I'm not hot shit in a wineglass, more curried goat in a paper cup

Cyberquail is here! Actually, she has been since Friday evening (she was far later than she had intended to be because, she said, all of Connecticut was a parking lot.)

We toured the History Barn, our Library (I have my new license with current address, so got a card), went to Pineland Market, and then the regular grocery store after getting Eor's new car inspected, then worked in the yard a bit.

And because she knows how to use a grill and we just got a grill she christened it for us last night and cooked us an 'orgy of flesh' so that we could try out some different cuts of beef:

Flat iron steak with coriander. Flat iron steak is a rectangular slab, and ours got less cooked and came out nice and juicy.
Rib eye with zatar* on it. This is an uneven oval with large streaks of fat, and ours got more cooked and was tender. (She says a good substitute at half the price would be eye of chuck)
Porterhouse with oregano and cinnamon. This is a large large t-bone shaped thing.
And some delicious little lamb bits, not sure what cut.

And then corn, potatoes and asparagus - I particularly love how corn and asparagus cook up on the grill. She put olive oil and salt on the asparagus, and left the husks on the corn so it sort of steams itself.

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*a Lebanese spice mix

Yesterday was quite relaxing - did some laundry and dishes, but mostly finished reading "Truckers" (Prachett) and read all of "Diggers." I don't have "Wings," I'll have to get it.

Oh, and got my hair cut, so that when we went back and got our passport pictures re-taken in the afternoon I didn't look quite so much like a crazy person as I had the first time. It was a lucky break that actually the first passport pic was not in spec for what the application demands - the face can't be more than one and three-eighths inches from chin to top of hair, and the top of the hair has to be included. The guy who took the pics had not done a particularly good job printing and cutting. And I had done an absolutely terrible job posing - slumped, eyes half closed, hair all over. I looked like a stoner.

And then we went to Portland where Eor spent some gift money (an appreciation gift from his coworkers for just being great) at Enterprise Records. We went to Norm's for fries and a coke (our oh-so-nutritious dinner) and Jasper was behind the bar and waved wildly at us when we walked in. We're not at all used to being remembered, that was weird. :) And he can't know, I'm sure, that we bought his CD (he is, or was, in the group "Hiss and Chambers" - which is named after something to do with U.S. politics in the 60s, Alger Hiss...?), although he might recall telling us about his band work, when we used to be dissipates at his bar.

And then we spent a couple of hours at a friend's house, having tea and chatting about work and geek stuff. :)

Eor is actually having some of the chocolate chip blondie I made on Thursday - I'm glad, because I was beginning to think I was going to have to eat it all myself. It was an attempt to make chocolate chip cookies which went horribly badly. The first batch of cookies turned to dust when I attempted to scrape them off the pan, so I dumped the rest of the batter into a casserole dish and baked it a little cooler, and it didn't seem to want to set up, but I ate some yesterday and it's not so bad. Of course I ate the rest of the cookie crumbs as well, because I hate to waste food. I dumped them in a cup with tea and milk, and ate them with a spoon, and then didn't feel too well, after.

I also ate a whole pound of tofu; did I mention that, already? Yes, I realized it was a month past the sell-by date, and I didn't think I'd ever eat the rest of it if I only ate part, so I dumped the whole pound into a pan with some margarine and lots of curry powder and two eggs, and that, with two peices of toast, was my early lunch. "Breakfast" had been yogurt with peaches and cookie crumbs. I ate a LOT of crap, yesterday. But I walked twice on the treadmill, for a total of 300 calories loss. I realize that doesn't count for anything in the food equation, but I'm still happy that I did only a little less than 3mph at an incline of 10 and didn't feel dead. I probably need to record that on my Eowyn's Challenge.

Today we spent more of Eor's gift money (his coworkers gave him $200, they like him a lot) up at Bull Moose music and he got me Red Dwarf X! And Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, just because we don't have it and he loved it as a kid, and it was only $5. :)

I may be beginning to get hungry. This is only noteworthy because I've been going for something like 10 hours on breakfast. It was a big breakfast - homefries, bacon and eggs - but I never go that long without getting hungry. Oh, I did have a bowl of icecream at 4:30pm. Still, that's nothing like my normal feeding schedule.

Groceries will have to wait until tomorrow, but laundry is done. Now there's dishes before I can cook, I guess.

The laundromat was quiet this evening. I guess 5pm is a pretty good time to show up.

PS - The new rice cooker is the same brand, but so many details look different, it's weird!

Anyone have a carrot cake recipe they want to offer me? It has to be a from-scratch type so that I can just substitute the wheat flour with my tapioca-rice-and-potato-flour-mix.

Carrot cake used to be my all-time favorite, and my grandmother would make me one as my birthday cake every year, but her recipe was "take a Betty Crocker spice cake mix, reduce the water requested by half and put in a cup of shredded carrot." She was all about ease of preparation, Gram W. ;) Her mother would beat her for being lazy because she would do things like sit on the ground while using the hand pump when hauling water in, but she, along with Eor, was a big believer in laziness as a motivator for inventing easier ways to do things, and arguing there'd have never been any technological progress if it weren't for laziness. (Oh, I just recalled someone thanking me yesterday for my tip about taking shirts out of the dryer as soon as they stop and hanging them up quickly as a way to avoid having to iron them - "You saved me an hour's work, yesterday! You're brilliant!" "No," I said, "I'm lazy!" ;))

Or if you have a good spice cake recipe I can obviously work from there. ;)

Ow, my neck. Time to go stretch and get ready to go to the gym. I think Diz will be there at 8:30, Phoebe might be late.

( making flour substitute mix )
( work restrictions form needs returning )
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*Tapioca is made from casava root - why don't they call it casava flour?? It would make things so much easier.

Well, we were hoping to go see midget strippers tonight, but maybe tomorrow. One of the girls at work was trying to organize a trip out to the strip club, but she just phoned a few minutes ago and let me know that everyone has pretty much bagged out, just like they did a few months ago when I tried to organize the same sort of expedition. "People are poops," I said - completely ignoring the fact that I was one of the people who was sort of bagging out, because I'd left her a message saying that I really couldn't go at 10pm, if that was when she was planning on it, seeing as we have to be up at 6am. I feel bad, though! She said she just got done bartending (her other job) a twelve hour day, and the only thing that got her through it was the thought of midget strippers, so she was pretty disappointed. Possibly she's up for going tomorrow if other people will find that works better for them, so Eor and I said we would go if that was the case. (I also told her that they aren't really midgets, they're dwarves, and that the last time we went the place was so ridiculously crowded that you could barely move, so that hopefully she won't feel quite AS let down.)

I think I'll have a piece of cornbread. I finally made the cornbread I was thinking about months ago! I found a simple sounding recipe and did it this morning, because it was cold as a Norse hell in here. Okay, it was 68 degrees. Still. I wanted the oven on. :) And it's not too bad for a first attempt, I think.

PS!~ If anyone wants to go along to the dwarf strippers tomorrow, drop a line - the more the merrier! :)

Finally, the gas meter guy has been and relit the stove and the gas smell has cleared out, and I feel as though I can safely shut the window and go do the recycling and groceries.  I had no problem waiting, of course, drinking Tang and tea, eating chicken soup and vitamins.  (And finished "The Big Over Easy" of course!  That rocked!! :))  My cold seems to have decided to make a little comeback this morning, I guess because my nose got dried out last night. :P  (I'm NOT too sick to go to dinner, though, littleredhead!)

With impending dinner plans for tonight I have finally sat down and looked at the link littleredhead sent me on how to get to the restaurant.  It seems on initial review as though the written directions which Google maps gives are contradictory to the map.  It says to keep left at the fork in the road, but left would appear from the map to keep you on Rt. 1 rather than take you down Maine St.  Now, I know I've gone through there enough times I should probably remember how this works, but my memory sucks, so I'm glad I have eor.  (If I didn't have him along I would trust that I would figure it out on the fly, because I usually can, and I've got the restaurant's phone number in case I can't.) 

Oddly, Google maps always insists on calling Rt 1 "Blue Star Memorial Highway" - as if anyone in Maine would refer to it as that.  Rt 1 has always been Rt 1, it's one of those touchstones of the Maine experience.

Now, must be productive. 

Oh, also, "Warlord of Mars" must have been book #11 for this year - I have no idea what day I finished it, forgot to tag it - and "The Big Over Easy" was #12.

So, I slept til 10AM, finished reading "Persuasion," did some dishes, and picked at my story a bit.  I find that I'm anxious to post the next couple of chapters, even though I said I would do them at month-long intervals.  I mean... they're done.  And I want to be done thinking about them.  But there's going to come a point when what you've read will catch up with what I've written, and that point will come all the sooner if I post more quickly.  But although I dread that point in time, I'm also eager for it.  Somehow it seems right that the feedback I get might hopefully be used right away.  Still, you ought to dread it, as I'm sure that at that point there's going to be what feels like a huge huge lag in the story for a while, as I catch up again.

Timesheets are this week, at work, but I don't even feel up to driving out there, let alone did I feel up to working, which I'd have felt they'd expect if I managed to drive out there. 

Today's chicken stock soup was mostly corn meal, with a stalk of celery and an egg.  And salt, pepper, cumin, garlic, paprika, chili... I likes my spices.  I wasn't particularly hungry, but I figured I should have something.  Mostly just been pushing fluids.

I just googled for cornbread recipes and there are like hundreds of thousands of them out there, and I'm feeling overwhelmed.  I don't want anything made corn kernels and sour cream and hot peppers, not today.  Just plain, basic corn meal and flour (I'm planning on using Pamela's all purpose gluten free mix to substitute for the flour, the pancakes and etc one in the yellow bag).  I expect a somewhat sweet flavor and am supposing I might prefer honey as the sweetener.  Anyone got a recipe they'd like to recommend? 

cyberquail's here, and we've had much curry (last night with lamb and tonight it was coconut prawn), and walking in the Audubon Sanctuary at Stroudwater, where we saw several uffa.*  Panir and aloo pakoras** were made***, rum was drunk and Trailer Park Boys was watched.  We are informed that a 'fastidious film' develops on top of heated milk! :)

Also, I tried to figure out something about politics in Maine.  Depressingly, all of our gubernatorial candidates are lame.  I shall now forget their names and vote for the incumbent, Baldacci, because he's done nothing, which is probably the best we can hope for. 

Tomorrow - Armageddon Curry! :)  I have to work, but I'm never much help with cooking anyhow. ;)

*Any of the tall, stalky (Funny how I can spell that word when I'm typing but not at all when I'm walking along, talking...) water birds, such as heron or egrets.

**Interestingly, my spellchecker tried to replace 'pakoras' with 'Karakorum.'

***If you use that recipe, cut the salt down, down and more down - the batter was at least three times as salty as we wanted it.