Jan. 18th, 2003 11:18 pm
Master sauce
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muckefuckGalloping through
The morning dew
There's only one thing
That I want to do
With you
And it's true
That I'm going to do it soon.
So I know y'all were all terribly concerned about how my plans worked out last night. Not having heard from anyone by quitting time, I went to the stacks in search of a book on proto-Afrasian and kicked around the linguistics section for an hour or so. By then, I was hungry and sick of the place, so I wrestled unsuccessfully with a payphone in an attempt to reach![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spookyfruit. Frustrated, I was on my way out when I decided to stop by my desk and attempt another call. On the way past Circ, I was ambushed by my buddy Itako [another obscure-ass pseudonym]. The contrast between chatting with her and the two other women working with her--both at least ten years younger than us--was stark. When exactly did I leave college so far behind?
After I reached the Hindquartermaster on my work phone, he invited me over for dinner, but before I could make it out of the room, I got pulled into conversation with two co-workers. One had once been chatty with me, then became mysteriously hostile. Now, inexplicably, things are back where they were. Whatever! The other is a newbie I hardly know; I call her "Rosemary" because her gaunt features and short hair remind me of an underfed Mia Farrow. But, boy howdy, can the girl talk! I could hardly get a word in--me, the Man Who Would Not Stop Talking!
Fortunately, I cadged a ride to within a block of the Haus, which neatly made up for the time I'd lost dawdling with them. I'd promised to pick up a side and a veg for dinner, but the supermercado was a disappointment: Fresh and green choices were limited to iceberg, white cabbage, and nopales (which I suspect take an eternity to cook). I grabbed an onion and some canned garbanzos and we ate these with some slow-cooked porkwelcomerain had put in hours earlier and a merlot (since the Zin had, sadly, gone off).
It was good to see them so relaxed. For various reasons--not all of them unrelated to their gargantuan house purchase--their lives have been more stressful than usual of late, which often lends their contentious banter and uncomfortable edge. Tonight, all was post-coital smoothness. (And you wondered how I figured it out, Spooky.) After dinner,welcomerain put in some banana bread and we repaired to the upper storey to watch "A Cook's Tour" on the Food Network. We took breaks to ice the bread with some luscious icing spookyfruit whipped up and to cut generous pieces of the finished product, more cake than quickbread. Uncharacteristically, Spooky conked out before midnight and I was soon singing songs at the busstop to keep myself company during the long wait for a bus.
My psychotic upstairs neighbour decided AGAIN to rearrange her furniture at 6:30, waking me from yet another dream of returning to Freiburg im Breisgau. Despite her persistence and my red-wine headache, I was back asleep within an hour. At ten, her clomping woke me from a reverie of horseback riding and I gave up on sleep.spookyfruit had lent me Bourdain's foodie classic Kitchen confidential, warning me that he'd read the whole damn thing in one go. I thought that since I'd managed to pick it up the night before and set it down again, I was in no danger.
Four hours later, having eaten nothing since last night's dessert, I realised I was starving, put the book down, and called Monshu. He still hadn't heard from his Jesuit friend in Peru, now visiting, so we punted: I met him at Phở Hoa so I could demolish a massive bowl of beef soup and some cà-phê sữa đá to keep my perky. New Year's merchandise had finally hit all the stores, so made a circuit accumulating snacks, hongbao, and decorations for our upcoming dinner party. I couldn't resist the fresh rambutan at Tai Nam or the glutinous rice cake at the place we buy our produce.
As my experience with fresh longan had led me to expect, the imported fruits were nothing like their canned, sweetened brethren. Lychees, rambutan, and longans in syrup are virtually interchangeable, since the sugary taste overwhelms their distinct delicate flavours. You're left with the similar sensations of their near-identical textures. Whereas fresh longans had been more grapelike, there was a berry aftertaste to the rambutan. I definitely want to buy more before the Year of the Sheep hits.
Another discovery was some ginger-infused Shaoxing wine, which we used to substitute for the fresh ginger root in the master sauce. Unfortunately, we hadn't saved the sauce from September, so we were making it from scratch. It turned out well, but I lost patience with the cornish hens I was stewing in it and took them out before the meat was falling off the bone. Also, I put too little water in the rice and too much lily bulb in the chili-garlic Shanghai bok choy. (Any amount is too much, we discovered.) The only unqualified success from dinner were the frozen shrimp pot-stickers I merely steamed to life--those and, of course, the rambutan we ate for dessert.
Rory, Rory, ride me, Rory
Rory, Rory rides me raw
Rory
Ride me slowly
Ride me raw, raw, raw
And after dinner? Like the hens, I also got my cavity filled with master sauce. whoo-HOO! Best ride in many moons, despite the fact that Monshu seemed ready to fall asleep on the couch before we started. Never sell old bears short!
The morning dew
There's only one thing
That I want to do
With you
And it's true
That I'm going to do it soon.
So I know y'all were all terribly concerned about how my plans worked out last night. Not having heard from anyone by quitting time, I went to the stacks in search of a book on proto-Afrasian and kicked around the linguistics section for an hour or so. By then, I was hungry and sick of the place, so I wrestled unsuccessfully with a payphone in an attempt to reach
spookyfruit. Frustrated, I was on my way out when I decided to stop by my desk and attempt another call. On the way past Circ, I was ambushed by my buddy Itako [another obscure-ass pseudonym]. The contrast between chatting with her and the two other women working with her--both at least ten years younger than us--was stark. When exactly did I leave college so far behind?After I reached the Hindquartermaster on my work phone, he invited me over for dinner, but before I could make it out of the room, I got pulled into conversation with two co-workers. One had once been chatty with me, then became mysteriously hostile. Now, inexplicably, things are back where they were. Whatever! The other is a newbie I hardly know; I call her "Rosemary" because her gaunt features and short hair remind me of an underfed Mia Farrow. But, boy howdy, can the girl talk! I could hardly get a word in--me, the Man Who Would Not Stop Talking!
Fortunately, I cadged a ride to within a block of the Haus, which neatly made up for the time I'd lost dawdling with them. I'd promised to pick up a side and a veg for dinner, but the supermercado was a disappointment: Fresh and green choices were limited to iceberg, white cabbage, and nopales (which I suspect take an eternity to cook). I grabbed an onion and some canned garbanzos and we ate these with some slow-cooked pork
welcomerain had put in hours earlier and a merlot (since the Zin had, sadly, gone off).It was good to see them so relaxed. For various reasons--not all of them unrelated to their gargantuan house purchase--their lives have been more stressful than usual of late, which often lends their contentious banter and uncomfortable edge. Tonight, all was post-coital smoothness. (And you wondered how I figured it out, Spooky.) After dinner,
welcomerain put in some banana bread and we repaired to the upper storey to watch "A Cook's Tour" on the Food Network. We took breaks to ice the bread with some luscious icing spookyfruit whipped up and to cut generous pieces of the finished product, more cake than quickbread. Uncharacteristically, Spooky conked out before midnight and I was soon singing songs at the busstop to keep myself company during the long wait for a bus.My psychotic upstairs neighbour decided AGAIN to rearrange her furniture at 6:30, waking me from yet another dream of returning to Freiburg im Breisgau. Despite her persistence and my red-wine headache, I was back asleep within an hour. At ten, her clomping woke me from a reverie of horseback riding and I gave up on sleep.
spookyfruit had lent me Bourdain's foodie classic Kitchen confidential, warning me that he'd read the whole damn thing in one go. I thought that since I'd managed to pick it up the night before and set it down again, I was in no danger.Four hours later, having eaten nothing since last night's dessert, I realised I was starving, put the book down, and called Monshu. He still hadn't heard from his Jesuit friend in Peru, now visiting, so we punted: I met him at Phở Hoa so I could demolish a massive bowl of beef soup and some cà-phê sữa đá to keep my perky. New Year's merchandise had finally hit all the stores, so made a circuit accumulating snacks, hongbao, and decorations for our upcoming dinner party. I couldn't resist the fresh rambutan at Tai Nam or the glutinous rice cake at the place we buy our produce.
As my experience with fresh longan had led me to expect, the imported fruits were nothing like their canned, sweetened brethren. Lychees, rambutan, and longans in syrup are virtually interchangeable, since the sugary taste overwhelms their distinct delicate flavours. You're left with the similar sensations of their near-identical textures. Whereas fresh longans had been more grapelike, there was a berry aftertaste to the rambutan. I definitely want to buy more before the Year of the Sheep hits.
Another discovery was some ginger-infused Shaoxing wine, which we used to substitute for the fresh ginger root in the master sauce. Unfortunately, we hadn't saved the sauce from September, so we were making it from scratch. It turned out well, but I lost patience with the cornish hens I was stewing in it and took them out before the meat was falling off the bone. Also, I put too little water in the rice and too much lily bulb in the chili-garlic Shanghai bok choy. (Any amount is too much, we discovered.) The only unqualified success from dinner were the frozen shrimp pot-stickers I merely steamed to life--those and, of course, the rambutan we ate for dessert.
Rory, Rory, ride me, Rory
Rory, Rory rides me raw
Rory
Ride me slowly
Ride me raw, raw, raw
And after dinner? Like the hens, I also got my cavity filled with master sauce. whoo-HOO! Best ride in many moons, despite the fact that Monshu seemed ready to fall asleep on the couch before we started. Never sell old bears short!