yikes...

the deadlines, they come... i am applying to PhD programs and i am starting to freak out - the first deadline is friday ... i don't feel prepared at all, even though my application is mostly done and i am getting all sorts of department help ... still super freaked out...

here's hopin' they love me...

Crumpets!

So I made my first foray into crumpet -making today. The Flock tasters have given their stamp of approval, but I am not satisfied. I used this recipe here. I don't know if the recipe is what needs tweaking, due to high altitude, or my technique needs work, but I am not happy with the centers - I think they are not bubbly and firm enough. Also, I would like them with less of a yeasty taste, but that is me being picky. I have a few more variations that I want to try, so we will see how the next batch goes, but for now the Flock is happy...

so, life gets in the way...

I really meant to post these earlier, but school happened and life happened. so anyway, pictures...[gallery]

So, applebutter...

The applebutter experiment was a rousing success. I love that I was able to make it in the slow cooker. And the applebutter aficionado in the house says that it tastes like his favorite store-bought brand - a ringing endorsement, to be sure. Photos of the finished product need work, maybe the batch I do on Saturday will photograph better than this batch did.So, the recipe...

2.5 kilos apples, cored and finely chopped (I ran them through the food processor)

800 g raw sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

Place the apples in a slow cooker. In a bowl, mix the sugar, spices and salt. Pour the mixture over the apples in the slow cooker and mix well. Cover and cook on high 1 hour. Reduce heat to low and cook 9 to 11 hours, (mine took about 10) stirring occasionally, until the mixture is thickened and dark brown. Uncover and continue cooking on low 1 hour. During the last hour, blend it smooth with an immersion blender. Ladle into sterilized jars. Boil filled jars for 15 min. Cool and store.

I used organic Gala apples, but I think Granny Smiths or Jonathans would work well, too.

It seems to me, too...

"It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it; and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied; and it is all one."M. F. K. Fisher, The Art of Eating

I have a new website - http://feeding-the-flock.com/

Come and visit!

Peaches!

Yay jam! My first attempt at peach jam appears to be a success. I used a super easy recipe from a food blogger, Orangette, called Italian Family Jam. I am very happy with how it turned out - though my normal tasters have not yet passed down their verdicts, so we shall see.

Watch it!

even if you already did, watch it again... this is history being made.

A few of the things on my plate this semester...- Classes - i am taking 9 graduate credits- Teaching - i teach 1010 every monday, wednesday and friday- Program for College Teaching - i am getting a teaching certificate- PRAXIS - so i am marketable on a high school level, in addition to college-Thesis - i need to have narrowed my topic by then end of the semester... a hard task for someone with such disparate interests...and that is just for school...

A few of the things on my plate this semester...

- Classes - i am taking 9 graduate credits
- Teaching - i teach 1010 every monday, wednesday and friday
- Program for College Teaching - i am getting a teaching certificate
- PRAXIS - so i am marketable on a high school level, in addition to college
-Thesis - i need to have narrowed my topic by then end of the semester... a hard task for someone with such disparate interests...

and that is just for school...

6 August 1945

Hiroshima... 8:15am... 90 percent of buildings either damaged or completely destroyed... 140,000 people dead - 70,000 instantly...

Our world changed...

I made pickles!!! This may only be exciting to me, but I have never done it before and it is an exciting kitchen accomplishment for me. They are Garlic Dill Refrigerator Pickles and when the 3 days is up and I know if they are good, I might post the recipe. Until then....

Squeee!

Some diesel sweeties

http://www.dieselsweeties.com

Almost makes you want a Big Mac...

Funny on Wonkette...

and also very sad...

Are you thinking yet?

Max brought this to my attention recently and I have to say that while it is somewhat shocking for anyone steeped in the Christian world views of the modern US, it is very thought provoking and pretty much spot on... in my opinion anyway...



Pat Condell has more good videos and you can get them here...

a rant...

I hate moving. I am not moving, but we are getting two new inmates at Flock Hall 2.0 and one of them will be taking up residence in my room, so even though I am not going any where, I am moving my stuff, cleaning out storage and making room for a bird cage. I don't suppose that I have a ton of stuff, renting kinda precludes it. But I am more of a collector than anyone at flock hall, and I have sort of sprawled out a little bit when I got some extra space. Now I am having to suck it back in, or trim it out. I don't like trimming, even when I like the results - more space and new companions. The process is at best tedious and at worst painful. Most of it is only out to the garage - more tedious than painful - and multiple moves have really pared down the collection urge, or at least prevented me form giving into the urge with any frequency. But there are still the boxes and totes that need to be sorted through and weeded out, or at least consolidated. It makes me want to run screaming in the opposite direction. Or go take a nap. But I wouldn't be able to sleep, because I would be thinking about all the stuff I need to do. Or I would fall asleep and dream about it and wake up more tired than I started...

Bah Humbug!

I think I will go cook something, food makes everything better...

Not so serene...

We have all heard it...

Lord,
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Well it seems that the guy who thought that he thought it up was wrong, or stealing, depending on the way you look at it...

the NYT article is here...

Astrophil and Stella

Sir Philip Sidney
1

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:

Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn'd brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay,

Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,

And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way.

Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite--

"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."

Survey says...

I know there are musical people out there in my sparse and nebulous readership, and I have a survey for you. What would you say my theme song is - a song that represents my personality, quirks, and interests? Please let me know...

When Candy Goes Wrong

I can't decide what is funnier the title, which sounds like something from a budget horror film, or the picture, which speaks for itself...

It is my passion.

Do you remember falling in love, discovering your passion - I was nine. We had free-time. I was laying on my stomach looking at the books on the bottom shelf of the classroom bookcase, books we never used in class. I have always had a fondness for things that involve never. There were lots of books i knew by then that i was supposed to be interested in, classics - Treasure Island, The Jungle Book, Black Beauty. The there was this old, faded blue book - you know that weird library-binding blue that is nothing like the author or publicist intended. There was a grainy, faded picture of a girl on the front with her yellow skirt and hair blowing out to the side - rather unrealistically, I now know - but completely wonderful to my rather overdeveloped imagination of the time. The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I started reading it. For people who know me now that may seem like no big deal, but let me assure you it was. I did not read. I was in Chapter 1 reading, not because I didn't know how, I was reading when I was three years old, but because I refused to do it. The power of my will to not do something I didn't want to was such that I almost failed out of school - before the 5th grade. So me reading, and right there in the middle of the classroom even, that was not normal behavior. But it was free-time and no one noticed. It was not the first book I had read, but for some reason I was pulled into that world. It was the first time I wanted to read. I took the book home with me. I finished it in two days. I read it again. And again. (I did eventually give it back - but only after I had acquired my own copy at a school book fair.) Then I went to the library to see if Elizabeth George Speare had written any other books. The Calico Captive, The Bronze Bow, and The Sign of the Beaver were all quickly devoured. And just like that I was a reader. It is my passion.

except it is so windy here that you can't feel that melting power... =(

6 June 1944

a guide...

a dedication...

to Strong Soviet Mother...

The new release list...

So I was browsing the through the cookbook section, as I am wont to do on occasion, and what do I discover, but a lovely conflation of my interests in food and technology. If you thought about getting me a gift to celebrate the end of a successful school year, this is something you might want to consider (and if you didn't, why not - it is always a good time for presents)...


Food 2.0: Secrets From the Chef Who Fed Google By Charlie Ayers looks like tons of fun, and as one of my goals for the summer is to get back into the kitchen more, it would be a lovely addition to my already extensive, but never complete, collection. And as the buzzword for this chef is brainfood, it would be helpful in fortifying me for my other summer goal of finishing my reading list...

the "Google Generation" can't Google...

"A recent survey shows many students from the so-called 'Google generation' lack the basic skills needed for online research"

In a recent article put out in the UK, the findings of a study say that while they may proficient in the use of Facebook and Wikipedia, this generation (born after 1993) is not actually connected to information in this information age.

status quo...

I have been quite busy - the status quo of the semester - and so, as there was really nothing else going on with me, I thought would tell you a bit about that.

I have really rediscovered a love of literary studies and theory this semester, which is nice as that is what I am planning on doing with my life. I am writing my final paper for my Critical Theory class on food imagery and cultural identity, rather appropriate given my two great loves are books and food. The title will be "Cooking Up Culture: Food Imagery and the Creation of Cultural Identity in Silence" - a bit wordy, I know, but I like it.

I have another paper that I will have to write for Poetics, as well, but that will come together eventually - even though I have no idea where I am going with that one.

I also really need to get my reading list finalized and signed off on. I still have to decide what theory texts and articles I want to be my summer reading. Decisions, decisions...

I think a cuppa tea would help...

a poem placeholder

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal
of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting,
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

some serious funny...

einstein quote of the day...

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."

i am locavore...

so, i am not a big ranter... overall, i tend to avoid conflict whenever possible - i mostly just want everyone to get along...

that said, this is a rant - and not surprisingly it involves one of my two great passions: food... it was inspired by little tatooed girl - our conversation made me realize how seldom i talk about some of the things i really believe in... so you all get a rant...

i am an advocate of local food - or as much as possible in a place like BV city... i believe quite passionately in the importance - to all levels of society - of buying your food locally... it is one of the most important food choices you can make - and it effects all other dietary choices... this does not mean that you have to give up all foods that don't grow within a 100 miles of where you live, which is good, 'cause i would starve here, it just means buying locally whenever you can - let's be real, i am not going to be giving up good dark chocolate anytime soon, and everyone is better off for that decision... but i can get my tomatoes and squash locally, eggs and beef, too.

there are so many good great reasons to eat local...

eating local means more for the local economy - dollars spent locally support the local community twice three times as much as business owned by outsiders...
locally grown produce is fresher... and as a result, local food just flat out tastes better...
locally grown fruits and vegetables have longer to ripen - less spoilage - less waste...
eating local is better for air quality and pollution than eating organic - organic food is often shipped hundreds and sometimes thousand of miles, using so much more fuel and energy to get to you, and thus polluting more...
buying local food keeps us in touch with the seasons - you eat what is fresh when it is harvested, instead of imported out-of-season food...
eating local protects us from bio-terrorism - you know where it came from and who had access to it before it when on your plate - and the opportunities for tampering just aren't feasible in a market which is so much smaller...
local food connects you to your community - you get to know the people who grew your tomatoes and baked your bread...
local food equals more variety - smaller farms can try crops that you would not normally see in your local agri-business run supermarket, and things like zebra tomatoes and purple string beans become available for anyone to try...
supporting local providers supports responsible land development - land being used in a sustainable manner for farming will not be sold to developers to build McMansions - and the variety of crops helps to keep the land continuously productive and in use, without damaging it or leaving it fallow...
and if you do eat meat, you know how the animals were treated before they were killed, what, if any, chemicals and hormones went into their diet, and how fresh the meat actually is...

one of the best resource (for the US readers), no matter what your diet choices are, to find locally produced food is an organization called Local Harvest... you can find all sorts of sources for locally produced food, including CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) - which are kinda like a subsidy - but instead of the government paying farmers to grow (or not) what they think should be on the market, the consumer pays the farm directly for the food, ensuring that they make a fair amount for their products without government intervention - a fresher and more varied product than what is available in most stores... the one that i am looking at is Grant Family Farms, which is just across the border into colorado...

i really could go on for quite some time, but as i stated at the beginning, i am not big on rants and this one covers most of the main points...

it is really just a logical iteration of the maxim that to effect change you have to think globally and act locally...

food, food, food...

i have found a new food blog that i absolutely love, so i just had to share - even knowing that i am probably the only person who reads this blog who is interested in food blogs...

it is called Tea & Cookies, and beyond being as much in love with food as i am, she is a fabulous writer, really worth checking out... here is one of her early posts that made me happy ... and here is one that is more recent ...

don't worry, i know that the interest here is less than the sqee-ness that i am feeling... but because of that squee-ness i had to share...

life and whatnot...

i seem to have been posting quite a bit of content from other sources recently and, well, that just seems lazy ... even though that is what most bloggers do, really ... so, in an effort, albeit a weak one, not to be lame... i am giving an update on my life... and stuff...


grad school - it's great! i love my classes, even when i don't want to go... theory is not sucking nearly as badly as i was afraid it might... i am actually really liking it *gasp*... i know, crazy, right?... poetics is often very theoretical, as well, but with a direct connection to the poetry we are reading, rather than text in general... and really my classes are made that much better by the rather brilliant people by whom they are populated - the comments of my classmates are something i look forward to as much, if not more than, whatever topic is under discussion for that day...

on a note related to grad school, i am also putting together my reading list... for those not from the world of literary academia, i compile a list of works encompassing at least three categories - in my case, time period, genre, and approach - read them and then next fall i will have to synthesize them in a reading list test, an oral exam given by the committee approving the list... i have decided to specialize in the medieval - probably not a surprise for those who know me - so along that line i have chosen to read medieval french lit, 19th and early 20th century fantasy, and cultural studies theory... my list is not yet complete and approved, but i am excited for it anyway...

work is not so bad... i enjoy the labs and love the internet time... though i suppose i would not be opposed to having the same internet time at home... i have applied for a teaching assistantship for next year, and, should i get it, my lab time will be significantly reduced... and i might get an office... how odd...

in the kitchen... well i haven't actually been in the kitchen that much recently... yesterday was the first time in ages i had cooked, and it was lovely... i suppose there is a combination of reasons for that... my kitchen style tends to be slow food for large groups, and while i am living with a large - relatively - group, the various dietary choices and restrictions of that diverse group make slow food somewhat difficult... most vegetarian and vegan food actually happens rather quickly... and slow food often involves meat of some kind... and timing has also been an issue - time to cook when i don't need to be doing other things has to be balanced with the time that other people want to use the kitchen... it is not a single-butt kitchen, but the flow does not work really well for more than two or three people... as a result, very little of my time has been spent in the kitchen as yet this year ... and that is sad, because i love food, making and eating it...

one of the things that has been taking away my kitchen time is fitness - largely, bellydancing and hula hooping - and i really love it... i am no where near the level of skill that i would like at either of them... but, i am gonna keep working on them both, even though this week is the last week of bellydancing class - no more security of having a teacher to tell me what to do... i am hula hooping a lot and i am finally starting to try some tricks - tricks which will need much more practice before they are made public... the result of all this jiggling is that i have finally started to lose the weight that i want off, though, again, only a start on a much bigger project...

so, overall, life is good... and now you know...

a poem

poetry speaks to me in a way that prose just can't, no matter how thrilling i find happily-ever-after ... it is on a level so much more elemental, visceral - proceeding from instinct rather than intellect ... and it frustrates me that i can't accurately explain what it is about certain poems that is so powerful to me, even knowing how rarely one can explain instinct...

anyway, a poem...

The Dream

I dream an inescapable dream
in which I take away from the country
the bridges and roads, the fences, the strung wires,
ourselves, all we have built and dug and hollowed out,
our flocks and herds, our droves of machines.

I restore then the wide-branching trees.
I see growing over the land and shading it
the great trunks and crowns of the first forest.
I am aware of the rattling of their branches,
the lichened channels of their bark, the saps
of the ground flowing upward to their darkness.
Like the afterimage of a light that only by not
looking can be seen, I glimpse the country that was.
All its beings belong wholly to it. They florish
in dying as being born. It is the life of its deaths.

I must end, always, by replacing
our beginnings there, ourselves and our blades,
the flowing of history, putting back what i took away,
trying always with the same pain of foreknowlwdge
to build all that we have built, but destroy nothing.

My hands weakening, I feel on all sides blindness
growing in the land on its peering bulbous stalks.
I see that my mind is not good enough.
I see that I am eager to own the earth and own men.
I find in my mouth a bitter taste of money,
a gaping syllable I can neither swallow nor spit out.
I see all that we have ruined in order to have, all
that was owned for a life time to be destroyed forever.

Where are the sleeps that escape such dreams?

~Wendell Berry, 1968


i wonder if this is how god feels looking down on creation, sometimes...

V-Day

february...

as readers and fellow flock members know, february and i have a mutual distrust and hatred for each other - i try my best to endure and the longest month of the year does its best to defeat me... as an antidote to the dismay imparted by this interminable month i have complied a list of moments...

happiness is...
...cooking with my grandmother
...the perfect glass of pinot grigio
...medieval french poetry
...blood oranges
...a hot cup of tea on a cold day that i don't have to be out in
...shopping with my sister
...summer stars in the high desert
...slow food
...my mountains
...the sound of the ocean
...dancing until i can barely move
...hula-hooping
...soup and sourdough
...happily ever after
...the sound of the rain
...late night conversations
...green growy things
...visiting someplace i have never been before
...heirloom roses
...ripe, summer peaches
...other peoples stories
...red carnations
...old, character-filled houses
...cooking for the people i love

...a list as fleeting and incomplete as happiness itself...

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Tuesday, February 12, 2008 -- 5:55 PM ET
-----

Senate Votes to Broaden Government's Spying Powers

By a vote of 68 to 29, the Senate gave final approval to a
bill that expands the government's spying powers and gives
legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in
President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program.

Read more here...

economic stimulus at the expense of reading...

i have to admit, i haven't really paid attention to the economic stimulus package that has been in the news so much in the past few weeks - other than to think election year bulls**t... however today while i was reading my blogs i had to sit up and take notice...

President Bush Eliminates Funding for Reading Is Fundamental’s Historic Book Distribution Program Serving 4.6 Million Children

apparently the only way to stimulate the economy is to make sure that the future of at-risk kids is even harder, because they can't read... he probably thinks what's the point, they aren't going to have time to read anyway - what with flipping burgers and shooting up their neighborhoods - no point in cultvating skills that would help them improve themselves and thus the country and the economy... arg! this administration makes me so mad...

269 days left... if another republican is elected i think i might move to europe... or canada...

lawyers...

for my fellow labbies...

and anyone else who may work in a tech support related job...

medieval tech support...

raks sharqi...

i love belly dance... i know, it has only been one lesson, but it is so much fun!!!! and i am not as sore as i thought i would be... it is really hard, lots more so than i expected, but soooooo much fun... i can't wait till i am good... g-fresh and i are going to practice every night...

i only wish i was as good as this girl is...

mass media...

so, as descriptions of mass media, i find this one to be very entertaining... and somewhat true...

there is a ton of information, much of it i don't care about, on the internet - just as i imagine the drunk librarian in the corner at the cocktail party... and like the librarian, once one gets it started, it sucks you in with information to places you never wanted to go... like facebook, myspace and random forums that suck the soul from the ideas they may have been founded on... and occasionally you get a gem - a well-edited wiki, an educational website, friends blogs - but more often you lose hours of you life that you can never get back... and i love it...

i must be perverse, because i would rather talk to the drunk librarian in the corner than most of the other people at the party... the internet is where i get my news, talk to friends, organize my life... and i really love the random places that the drunk librarian leads me... beautiful, brilliant, fun places... even though there are some places that you can not un-know, no matter how much you may wish to - like some of the places you can find kittens...

still, it beats the hell out of "fair and balanced"...

culture, in brief...

i have discovered a lovely new(to me) site that will inspire horror in those of a serious literary persuasion, possible confusion in the rest of the population, and general hilarity all around...

please go visit Book-A-Minute Classics and see for yourself - they are truly brilliant...

my favorite so far is this one, of The Odyssey ...

i posted a general update on the status of my holiday break on flock hall 2.0, so if you are interested go there to read it...

i have to say that i am not a fan of new year's resolutions - in my experience no one follows them anyway - but there are a few things in my life that look like resolutions...

~ i have set up a fairly rigorous (by fleur standards) work-out schedule with my sister - both gym time and belly dancing and pilates classes
~ my roommate's vegan lifestyle is spilling over into my eating habits - i think about them more than i have in the past, anyway
~ my master's program reading list is going to force me to read some of the things that have been in the to-be-read pile since before i started college
~ the massive amounts of reading which i have to do this semester will require a schedule to keep on track - more planning than i have ever really done for homework before this year - grad school is much different from undergrad
~ tighter-than-planned money situation will require better budgeting skills and more fiscal responsibility

you can probably see how these items have the flavor of resolutions, but i prefer to see them as life changes not dependent on a date cycle to come into effect (besides that, i am listing them a couple weeks after the new year- where did the break go?) - and also they will hopefully have a longer life span than mid-february, unlike the average new year's resolution...