My timing for everything sucks
Mar. 29th, 2010 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
Well, my plan to finish my D/G Exchange fic this weekend didn't quite work out. It's still not finished. However, it's almost there, so at least I got quite a bit of it done. The panic has subsided somewhat, and if things stay quiet at work today, I may just finish it here this afternoon.
Now what I'm getting nervous about is my trip. I'm leaving on Friday. FRIDAY! How can that be?? I feel like there are a million things I've forgotten to do, but I think that's just a result of the fact that my trip this time is coming together quite differently from how my trips normally go (the airline I'm taking, what I'm doing with Talis, how I'm getting to the airport). I hope. I still need to do laundry so I have clothes to wear ... though of course, if everyone's going around naked at Esalen that may not be a huge priority. I'm sure Jade and Robbie would prefer that I have clothes on when I see them, though.
Of course right before I leave I've gotten on a book-buying kick, which means half of them are going to arrive during the time I'm gone. (That reminds me, I need to go to usps.com and have them hold my mail.) Many of them are cookbooks. They are:
- Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni
- Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking by Julie Sahni
- Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey
- The Korean Table by Debra Samuels, Taekyung Chung
- A Korean Mother's Cooking Notes by Chang Sun-Young
- The Korean Kitchen by Copeland Marks
- Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells
- The Old World Kitchen: The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cooking by Elisabeth Luard
- The Fat Duck Cookbook by Heston Blumenthal
- Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan
I told you there were a lot. >< It's been a bit disappointing because, as thorough as some of them seem to be, they don't have all the recipes I want. In Korean cuisine, particularly barbecue, a red-leaf lettuce salad ALWAYS comes with the meal. It's totally ubiquitous. Yet is there a recipe for it? No. Same thing with the potato salad that usually comes with the banchan (usually made with mashed potato, and is sweet). It's also ubiquitous, but it's hard to find a recipe for it. Then there's the savory egg custard dish that is always offered during Korean barbecues. I've found variations on it, but they're usually fancier than what's served in the casual restaurants I've been to, and thus unfamiliar and suspicious. Fancier is not always better.
Then there's the Indian cuisine cookbooks, which were very highly recommended (whereas there isn't a very big selection of Korean cuisine cookbooks, period). They seem very thorough, covering various regions of India, yet they don't have some of my favorite Indian dishes that are so common at Indian restaurants (like aloo gobi, mattar paneer)! There's still one book yet to come, so maybe it will cover those.
Perhaps my favorite book of all the new ones I've gotten is The Old World Kitchen. I just love those usually simple, down-to-earth dishes, even ones that are no longer popular. I love reading the bit of history behind each dish. There's one for escargot where it's like, "go to your garden and pick some snails..." Eww, but also, awesome!
I'm also trying some new fantasy novels. Or at least, I plan to, once I have them in hand. This includes the Kushiel's Legacy series, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, the first Dragon Lance book, the Sword of Shadows series by J.V. Jones, and of course, the Temeraire series ... I've had the first four books forever now. Also, did you know Orson Scott Card wrote a direct sequel to Ender's Game (one of my favorite books ever), called Ender in Exile? Has anyone read it? What did you think? I haven't really been able to get into the other follow ups to the first book, so am not sure if it's something I really want to read or not.
As for the garden ... none of the seeds I've planted in the beds have sprouted, which is probably just as well given the worm thing and the fact that I am going to be away for 1+ weeks. I'll probably just try again once I get back, and maybe the weather will also be warmer. As for the indoor starters, the only ones that have sprouted are the cauliflower. I think it's the cauliflower; I didn't label them. However, I realized that the other seeds were probably planted too deep once I consulted the package directions again, and plus it hasn't been very sunny or warm the last week. So ... I started over with them, following the directions more carefully this time. I'll water them before I leave, and hope that they don't die from neglect before I get back.
I just have great timing, don't I?
Now what I'm getting nervous about is my trip. I'm leaving on Friday. FRIDAY! How can that be?? I feel like there are a million things I've forgotten to do, but I think that's just a result of the fact that my trip this time is coming together quite differently from how my trips normally go (the airline I'm taking, what I'm doing with Talis, how I'm getting to the airport). I hope. I still need to do laundry so I have clothes to wear ... though of course, if everyone's going around naked at Esalen that may not be a huge priority. I'm sure Jade and Robbie would prefer that I have clothes on when I see them, though.
Of course right before I leave I've gotten on a book-buying kick, which means half of them are going to arrive during the time I'm gone. (That reminds me, I need to go to usps.com and have them hold my mail.) Many of them are cookbooks. They are:
- Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni
- Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking by Julie Sahni
- Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey
- The Korean Table by Debra Samuels, Taekyung Chung
- A Korean Mother's Cooking Notes by Chang Sun-Young
- The Korean Kitchen by Copeland Marks
- Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells
- The Old World Kitchen: The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cooking by Elisabeth Luard
- The Fat Duck Cookbook by Heston Blumenthal
- Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan
I told you there were a lot. >< It's been a bit disappointing because, as thorough as some of them seem to be, they don't have all the recipes I want. In Korean cuisine, particularly barbecue, a red-leaf lettuce salad ALWAYS comes with the meal. It's totally ubiquitous. Yet is there a recipe for it? No. Same thing with the potato salad that usually comes with the banchan (usually made with mashed potato, and is sweet). It's also ubiquitous, but it's hard to find a recipe for it. Then there's the savory egg custard dish that is always offered during Korean barbecues. I've found variations on it, but they're usually fancier than what's served in the casual restaurants I've been to, and thus unfamiliar and suspicious. Fancier is not always better.
Then there's the Indian cuisine cookbooks, which were very highly recommended (whereas there isn't a very big selection of Korean cuisine cookbooks, period). They seem very thorough, covering various regions of India, yet they don't have some of my favorite Indian dishes that are so common at Indian restaurants (like aloo gobi, mattar paneer)! There's still one book yet to come, so maybe it will cover those.
Perhaps my favorite book of all the new ones I've gotten is The Old World Kitchen. I just love those usually simple, down-to-earth dishes, even ones that are no longer popular. I love reading the bit of history behind each dish. There's one for escargot where it's like, "go to your garden and pick some snails..." Eww, but also, awesome!
I'm also trying some new fantasy novels. Or at least, I plan to, once I have them in hand. This includes the Kushiel's Legacy series, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, the first Dragon Lance book, the Sword of Shadows series by J.V. Jones, and of course, the Temeraire series ... I've had the first four books forever now. Also, did you know Orson Scott Card wrote a direct sequel to Ender's Game (one of my favorite books ever), called Ender in Exile? Has anyone read it? What did you think? I haven't really been able to get into the other follow ups to the first book, so am not sure if it's something I really want to read or not.
As for the garden ... none of the seeds I've planted in the beds have sprouted, which is probably just as well given the worm thing and the fact that I am going to be away for 1+ weeks. I'll probably just try again once I get back, and maybe the weather will also be warmer. As for the indoor starters, the only ones that have sprouted are the cauliflower. I think it's the cauliflower; I didn't label them. However, I realized that the other seeds were probably planted too deep once I consulted the package directions again, and plus it hasn't been very sunny or warm the last week. So ... I started over with them, following the directions more carefully this time. I'll water them before I leave, and hope that they don't die from neglect before I get back.
I just have great timing, don't I?
