the middle, so I made a fluffy frosting with vegan margarine & shortening and lemon juice. As many times as I have made this gingerbread, it still surprises me - I think there are too many acidic variables with yogurt, molasses, and the baking soda - sometimes it is the most easy to work with batter, sometimes it explodes (or sticks, or sinks).