I hope everyone had a good day yesterday, and has a great year starting next week ( Read more... )

From In the Bleak Midwinter

"...what can I give him, poor as a yam?"

I always consider it a minor victory to start a week with no dirty dishes in the sink.

(Of course, the only way we were able to accomplish this was by going out for dinner on Saturday night, but it's a minor victory anyway.)

I've listened to Loreena McKennitt's latest album a number of times, but mostly as background music while I was working. Last night, I sat down with the lyrics book and my iPod and really listened to it. My suspicions were confirmed: it's certainly a decent album but it's not her best. However, the brilliance of "Caravanserai" more than makes up ( Read more... )

[Along with comments on each course]

Amuse-bouche
Warm spiced apple gelée with parmesan crisp
[Tastes like fall on a spoon, but probably veers a little sweet as an opener. I'm hoping the Parmigiano-Reggiano keeps it from being too dessert-like.]

StarterHomemade pâté with frisée salad ( Read more... )

In a comment on my last post, I mentioned that I'm interested in trying to reproduce the sesame "noodles" we had at wd~50 on my birthday, using the methylcellulose I bought. I thought it would be great to be able to reproduce the whole dish, but I didn't know how to make the clarified miso "consommé." Fortuitously, now I do.

The other day, I finally got around to playing with the sodium alginate and calcium chloride my Dad ordered from the US. I made jasmine tea ravioli and caviar. It was a really cool experience, though it took a bit of practice to get the shape right and to figure out how long it needed to set so it wasn't too fragile and wasn't too gummy ( Read more... )

Once again, we have just returned from New York and a visit with the always lovely and hospitable villagechick and her whirling dervish of a husband. It was definitely more of a gastro-tourism trip than a touristy tourism trip this time: we ate at a whole bunch of different restaurants, most of them excellent. The service was occasionally spotty (yes, I'm ( Read more... )

From this Language Log post: "Vegansexuals are people who do not eat any meat or animal products, and who choose not to be sexually intimate with non-vegan partners whose bodies, they say, are made up of dead animals."

I just hit 30 random ways to a happier life, referred from Wil Wheaton's blog, and I'm just about to print off the list and tack it on my bulletin board. (Or maybe, to save on paper, I'll just bookmark it. But I don't really look at my bookmarks that often ( Read more... )