Moonie, awesome news about the exam. Fingers crossed that the prof decides to exempt you from the final, because that would be super-awesome.
tarra, it’s not hard to be always making yummy stuff when the people in my life are constantly encouraging me to keep making more. I guess I’m lucky to have surrounded myself with hungry people and foodies (and even some hungry foodies).
That is all I managed to retain. Hugs and kisses, to be applied as needed. Will be back once I’ve found brains and coffee.
Dotty, you might try limiting liquids before bedtime to encourage HRH going through the night dry. Her body may not be mature enough yet to prevent night time urination, though.
Yay, nava! Never stop learning. It keeps you young!
boofae, the tat is awesome. It reminds me of the hose I lusted for when I was young that had lovely designs woven in at the ankle.
moonie, yay on not missing the exam and the almost A.
Oh, oh, the onslaught is starting early this morning. Off to do work.
I love spring and the flowers and the smell of fresh cut grass but apparently they are out to get me.
Big storms moving through my area today and they are already predicting tornadoes for this afternoon. I don’t think I can ever remember the weather people predicting tornadoes before the storms got here. I mean they started telling us last night we might have tornadoes today.
Keeping my fingers crossed for Moonie that there is a big fat solid A in your future!
I think it is wonderful Nava is going to travel!! Are you the picture taking type? I don’t get out of Iowa much and would love it if you would share pictures once you get there and get settled and such. Heck, you’re in Spain now right? I would love pictures of that!
I am very much enjoying the MMP have I mentioned that yet? After all of these years I’m feeling a bit of belonging again.
Well, I tried the brown arborio rice to make risotto last night. And it didn’t go so well. The brown rice takes a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally long time. Like I cooked it for an hour, adding more than 6 cups of liquid (for 3/4 cup of rice) and it was still crunchy. Not the pleasant, risotto-should-be-al-dente texture, but actually crunchy. Edible, and with good flavor, but crunchy. Oh well. We’ll get whole grains some other way and use white rice for risotto.
Back to the ethnic restaurant reviews. Note that these are based on sample sizes of one restaurant a piece so they certainly aren’t the definitive guide to any of these cultures’ cuisines!
Kurdish - similar to other Middle Eastern cuisines including tebouleh, lots of yogurt, rice, feta, the use of eggplant, etc. (And if you haven’t had any type of Middle Eastern food, I definitely recommend looking for a Turkish or other Middle Eastern restaurant! Good stuff!) Their specialty is a yogurt-chicken-lemon soup called dowjic, which KT loved. I had some of their tabouleh, which was very good. We both got different kinds of ground-meat-filled dumplings. KT had ones that had a bulgar wheat dough on the outside, and I tried some with a rice-based dough. I really liked the lightness of the rice and the crunch of the fried outside. He liked the heavier wheat dough better. We’ve only made it there once when they were opened (after about 5 failed attempts), but we’ll definitely be going back.
Not here, but at home, there was a Middle Eastern restaurant that had lavash bread that poofed amazingly high. It’s sort of like pita in that it’s two layers of bread with nothing in the middle, but the way they cooked it, the steam would poof up the top so it was probably 8" high - all air. You have to make a hole in it to let out all the steam and then eat it with yogurt sauce. Really good. They had great food there too, but I don’t really remember it well enough to describe right now. But grilled meats with various yogurt-based sauces are common.
Gotta run to meet our new chief marketing officer. Woo.
Well, most of my pics are in “storage” in the external HD, as I cleaned up the laptop recently, but you can see some old pics here.
There’s some from previous trips (Philadelphia in 1997, when I had a stopover in a flight and took advantage of it to go downtown, thinking I might never be able to visit it again… I lived there in 2003; a path near my flat in Spain two years ago; Mexican pyramids in 2003). Some from the nephews, pretty old. A recentish bunch from Scotland, where I worked for a year (4-2008 to 3-2009). And some from a year ago, of a flat in Spain where I lodged for a week-long job: Versailles meets a Chinese dollar store.
I currently have a mild case of the grr, as every time I Nephew-sit. His parental units have so many rules (and they’ve relaxed a bit since he started school) that he just doesn’t know what’s important and what isn’t. Wouldn’t it be better to have less rules but important ones? I realize being his aunt and godmother isn’t the same as being his mom, but heck, is “keep your shirt tucked in” as important as “don’t eat food that’s fallen onto the sidewalk”? Really? Other than that, it’s been a cool 3 hours. We’ve done LOTS of stuff, like go to the bathroom in two different bars (one for him, one for me, in Navarra stores have to let people use the bathroom by law), get wet drinking from a fountain and examine on what surfaces can a little yellow plastic tallship stand on its own.
Had to go downtown to library job today at noon. Got the kids off to school (TH is out of town) and went to get dressed to go downtown. Laid down on bed. Fell asleep for 4 hours. Feel like hell. Not going downtown.
Off to lay around some more. Can’t see doctor until Tuesday. MUST work as RN tomorrow and Friday. :dubious: :eek:
TTFN. Hope all are having a better day than I am. Feel like I felt when I had pneumonia. No fever or cough or vomiting, so doubt it’s H1N1. Gah.
Ok, read this much: Taxi, you need arborio rice to make the best risotto. Nava–Nephew would benefit from fewer rules. I hate when kids are hampered by petty rules. What matters more: enjoying the day at the park or having him look tidy all the time? Grrrr. Ok, that made me tired… Ack!
You can keep children tidy? Amazing! How?
Agree about the rules. Poor kid.
Feel better, rigs. taxi, I think I want you to cook for me. Just, say, three times a week.
Had a good night, and therefore have washed dishes and made chicken ragu and a curry and hung around on the internet. Mr. Lissar’s home late again, but Attacks Husband should be here by dinnertime.
Going cross-eyed from reading documentation. Argh. However, there is cake in 20 minutes to say farewell to a coworker, so I’m counting on the sugar high to propel me through the last couple of hours.
rigs, hope you feel better soon. What’s up with not being able to see a doc before Tuesday, though? Surely there must be a way to see someone sooner than that, even if it means a walk-in clinic or being handed off to a resident or something?
taxi, the problem with using brown rice for risotto is that it doesn’t release starch quite as readily as white rice, so you don’t get the traditional “creamy” texture that you need in risotto, and it also doesn’t soak up liquid quite as quickly, which is why it takes longer to cook even by standard method… hence the undercooked, not-so-creamy risotto. Besides, some things in this world just aren’t meant to be healthy… and risotto, IMO, is one of those things (other items on this list include brownies, creme brulee and eggs benedict).
Chirp you go to the Iowa state fair? I still say Iowa has the funnest state fair. It’s food-on-a-stick heaven! I say you go this year and start a MMP all about the food-on-a-stick. I like the concept of food-on-a-stick. Can y’all tell?
Speakin’ of kids with way too many rules, I have a story. See, I have this friend and when her kids (two girls) were small (one’s graduating college this year and the other is a sophomore) my friend was a fanatic about keepin’ both of ‘em dressed up all girly and never gettin’ dirty. Well, she made a mistake. She allowed me to take the girls out for an afternoon. There they were all frilly dressed and pristine. They wanted to go to McD’s and the park. Thus we did. Needless to say they were filthy but grinnin’ from ear to ear and exhausted when I took 'em home. My friend started to give me hell but I asked her when was the last time she saw her kids that happy and exhausted. She had to admit I had a point. From that point on, when they were with me, they were dressed to have fun and be kids.
I am in a comfort food mood. Dindin shall be hamburger steak and onion gravy, rice and green beans. It just sounds good today.
Sounds yummy, Swampy! My neighbor gave me some green beans out of his garden. I’m gonna cook them up soon, with a ham hock and onion. Tonight will be ribeye steaks and baked NOT and sallit. I’m also cooking an extra to make philly cheesesteaks for another meal.
I’m glad y’all had a good time, Nava!
Sending chicken soup through the cup holder for rigs.
Y’all will be pleased to know that I have reupped. It occured to me just a bit ago to check up on my subscription. It was due to end in one week! :eek: I would not have been able to bear the shame of not havin’ “Charter Member” up under my name.
Yeah, I agree on everything not needing to be healthy - we’re HUGE brownie fans and dessert fans in general and never go a day without dessert - but we like brown rice and I figured I’d give it a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But yeah, you hit the nail on the head with the problems.
LiLi wants ME to cook for HER? But… but… I want YOU to come cook for ME!
Besides, I ended up with crunchy risotto. You don’t want that, do you? You’re better off sticking with having **Muppet **bring you bbq.
Although tonight is cannelloni that I made a couple weeks ago and stuck in the freezer. Those I know are good.
Anyway, to finish up my ethnic food review for Moonie, authentic Chinese food does not include General Tso’s chicken, chow mein, or really anything that we think of as takeout Chinese. As a disclaimer, let me first say that China is a HUGE country with very varied cuisine. Like the U.S. has a whole bunch of different styles of cooking and you really can’t categorize them into “American” food. So I’m just talking about one restaurant that we’ve been to, supplemented by knowledge from Chinese friends and Food Network shows.
Chinese cooking uses what’s available, and that often means every part of the animal. If there’s an Asian grocery store near you, go check it out - it’s an experience. Chicken heads and whole (live) fish and pigs’ ears and feet and various animals’ tongues. And really great produce, usually cheaper than the “regular” supermarket. And a whole host of snack foods that you’ve never even dreamed of.
The restaurant near here has some pork that is what we would cut into bacon, but they’d sliced it differently (I can’t really explain how… I’m not sure what they did, but it was sliced thin but different from bacon.) and stir fried with peppers and cabbage. Unlike most takeout Chinese food, it did not have a corn-starch-based sauce, just the juices that came out of the ingredients. They also have dishes like homestyle gizzards, halibut stewed in wild chili sauce, stewed beef oxtail and tongue, and sea cucumber with scallion sauce. (We haven’t tried any of those. I should note at this point that I’m not that adventurous an eater and I stuck with the lo mein, but I enjoy learning about other culture’s cuisines even if I won’t try them. I’m a big Bizarre Foodsfan. But I wouldn’t eat 99% of what Andrew eats on that show.)
Anyway, that’s my very limited knowledge. But get out there and try some ethnic restaurants! There’s amazing food out there in flavor combinations that you’ve never thought of. And it’s great on a college student’s budget 'cause it usually is cheap and filling!
(And anyone else who likes ethnic food should definitely chime in with what you’ve tried. I need to know what else I want to try someday! Like Peruvian guinea pig!)
Ah, time was when I would do just that. But now I work in same day surgery: the only docs I see all day are surgeons (who know bupkus about pneumonia) and anesthesiologists (ditto).
I have to wait until Tuesday because that’s the next available appt. Plus, I work on Th and Friday, the office is closed the weekend, and he’s not in my office on Mondays. Yes, I could go to an Urgent Care, but it’s not urgent and I don’t have the money to pay Urgent Care. I cannot take the time off of work. I took today because it was only going to be 3 hours at the library anyway.
After Friday, I don’t work again until Wednesday, so it’s a matter of getting through 2 shifts.
And if that isn’t enough detail, here’s some more: I dunno if this is pneumonia or “withdrawal” off Lexapro (my Rx ran out and the doc just filled it–after 2 weeks of playing phone tag etc) or if it’s depression (it doesn’t feel like that kind of fatigue, but I could be wrong). I have restarted my Lexapro as of today, so we’ll see (it takes a few days/weeks to notice a change). IOW, I can hang in there until Tuesday.
Sorry to bore all of you. Ta for the chicken soup–it was delicious, although it was a tad messy…
In other news, I am not real adventurous re “ethnic” foods, but alternatively sliced bacon just sounds good. Peruvian guinea pig, not so much. I read somewhere that fortune cookies are unknown in China–the actual cookie, the fortune part and the lucky numbers, too.
Back from Bad Chinese dinner. **swampy **- I reupped last week for the same reason!
I woke up around three with a bit of gastrointestinal distress. I haven’t been back to sleep since then, except for the nap I grabbed during training this afternoon. I didn’t feel sick, but my system wanted to empty itself. I’m fine now. Tired, but fine.
Plans for the evening include finishing the last cap. Early bedtime, too, I hope.
Bad crowned now infected tooth will be coming out soon, as will the wisdom tooth (I have two, soon to be one, extras up top) behind it which is partially erupted. No fun, but also the only thing I can afford to do.
sigh
All this food talk is making me hungry. Time to go see what I can do about that.
I guess I’m lucky to have surrounded myself with hungry people and foodies (and even some hungry foodies).
You’re better off sticking with having **Muppet **bring you bbq.