Friends Only - Comment to be added

1. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
2. Omega Games, S. L. Viehl
3. Urban Shaman, C.E. Murphy
4. The Music of Man, Yehudi Menuhin
5. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
6. Lean Mean 13, Janet Evanovich
7. Bonk, The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Mary Roach (suggested by tenaya_owlcat)
8. Storm Front, Jim Butcher (suggested by wcp)
9. The Onion Girl, Charles de Lint (suggested by tenaya_owlcat)
10. The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch (suggested by kynekh_amagire)
11. Fool Moon, Jim Butcher
12. Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
13. Fearless 14, Janet Evanovich
14. Wicked, Gregory Maguire

Currently Reading:
Watership Down (yeah, I know, I'm amazed I've made it this long without reading it also)
The Inner Game of Music, Barry Green and Timothy Gallwey (long, slow, slogging reading on this one)

TBR (currently checked out from library):
The Art of Practicing, Madeline Bruser

strange happening this evening - brad has been doing a lot of cleaning and reorganization around the house. today he brought in the grate from Pixie's cage and leaned it in front of the fireplace as a joke, as I'd commented that I'd like to get a screen for the hearth. about an hour later, we heard a ton of fluttering in the chimney - not a huge thing these days, as we knew there was a pair of somethings nesting there. but this time... a little yellow beak attached to a red breast showed up against the grate... a robin had fallen into our fireplace!! a quick nab with a towel and a short walk out to the porch, and the little one was gone in a puff of down. Needless to say, Monkey checked the flue - it seems to be broken in the half-open position, which explains a lot. We'll have maintenance over tomorrow to look at it, but until then that grate is staying in place as a screen to prevent any other uninvited visitors!

1. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
2. Omega Games, S. L. Viehl
3. Urban Shaman, C.E. Murphy
4. The Music of Man, Yehudi Menuhin
5. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
6. Lean Mean 13, Janet Evanovich
7. Bonk, The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Mary Roach (suggested by tenaya_owlcat)
8. Storm Front, Jim Butcher (suggested by wcp)

Currently Reading:
The Inner Game of Music, Barry Green and Timothy Gallwey

TBR (currently checked out from library):
The Onion Girl, Charles de Lint
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch (suggested by kynekh_amagire)
The Art of Practicing, Madeline Bruser

1. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman - Typical absurdity from Gaiman, although parts felt a little like Neverwhere. Overall thought it was much better than Neverwhere, story more cohesive, less grasping, more like American Gods.

2. Omega Games, S. L. Viehl - I generally like the StarDoc series, but this was definitely underwhelming. Marel was sadly absent from this one. I think I'm sticking with the first 5 and ignoring the rest of 'em. :(

3. Urban Shaman, C.E. Murphy - a lot of fun, pretty good integration of Celtic and Native American mythos in an urban fantasy. I know there are others that follow this, and I'll probably hunt them down at some point.

4. The Music of Man, Yehudi Menuhin - non-fiction, coffee-table book that came out as a companion to a late 70s/ early 80s CBC mini-series on music anthropology. Picked it up used in Lansing (Can't go wrong for $5.00), has lots of stuff I already knew and a lot of insight into Sir Menuhin's take on music. Quite a bit of violin-centric stuff going on as well.

5. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen - It was okay. Felt removed from the characters, possibly due to the style & time that Austen wrote in. Worth the read, though. Would love to see some of the movies that have been made (and would probably enjoy them). Like it (much!) better than Shakespeare :D

6. Lean Mean 13, Janet Evanovich - Fun afternoon read. Same fun formula. Same fun characters. Kinda like cotton candy... little substance, but every now and again it's a nice treat that doesn't take too much effort to enjoy and always brings a smile.

Currently in progress:
Bonk, The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Mary Roach

TBR (currently checked out from library):
The Onion Girl, Charles de Lint
Storm Front, Jim Butcher

• 16:22 going to the symphony for Mahler 2!! #

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math sucks

I'm still here. First week of summer class is almost over, halleluja. Things are going pretty well, not wonderful, but... not terrible. too many other people just don't get it... seriously, how can you not understand that null set is a subset of every non-empty set? Just because you have a container doesn't mean you have to have specific things in it, right? *sigh* Seriously though, this class is like a rehash of 10th grade math. I've been having flashbacks to sitting in one of the few classrooms at RHS without windows to the outside world, talking about how to find the initial sums of arithmetic and geometric sequences, set notation, operations and logic... all that fun honors math crap. It's coming back pretty well, and it's been what... 14 years? 15 years? Yeah. I really don't get how all these college students just aren't following along. Oh well. The biggest loss to me is the instruction time yielded to answering their questions and dealing with their lack of comprehension, which I apparently don't need since I'm following along just fine. Maybe I should look into taking the elementary math Praxis II once I get to that point... a couple hundred bucks to get more subbing ops and make myself more valuable to potential employers might not be a bad thing in the long run.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately on how our country runs on fear... advertising, politics, religion... all centered on fear. I have some stuff to say about it -- quite a lot -- but I haven't quite hammered out how to say what I want to express clearly, so... it's simmering more. I have quite a bit of writing simmering, actually... I'm working on a potential cookbook aimed at college kids (if I finish it, I'll probably self-publish and try to sell through Lulu and placing ads on strategic sites, because I have NO idea where slush cookbooks are supposed to go...)... I've also had some fiction tidbits dancing around with my muse. Nothing substantial, but... words are there. Not on the surface yet, but, there. Somewhere. Buried. Well-marinated. Ready to stew longer. Maybe I'll start writing about Cori again. Maybe it'll be something new. Who knows. It's kinda like stretching for the first time after skipping the gym for several months... feels kinda weird, kinda stiff & sore, but with a wonderful promise of things to come down the line.

And speaking of the gym... I put on everything I lost during fall semester and then some. Ugh. I'm back in the gym when I can be on campus for now, but... having to try to find a job is potentially going to put a damper on that, depending on what kind of shifts they have available (they being whoever is willing to hire me). I *really* need to get this weight off, but can't afford weight watchers or any of the medical plans; and I'm consistently struggling with my own discipline issues when trying to do it on my own. This *sucks*. Things are getting a little better, but... I want a *big* noticeable change, and I want it soon (and I can't afford the lap band, either). I really hate being poor, but I hate the idea of going back to do work that doesn't actually do anything for me more. *sigh* Anyone know of any violin students looking for a good teacher north of pittsburgh? (good news is that I have two gigs coming up in August & September... not much, probably only $150 total between them both, but it's a damn sight better than nothing).

It's roasting in my office. I'm off to sluice off some of this sweat and try to get some sleep.

... leftover burrito filling (rice, ground beef, black beans, tomatoes, green pepper, onions, & chiles), mixed with salsa & cheese and reheated until a light queso has developed as a sauce.

NOM. No added cost, either, as all the ingredients were sitting around and needing to be used. :D

And now... I go practice more. Pens play tonight, game 4 in Carolina -- Go Pens!! I'm hoping for a rematch from last year.

... I have a feeling that someone will probably be interested in this one, maybe several someones, so rather than just mention tonight's meal, have the recipe :D



Buffalo Salmon
from Gourmet, May 2008

2 lbs salmon fillet
1/4 c. hot pepper sauce
5 tbsp butter, melted
1 tbsp oil (plus enough to oil baking dish)
1/3 c. panko

Preheat oven to 425*. Lightly oil shallow baking dish.

Whisk together butter and pepper sauce until thoroughly combined. Reserve 1/4 cup of sauce for dipping with meal.

In a small bowl, combine oil and panko, toss to combine.

Place salmon skin-side down in baking dish. Brush with remaining hot sauce mixture. Sprinkle panko over top and lightly press into fish. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until fish is cooked to your desired doneness. Serve with reserved sauce, crisp celery sticks, and blue cheese sauce. Rice and steamed broccoli also make nice friends with this dish.


(ETA - you can blame my dad for this, as well as last night's entry... he sent me home with a stack of old Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine and a few other old magazines that had been sitting around. There's plenty more to come where these came from!!)

Today's lineup...

Brunch:
--Crustless Quiche (yogurt formula) w/ sausage, red peppers, onion, mushroom, co-jack and cheddar (recipe below)

--Buffalo Salmon w/ steamed broccoli & rice

Tomorrow is the GoodEats spaghetti with meat sauce recipe, with a few modifications. Monday will be pork loin chops of some design.


( Simple, easy, yummy quiche--it's not just for restaurants anymore )

parmesan-crusted chicken with balsamic-glazed oven-roasted tomatoes over whatever pasta is in the pantry. Maybe a glass of wine.

.... might be scarce online after next week, cutting cable & DSL to the apartment to try to save some $$ on bills. I'll still have limited access from my phone, though... and texts are always appreciated if folks wanna bug me :) I'll probably also make use of the free wireless places around with the mini-lappy as well, so... maybe it won't be as bad as I fear. It's not like I've been updating all that much lately anyway, more using LJ as a way to keep track of folks & friends.

Dinner tonight was stuffed porkchops & broccoli, as follows...

Stuffing:
chop 1/2 large onion. Sweat in a little bit of canola oil.
While onion sweats, mince about 8 oz mushrooms. Add to pan with onion, along with several cloves minced garlic and a pinch or three of salt. Thyme and Sage to taste are also nice added in at this point with a few grinds of black pepper. Turn up heat slightly and cook until mushrooms are soft and everything has a little bit of browning going on.
While onions & shrooms are cooking, chop two slices of country-style bread into cubes -- the crustier, the better (I probably ended up with 2-3 c. bread cubes, but I didn't measure). Keep the cubes smallish, 2-3 times the size of your onion bits. Add to the pan, along with any crumbs from the slicing and cubing procedure. Add enough chicken stock to thoroughly wet everything, stirring to make sure the stock and bread get well introduced. Cover, cook over med heat for about 4-5 mins, then remove from heat and allow to sit until ready to stuff the chops.

Chops:
Use thick-cut porkchops, but not too thick. I asked my butcher for the smallest bone-in thick cut chops she had, and they were perfect--a little under a half pound each, including the bone obviously. Brine the chops a few hours before cook time -- heat up about 2 cups apple cider vinegar. Dissolve a good handful of salt in the vinegar, add some garlic and aromatics if desired. Add a pound of ice (or 2 cups of cold water), and stir again to combine. Pour brine over chops and allow to mellow for several hours in the freezer (this is the AB brine from his stuffed chops show, basically, for those who keep track of that kind of thing).

Assemblage:
When ready to cook, rinse off chops under cold water and pat dry. Cut pocket by inserting knife into side of chop opposite of bone, then sweeping (but not cutting all the way through) knife, as if pivoting, to expand pocket. Reverse knife in pocket and repeat. check with fingers to make sure there's plenty of room inside. Remove about a cup of stuffing into a small bowl, reserving the rest for a top-secret mission to be explained below. From the small bowl of stuffing, place into pockets of chops in spoonfuls, packing well but not firm. Sprinkle outside of chops with a little bit of salt.

Cook in lightly oiled cast iron skillet over medium heat, 8-10 mins / side for fairly well done; 6-8 if you're adventurous and like medium to med-well pork. Remember it's easier to toss 'em back on and cook longer than it is to undo something that's overdone. Stainless steel could also be used, but I think that cast iron really does a better job at providing amazing browning for this kind of dish.

Remaining stuffing should be stuffed into a small casserole or other oven-safe, broiler-safe dish and popped under the broiler until the top is toasty, then portioned out onto plates to serve as the starch / base under the pork chops. Otherwise, this would probably go pretty well with spaetzle and pickled red cabbage as condiments, or even wild rice and asparagus. Broccoli is also a very worthy companion. If gravy is desired, a pan sauce can be made with some reserved mushrooms and onions and chicken stock with the fond from the pan, or a can of cream of mushroom soup thinned out with chicken stock instead of water or milk makes a pretty darn tasty & simple sauce as well.

stupid pens. stupid ovechikin. :(

... holycrap.

ALL of todays finals got cancelled / rescheduled. Juries might not even get rescheduled, which I'm a little bummed about to be honest.

Such an interesting turn of events...

Went out to the Pgh Zoo yesterday with two friends and the almost-five-year-old that belongs to one of them. Going to the zoo with a kid in tow is always a blast. :D




( Some more of my favorites )

Or you can check out all of the new ones at my gallery, just click next in the upper right of each page to see the new ones (the rest of the album is from last spring/summer). New pics include polar bears, sea otter at feeding time, a skunk, a meerkat, and of course a few of the tigers.

And now... back to studying. Butler symphony concert tonight. Crazy cramming day tomorrow and Monday. Worried about math and piano, but we'll see how they go.

(also... I upgraded the comment form on the gallery, after finding out that I'd been targetted by spammers. Ugh. Any old comments are gone, so I apologize if I ganked something that anyone wrote. There's a captcha in place now, so it should prevent it from happening again).

• 09:06 Practicing for juries all day... #

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HOCKEY PLAYOFFS!!! :)

Wings and Pens both won game 1 of their series, Pens play again tonight (I won't get to watch, as I have a concert to see)

My hope is for a rematch of last year, with the Pens winning this time.

As far as non-hockey news... school is down to the final 6 days of class (next week + April 27th) and 4 days of finals. As it stands right now, I have my jury the 28th, piano pro the 29th, and two finals on the 1st. I'm heading back to MI probably on the 1st after my final, so... if anyone wants to hang out, it would have to be that weekend. I'm going to be in Lansing on the 4th, then heading back on the 5th with a detour through A2 so I can stop by the Shar showroom and pick up some music and maybe think about some toys.... my fiddle has been really liking the rainy, humid weather and sounds WONDERFUL (I noticed it was doing the same thing when I was visiting with selasphorus too), so I think i need to get a better in-case humidifier than the vapor bottle I'm currently using. I think I want to pick up a pickup also (har har), but I'm not sure... and I might pick up some teaching tools if they have any. We'll see.

Brad's been doing some custom figures for me.... I should have pictures up at sometime in the not-too-distant future. They're pretty cool.

Yeehaw. Home stretch. :)

Many many moons ago, dolphin__girl gave me a copy of a mix CD she had made, a collection of catchy tunes, called Boing Boing. It's one of my favorite CDs ever, and through my many and various moves in the following years, it got stashed in a CD case and forgotten about. However, while looking for something else, I found it yesterday morning. A bad day and crappy week turned around in the space of a heartbeat. Listened to it on the way to school, and I wound up singing this song all day yesterday (although this is different from the version on the CD). :D

eclipsegryph, you might want to keep a weather eye out for these scurvy dogs...