Mishalak

Dinner, or perhaps supper, today was a nice filet of Pacific Cod. Patted dry, sprinkled with salt, and instead of the usual pepper alone, freshly ground coriander and cumin with the pepper much reduced. Once the fish showed a bit of moisture it was dredged in flour and then sauteed in a small skillet using sesame oil. What an improvement over the usual use of pepper alone! The mixture, however, did not improve on steamed broccoli. Perhaps next time I shall try some other herb with my veg.

Reading the free section of Craigslist today I saw the above ad. Am I a side character in an Ursula Vernon story? Will I shortly be called upon to play the villain for whoever adopts the wombat?

Well, cold virus, welcome to my body. Settle right in while I set my immune system to "murderize". Oh, you wanted to just pass through? I think not. I will give you zero opportunity to escape. You picked the wrong villain to annoy, buddy.

I took my foxtail rosemary outside yesterday. It liked my porch well enough to bloom, but it needs the sun.

Having tried, and failed, to keep rosemary going over the winter in the past I am pleased it is so happy. Next winter perhaps it will be my Christmas tree. Though the porch is best for it. Cool temperatures and morning sun.

( Ginormous Picture Under the Cut )

Well my taxes are done. I think this may be the earliest date I have ever done my taxes by. Now all I need to do is finish my FAFSA thing and my homework and I will be a responsible adult.

I just looked up my final grade for my Intro to Business class. I am… pleased. (I do not think I will do so well in my other classes, but just let me savor this one.)

R– has a cold today and when I called to see how she felt she did not call off chore day. I was nonplussed when I arrived at her house and found her sniffling like a sort of Rhinovirus Mary. Eventually the emotion I settled on was annoyed with a side of slightly freaked out. Possibly because she gets mild colds she does not understand what a major thing it is to me to get sick. She even wanted to come over to my house tonight. Fortunately when she asked I looked like Megamind facing down an enraged superhero and said, “Ummmm” in a terrified way that she was able to correctly interpret as “please do not come” without me having to actually figure out how to say those words.

I hope I did not upset her, but gosh it would be nice to avoid having a cold during the penultimate week of my college semester.

My family is going to be out of town on Christmas so I am, for only the second time in my life, going to have to figure out what to do with myself for the holiday without them. The previous time I had plans that came to naught when I became ill and thus spent Christmas alone with a cold in a chilly basement room. I trust there will be no repeat of that disaster, at least.

My very good friend L— thinks that she will do a Christmas eve dinner and I can contribute some dishes and help her cook so I think that determines what I shall do on the eve. I should inquire of her if she likes chestnuts. If so I could lay in a supply. But there shall certainly be plum pudding this year as I like it and so I should get ready to make one very soon.

The day itself will still be open. My family never did much of anything on Christmas day except for church and I am not one for that. Perhaps I should organize some sort of jolly Wassail party where we drink homebrewed Christmas ale or mulled hard cider.

I think I am possibly not a science fiction fan. I like reading fantasy and I love socializing (the heavens know how I love to talk), but I think I am done with organized fandom. I am just not suited to clubs and conventions because of the personalities they bring in. I am going to stay friends with my friends, but I am done with going to mass events.

The unfortunate way it came out was bad, but it was true. I no longer wish to be part of the Denver Area SF Assocition.

I have just just started testing Experiment 241. I had allowed the yellow summer squash in my garden to get too old to simply stir-fry and eat so I conceived that I would try making a soup out of two of them.

500 g (1 pound-ish) of onions
vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 over the hill yellow summer squash
2 tablespoons more of butter, oil, or lard
3 cloves of garlic
1 liter (4 cups) vegetable broth

First I started as nearly every soup should start: by frying onions. I cut up the equivalent of about four medium onions into nice strips and put them into my cast iron dutch oven greased and then a tablespoon of butter scattered over them. Then into a 200°C (400°F) oven with the lid on. 20 minutes later I stirred the onion and cracked the lid. Repeated stirring every 20 minutes for another hour until a nice fond was starting to develop. Then onto a medium-medium high burner to finish making it the brown of a beer bottle in sunlight. Removed the onion after deglazing with a little left over mead and yeast left at the bottom of a bottle.

While the onion was still cooking in the oven I peeled off the hard skin and then I cut each fruit in half. A nice sharp spoon (I keep one sharpened for just this sort of thing) made short work of seeding each one and I reserved the seeds later experimentation. Then I chopped the thin bit of flesh into 2 cm squares (not terribly precisely). Once the pot was free I put in about a tablespoon of oil and browned one of the squashes in it without crowding the bottom of the dutch oven. Deglazed with water and then repeated with the second half, throwing the minced garlic in for the last 30 seconds. Then everything including the broth went in my blender. Blended on high until smooth. It tastes pretty good already, but it needs spices of some sort... Thyme? Cumin? Parsley?