Recent Cooking Endeavors, Etc.

It's been a hectic week, and the next two are likely to be just as bad, if not worse, as I get ready to take my Irish translation exam and revise and defend my dissertation proposal. But once I leap these two hurdles, I'll officially be ABD.

Anyway, despite the busy-ness, we've eaten well:

Last weekend, J made pizza crust, and so we had pizza several times this week. This one is vegan:


Then, Friday, I made another batch of granola. I've been doing this off and on since I lived at Twin Poplars, where Rowena showed me how. This batch is particularly tasty: in addition to the oats, oil, and honey, I put in raw sunflower seeds and dried cranberries. The trick with making granola, I've discovered, is to make sure to soak the fruit for a little while before toasting the whole thing--otherwise, the fruit gets hard and dry.


Lately, we've gotten some nice wines from the local wine shop, whose name--I'm a little embarrassed to say--I don't think I've ever noticed. It's on 7th Ave between 14th and 15th, and the folks who work there are nice, helpful, and have good senses of humor. But my not remembering the name of the shop is only indicative of the problem I have remembering the names of wines I like, so I'm going to try to begin taking pictures of the labels and posting the pictures here with a little commentary, however minimal.

The one on the left is, I think, my favorite since I've been back in NYC, and it was perfect with the pizza. The one on the right wasn't particularly memorable--nice enough, but nothing stuck in my mind about it. We also had a nice French one, but that bottle got recycled before I thought to take a picture of it.

In other news, I started some parsley and marigold seeds indoors yesterday. Not much to see right now--just wet brown dirt in a container. I haven't ever had much luck starting plants from seeds, probably because I tend not to pay attention to when and how they're to be sown, but I have some hopes for these. I'll be curious to see how the marigolds do--I saved the seeds from last year's, but have no idea whether the seedlings I bought last year were hybrids or what. Possibly they'll do nothing, but we'll see. Next on the list are basil, arugula, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I'll buy rosemary and lavender already started, I think.

And finally, the kitty doesn't want J to go on her next residency:

Bye, J--we'll miss you!

Coco Van

...or so Jenny & I were calling it on instant messenger, in a fit of pun (a pit of fun?) around Continental philosophers/philosophies--Mr. Herman Nutix, Esq.; Sick Sue? I hope she feels better soon!; a good kick in the Derrida; etc. Well, we had fun with it. (You know you're a humanities Ph.D. student when....)

Anyway, tonight as the evening's recreation I made coq au vin, and it was fabulous, if I may say so myself. I'd show pictures, but as ye know, it's not really that photogenic a food, and besides, my housemate Sarah and I devoured it before it could pose for the camera.

I made it with an eye to Delia's recipe, but as usual I only used it for the structure of the thing. So I fecked in some carrots and diced new potatoes after it had been cooking awhile. My only complaint with her recipe is that her notion about thickening the sauce didn't work so well (she said to make a paste of butter and flour and add that to the reduced liquid, but I think I'd have done as well the flour-water way, since I wound up with some lumps in it using the paste, and I had certainly put in enough butter already).

I used the Sainsbury's version of beaujolais, which does actually come from France (unlike some of their other wines, which come from Bulgaria and Mars and places like that). More than adequate for cooking, decent to drink while cooking, but I found that it wasn't really worth drinking with the meal. It needed something to take attention away from it as a drinking wine--either a bunch of merriment & shite talk like a departmental w(h)ine and cheese, or a task at hand, like putting together the Coco Van. But at about 3.50 sterling (about $7) I have no complaints.

In other news, I realize I have been very remiss about indicating which Books I'm Not Reading lately. So....

The Book I'm Not Reading: Adriana Cavarero's For More Than One Voice

...and I think I may also start posting poems. If it's good enough for Jeanette Winterson, it's good enough for me!