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End of an era

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:46:49 GMT

Getting ready to head in for what is probably my last day at this job, after 9 years. My official last day is next Wednesday; however, as part of a consolidation of all IBM facilities into one area, most of my division is being moved from Lexington (Massachusetts, about a half-hour from Boston) to Littleton (also Massachusetts, about an hour from Boston) tomorrow. That means that everything has to be packed up by 5pm today, everyone works from home tomorrow, then on Monday they go into the new building to start unpacking. I don't see any point in going in to the new office for two days, so I'm just getting all of my stuff out of there today. Then I'll go in on Wednesday for my exit interview, and then have a goodbye lunch with all of my friends.

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No-knead bread = awesome

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:56:48 GMT

We made no-knead bread for the first time yesterday. It was just as easy as all of the articles said, and just as delicious. Shatteringly crisp crust, chewy middle--I may never buy bread again.

Notes for next time: buy some non-terrycloth kitchen towels for the final rise--I ended up using paper towels and a lot of flour, so some of the flour ended up on the outside of the crust, and the loaf wasn't as pretty as it could have been. Also there was flour everywhere.

For other people who want to try: the necessary ingredients are flour, instant yeast, a kitchen towel as above, and a dutch oven or other 5-qt container with a lid that can survive in a 450 degree oven. Also, you need to be available 12 hours, 3 hours, and 1 hour before you want the bread, though I've also seen articles suggesting that you can speed up the final rise if you want to do this on a work night.

You can see the method that I used at Steamy Kitchen (with bonus pictures of a cute 4-year-old doing the initial assembly), and one that I haven't yet tried with shorter proofing times (but no cute kids) at the kitchn.

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I need a reading-and-cooking icon, don't I?

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:54:34 GMT

More cooking this weekend: I made chili black bean sauce tofu with carrots, turnips, mustard greens, and zucchini last night, somewhat adapted from this. It was awesome. I'd never used black bean sauce with chili before, and it was delicious and spicy, and the vegetables all worked very well. I was especially impressed with the turnips, and will have to look for more recipes that use them.

This morning I made aebleskiver, because Richard's mother bought me an aebleskiver pan as a present. They were delicious--fluffy and light and cardamom-y. They're a bit annoying to make, because the pan only makes 7 at a time and that's approximately one serving. We split the first pan's worth, and then each had one batch, which used up the half-recipe that I made. The book suggested that you keep batches warm in the oven while making more, but that seems awkward. It wasn't bad for two people, but I'd hate to try to make them for a crowd.

I started reading The Lightning Thief after seeing a trailer for the movie recently. It's ok so far, though the scenes where Percy is putting up with his awful stepfather were ruined for me by my wondering why on earth his mother ever stayed with someone like that. Perhaps all will be explained later.

I just finished a manga series called Hana Kimi, about a girl who disguises herself as a boy to attend an all-male high school so that she can meet an athlete she hero-worships. It was cute and sweet, and the ending seemed kind of abrupt, though perhaps not to the people who spent 8 years getting there, as opposed to my 5 or 6 months.

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Triumph!

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:08:18 GMT

It turns out that the fruit I used yesterday was a "sweet lime." Not that that explains the soapiness and general lack of flavor, but when I used an actual Meyer lemon to make tart filling tonight, the result was completely delicious. I'm very happy.

(There's no picture because it's not terribly pretty--I still haven't figured out the trick of making my pie crusts look good.)

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How can a lemon taste like soap?

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:16:36 GMT

On Sunday, I made a lemon tart that I had to throw away, because the filling tasted like soap. I thought that it was because the food processor in which I'd made the filling hadn't been sufficiently rinsed after its last washing. However, I just tried again, and the same thing almost happened.

This recipe uses a whole Meyer lemon. You slice it thinly, remove the seeds, then grind it up with sugar, and then add butter and eggs. I made it once before, and it was completely delicious. Then, on Sunday, soap. I was trying again tonight, because I had another Meyer lemon that I'd bought with the previous one, and I noticed while I was slicing it that it didn't smell very lemony, and it did smell a bit soapy. So I tasted a bit. Yes, that was the soapy taste. Richard confirmed it.

I'm trying to figure out what to do next. I'm not going to make the tart with this--hopefully my partially baked pie crust will keep until tomorrow. But how does something like this happen? What would make a lemon taste like soap?

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Quiet day

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:00:36 GMT

I am celebrating my birthday by cooking. Right now, ricotta pancakes are almost done, and the lemon curd that I made an hour ago is in the refrigerator, waiting for them. Lemon curd turns out to be very easy--I don't think I'll ever buy any again.

Later today: Not Derby Pie, scallion pancakes, and hot and sour soup.

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It's made with carbon!

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:24:48 GMT

This may be the silliest credit card offer I've ever seen. It's for an exclusive Visa Black Card--but this one isn't "just another piece of plastic." Because it's made with carbon!

Oh, and the annual fee is only $495. How can I resist?

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Home again

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:04:00 GMT

Getting out of Montreal seemed like it wasn't going to be possible at first, but we eventually found the secret path back, and after that it wasn't too bad. I'll post more about Worldcon once I've reconstructed my notes.

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Notes from Worldcon, part 1

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:39:21 GMT

Montreal is lovely, at least, the bit of it that I've seen.

( in which I am long-winded )

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Good news and bad news

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:14:31 GMT

The good: I have 4 tickets to the Steeleye Span concert, purchased when they went on sale this morning through the Somerville Theatre.

The bad: they're not very good seats. Apparently the event went on sale some time ago at www.worldmusic.org, and all of the good seats have either been sold or are reserved for their members. I didn't want to buy a membership and then discover that nothing was left anyway, so I didn't do that. Grrrrr.

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Last call for Steeleye Span tickets

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:03:01 GMT

Tomorrow morning I'll be buying tickets for the Steeleye Span concert at the Somerville Theatre on September 19 for me, mathhobbit, merrylg, and aleph_1.

Anybody else?

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Steeleye Span Concert at the Somerville Theatre!

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:32:56 GMT

Woohoo!

I just happened to notice that Steeleye Span will be playing at the Somerville Theatre on September 19. Who wants to go?

If you haven't heard of them, (not too surprising, they were never incredibly popular, even though they've been around for OMG forty years!), a lot of their music can be found on YouTube. This is their one big hit, "All Around My Hat", from 1975.

Their lineup has changed many times over the years, and the sound as well, but they're always a lot of fun to see live.

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A brief update

Tue, 19 May 2009 02:37:32 GMT

Food successes from the weekend: haddock filets coated with herbes de provence and fresh breadcrumbs, excellent spicy fried chicken, and very good buttermilk biscuits. (There were vegetables, too, but steamed spinach, zucchini, and broccoli aren't all that exciting.)

The rhubarb pie failure mode this time was because I didn't put enough water in the dough, though I used the maximum amount in the recipe--4 tablespoons. So it kind of fell apart. It's still reasonably tasty, though.

I'm most of the way through The Gone-Away World, as recommended by firstfrost. It's just as good as she says. Today, while I was reading, I got to a point where something very strange happened. Just as I was thinking, "hey, maybe it's because x...", the narrator thought the same thing, and dismissed it. I love it when the characters actually think of wild hypotheses! It's so great!

I went to the Funimation website to try to watch some episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and discovered that there's a second Gunslinger Girl series! woohoo! So I watched an episode, and it was great. Details later, if anyone's interested.

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Today's lesson

Sun, 10 May 2009 21:25:15 GMT

What I learned today: using soft flour in a free-form pie (the kind where you plop the filling in the middle of a circle of crust and then fold the crust up around it) means that the whole crust will develop leaks and blackened pie juice will end up everywhere. It's kind of sad looking. The pie will probably be ok, but all of that lovely juice is gone forever. Sigh. I should have remembered that this worked perfectly well with all-purpose flour the last time I tried it, but I had so many pie crust failures in the last six months that I used the soft flour by default.

In other news, I just finished a vampires-in-boarding-school novel called Evernight. Not great. The first half really dragged, and then the first-person narrator suddenly revealed that she knew a lot more about what was going on than had been implied--I really dislike it when the first-person narrator conveniently doesn't think about a lot of things during the beginning of the story. I think the only time that worked was in Nine Princes in Amber, because amnesia is a valid excuse.

I will probably stick with the manga Vampire Knight for my teen-age vampire fix from now on. It's entertaining, and even though it's completely absurd it still feels more believable than Evernight.

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