me: *Step 1: scooping cold cooked rice from rice cooker into bowl in preparation for Steps 2 (spoon yesterday's vegie chilli over the top), 3 (heat in microwave) and 5 (dinner!)*

rice: *refuses to be easily scooped*

me: *tilts rice cooker pot to facilitate scooping*

entire rice-cookerful of rice: *splot*

me: oops

if anyone wants to know what Step 4 was, I can only reply "????" and refer them to the Underpants Gnomes for further information, or lack thereof

Tonight I have:

* spent an hour sight-reading through Francis Grier's Missa Trinitatis Sanctae. Good stuff! I intend to sneakily photocopy my already-sneakily-photocopied score and send it to people back home to have a look at. I could see a good IV choir (maybe a MIV/AIV?) doing this and having a jolly good time. It also makes me realise how little I challenge myself these days, sight-reading wise... out of the two Ad Solem concerts I've been in, there has been only one piece each concert that I didn't already know, and they weren't exactly difficult; Burli Singers I only make mistakes when I lose concentration; and CAOS -- well, if the conductor is sight-reading then the rest of the choir's in trouble! It was nice to have something in front of me where I actually had to do a double-take and think "wait, what? how does that rhythm go??" So, sight-reading FTW, woot;

* played Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso on the piano, huzzah;

* half-made a batch of leek&potato soup (it is simmering right now), nom;

* not marked any essays, boo.

Also:

You Are Not An Exhibitionist

You're happy with who you are, and you don't need other people's affirmations to prove it. You don't really like excess attention, and you prefer to blend in with the crowd. You are modest and humble. You don't make a big fuss out of your accomplishments. You prefer to fly under the radar. The people who matter most will like you no matter what.

No, I am not an exhibitionist! I would have skinny-dipped in Antarctica even if nobody had been there to watch me... :D

Tonight for dinner I have pasta with red capsicum, olives and baked beans.
.
.
.
... I blame Lee.

And people used to think I was weird for putting sweet chilli sauce on my cheese-on-toast... I particularly like the Chocolate-Chip* Pancake Sausage On A Stick. ("Hot sausage! Onna stick! With chocola-- ... wait, WTF?")

I also like the Breakfast Cake on page 2. Disturbingly, though, toad-in-the-hole is a regular item on the menu at the local pub...

hat-tip: thekit.

I am working at home today because yesterday my left eye decided, for no particular reason, to become really really itchy and then swell up and then, despite rinsing and anti-histamine pills, be stuck together and gross when I woke up this morning; and I cannot go out in public looking like this without binocular vision. Hopefully it is in better shape by the time I need to meet sablin_1975 for birthday drinks...

*Possibly thankfully, this is not chocolate AND chips AND pancake wrapped around a sausage stuck on a stick, only a pancake with choc-chips in it wrapped around a sausage stuck on a stick.

I've gotten used to having "enough" money -- by which I mean, enough that I can afford everyday things plus some luxuries without having to wonder all the time whether I can. Though I suppose one's definition of "everyday" and "luxury" change dramatically depending on personal circumstances... when I moved over here with a shoestring budget to get me through the year, buying a £1 wedge of brie at Asda was a luxury, and I remember how ecstatic I was when after a church service, the choir were treated to lunch at the cafe-bar next door, even including a glass of wine! I hadn't had a proper "civilised" sit-down lunch in a restaurant since leaving Melbourne and at the time had no prospect of affording one soon. Nowadays I tend to buy almost anything I like at the supermarket (things like smoked salmon are occasional, but still affordable), eat meals out probably far more often than I should, and the luxuries are things like holidays and dive trips.

And this, of course, is why I currently don't feel like I have "enough". It's probably very good for me to regain a sense of budgetary scale through two weeks' enforced restrictions. Still, I have to keep reminding myself "no, you can't do that -- for another two weeks, anyway!"

Things that I cannot buy (or so I am telling myself):
* books (even if I decide to go back to Amazon)
* random presents for people. I thought mistersteve's Time Travel t-shirt would make a great present, but I really cannot spend money on anything non-essential this month
* drinks at the pub
* lunch.

It's probably the first three that bother me most: deep down I do regard books as a necessity rather than a luxury; I like being able to get people presents as the whim strikes me; and I feel very unsociable not participating in rounds at the pub. Soda water is usually free, so I can go to the pub, but not being able to buy people drinks is annoying.

On the lunch front, I am not really so poor that I can't afford to spend £2-3 buying lunch; it's just that those £2-3 could be better spent elsewhere. This is what being not-really-poor-just-limited comes down to: if I walk rather than pay 80p on the bus twice, I can buy a sandwich for lunch. If I bring lunch from home twice, I can buy drinks for me and a friend at the pub. If I don't drink at the pub twice, I can probably afford a cheap meal out. And so forth.

Inspired by this train of thought, I ransacked my office drawer for all the cupboardy-lunch-type foods that I buy and store in there for when I can't be bothered to go out -- or, in this case, when I'm trying to save money. Result: win!

* twelve, count them, TWELVE cup-a-soups
* one packet Super Noodles (I have a funny story about Super Noodles that I must post later)
* one single-serve box Frosties (milk comes free in our tea-room, yay)
* one muesli bar (this and the Frosties were actually free samples!)
* one packet Instant Savoury Rice (which requires 15 minutes cooking, so I might take it home for tea)
* one tin sardines
* one tin pink salmon
* one packet "tuna with tomato and herb", and
* two packets microwave Pasta'n'Sauce,

one of which I am now eating for today's lunch. Yes, I could view this "diet for my wallet" as an annoying restriction -- or I could treat it as an opportunity to indulge my secret love of trashy instant food. The "Top Tips" on the back of my macaroni cheese says this (and I quote the full thing, to spread the real instant food love):

Spread tomato ketchup and whole grain mustard on thick slices of toasted bread. Sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese and grill until golden. Make up the Pasta'n'Sauce according to the pack instructions. Cut the toasted bread into triangles and serve with the cooked pasta.

I can haz cooking skillz now plz? :D Ketchup and grilled cheese on toast: roll on Trashtastic Tastes, Gourmet-Style! (The whole-grain mustard makes it gourmet, y'see.)

Unfortunately I don't have any thick slices of toasted bread, or any whole grain mustard (or any mustard whatsoever, for that matter). But I have compensated by drizzling my Macaroni Cheese Flavour Pasta'n'Sauce liberally with the ketchup I keep in my office for emergencies. In an artistic cross-hatched pattern, naturally.

Now why am I experiencing a strange craving for HP-Sauce-flavoured water...?

Hurrah! I have saved money, been reasonably healthy and helped to clean out my pantry by making noodles rather than going out for them. Well, I didn't make the noodles themselves, I found them in the back of the cupboard (they were best-before Oct 2007 but they looked and smelled all right; I hope I don't die) but I stir-fried them with vegetables and spicy sauce myself.

Ingredients: one very small onion, half a capsicum that has also been in the fridge for god-knows-how-long but seemed to be ok, two carrots that were bendy but otherwise fine, a handful of frozen peas dug out of the iceberg that is my freezer, half a cucumber that was still quite firm (unlike the normal state of cucumbers in my fridge), leftover limp coriander leaves that were hiding behind the carrots; a single-serve packet of (rather ancient) vacuum-sealed thin udon; a splash of soy, a few gloops of hoisin sauce, several good shakes of shichimi powder and a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce.

Total time spent in kitchen: < 10 minutes (not including washing-up which I haven't done yet, sigh)

Result: highly satisfactory! :-9

I should go home for lunch, because on Wednesday I made such an enormous pot of soup that it turned into two pots of soup, and a big pan of Quorn shepherd's pie, and it needs to be eaten.

Created by Train Horns

I'm glad my hearing is younger than I am.

You Are Engaged

You feel completely absorbed and intrigued right now. You're cheerfully busy. You're alert and completely involved with everything you do. You don't walk through life half-asleep. If you're interested and engrossed, then you feel incredibly happy. You are constantly curious and never bored. There's too much to be fascinated with!

This is completely true, except for one bit: "You don't walk through life half-asleep." Has anyone seen me this week?? (Well, obviously some people have but the authors of this meme haven't.) I haven't been to bed before 2am in over a week and most nights it's more like 3am. Moar sleepz, I needz them *yawn* Maybe after lunch a nap will be in order.

ETA: Oh yes, and the title of this meme is misleading. I'm not ACTUALLY engaged (well, not in the way you would usually expect if I said it). Obv. :D

I thought I'd post the recipe for the vegie curry I made last week -- it got a few votes, so I figure people must have thought it sounded good! It was one of those random creations of which you could make countless variations, so the recipe is fairly vague and not in the least prescriptive; but I find it useful for my own recollections to make a note of things like, how many of these did I actually use, and is there anything else I put in etc, in case I want to recreate the same version.

( Sweet potato, chickpea and spinach curry )

For those who voted and might be curious as to the eventual outcome, we also had: various cheeses, olives, semi-dried tomatoes, hummus, roasted eggplant (mmm, antipasto), homemade white bean dip, mozzarella sticks and cheese bites (that came in a packet), chicken goujons and pork fillet with green beans and cider cream sauce (for the meatatarian). I haven't yet learnt how to cook sensible amounts... but I did decide soup as well would definitely be too much food! Next time, Gadget...

Randomest haiku ever! unfortunately not with the correct number of syllables. I don't even remember mentioning h bissinger anywhere in my journal! (Who is h bissinger, for that matter??)

Haiku2 for foxe
lights h bissinger 1990 75 cathedral raymond carver 1983 76 a
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

I have come to the realisation that, by and large, I only have chocolate cravings when something is wrong with me -- either something is out of whack or wrong with my body, or I've done something to put it out of balance somehow.

( Cut for girly hormone rant )

On Monday I was grumpy, tired, felt like my skin didn't fit right, frustrated almost to tears at the smallest things and wanting chocolate like WHOA. Now, even on the rare occasions when I might decide I'd quite like some chocolate and succumb to buying it from our crappy vending machine, I'll usually eat a couple of pieces and then I don't want any more. This time I ate the entire bar in about two minutes, AND a bag of crisps, AND I still wanted another one. And I felt compelled to have chips, and leftover pie, and cheese when I got home. It's like girly hormones decouple the part of your brain that tells you what you want to eat from the part that tells you what you need to eat...

Then, possibly as a result of this but also, I suspect, hormone-related, yesterday I woke up feeling horribly bloated and not really wanting to eat anything all day. I went to the doctor, got my shot, instantly felt better (ah, placebo effect) and had a nice healthy salad for dinner. Today, leftover salad for lunch = delicious, but also = not very much food intake in the last two days. Which of course leads to mmm, I want chocolate... Fortunately there's a good reason for it this time (thank goodness, I feel like I'm getting back to me-normal); and also fortunately, mandarins have an equivalent if not better effect in terms of providing blood sugar, which seems to be what I needed.

But I might have one piece of chocolate anyway :)

Tonight I made soup. This is something that always gives me great satisfaction -- akin to the food chemistry miracle of whizzing sugar and butter and eggs and flour into a sloppy mess and having it come out of the oven an hour later all golden and fragrant and cakey and delicious, the wonderful magic of soup that means you can throw all sorts of assorted things into a pot, simmer, blend and somehow wind up with a steaming hot bowl full of flavourful goodness tasting even better than its component parts is a process that never fails to yield pleasing results. (Well, except the first time I tried to make crab and sweetcorn soup and didn't know how to do the egg drop bit and wound up with big lumps of scrambled egg sitting at the bottom of the pot, but that was long ago and in another country and besides, my crab and sweetcorn soup is damn good these days.)

That crab and sweetcorn was the only soup I made for years and years (I learnt to make it properly when I was about 16) but these days I'm gradually building up a soup repertoire which now includes Generic Vegetable (usually includes orange and white root vegetables and possibly broccoli); Spicy Tomato and Chorizo (based on a recipe from seagoon, actually); Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato; Pea, Mint and Watercress/Spinach; Broccoli, (optional) Bacon and Blue Brie (my version of the English classic broccoli and Stilton soup); Minestrone; and Tom Yum. Hmm, perhaps I should have a Soup Blogging Week...

But anyway, I thought I'd post about tonight's soup because I was trying out a new idea and because it worked well enough for me to want to remember how to make it again. Inspired by a reduced-to-clear bag of sweet potatoes at the supermarket and the half-bag of carrots that has been in the fridge waiting to be used for ages, I made:

( Spicy Thai Sweet Potato Soup with Kaffir Lime )

I'm still not caught up on sleep after another frenetic week which included being very busy at work (teaching a Research Ethics tute Monday, a lecture to the med school on Tuesday and a 2-hour seminar in Sheffield on Thursday; as well as John S being in Manchester) as well as the CAOS Spring Concert with assorted dress/extra rehearsals, as well as being miserably, snottily, sneezily, coughily, sore-throatedly, voice-losingly sick. Any two out of those three I could probably have dealt with fine, but the combination all together was rather an ordeal.

The concert yesterday, though, was amazing. I don't think I've ever heard CAOS sing so well or so responsively as in the first three a cappella pieces -- I was stunned and impressed (and proud!) beyond words. winikoff's Anthem for Doomed Youth was a real challenge and, after some initial doubts on the choir's part in rehearsals, they managed to pull it off to the extent that several audience members commented on how much they were struck by the piece; and there were some fantastic moments in the Rutter as well, helped out by our mini-orchestra. And I think last night was one of the best performances I've heard from the full orchestra, too. A good showing all round!

And now, perhaps, an early night...?

The new University Place refectory has decided to get with the 21st century and introduce a cook-to-order noodle and stir-fry bar. And it's obvious that they have NO IDEA how to make it work.

( In which I ramble about noodles )
I think much of the disorganisation I saw today can be put down to teething troubles; after all, they've only been open since yesterday. But I don't foresee the noodle bar getting any better. Not unless they buy some monster woks...

Passionflower ain't got nothing on this...
101 Frightening Ice Cream Flavours Some of these are actually rather civilised -- for example Ricotta, Wasabi and Sweet Potato icecream all sound ok to me. (Though perhaps not in combination.) On the other hand the sheer WTFery of flavours such as Collagen Lemon (with real chunks of chewy collagen, apparently!), Deep Sea Water, Indian Curry and Natural Viagra flavour icecreams would be hard to resist also. The picture of Salad Icecream made me laugh -- you can see cucumber slices and capsicum pieces embedded in it.

And my absolute unfavourite: Raw Horseflesh Icecream. :-S

Meanwhile, I have been tagged! ( 50 questions meme )

I have two-minute noodles for lunch and they are cheese masala flavour.
The sheer wrongness of this delights me greatly.

So today I gave in and went to Borders to buy Harry Potter. I may also have accidentally bought Kushiel's Justice (against my principles because it's in hardback and won't match my paperbacks of the rest of the series, but I can't wait a year to read it!), A Feast for Crows and City of Bones, which I found by mistake when I was looking for a collected volume of The Dark is Rising (because Cooper and Clare are right next to each other on the shelf) and couldn't resist. I should not be let loose in bookstores... At least AFfC was in paperback and only $8; books are cheap here when you buy them SENSIBLY!

Other than spending ridiculous amounts of money on books, I am also in Chicago, which rocks! demiurgician and Mr Demiurgician have a very cool apartment right near the city, where they have been kind enough to let me stay, and have been showing me all round the best sights that Chicago has to offer. Yesterday we went to the Field Museum of Natural History (I love museums! This one had an especially good Evolving Planet exhibition, with lots of fossils, and then we looked at the Pacific Cultures anthropology collection, which was fascinating but a bit spooky), had totally delicious Cajun food at a restaurant called Heaven on Seven, which also had the biggest collection of hot sauce that I have ever seen, and rode the Chicago Eye Navy Pier ferris wheel for spectacular sunset views of the city skyline. Today we did the Shedd Aquarium, which was brilliant, though I wish we'd had more time - the beluga whales (especially the baby one!) and the sea otters were amazingly cute! - followed by a picnic on the lawns outside and then Lincoln Park Zoo, where we met a most entertaining polar bear.

Now we are waiting for pizza! the Chicago deep-dish variety, which I am told is a local speciality. Mmmmm :-9

and I'm not even on holiday any more! Yes, I have returned from a fun-filled three weeks of travelling, sightseeing and visiting family and friends *sigh* It was lovely to see you, everyone that I managed to catch up with... I wish Australia was closer to England!

So, my last week has gone something ( like this )

Hehehe. Also: Overheard in Birmingham!

American woman: Dollars... do they even have dollars in New Zealand?
American man: Yeah, it's part of Australia innit?

Continuing from yesterday's overdue update...

( the Forbidden City )

( the new weirdest thing I've ever eaten )

Time to go... more later!

I am home from Valencia/London trip! Got back on the train at 7pm last night, dumped my luggage and went straight out again, of course, since it was Friday... but it was nice to sleep in my own bed again, even if I didn't make it there until 4am.

Tonight is Guy Fawkes' Night here in the UK, which means there are random explosions audible (and occasionally visible) all over the place. It is also almost dark, at 4:30pm. Woe!! And I hear that Melbourne had 30 degrees earlier this week. Stop with the complaining about hot weather, people: you're making me jealous.

Possibly the only benefit of it getting darker earlier is that one can drink cocktails at 4pm and not feel TOO degenerate, because after all, it is dusk. And, if I am going to make drinks for people later, surely I need to test the recipes out first to make sure they work. Don't I?

I have a bajillion photos from the trip, which I will get round to uploading to photobucket eventually (some of my London photos from the previous trip are up, check them out if you're interested). For now, though:

( Country meme: I am Thailand (hee!) )

( 50 foods meme )

Well, I had better start setting up for drinks... more later!

I just made Thai grilled chicken. Or at least, I marinated it ready for grilling tomorrow at the Giant Buffet Party of doom I really hate how I feel everything must be Of Doom, but it seems to be a very essential addendum to every event. "Very essential" - that's another one I like currently. It has vast amounts of nosewatering spices: ginger, garlic, coriander root, black pepper, paprika, cumin, and more stuff that I've already forgotten, all pestled together in a mortar. It smells so good!

ROCS tonight went pretty well, we signed up three new members even! At first we were locked out of our room, so we sang carols in the foyer. Then afterwards we had drinkies and chips. I had much wine *hic* splatchtrock was going off to Gooooo (where it seems evil_s and mawaridi are also - Grrr if I had known they were going I might have been inclined to go along too) so I caught the tram home but am still slightly drunenk.

in other good news, I finally finished adding the references to my paper today! stupid endnote, but it was useful in the end. Hoorah!

( Menu so far for tomorrow: )

People wot are coming tomorrow, if you read this, please bring drinks! I don't think my fridge will hold any more...

ETA: Verily the Great Om has decread that you shall hence forth be known as:
Grill-the-Infidel-with-witty-reparte
Or perhaps Grill-the-Chicken-with-tasty-spices?
Get your Omian name here, if you have nothing better to do!

( I am Siamese, if you please... )

In more updatey goodness:

Sarah Party MkII happened, fairly successfully I think. Much help with cooking was kindly provided by mawaridi and splatchtrock, who chopped vegies, blended sauces, made punch and rolled seemingly hundreds of arancini (that'll teach me to double the recipe! but they were tres yummy). naturalredhead, evil_s and new LJer belinda_egtdb plus... MrEgtdb? rocked up and much punch, champagne berry cocktails, arancini, fish cakes, cheese, dip, pate and crackers were consumed outside on the balcony. I bet we made the neighbours jealous... After all of that food, I was worried that people wouldn't have room for any more, but (over the course of about five hours, admittedly) we worked our way handily through peking duck wraps with Asian salad for entree, salmon-leek-&-mushroom pie, ducky potatoes and cos salad for mains and chocolate chestnut cake to finish off with; also nearly two bowls of punch, a bottle and a half of vodka, half a bottle of chambord and a bottle of champagne, and two bottles of wine. *hic* Much merriment had, until I fell asleep on the couch somewhere past midnight, naturalredhead and evil_s went home, and everyone else went downstairs and talked until 4:30am.

Saturday was occupied with yum cha, perfume shopping with mawaridi and post-SP cleaning, before the EMS concert in the evening. I <3 Dvorak (or "de-vor-shark", as the programme notes instruct it is pronounced). The PCP was reasonably huge and rocked on until about 4am, though after the previous night's excesses I was ready for bed much earlier, and hid out downstairs and then in the study for zzzz. Only one complaining phone call from the neighbours (at 3:30am after someone's fortissimo drunkissimo rendition of "New York New York" on the piano), so it could have been worse I suppose...

Sunday was day of cleaning, stress, doom, work and MIV committee meeting, which was actually really good but left me too wiped out to face going to evil_s's BBQ. Have vast sea, or at least small oxbow lake, of guilt about this, but promise to make it up next time!

Yesterday: work + work + stress + work + doom + work = finishing at the office after 7:30pm, when I was meant to be at choir, but also = getting lots done, which = good. Whew!

Spring is nearly here! The days have been getting longer and sunnier and warmer – well, except for yesterday, when it poured with rain in the afternoon, and the huge storm Saturday night – and I’m sure that any day now, there’ll be that smell in the air that means It’s spring!! and winter is over for another year.

About the only downside of that is that the snow won’t be here too much longer, I guess. Although, with over 2 metres now at Falls and Hotham, it’s going to take a while for it all to melt! Am definitely hoping to get up to the real mountains at least once more this year, plus planned trip this Sunday.

( My weekend, which was mine and which belonged to me )