What I Have Been Eating Recently

This doesn't have a good name, I mean, it doesn't have *a* name. I've been referring to it as "the lentil stuff" which I suppose is descriptive if not appetizing.


The Lentil Stuff

Chop an onion, sizzle it in a pot.
Crush a handfull of brazil nuts, pop in the pot.
Dump a bunch of puy lentils in, a mug's worth?
Open a can of chopped tomatoes, bung that in too.
Decide that that doesn't look like enough liquid- fill up the can with water and pour it in.
Cook covered for a while.
Remember that you were meant to put some bullion in, toss a vegetable stock cube in.
Oh yeah, and some sugar. Decide that honey is probably even better and spoon some in.
Look at it for a while.
You know what that could use? Some more tomatoes. Open another can and add those.
Simmer.
Simmer.
Simmer.
It's still really watery, take the lid off.
Simmer.
Get bored.
Discover that you have some fresh tomatoes, chop up a couple of those and throw them in.
Simmer.
Bet that some freshly chopped basil would be really nice on top...


Decide that the lentils are *cooked* and spoon it into a bowl. Add some basil.


Make the ultimate decision: spoon or fork?
Choose fork.
Regret that decision.


Num num num.

I had a visit from my sister. Adventure Part 4. (Wherein we don't leave the house)

Sunday was delightful, despite being plagued by jet lag and colds. We slept in and then Gwen showed up for lunch. I hadn't managed to start preparing anything yet, but Gwen brought wine, and Laine had the genius idea of bringing the folding chairs into the kitchen. (I don't know why Ella and I never thought of that, we hang out in the kitchen all the time because it is the warmest room in the house and, you know, there's food there, but we hadn't ever brought the chairs in. NOW, however, they live there. Thanks, Laine!)

Remember our awesome organic food box we get delivered? Do any of you know about Laine's peculiar devotion to cast iron pans? Have I told you that I've been experimenting with pastry? Well. All of those came together in a deliciously elaborate vegetable quiche with homemade pastry and about 10 different kinds of vegetables in it. We had extra pastry (and extra cheese and extra quiche mixture) so in addition to the quiche we also made little baby cheese quiches (soufflees? Kind of?) in a muffin tin. All of this was taking far too long for Gwen so we also made bar cookies with melted dark chocolate on top.

Delicious productivity, convivial atmosphere, and conversation that flowed and flowed and flowed. It was interesting hearing stories being re-told for a slightly different audience. I know how *I* tell the story of Gwen and I becoming friends, but it was fun to hear her version. Gwen has heard all sorts of stories about our family, but this time she got to hear them from Laine. Excellent, good times.

Gwen eventually went home so Laine and I, in our relaxed/lethargic state ended up watching a bunch of episodes of "Miranda,"a ridiculous and slapstick-y comedy that I've rather fallen in love with. Eventually we got hungry again, rummaged around the pantry, and ended up on accident with a divine take on macaroni and cheese involving orzo, sesame oil, tamari sauce, and bok choi.

And that was pretty much it. You'll notice that I didn't leave the house. (Laine and Gwen were both sent off to the shop for various bits and pieces as they became necessary. So I guess the title is bit of a misnomer...)

I had a visit from my sister. Adventure Part 2. (Wherein I make excessive parenthetical remarks about cars)

Heathrow serves London. People in London don't really need to drive because public transport is so good. Therefore, getting picked up from Heathrow in a car is a luxurious, exotic treat. Or, at least, that's how Laine and I were thinking about it.

Nik and I were hanging out outside customs determining whether or not certain people coming out of the doors would react well to spontaneous, enthusiastic applause. Then Laine showed up! And that was exciting! I may have squealed. I really don't remember. I'm pretty sure I didn't applaud but you'd have to check with Laine and Nik to make sure. My SISTER was FINALLY here!!!

We tumbled into the car (remarking upon our fancy-pants car privilege...) (Not that you'd have any reason to know this, but there is a parking lot *right next* to Terminal 1, which meant that we had to walk for a total of about 2 minutes to get from the meeting place to the car.) (I'll get over this eventually, but it was really exciting.) (For me. Probably not that exciting for you.) (Sorry.)

Nik was very sweet and drove us while Laine and I chattered away about her most recent exciting driving experience. (I feel like the presidential motorcade is probably more exciting than a ride from Heathrow, but I'm working with what I've got here...) Chatter, chatter, chatter.

We eventually made it to my house where, thanks to the Gods of Parking, there was a spot immediately in front of my flat.

We tumbled everyone off into their respective beds and fell asleep. Then everyone slept and slept and slept, except me because I was excited again so I got up early and made cornmeal pancakes.

Our corner store is remarkably well stocked for a corner store. It's not magic like Meredith's corner store (which once had fresh cranberries out of season (in the UK!) right when I was seriously craving some orange-cranberry muffins), but it's pretty darn good anyway. Which is why we had cornmeal pancakes with real maple syrup.

I'm only telling you this to make you jealous.

MMmmmmm.

We all had a nice morning together and that was lovely, though frustratingly cut short because I had to be in New Cross for that weekend's round of Heist with Fire-Hazard. So Laine and I waved goodbye to Nik as he set off back home and then set off for Adventure Part 3....

coming soon!

ps. Spell check is fun on these entries because Blogger doesn't like 'Laine,' 'Nik,' or 'Heathrow'

4th of July

The fourth of July was very well celebrated over here. On the third a bunch of us made a picnic and trekked over to Victoria park where they were having a World Music Festival. The vibe felt a bit like the concerts at Woodland Park Zoo where yes, the music is wonderful, but the real joy is in the picnics, little children dancing, people watching, and chatting with your friends. We made, once again, about 3 times as much food as was really probably necessary and had a marvellous time. Some of the non-musicians were a bit bewildered as the rest of us nattered away trying to sort out just what time signature each song was in.

At nine the park closed but we weren't done hanging out so we walked along the canals and ended up in a field right next to a pub where we sat and chatted for another couple of hours. I've recently learned to do headstands consistently and as it was a nice balmy evening and the grass was soft- I kept tipping myself upside down. Might need to stop doing that...I think I'm starting to annoy my friends...

On Sunday Meredith and I went up to Nottingham to visit Sarah and Dave and Dave's family. We had a big barbecue, met a bunch of his relatives, and re-enacted the battle of Trent with water pistols. It was very silly. Some of Dave's second cousins-in law (...) were visiting from Australia. One of them was an eight year old named Amy who had a pony named Aussie, a cat named Bull, and two adolescent mastiffs whose names I have forgotten though I am certain that I was told. She was great. Really looking forward to the wedding now, it was lovely to see Dave's family on their own turf- all relaxed and friendly and funny. So welcoming to us as well. We all took the train back to London together and it was nice to have the dinner club together again. We played a version of the surrealist game the exquisite corpse. In our version you write a phrase, the next person draws it, the third person writes a phrase that the drawing is illustrating, the next person draws that phrase, and so on until the paper is all used up. We thought to use Newspaper headlines as the phrases and ended up with some seriously bizarre results.

No fireworks, but a very well celebrated Independence Day none the less.

PS. Happy Belated Birthday, Mical!

Improvised Soup

Today was a soup day (as some days just are) and without a particular recipe in mind and quite a lot of random ingredients around I came up with some delicious deliciousness.

Ready?

A kettle of water, boiled
two stock cubes (they don't do canned broth in this country, so things are automatically saltier due to the stock cubes)
two medium carrots finely chopped
hand full of runner beans, sliced
One chicken breast thinly sliced
hand full of baby leaf spinach
two eggs
salt
pepper
Glug of chili oil
glug of sesame oil
glug of soy sauce


And tah dah! Put things in to the pot in the order they're listed. When the chicken slices turn white then you're ready to go and the chicken will still be all moist instead of tough and chewy like it will be if you let it cook for much longer.

Tom Kha Gai

Do you know when Chinese New Year is this year? On Sunday. Once I figured this out it explained to me why all of the Asian food stores that I passed (or went through trying to find galangal without asking anyone if they had it) were PACKED with people. Also dragon fruit. Anyhow. I was brave and finally picked my way through the largest shop I could find finding all of the ingredients for Tom Kha Gai. Gwen came over for dinner and we made elaborate food with fancy, fun, exotic ingredients. I have pictures. We also used her brand new mixer to make cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. Because we are just that cool.

Things I've been doing.

I've had a social week so I thought I would share some of that with you.

First of all- my new flatmates are settling in nicely. The only issue so far is that Jenny used to work for Cutco and so has a large collection of very sharp knives. This is hardly a problem since having nice knives is a very good thing indeed. However- her collection of nice knives combined with my (much smaller collection) of nice knives means that our cutlery drawer is now a: overstuffed and b: dangerous to put your hand in to... It 's also been interesting figuring out what I've told them about how the flat works and what I haven't. For instance- the power went off for a while on Sunday because I hadn't remembered to point out that someone ought to put more money on the little key thing that is how we pay for electricity. Oops. Also- those weak pathetic showers that they've been taking in the morning? Yeah, there is a water pump that makes those all nice and cozy, but the switch for it is in the living room. (where all power switches relating to the bathroom should go, don't you think? So handy and sensical.) Jenny and I have been having some good bonding moments (talking till 3am one night, oops.) but John Henry is still quiet, we'll see how that continues on. He is a philosopher after all.

I saw a show last week- one of the technical theatre students at GSMD had noticed that the theatre was free for two days at the beginning of term so he finagled his way in to getting to use it. (Impressive.) The show he ended up producing is called "The Last 5 Years" and is one of my favorite musicals. The instrumental parts are all soloistic and there are themes that come back in just altered enough forms for it to be tremendously exciting musically as well as having excellent lyrics. The show is about a couple (only 2 actors in the whole thing) singing about the last 5 years of their relationship- but the man is singing forwards in time and the woman is singing backwards- so they never actually sing together. The whole show is one solo after another- it's a tough show to pull off. Anyhow the whole thing was student led and performed (though they did get the main director for the acting department to direct the show- again, impressive.) and it was FABULOUS. I've never seen a show where the band and the actors were more integrated. And authentically, organically integrated too. It was a joy to watch and I feel privileged that I got to see it. (Seriously, it was impressive.)

The dinner club folks have apparently given up on cooking and so this time we got together at an Indian restaurant on Brick Lane along with another American couple that Dave met on his plane ride to London: Anna and Trevor. They are wonderful and the six of us spent most of the evening chattering away and having three threads of conversation run at once. It was fun and had the added benefit of being relatively easy to get home from for everyone. (That has been a standing problem with the dinner club group- whose house to have supper at! No one really wants to be the person who is always traveling.)

On Saturday I went with Rob and Gwen to go see a friend of theirs play a gig in South London. Tom Norris- who is a violinist with the LSO but has taken a year off to try getting his rock band off the ground (check him out on iTunes, guys!) it was an interesting gig because he was just one of four bands and man was his stuff different from everyone else. The band has only been playing together for a short while but they were tight and it was fun to watch them. Also, it isn't often that you see an instrumentalist warming up on Paganini before a rock show....

Consort is tonight- we have a concert on Friday for the Early Music Open Day at school. There are only two legitimate students in the group, but that won't stop us! I've also got my art-opening-gamba-solo-background-music gig on Tuesday so wish me luck on that one!

Oh, and my mother will be pleased to know that I have been applying for more work. Only two jobs so far, but progress! That still counts as progress

I had a lovely birthday, thanks for asking!

I had stayed up late the night before making pancake batter, deciding that chicken hot dogs were close enough to count as sausages in a breakfast environment, and washing all the dishes. This meant that when Sarah showed up for breakfast and chatting it didn't matter that I was still totally in my pajamas and had only rolled out of bed because the doorbell was ringing. We had a marvelously wonderful time talking about life after school, being a freelance musician, visa issues, upcoming nuptials, ohmygodwe'relikeadults, music pedagogy, and the like.

We ended the conversation because I had a lunch date to make and in spite of completely losing track of time managed to show up only 20 minutes late...sorry Jon. Jon and I had dutch pancakes which are giant crepe/burrito hybrids with things like eggplant and bacon cooked into the batter. Craziness. Lunch was delightful and it was great to see Jon again.

Then I wandered over to Covent Garden where I located an astrology shop and read all of their Virgo birthday cards. We are apparently critical and perfectionist. Hmmph. Also- our astrological vegetable is carrots.

Ella called and I remembered that there is a restaurant/bar/tourist trap in Covent Garden that has wonderfully creative cocktails for 50% off on Sundays and Mondays. So we proceeded to get a little tipsy in the early evening. Remind me later that I dislike bright, fruity drinks that turn my mouth unflattering shades of blue. Banana Coladas though? Yes.

We then walked up towards Oxford street to meet up with Sarah, Dave, and Meredith at John Louis where we provided unhelpful advice on the topic of Buying A Lamp. We also lusted after beautiful but expensive and impractically deep pile carpets. Should I end up with scads of money at a latter point in my life I may need to be restrained from decorating my house entirely in William Morris prints.

The five of us, having disagreed on lamp purchases but agreed unanimously that bean bag chairs are a Good Thing, continued on to tasty tasty Thai food. I had some delicious Tom Ka Gai and some disappointing chicken satay.

So there. Doesn't that sound like a nice birthday?

Andy: I finally had English strawberries!

And oh my goodness, they are divine. They didn't look like much, quite pale really. I bought a box and shared them around at the workshop I was at this afternoon. I think I know where any and all of my disposable income is going in the next few weeks...

Odds and Ends

1. This is probably unimportant, but I was really pleased with my lunch today. I made a turkey sandwich. Which seems really normal, and it is, but I don't normally make them. Plus, it was on fancy, tasty, deliciously chewy bread from the Polish store with nice, thick cut Swiss cheese and Dijon mustard. Also, I had cut up a bunch of vegetables (including red pepper) and I had a banana. Doesn't that just seem like a lovely, classy lunch? I enjoyed it. Part of the appeal was putting the sandwich in my favorite Tupperware container which has a snap on lid so you really know it's going to stay.

2. Go see Star Trek. Go see it now. I cried, tears streaming down my face during the first 10 minutes and then spent the rest of the movie infernally annoying the poor guy next to me with my bouncing and flailing about with excitement. Awesome, amazing movie. I've never seen any of the TV shows or movies before, so I know that there was a lot I was missing. (Like all of the reveals where they're like "My name is thus and such" and you're clearly supposed to go "Ooohh!" Yeah, I didn't get those.) (It didn't matter.)

3. My final project has a title now! Instead of being "Untitled IPE, Casey Middaugh." It will now be called "The Three Elements." Which is a bit confusing because there are either four or a whole periodic table full of them. But trust me here, it works.

4. My ankle is mending. It is still about half again as wide as my left ankle, but I have given up the crutch now and have taken to slathering my whole foot in arnica gel a couple of times a day. I don't know if that actually does any good, but it makes me feel like I am doing something for my foot.

Fun with Food

I made a big pot of chili and with chili you always have to have cornbread, right?

And I have this super cool cast iron frying pan, which you can bake cornbread in, right?

So I DID and it was amazing. Especially with extra corn kernels and a whole pot of honey.

Mmm.