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Meditation Thing from the Queer Body Love Series (Michelle Murrain's talk, specifically).
May I Be Happy
May I know my true worth
May I know that I am loveable
May I love and be loved with ease
Neuroplasticity for the win? :-)
May I Be Happy
May I know my true worth
May I know that I am loveable
May I love and be loved with ease
Neuroplasticity for the win? :-)
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So...
Motherwort to hold us.
I want motherwort in front garden. It's sometimes called Lion's Tail, I think. It's a wild mint-family plant with pinky-purple flower stalks and sharp-toothed leaves. It grows all over the place. It has anti-anxiety properties, is an anti-coagulant (so, if you're at risk for blood clots as well as panic attacks, this might be a good one for you), and is apparently good for fertility? Or maybe not? I'm not sure...
I'd also like to grow skullcap (like motherwort, it has anti-anxiety properties - it's also, iirc, shade-lfriendly AND it has pretty BLUE flowers, which I want more of!)
The big, spikey plant that's taken up residence in the front corner of my garden is, aparently, Viper's Bugloss and is a relative of borrage (so: Yay, food for bees!). You can make a red (ish?) dye from the (very, very deep) tap root. Associated with frost giants and other weather-people? Iiiiinteresting.
I need to go and do the laundry. It's just past 1:30. Need to strip the bed, sort the wash, figure out what gets washed vs what is going to have to wait. I think I have enough for three washes + an hour of dryer time, but I need to check that. Better, if I can fit things into two.
Power Exchange Stuff: Learning new things about stearing my Horse. More than two things on a to-do-list is overwhelming and she'll stall into inaction, dig her heels in, go and hide in her hobbies. We shall see if sticking to a Two Things rule will help on the Getting Shit Done front. <*fingers crossed*>
Motherwort to hold us.
I want motherwort in front garden. It's sometimes called Lion's Tail, I think. It's a wild mint-family plant with pinky-purple flower stalks and sharp-toothed leaves. It grows all over the place. It has anti-anxiety properties, is an anti-coagulant (so, if you're at risk for blood clots as well as panic attacks, this might be a good one for you), and is apparently good for fertility? Or maybe not? I'm not sure...
I'd also like to grow skullcap (like motherwort, it has anti-anxiety properties - it's also, iirc, shade-lfriendly AND it has pretty BLUE flowers, which I want more of!)
The big, spikey plant that's taken up residence in the front corner of my garden is, aparently, Viper's Bugloss and is a relative of borrage (so: Yay, food for bees!). You can make a red (ish?) dye from the (very, very deep) tap root. Associated with frost giants and other weather-people? Iiiiinteresting.
I need to go and do the laundry. It's just past 1:30. Need to strip the bed, sort the wash, figure out what gets washed vs what is going to have to wait. I think I have enough for three washes + an hour of dryer time, but I need to check that. Better, if I can fit things into two.
Power Exchange Stuff: Learning new things about stearing my Horse. More than two things on a to-do-list is overwhelming and she'll stall into inaction, dig her heels in, go and hide in her hobbies. We shall see if sticking to a Two Things rule will help on the Getting Shit Done front. <*fingers crossed*>
So... my fourth "daily" card has been drawn and sitting on my side-table for about a month-and-a-half. It's the Five of Fire ("Totality") AKA the Five of Bows ("Empowerment") AKA the Five of Flames ("Pele").
In the Osho Zen deck, that I've been reading from for about a decade at this point, the Five of Fire is my "leap of faith" card. It's about trust, about interconnectedness and believing that, when you jump, someone is going to catch you.
For me, I read this almost like a Cups card, it's so full of FEELINGS, so full of taking chances on things that you want SO BADLY. Should I send out another round of query letters? Five of Fire. Should I ask that cute human to come over for a maybe-possibly-date? Five of Fire. Should I apply for that dream job? Five of Fire.
It's the card that shows up when I need to be reminded to "follow my curiosity" (rather than my fear - thanks Liz Gilbert) and, sometimes, to give other people (because I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate *having* to rely on other people) the benefit of the doubt. Stuff, in general, where my "keep you secret, keep you safe" brain that says "It could all go horribly, horribly wrong!" needs a little bit of reassurance and a suggestion that, perhaps, it's being a little bit paranoid at the moment.
HAHAHA: Apparently this is quite a ways away from the "Traditional" meaning of the card, which is "hassle and butting heads". Really? News to me...
The DotM card, Pele... doesn't suggest that for me at all. Rather, she reminds me of the "Breakthrough" (11 of MA - AKA "Justice") card in my Osho Zen deck and, a little bit, of the Shiva Nata dance that Havi, over at The Fluent Self, used to teach. The movement that shakes down the old world (or the old cosmology, if you will) so that the new world can be built ("You learn a pattern, you take it apart"). Bricks are bricks, and - like flour and butter - can be used in infinite combinations to make what you need to make right then.
I admit to a certain amount of balking when it comes to the Wildwood's take on this card. I do not like that my card that, for years, has been a relative of the Three of Cups for me, is suddenly Some Dude with a giant (literally) boner and a big club and a bow. My reaction to seeing this card is (alas) "Eugh. This loser..."
According to the Wildwood's Little Reference Book, it's supposed to reference the (pro/)creative power of Nature, and the imagery does line up (somewhat) with the card's traditional meaning of "competition" (sometimes playful, sometimes not). I'm really not sure how to deal with him. I mean, if I look at my Totality card, and try to translate that meaning onto the Empowerment card? I can look at those first four bows laid out, look at their relationship to the Long Man (or the Giant, or whatever you want to call him), and consider it a reminder that we are more powerful when we are part of a good team that can rely on each other and have each others' backs. So that's something. Meh?
The suggestion from the various reference guides I've looked up is that people may be talking or working at cross-purposes, too caught up in what they're expecting to hear to be able to hear what's actually being said. I can relate to that, at least. It circles back to the reminder to give people the benefit of the doubt rather than listening to the stories in one's head to the exclusion of seeing what's really there.
Also (allegedly) built into this card are:
The need for play + the benefits of hobbies & doing things just for fun
The potential for "good conflict" as when brainstorming solutions and negotiating to get everyone's needs met in a given situation
The need to have some empathy, to be patient, and to stay aware that not everyone has had the same experiences that you've had (I read that as "intersectionality is a thing", but it can also just be "not everyone has worked with Zoe before" or whatever)
The need to work through personal (as in: inside of yourself) conflicts, deal with fears or tantrums that you want to throw, or whatever. You may be feeling "scattered" at this time, or like you can't make any headway (is the the Mercury in Retrograde card? Possibly)
In the Osho Zen deck, that I've been reading from for about a decade at this point, the Five of Fire is my "leap of faith" card. It's about trust, about interconnectedness and believing that, when you jump, someone is going to catch you.
For me, I read this almost like a Cups card, it's so full of FEELINGS, so full of taking chances on things that you want SO BADLY. Should I send out another round of query letters? Five of Fire. Should I ask that cute human to come over for a maybe-possibly-date? Five of Fire. Should I apply for that dream job? Five of Fire.
It's the card that shows up when I need to be reminded to "follow my curiosity" (rather than my fear - thanks Liz Gilbert) and, sometimes, to give other people (because I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate *having* to rely on other people) the benefit of the doubt. Stuff, in general, where my "keep you secret, keep you safe" brain that says "It could all go horribly, horribly wrong!" needs a little bit of reassurance and a suggestion that, perhaps, it's being a little bit paranoid at the moment.
HAHAHA: Apparently this is quite a ways away from the "Traditional" meaning of the card, which is "hassle and butting heads". Really? News to me...
The DotM card, Pele... doesn't suggest that for me at all. Rather, she reminds me of the "Breakthrough" (11 of MA - AKA "Justice") card in my Osho Zen deck and, a little bit, of the Shiva Nata dance that Havi, over at The Fluent Self, used to teach. The movement that shakes down the old world (or the old cosmology, if you will) so that the new world can be built ("You learn a pattern, you take it apart"). Bricks are bricks, and - like flour and butter - can be used in infinite combinations to make what you need to make right then.
I admit to a certain amount of balking when it comes to the Wildwood's take on this card. I do not like that my card that, for years, has been a relative of the Three of Cups for me, is suddenly Some Dude with a giant (literally) boner and a big club and a bow. My reaction to seeing this card is (alas) "Eugh. This loser..."
According to the Wildwood's Little Reference Book, it's supposed to reference the (pro/)creative power of Nature, and the imagery does line up (somewhat) with the card's traditional meaning of "competition" (sometimes playful, sometimes not). I'm really not sure how to deal with him. I mean, if I look at my Totality card, and try to translate that meaning onto the Empowerment card? I can look at those first four bows laid out, look at their relationship to the Long Man (or the Giant, or whatever you want to call him), and consider it a reminder that we are more powerful when we are part of a good team that can rely on each other and have each others' backs. So that's something. Meh?
The suggestion from the various reference guides I've looked up is that people may be talking or working at cross-purposes, too caught up in what they're expecting to hear to be able to hear what's actually being said. I can relate to that, at least. It circles back to the reminder to give people the benefit of the doubt rather than listening to the stories in one's head to the exclusion of seeing what's really there.
Also (allegedly) built into this card are:
The need for play + the benefits of hobbies & doing things just for fun
The potential for "good conflict" as when brainstorming solutions and negotiating to get everyone's needs met in a given situation
The need to have some empathy, to be patient, and to stay aware that not everyone has had the same experiences that you've had (I read that as "intersectionality is a thing", but it can also just be "not everyone has worked with Zoe before" or whatever)
The need to work through personal (as in: inside of yourself) conflicts, deal with fears or tantrums that you want to throw, or whatever. You may be feeling "scattered" at this time, or like you can't make any headway (is the the Mercury in Retrograde card? Possibly)
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The card I pulled today was the 8 of the Major Arcana.
I'm putting it that way because the 8 and 11 sometimes switch places, depending on the deck (which is funny, if you're into numerology at all - part of the tarot course I'm taking involves finding your "birth card" using numerology. My birth card is the 8 of the Major Arcana, which means - like Scorpio technically having two guiding planets rather than one - I have two birth cards: Strength and Justice).
In my Osho Zen deck, the 8 is Courage, and it corresponds to the Strength card in the traditional deck. So I pulled the Strength card from the DotM deck (which doesn't give its "Suit of Aether" cards Hierarchical Numbers), and then - not knowing my new deck too well at all - I pulled the 8 of the Major Arcana (The Stag) from my WildWood deck.
Which, as it turns out, is actually the Justice card for that deck. I had to shuffle through and find the 11 card (The Woodward) and use it, instead.
( More on Courage... and it's corespondants... )
Anyway. That's my schpiel about Courage/The Woodward/Strength.
Thoughts? Questions? Considerations?
TTFN,
Amazon.
[1]The 8 of the MA (and the other 8s, for that matter) also connects with the 18 of the MA - The Moon. Which is all your lizard-brain stuff, the cycles and patterns you keep repeating over and over and over, sometimes failing to see the pattern because the context keeps changing, sometimes reliving the pattern in spite of very different contexts. It's gut/knee-jerk reaction - which sometimes means making a LOT of assumptions based on previous experiences, but other times means paying attention to what your instincts, your intuition, your deep self-knowledge (the unconscious mind that knows waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than the conscious/talking mind wants to admit) has to tell you. It can go either way.
I'm putting it that way because the 8 and 11 sometimes switch places, depending on the deck (which is funny, if you're into numerology at all - part of the tarot course I'm taking involves finding your "birth card" using numerology. My birth card is the 8 of the Major Arcana, which means - like Scorpio technically having two guiding planets rather than one - I have two birth cards: Strength and Justice).
In my Osho Zen deck, the 8 is Courage, and it corresponds to the Strength card in the traditional deck. So I pulled the Strength card from the DotM deck (which doesn't give its "Suit of Aether" cards Hierarchical Numbers), and then - not knowing my new deck too well at all - I pulled the 8 of the Major Arcana (The Stag) from my WildWood deck.
Which, as it turns out, is actually the Justice card for that deck. I had to shuffle through and find the 11 card (The Woodward) and use it, instead.
( More on Courage... and it's corespondants... )
Anyway. That's my schpiel about Courage/The Woodward/Strength.
Thoughts? Questions? Considerations?
TTFN,
Amazon.
[1]The 8 of the MA (and the other 8s, for that matter) also connects with the 18 of the MA - The Moon. Which is all your lizard-brain stuff, the cycles and patterns you keep repeating over and over and over, sometimes failing to see the pattern because the context keeps changing, sometimes reliving the pattern in spite of very different contexts. It's gut/knee-jerk reaction - which sometimes means making a LOT of assumptions based on previous experiences, but other times means paying attention to what your instincts, your intuition, your deep self-knowledge (the unconscious mind that knows waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than the conscious/talking mind wants to admit) has to tell you. It can go either way.
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So, as you can see, I'm take much more than one day at a time to do these cards.
Bear with me.
The Emperor
In the Osho Zen deck, this is The Rebel. In the WildWood deck, he's The Green Man. In the DotM deck, his aspect has been absorbed into (or combined with, as the case may be) that of The Empress, who is depicted as Mawu... but I'm really not sure how much of The Emperor is left in that card, so I mention it but probably won't draw on it all that much in this particular write-up.
( More on The Emperor )
So that's what I've got on the Emperor. It's not a lot ot go on, but it's more than generally comes to mind when I pull that card in a reading.
Cheers,
Amazon.
Bear with me.
The Emperor
In the Osho Zen deck, this is The Rebel. In the WildWood deck, he's The Green Man. In the DotM deck, his aspect has been absorbed into (or combined with, as the case may be) that of The Empress, who is depicted as Mawu... but I'm really not sure how much of The Emperor is left in that card, so I mention it but probably won't draw on it all that much in this particular write-up.
( More on The Emperor )
So that's what I've got on the Emperor. It's not a lot ot go on, but it's more than generally comes to mind when I pull that card in a reading.
Cheers,
Amazon.
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Well, that's a nice card to start this off with. (I signed up for a tarot course and part of it is that you draw one card a day and write/meditate about it, so that's what I'm doing, although this probaby isn't going to literally happen every day... we shall see). Just as a note to myself, how I'm going about this is:
1) Draw a card off the top of the Osho Zen Tarot deck, which is the one I've been reading from for the past 8 years or so.
2) Find the approximately-corresponding card (this isn't going to work 100% of the time) in the Daughters of the Moon deck that The Moderatrix gave me[1], and then looking up the corresponding Wildwood Tarot image on the internet[2]. I'd be doing this with the Next World Tarot cards as well, but they're still a work in progress and my deck won't be turning up until about August 2017, so I'm leaving that go for now (unless I pull one of the half dozen or so cards that are available as images online, in which case I will most likely include them). I'm also looking up the drawn card in my two Little Books, for added information (I may also draw on the Biddy Tarot website and one or two other sites, as they've been known to have insites that I didn't know about before), but the written work is going to be secondary to what I come up with on my own.
3) Write about how I understand the card in question, using the images (and, later, if I feel the need, some secondary sources / written work) to add to my original impressions.
Ready? Here we go!
~*~
( The Queen of Earth )
So there you go. The Queen of Earth.
TTFN,
Amazon.
[1] It's a weird deck. It started as a reimagining of the traditional tarot, but a lot of things have been moved around, conflated, or otherwise switched up. So the Knights and Pages of each suit have been combined to become the Maidens in this deck, a lot of the suit of swords has been redistributed among the four suits, and a number of the Major Arcana cards have been combined (Emperor and Empress are one card now, for example) or out-right removed so that each suit (MA included) has 13 cards. It's not really a tarot deck anymore, but something else entirely. None the less, I'm bringing it into play because I want to be able to read with all of my cards, not just some of them.
[2] In theory, my Wildwood deck will show up about a week from tomorrow, at which point I'll start pulling the cards physically, but until then: Interwebs.
1) Draw a card off the top of the Osho Zen Tarot deck, which is the one I've been reading from for the past 8 years or so.
2) Find the approximately-corresponding card (this isn't going to work 100% of the time) in the Daughters of the Moon deck that The Moderatrix gave me[1], and then looking up the corresponding Wildwood Tarot image on the internet[2]. I'd be doing this with the Next World Tarot cards as well, but they're still a work in progress and my deck won't be turning up until about August 2017, so I'm leaving that go for now (unless I pull one of the half dozen or so cards that are available as images online, in which case I will most likely include them). I'm also looking up the drawn card in my two Little Books, for added information (I may also draw on the Biddy Tarot website and one or two other sites, as they've been known to have insites that I didn't know about before), but the written work is going to be secondary to what I come up with on my own.
3) Write about how I understand the card in question, using the images (and, later, if I feel the need, some secondary sources / written work) to add to my original impressions.
Ready? Here we go!
~*~
( The Queen of Earth )
So there you go. The Queen of Earth.
TTFN,
Amazon.
[1] It's a weird deck. It started as a reimagining of the traditional tarot, but a lot of things have been moved around, conflated, or otherwise switched up. So the Knights and Pages of each suit have been combined to become the Maidens in this deck, a lot of the suit of swords has been redistributed among the four suits, and a number of the Major Arcana cards have been combined (Emperor and Empress are one card now, for example) or out-right removed so that each suit (MA included) has 13 cards. It's not really a tarot deck anymore, but something else entirely. None the less, I'm bringing it into play because I want to be able to read with all of my cards, not just some of them.
[2] In theory, my Wildwood deck will show up about a week from tomorrow, at which point I'll start pulling the cards physically, but until then: Interwebs.
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It snowed in the night, and for most of the morning.
I modeled today.
The milk went off.
When I got home, I dug out the sides (partial) of the raised beds. I did a better job on the annuals bed for a lot of reasons - it's annuals, so it doesn't matter if I mess with root systems, for a start, and also because the annuals bed isn't covered by a canoe, whereas the perennials bed is TOTALLY covered by a canoe. This is intentional. It keeps the canoe off the ground, and it allows the perennials a little bit of extra shelter from the elements. So it's part of the The Plan. But it makes digging things out a bit more difficult.
Anyway.
I bought three books today. New ones, from Chapters.
I bought @Yuki_Ona's The Girl Who Soared Above Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two. I bought Amanda (Fucking) Palmer's The Art of Asking (which started as a TED Talk, and which is about Using Your Words to actually state what you WANT - not just what you need, but what you want). And I bought Liz' Gilbert's (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) book Big Magic which is about creativity and expansiveness and, equally to the point, about following your curiosity rather than your fear (which I sure as all-get-out need help with).
It's been a self-help kind of day in that regard.
Listening to Delta Rae. Trying to do something with The Novel again, just because I, well... because I can, because I don't actually want to abandon this thing, even if I have no clue how to make it work or get it where I (think I) want it to go. Because I can. So there's that.
Things I want to do today:
Write a bit of Novel
Shave my legs
Make a video
Record 2-3 chapters of Kushiel's Dart for The Archivist
Help The Moderatrix get the last of her stuff moved into her new place (YAY!) and then eat dinner with her (YAY!)
'Kay. Gotta go write. :-)
TTFN,
Amazon.
I modeled today.
The milk went off.
When I got home, I dug out the sides (partial) of the raised beds. I did a better job on the annuals bed for a lot of reasons - it's annuals, so it doesn't matter if I mess with root systems, for a start, and also because the annuals bed isn't covered by a canoe, whereas the perennials bed is TOTALLY covered by a canoe. This is intentional. It keeps the canoe off the ground, and it allows the perennials a little bit of extra shelter from the elements. So it's part of the The Plan. But it makes digging things out a bit more difficult.
Anyway.
I bought three books today. New ones, from Chapters.
I bought @Yuki_Ona's The Girl Who Soared Above Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two. I bought Amanda (Fucking) Palmer's The Art of Asking (which started as a TED Talk, and which is about Using Your Words to actually state what you WANT - not just what you need, but what you want). And I bought Liz' Gilbert's (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) book Big Magic which is about creativity and expansiveness and, equally to the point, about following your curiosity rather than your fear (which I sure as all-get-out need help with).
It's been a self-help kind of day in that regard.
Listening to Delta Rae. Trying to do something with The Novel again, just because I, well... because I can, because I don't actually want to abandon this thing, even if I have no clue how to make it work or get it where I (think I) want it to go. Because I can. So there's that.
Things I want to do today:
Write a bit of Novel
Shave my legs
Make a video
Record 2-3 chapters of Kushiel's Dart for The Archivist
Help The Moderatrix get the last of her stuff moved into her new place (YAY!) and then eat dinner with her (YAY!)
'Kay. Gotta go write. :-)
TTFN,
Amazon.
Tags:
Preserves I Already Have:
Heaps of frozen Red Russian kale, Rainbow chard, and rappini (and a little bit of borrage, because hey).
1L frozen raspberries
3C pickled beans
3.5 C goblin fruit jam (choke cherries & black currants + extra stuff)
+ (from last year)
3 pints of cucumber pickles (that I made last year) + 2 pints of someone else's cucumber pickles (taht he made last year)
1/4 C Ground Cherry "marmalade" (that I made last year)
1 pint of relish + 1 pint of tomato chutney (made by my friend's mom)
1C grape jelly (made by a friend who brought it as a hostess' gift)
1-2 C Various Jams from Mr Wilson
~*~
Preserves I want to make:
4lbs tomatoes + 1lb nectarines + a bulb or two of garlic --> As many cup-jars of salsa as that'll give me
10lbs tomatoes --> as many pint-jars and/or 1C jars of diced/crushed tomatoes as that'll give me
5lbs tomates + a few bulbs of garlic and a few onions + garden basil --> As many 1C jars of bruchetta as that'll give me
1lb tomatoes + all the cores and skins from the the rest of the tomato masacre + 1-2 bulbs of garlic, lots of garden oregano, garden savoury, balsamic vinegar, and dried rosemary --> as many half-cup jars of tomato sauce as that'll give me
POSSIBLY some extra tomatoes (perhaps from the garden, this time) - roasted with herbs and garlic in the oven and then frozen-in-pucks in the freezer
1lb nectarines + skins from another 1lb of nectarines --> Nectarine butter, as much as possible
POSSIBLY a choke-cherry preserve (something like a chutney? see below) that involves onion, basil, and peppermint... not sure yet.
As much apple butter as I can make with the apples from Idioglossia's tree
POSSIBLY some apple slices dried in my dehidrator
Crab Apple jelly using crab apples harvested from trees along the Canal and in local parks
Half a dozen LARGE eggplants (farmers' market again) roasted, diced, and frozen into pucks (the same way I do the greens) - I will try to go a little easier on the salt this year...
Multiple Jack-o-lanterns worth of pumpkin butter
POSSIBLY half a dozen 2C freezer-boxes of diced-and-blanched winter squash (or pumpkin) purely for the easiness of dumping already-prepped and partially-cooked veggies into a dinner in the middle of winter.
Still more frozen greens a-go-go (because we kind of live on that stuff over winter)
~*~
Things I will have to buy in order to make these preserves:
Upwards of 5 pie pumpkins (+ possible winter squashes)
6 large eggplants
2lbs nectarines
20lbs sauce tomatoes (or other tomatoes... whatever)
~*~
Possible Chokecherry Thing (adapted heavily from the Chokecherry Chutney recipe in Rona Mogelon's Wild In The Kitchen):
6 C chokecherries
1.5 C diced apples (AKA: 2-3 apples, diced[1])
1.5 C granulated sugar
1.5 C red wine vinegar
1 C diced red onion (or other onion)
1 C dried dried cranberries
0.25 C each: fresh basil leaves (shredded), fresh peppermint leaves (shredded)
1 tsp each: salt, dried rosemary
0.5 tsp each: black pepper, ground cloves
~*~
TTFN,
Amazon.
[1] I originally said "sweet cherries" - and you could do that (or use dried sweet cherries instead of the cranberries, that'd work, too) but I don't want to use sweet cherries as "sweet filler". Apples, however, being fleshy and easy to come by, get used as "sweet filler" all the time. So I've put the apple back into this recipe and I figure it'll work, even if I'm not 100% confident about the apple/mint (not to be confused with Apple Mint) combination).
Heaps of frozen Red Russian kale, Rainbow chard, and rappini (and a little bit of borrage, because hey).
1L frozen raspberries
3C pickled beans
3.5 C goblin fruit jam (choke cherries & black currants + extra stuff)
+ (from last year)
3 pints of cucumber pickles (that I made last year) + 2 pints of someone else's cucumber pickles (taht he made last year)
1/4 C Ground Cherry "marmalade" (that I made last year)
1 pint of relish + 1 pint of tomato chutney (made by my friend's mom)
1C grape jelly (made by a friend who brought it as a hostess' gift)
1-2 C Various Jams from Mr Wilson
~*~
Preserves I want to make:
4lbs tomatoes + 1lb nectarines + a bulb or two of garlic --> As many cup-jars of salsa as that'll give me
10lbs tomatoes --> as many pint-jars and/or 1C jars of diced/crushed tomatoes as that'll give me
5lbs tomates + a few bulbs of garlic and a few onions + garden basil --> As many 1C jars of bruchetta as that'll give me
1lb tomatoes + all the cores and skins from the the rest of the tomato masacre + 1-2 bulbs of garlic, lots of garden oregano, garden savoury, balsamic vinegar, and dried rosemary --> as many half-cup jars of tomato sauce as that'll give me
POSSIBLY some extra tomatoes (perhaps from the garden, this time) - roasted with herbs and garlic in the oven and then frozen-in-pucks in the freezer
1lb nectarines + skins from another 1lb of nectarines --> Nectarine butter, as much as possible
POSSIBLY a choke-cherry preserve (something like a chutney? see below) that involves onion, basil, and peppermint... not sure yet.
As much apple butter as I can make with the apples from Idioglossia's tree
POSSIBLY some apple slices dried in my dehidrator
Crab Apple jelly using crab apples harvested from trees along the Canal and in local parks
Half a dozen LARGE eggplants (farmers' market again) roasted, diced, and frozen into pucks (the same way I do the greens) - I will try to go a little easier on the salt this year...
Multiple Jack-o-lanterns worth of pumpkin butter
POSSIBLY half a dozen 2C freezer-boxes of diced-and-blanched winter squash (or pumpkin) purely for the easiness of dumping already-prepped and partially-cooked veggies into a dinner in the middle of winter.
Still more frozen greens a-go-go (because we kind of live on that stuff over winter)
~*~
Things I will have to buy in order to make these preserves:
Upwards of 5 pie pumpkins (+ possible winter squashes)
6 large eggplants
2lbs nectarines
20lbs sauce tomatoes (or other tomatoes... whatever)
~*~
Possible Chokecherry Thing (adapted heavily from the Chokecherry Chutney recipe in Rona Mogelon's Wild In The Kitchen):
6 C chokecherries
1.5 C diced apples (AKA: 2-3 apples, diced[1])
1.5 C granulated sugar
1.5 C red wine vinegar
1 C diced red onion (or other onion)
1 C dried dried cranberries
0.25 C each: fresh basil leaves (shredded), fresh peppermint leaves (shredded)
1 tsp each: salt, dried rosemary
0.5 tsp each: black pepper, ground cloves
~*~
TTFN,
Amazon.
[1] I originally said "sweet cherries" - and you could do that (or use dried sweet cherries instead of the cranberries, that'd work, too) but I don't want to use sweet cherries as "sweet filler". Apples, however, being fleshy and easy to come by, get used as "sweet filler" all the time. So I've put the apple back into this recipe and I figure it'll work, even if I'm not 100% confident about the apple/mint (not to be confused with Apple Mint) combination).
Tags:
Anybody wanna beta some Furiosa fic?
Unusually Gen for me, but technically F/F.
In other news: I'm totally charmed by the fact that the war parties bring metal guitarists and drum corps with them when they go to war. Makes me think of BYO Battle Pipers and similar. Seems very appropriate.
Moving right along.
Unusually Gen for me, but technically F/F.
In other news: I'm totally charmed by the fact that the war parties bring metal guitarists and drum corps with them when they go to war. Makes me think of BYO Battle Pipers and similar. Seems very appropriate.
Moving right along.
Tags:
So. Job interview in is ~1.5 hours. I'll be putting my coat on in ~40 minutes, though, with the plan to get downtown (by bus) about half an hour before the interview stars, go sit in the Parliament Hill Bridgehead for 15-20 minutes, and then schlep over. Which should get me there early enough to shuck off my coat without being so early that I'm a pest.
I'm wearing the fancy, long black coat my Mom gave me - she said she wasn't wearing it, but wanted someone to - and it's pretty, it's something fancy to wear to something like this (also, it's from this particular store, so it's probably a good idea...). I'm also wearing my baffed up fluvogs because they are my winter boots, and there you go. Pinstriped skirt, black v-neck tshirt, fuschia cropped cardigan, delicate opal pendant, cautter-pin earrings, super-long black socks, wedding ring, labradorite ring, steel bangle. Honey-clove-and-citrus perfume melange. Packing everything up in my spiffy new (and therefore not wrecked) purse in the hopes of looking reasonably put together, even though they've totally seen me in my leather coat and 14 layers of warm clothes before.
After the interview (which, I'm guessing, will take about 15 minutes, but might take half an hour) I'll bus back home and do the last little tidy-up (moving a few towels downstairs - or onto the linens shelf, either way; getting the umbrella out of the studio, bringing the garbage downstairs and closing the closet door) before my artist arrives at 2:30.
And that'll be my afternoon.
If people can send me Good Job Vibes between 1pm and 1:30pm today (Wednesday, the 25th), I'd really appreciate it. :-)
Fingers crossed. I could really do with this job.
I'm wearing the fancy, long black coat my Mom gave me - she said she wasn't wearing it, but wanted someone to - and it's pretty, it's something fancy to wear to something like this (also, it's from this particular store, so it's probably a good idea...). I'm also wearing my baffed up fluvogs because they are my winter boots, and there you go. Pinstriped skirt, black v-neck tshirt, fuschia cropped cardigan, delicate opal pendant, cautter-pin earrings, super-long black socks, wedding ring, labradorite ring, steel bangle. Honey-clove-and-citrus perfume melange. Packing everything up in my spiffy new (and therefore not wrecked) purse in the hopes of looking reasonably put together, even though they've totally seen me in my leather coat and 14 layers of warm clothes before.
After the interview (which, I'm guessing, will take about 15 minutes, but might take half an hour) I'll bus back home and do the last little tidy-up (moving a few towels downstairs - or onto the linens shelf, either way; getting the umbrella out of the studio, bringing the garbage downstairs and closing the closet door) before my artist arrives at 2:30.
And that'll be my afternoon.
If people can send me Good Job Vibes between 1pm and 1:30pm today (Wednesday, the 25th), I'd really appreciate it. :-)
Fingers crossed. I could really do with this job.
Tags:
In accordance with her game, [personal profile]Nenya_Kanadka gave me the Letter J.
Something I hate: Jail. Haven't actually been (YAY) and would like to avoid. It seems thoroughly dehumanizing. I would like to see prisons... largely phased out? If possible?
Something I love: Jam. By-which, of course, I mean more generalized canning and preserving, because this is me. But still. Yum. Jam. :-) Also: Jam sessions where we trade melodies and harmonies back and for around a fairly basic set of chord progressions, because that is also awesome.
Somewhere I've been: Jasper, Alberta. At least I *think* I've been to Jasper. In lieu of Banff, 20 years ago, when doing a cross-country trip with my family.
Somewhere I'd like to go: Jyväskylä, Finland. Because lakes. Also Hyel, but I'm pretty sure she's nowhere near the Lakeland.
Someone I know: Jess. She lives up the street from me.
A film I like: Uhhhh... Okay, I admit I'm drawing a blank on this. The movie that comes to mind is "Julie and Julia" because I'm a fiend for cooking, but I haven't actually seen it so I have no idea if it's any good. :-/ Pass?
A book I like: Just Girls by Rachel Gold. It's YA. It's not perfect. Bits of it made me twitch (if appropriation of oppression is a thing, there's maybe some of that going on here? Also why is het sex being treated as this Huge Romantic Deal but dyke sex is... just no big thing?), and the second half is [SPOILER ALERT] about domestic violence in close-knit queer communities, which I had NOT expected and which kind of had my shoulders up around my ears, mostly because of my ex-husband. But I'm still glad this book, with its boatload of queer cis and trans characters, exists and is available.
Anyway. That's that. If you want to play, too, leave me a comment saying as much, and I'll give you a letter to work with. :-)
TTFN,
Amazon.
Something I hate: Jail. Haven't actually been (YAY) and would like to avoid. It seems thoroughly dehumanizing. I would like to see prisons... largely phased out? If possible?
Something I love: Jam. By-which, of course, I mean more generalized canning and preserving, because this is me. But still. Yum. Jam. :-) Also: Jam sessions where we trade melodies and harmonies back and for around a fairly basic set of chord progressions, because that is also awesome.
Somewhere I've been: Jasper, Alberta. At least I *think* I've been to Jasper. In lieu of Banff, 20 years ago, when doing a cross-country trip with my family.
Somewhere I'd like to go: Jyväskylä, Finland. Because lakes. Also Hyel, but I'm pretty sure she's nowhere near the Lakeland.
Someone I know: Jess. She lives up the street from me.
A film I like: Uhhhh... Okay, I admit I'm drawing a blank on this. The movie that comes to mind is "Julie and Julia" because I'm a fiend for cooking, but I haven't actually seen it so I have no idea if it's any good. :-/ Pass?
A book I like: Just Girls by Rachel Gold. It's YA. It's not perfect. Bits of it made me twitch (if appropriation of oppression is a thing, there's maybe some of that going on here? Also why is het sex being treated as this Huge Romantic Deal but dyke sex is... just no big thing?), and the second half is [SPOILER ALERT] about domestic violence in close-knit queer communities, which I had NOT expected and which kind of had my shoulders up around my ears, mostly because of my ex-husband. But I'm still glad this book, with its boatload of queer cis and trans characters, exists and is available.
Anyway. That's that. If you want to play, too, leave me a comment saying as much, and I'll give you a letter to work with. :-)
TTFN,
Amazon.
Tags:
Oh, my gods, minimum wage? Minimum fucking wage? For a goddamn YEAR??? Eugh. I fucking hate temp agencies. Because you know that this contract pays $15+/hr and they're just taking 1/3 of it. :-P
Eugh.
Okay. I'm cool. I'm fine.
Right: None the less, it's 15 hrs/week in the afternoons and would net me $132/week after taxes AKA a little over $500/month. And I could really, really use that $500/month. It would mean I could for-sure-for-sure pay my portion of the rent and still be available to take modeling jobs (most of which are in the mornings and finish up a good hour+ before I'd need to be at the Human Rights Commission[1] for this contract job) - which would go towards paying for groceries, utility bills, and communications bills. It would also still allow me my non-modeling mornings to work on poetry and other artsy stuff. And it's down town, so I wouldn't need to buy a bus pass to get to and from my day-job.
As such, and in spite of the crappy wage being offered, this is still pretty-much exactly what I need and a really good opportunity that I'd be foolish not to go for. So I'm sending in an updated version of my resume, crossing my fingers, and hoping they say YES to ME with a February start-date.
Think good job vibes for me, please!
Thanks,
Amazon.
[1] It doesn't hurt that this is for the Human Rights Commission, either. I like the Human Rights commission.
Eugh.
Okay. I'm cool. I'm fine.
Right: None the less, it's 15 hrs/week in the afternoons and would net me $132/week after taxes AKA a little over $500/month. And I could really, really use that $500/month. It would mean I could for-sure-for-sure pay my portion of the rent and still be available to take modeling jobs (most of which are in the mornings and finish up a good hour+ before I'd need to be at the Human Rights Commission[1] for this contract job) - which would go towards paying for groceries, utility bills, and communications bills. It would also still allow me my non-modeling mornings to work on poetry and other artsy stuff. And it's down town, so I wouldn't need to buy a bus pass to get to and from my day-job.
As such, and in spite of the crappy wage being offered, this is still pretty-much exactly what I need and a really good opportunity that I'd be foolish not to go for. So I'm sending in an updated version of my resume, crossing my fingers, and hoping they say YES to ME with a February start-date.
Think good job vibes for me, please!
Thanks,
Amazon.
[1] It doesn't hurt that this is for the Human Rights Commission, either. I like the Human Rights commission.
Tags:
So I'm sick.
This is irritating and frustrating, although part of me is enjoying the "guilt-free down-time" that comes with it.
the dishes are piling up like nobody's business, though, because neither of us is particularly healthy at the moment. Ghost is directing her energies towards finishing up for-pay leather work in the interests of making back the money she's lost due to missing work (the same bug + a doctor's appointment) over the past week or so. And I'm just a mess who can't go ten minutes without blowing her nose, apparently. :-P
None the less, We have emptied the last of the packed-stuff (er... sort of...) that was sitting on the living room floor, and it's now distributed appropriately around the house. And I've shifted some of the stuff in the boxes in the kitchen so that I was able to cart one box up to my Studio/Office (it mostly consists of lamps). The Studio is still a mess. I still have curtain rods to put up. And a mirror and a shelf (YAY SHELF!), and a slew of things to put away - ideally on said shelf - before it's a really functional space. None the less, I can at least move around in it, which is a help.
Still to do in The Studio:
Put up the curtain rod.
Hang the curtains.
Set up the rug (small, to go under the spinning wheel).
Empty the bags - one of winter woolies, a couple of bathroom stuff - into the appropraite recepticals.
Move the under-bed-storage-unit intot he bedroom and under the actual bed.
Move the beautiful - but fragile and ricketty - tea trolly to a different part of the room. Not sure where, though.
I have a list of books that I want to read this year:
Imogene Binnie's Nevada (novel - not sure what I'm going to make of the stream-of-conscious writing style, I'm a little worried it's going to read like Lisa Foad's The Night Is A Mouth which... I didn't like at all)
Dane Figueroa Edidi's Yemaya's Daughters (novel - though the prose is lyric & has a cadance like poetry - I'm looking forward to this one)
Casey Plett's A Safe Girl to Love (short story collection)
Trish Salah's Lyric Sexology (poetry)
Morgan M. Page's At Land (chapbook/novelette - I'm a little nervous about this one since psychological horror is absolutely NOT the kind of stuff I want to read[1])
Ryka Aoki's He Mele A Hilo: A Hilo Song (novel) and/or her Seasonal Velocities (poetry, short stories, & essays)[2]
Amber Dawn's Where the Words End and My Body Begins (poetry)
Leanne Simpson's Islands of Decolonial Love (short story collection - I went to a reading of this one a couple of winters ago)
Saleema Nawaz's Bone and Bread (novel - also: Hee! I went to school with her when we were little, and also when we were big. "I knew her when," etc).
I've got Morgan's novelette and Dane's novel on order - who knows when they'll arrive in the mail - and the rest I'll get ahold of as and when I can scrape together the cash to do so. But that's the plan. I can get Nevada from amazon.ca for about $20 (and Leanne's and Saleema's books for less than that), but Ryka's and Trish's books (in paperback) are both running at over $100, so... looking elsewhere for those, I think. I can probably find Casey's collection at Venus Envy, even if I can't find it elsewhere.
We shall see.
Links to Things You Should Read:
The Heat of Us: Notes Towards an Oral History - a short story in Uncanny Magazine that is absolutely glorious and makes me want to cry.
When Every Day is Judgement Day - Terri Windling on Perfectionism.
My New Year's Wish - Neil Gaiman on Making Mistakes (2012)
Anyway. So that's the world of reading.
I've started editing the first third of The Novel. I decided that it was probably a good idea to take a break from the content-production part in order to try and get the first chunk of Draft One tidied up enough that I could see the way forward a little more clearly.
It's almost 46,000 words long. Which is awesome, but also slightly frightening. The goal, right now, is to fix any obvious inconsistencies (stuff like "making sure I keep the names straight") and trim off 15,000 words of dead-weight, if I can manage that - ideally by combining scenes so that twice as many Relevant Events/Statements happen in half the space. Here's hoping.
Artsy/Creative Goals for 2015:
Get closer to finishing The Novel - ideally by finishing Draft One and handing it off to Ami_B for editing purposes
Write enough (and curate enough already-written) poetry to fill two manuscripts: "How to Cook A Heart" (an exploration of love, vulnerability, openheartedness, polyamoury, and emotional abundance through the lens/metaphor of cooking/growing/foraging seasonal food), and "We Are All Jezebel" (an exploration of the intersections of femme (empowered/autonomous queer femininity), slut (desire, lust, erotica), and sexworker (professional nake girl, pornographer, but also solidarity, and a bunch of other related stuff), with the idea that they'll be ready to perform, even if they're not much published, by June of 2015
Continue teaching myself to edit video with the goal of producing some sort of weird, dream-scape-y "music video" for a piece of poetry or similar
Learn how to make audio recordings using a cheap-but-serviceable mic and, perhaps, a looping pedal (or downloaded open source looping software) and try to do something arty and fun with it, ideally in conjunction with the above-mentioned video production
Sing more - both in terms of frequency and in terms of learning new repertoire
Grow food & make a garden - Not artsy, necessarily, but something that will feed me in more ways than one, so worth putting here none the less.
Figure out how to do contouring makeup, and get better at it
Anyway. So that's where things are at right now.
TTFN,
Amazon.
[1] Then why am I reading it? Because the author's an acquaintance of mine. Because if I want to do a show with her, it would help if I was familiar with her work.
[2] I admit, I'd prefer Seasonal Velocities, but it'll depend a lot on which one I can find at an affordable (read ~$20, ideally less) price.
This is irritating and frustrating, although part of me is enjoying the "guilt-free down-time" that comes with it.
the dishes are piling up like nobody's business, though, because neither of us is particularly healthy at the moment. Ghost is directing her energies towards finishing up for-pay leather work in the interests of making back the money she's lost due to missing work (the same bug + a doctor's appointment) over the past week or so. And I'm just a mess who can't go ten minutes without blowing her nose, apparently. :-P
None the less, We have emptied the last of the packed-stuff (er... sort of...) that was sitting on the living room floor, and it's now distributed appropriately around the house. And I've shifted some of the stuff in the boxes in the kitchen so that I was able to cart one box up to my Studio/Office (it mostly consists of lamps). The Studio is still a mess. I still have curtain rods to put up. And a mirror and a shelf (YAY SHELF!), and a slew of things to put away - ideally on said shelf - before it's a really functional space. None the less, I can at least move around in it, which is a help.
Still to do in The Studio:
Put up the curtain rod.
Hang the curtains.
Set up the rug (small, to go under the spinning wheel).
Empty the bags - one of winter woolies, a couple of bathroom stuff - into the appropraite recepticals.
Move the under-bed-storage-unit intot he bedroom and under the actual bed.
Move the beautiful - but fragile and ricketty - tea trolly to a different part of the room. Not sure where, though.
I have a list of books that I want to read this year:
Imogene Binnie's Nevada (novel - not sure what I'm going to make of the stream-of-conscious writing style, I'm a little worried it's going to read like Lisa Foad's The Night Is A Mouth which... I didn't like at all)
Dane Figueroa Edidi's Yemaya's Daughters (novel - though the prose is lyric & has a cadance like poetry - I'm looking forward to this one)
Casey Plett's A Safe Girl to Love (short story collection)
Trish Salah's Lyric Sexology (poetry)
Morgan M. Page's At Land (chapbook/novelette - I'm a little nervous about this one since psychological horror is absolutely NOT the kind of stuff I want to read[1])
Ryka Aoki's He Mele A Hilo: A Hilo Song (novel) and/or her Seasonal Velocities (poetry, short stories, & essays)[2]
Amber Dawn's Where the Words End and My Body Begins (poetry)
Leanne Simpson's Islands of Decolonial Love (short story collection - I went to a reading of this one a couple of winters ago)
Saleema Nawaz's Bone and Bread (novel - also: Hee! I went to school with her when we were little, and also when we were big. "I knew her when," etc).
I've got Morgan's novelette and Dane's novel on order - who knows when they'll arrive in the mail - and the rest I'll get ahold of as and when I can scrape together the cash to do so. But that's the plan. I can get Nevada from amazon.ca for about $20 (and Leanne's and Saleema's books for less than that), but Ryka's and Trish's books (in paperback) are both running at over $100, so... looking elsewhere for those, I think. I can probably find Casey's collection at Venus Envy, even if I can't find it elsewhere.
We shall see.
Links to Things You Should Read:
The Heat of Us: Notes Towards an Oral History - a short story in Uncanny Magazine that is absolutely glorious and makes me want to cry.
When Every Day is Judgement Day - Terri Windling on Perfectionism.
My New Year's Wish - Neil Gaiman on Making Mistakes (2012)
Anyway. So that's the world of reading.
I've started editing the first third of The Novel. I decided that it was probably a good idea to take a break from the content-production part in order to try and get the first chunk of Draft One tidied up enough that I could see the way forward a little more clearly.
It's almost 46,000 words long. Which is awesome, but also slightly frightening. The goal, right now, is to fix any obvious inconsistencies (stuff like "making sure I keep the names straight") and trim off 15,000 words of dead-weight, if I can manage that - ideally by combining scenes so that twice as many Relevant Events/Statements happen in half the space. Here's hoping.
Artsy/Creative Goals for 2015:
Get closer to finishing The Novel - ideally by finishing Draft One and handing it off to Ami_B for editing purposes
Write enough (and curate enough already-written) poetry to fill two manuscripts: "How to Cook A Heart" (an exploration of love, vulnerability, openheartedness, polyamoury, and emotional abundance through the lens/metaphor of cooking/growing/foraging seasonal food), and "We Are All Jezebel" (an exploration of the intersections of femme (empowered/autonomous queer femininity), slut (desire, lust, erotica), and sexworker (professional nake girl, pornographer, but also solidarity, and a bunch of other related stuff), with the idea that they'll be ready to perform, even if they're not much published, by June of 2015
Continue teaching myself to edit video with the goal of producing some sort of weird, dream-scape-y "music video" for a piece of poetry or similar
Learn how to make audio recordings using a cheap-but-serviceable mic and, perhaps, a looping pedal (or downloaded open source looping software) and try to do something arty and fun with it, ideally in conjunction with the above-mentioned video production
Sing more - both in terms of frequency and in terms of learning new repertoire
Grow food & make a garden - Not artsy, necessarily, but something that will feed me in more ways than one, so worth putting here none the less.
Figure out how to do contouring makeup, and get better at it
Anyway. So that's where things are at right now.
TTFN,
Amazon.
[1] Then why am I reading it? Because the author's an acquaintance of mine. Because if I want to do a show with her, it would help if I was familiar with her work.
[2] I admit, I'd prefer Seasonal Velocities, but it'll depend a lot on which one I can find at an affordable (read ~$20, ideally less) price.
So, last night I made "Carpathian Onion Soup" (we are now nearly out of onions, plural, which is something I never expected to say, beleive you me) and spent the evening chatting with a lovely couple (one member-of-whom I got to stick needles in at Harvest and the other member-of-whom turns out live just up the street from DA_Gibbs - small world, but no big surprise) and then having tea and cranberry-coconut coffee cake with them plus our friend Moderatrix, which was quite lovely.
I now have about a litre of this soup left over (it has paprika, and I didn't remember that paprika is a bell pepper - one of our guests is alergic - until after I'd added it, so I wound up make a separate pot for her) plus half a tin of coconut milk and a tub of red pepper hummus.
So The Plan for this evening is to take the imersion blender to the remains of the soup, then stir in some of the hummus, the rest of the coconut milk, a little bit of curry powder, then top it up with some water (or actual dairy milk, we'll see) and serve it as a cream/purreed soup with - still - bread with melted cheese added on top. :-) It should be tasty and filling and delicious. Here's hoping! :-)
Here's the recipe I've come up with (as if making it from new and not from leftover Carpathian Onion Soup):
~*~
INGREDIENTS
Sesame oil OR lard OR butter
1 red onion (diced)
3 cloves garlic (raw)
1 carrot (grated)
+
¼ C red lentils
1 C coconut milk (or table cream)
1 C water
+
½ C mashed sweet potatoes (OR unsweetened canned/mashed pumpkin)
½ C red pepper hummus
1 tsp each: soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, apple juice
1 tsp each: ketchup, grainy mustard
½ tsp each: dried basil, dried winter savoury, curry powder
+
1 C white wine
1 C Water OR coconut milk (OR table cream) + extra to desired thickness
DIRECITONS
1. In a deep pot, combine fat, onion, garlic, and carrot and allow to cook on very low heat for 15 minutes (covered)
2. Add the lentils, coconut milk, and water
3. Bring to a boil on high heat
4. Reduce heat to medium and allow to simmer for half an hour, or until lentils are cooked through
5. Remove soup from heat and, using an immersion blender (easiest and safest way to do it), puree the soup (which should be quite thick at this time)
6. Stir in mashed sweet potatoes, hummus, and seasonings
7. Slowly add white wine, then water (or coconut milk) until desired thickness is achieved (this can work as anything from a bisque to a pottage, so as you will)
8. Return to the soup to the stove and heat through
9. Serve as-is, or garnish with (a) pea shoots, (b) sautéed shiitake mushroom slivers, (c) yoghurt/sour cream, (d) sautéed red peppers, OR (e) broiled cheese-on-toast slices, as for Carpathian Onion Soup
10. Serve and enjoy
I now have about a litre of this soup left over (it has paprika, and I didn't remember that paprika is a bell pepper - one of our guests is alergic - until after I'd added it, so I wound up make a separate pot for her) plus half a tin of coconut milk and a tub of red pepper hummus.
So The Plan for this evening is to take the imersion blender to the remains of the soup, then stir in some of the hummus, the rest of the coconut milk, a little bit of curry powder, then top it up with some water (or actual dairy milk, we'll see) and serve it as a cream/purreed soup with - still - bread with melted cheese added on top. :-) It should be tasty and filling and delicious. Here's hoping! :-)
Here's the recipe I've come up with (as if making it from new and not from leftover Carpathian Onion Soup):
~*~
INGREDIENTS
Sesame oil OR lard OR butter
1 red onion (diced)
3 cloves garlic (raw)
1 carrot (grated)
+
¼ C red lentils
1 C coconut milk (or table cream)
1 C water
+
½ C mashed sweet potatoes (OR unsweetened canned/mashed pumpkin)
½ C red pepper hummus
1 tsp each: soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, apple juice
1 tsp each: ketchup, grainy mustard
½ tsp each: dried basil, dried winter savoury, curry powder
+
1 C white wine
1 C Water OR coconut milk (OR table cream) + extra to desired thickness
DIRECITONS
1. In a deep pot, combine fat, onion, garlic, and carrot and allow to cook on very low heat for 15 minutes (covered)
2. Add the lentils, coconut milk, and water
3. Bring to a boil on high heat
4. Reduce heat to medium and allow to simmer for half an hour, or until lentils are cooked through
5. Remove soup from heat and, using an immersion blender (easiest and safest way to do it), puree the soup (which should be quite thick at this time)
6. Stir in mashed sweet potatoes, hummus, and seasonings
7. Slowly add white wine, then water (or coconut milk) until desired thickness is achieved (this can work as anything from a bisque to a pottage, so as you will)
8. Return to the soup to the stove and heat through
9. Serve as-is, or garnish with (a) pea shoots, (b) sautéed shiitake mushroom slivers, (c) yoghurt/sour cream, (d) sautéed red peppers, OR (e) broiled cheese-on-toast slices, as for Carpathian Onion Soup
10. Serve and enjoy
Slowly, we are moving into the new place. Slowly, we are moving out of the old place.
Ghost spent a good chunk of the morning cleaning the new fridge and stove. The fridge is still sitting in the sunshine, drying, but we've moved the stove into the kitchen. (Turns out, it's missing its knobs, so it'll be a while before I get to use the stove-top. Alas. None the less! Oven! :-D
The contents of the altars have been moved to the new place, though the actual flat surfaces are all still in the apartment. I may be able to get one of the (smaller) bookshelves shifted this evening, which would be nice.
I spent most of the morning unpacking things into the craft cabinet. Ghost also unpacked a few bins and got her workshop that much more set up, so Go Her. I've got five rubbermade bins emptied out, as a result, that can be re-filled with things like wine glasses and fancy china, but also stuff like stationary and office supplies. I've emptied a couple of bags, too, that can be used to cart less-fragile stuff over as needed.
Anyway. Ghost has gone down town to do a bootblacking workshop... thing until 5pm, so I'm going to cart my computer back up the street to the new place and make some jewelry (the picture of what I'm making is on the computer). Onwards! :-)
TTFN,
Amazon. :-)
Ghost spent a good chunk of the morning cleaning the new fridge and stove. The fridge is still sitting in the sunshine, drying, but we've moved the stove into the kitchen. (Turns out, it's missing its knobs, so it'll be a while before I get to use the stove-top. Alas. None the less! Oven! :-D
The contents of the altars have been moved to the new place, though the actual flat surfaces are all still in the apartment. I may be able to get one of the (smaller) bookshelves shifted this evening, which would be nice.
I spent most of the morning unpacking things into the craft cabinet. Ghost also unpacked a few bins and got her workshop that much more set up, so Go Her. I've got five rubbermade bins emptied out, as a result, that can be re-filled with things like wine glasses and fancy china, but also stuff like stationary and office supplies. I've emptied a couple of bags, too, that can be used to cart less-fragile stuff over as needed.
Anyway. Ghost has gone down town to do a bootblacking workshop... thing until 5pm, so I'm going to cart my computer back up the street to the new place and make some jewelry (the picture of what I'm making is on the computer). Onwards! :-)
TTFN,
Amazon. :-)
Tags:
So I'm about 1/3 of the way through the (first draft of a) manuscript for a book of poetry that I'm planning on calling "How to Cook a Heart".
It's poetry about food - five poems per month of the year, basically, though we'll see which month I wind up starting in. Probably May, knowing me. It's also poetry - at least this seems to be the case, and increasingly so - about polyamoury, relationships, vulnerability, abundance, generocity, and having enough [food/love] to go around. That bit was kind of an accident, but it's an awfully happy one, and I'm very glad to see that this is what's coming out in my work. :-)
Today I (finally) wrote the title poem.
I'm rather pleased with it, though it - like all of them - will need some polishing as time goes on.
Still: Poem! Hurrah, and yay for me! :-D
I also:
Returned a library book, and took out two more
Packed up four shelves (not cases, just shelves) of books
Worked a little bit on a cabaret costume
Bought Ghost a little paint-brush tote in-which to keep her metal-detecting stuff
Bought new shoe laces (finally) and replaced the badly-frayed one on my autumn boots (hurrah)
It's poetry about food - five poems per month of the year, basically, though we'll see which month I wind up starting in. Probably May, knowing me. It's also poetry - at least this seems to be the case, and increasingly so - about polyamoury, relationships, vulnerability, abundance, generocity, and having enough [food/love] to go around. That bit was kind of an accident, but it's an awfully happy one, and I'm very glad to see that this is what's coming out in my work. :-)
Today I (finally) wrote the title poem.
I'm rather pleased with it, though it - like all of them - will need some polishing as time goes on.
Still: Poem! Hurrah, and yay for me! :-D
I also:
Returned a library book, and took out two more
Packed up four shelves (not cases, just shelves) of books
Worked a little bit on a cabaret costume
Bought Ghost a little paint-brush tote in-which to keep her metal-detecting stuff
Bought new shoe laces (finally) and replaced the badly-frayed one on my autumn boots (hurrah)
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