Five Heroines
So, at last, our Five Heroines of Blog Food:
AJLR
Jmeadows
Maren
Sarah from Boston
Southdowner
In alphabetical order, which is somewhat serendipitous in this case because it was AJLR’s idea, poor woman, and how many times has she looked at herself in the mirror since and said, possibly even aloud, Why? Why? However, we’re all very grateful, perhaps especially us regular recipe posters, because we can look it up if we’ve already posted something or not. Phew. Some of the time I know I’ve already told you a story I’m telling you again, but this is Days in the Life and there are, you know, themes.* But I will try not to repost recipes.
Anyway: hip hip HOORAY! Hip hip HOORAY! Hip hip . . . HOOOOOOORAAAAAAAY!**
And I suggest you open another bottle of champagne to perform this second toast.*** All reasons for champagne are good reasons. Including having another empty bottle to stick a single rose–or, just conceivably, some other flower–in. I don’t quite choose my champagne by the colour of its label and the suitability of its graphic design as a future vase but I will not deny that it crosses my mind. I love having cut flowers in the house but I’m certainly not going to cut my own!!! †, and florists are expensive. One option is to blow three quid or so on One Perfect Rose and stick it in an empty bottle of the Widow or Tattinger. You’ll acquire a tedious reputation for artiness, but it can’t be helped.
Enjoy yourselves. . . .
* * *
* Hellhounds, for example. Who, having tortured me adequately over the question of eating dinner, speaking of food, are now crashed out in the dog bed looking indescribably sweet and innocent and furry and cute. Mmmph. I however can see the faint glitter of very-slightly-open eye. I’m still feeling pretty mouldy, so there’s been more sofa time than usual lately and they want to make sure they don’t miss anything.
** “hip hip hooray – ‘three cheers’ – originally in common use as ‘hip hip hurrah’; derived from the middle ages Crusades battle-cry ‘Hieroslyma est perdita’ (Jerusalem is fallen), and subsequently shortened by Germanic tribes when fighting Jews to ‘hep hep’, and used in conjunction with ‘hu-raj’ (a Slavic term meaning ‘to paradise’), so that the whole phrase meant ‘Jerusalem is fallen and we are on the way to paradise’.”
http://www.businessballs.com/clichesorigins.htm
Okay, do we believe this one? I feel a strong downward pressure on one of my legs, myself. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on. ‘Hieroslyma est perdita’?!? Well, maybe it sounded different in the 12th century. And hands up anyone who didn’t start saying ‘My bad’ as a result of watching Buffy? These people take Buffy as a cultural phenomenon waay too lightly. Of course it’s true I haven’t been a teenager in many decades and I don’t get out much, but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? People like me say ‘my bad’ too.
*** If it was really good champagne, you have a really good stopper, and you didn’t drink much the other night, it might still be good tonight. Champagne, like most other desirable substances, including people, roses and hellhounds, is funny stuff. You can have firmly and carefully stoppered^ up your expensive bottle immediately after pouring out your one glass each for the two of you, and it can be totally yesterdayish tomorrow evening. And golly doesn’t that hurt. Ow ow ow ow ow. That thin, needle-like penetrative sound is your credit card screaming. And then on another occasion you’ll have had two glasses each two nights in a row and there’ll be maybe one glass left, and because you’re like this you put the stopper back in anyway even though you know it’s no use, but pouring champagne down the sink is just too wildly painful.^^ And the next night you’ll thriftily try it, bracing yourself for the worst and . . . it’s all fizzy and lively like it was when you first opened it and cheers you right up. Not least at the prospect of not pouring it down the sink. This happened just last night so it’s on my mind. The ordinary world is full of universal-law-breaking anomalies. I’m sure black holes and quarks come into it somewhere.
Although here’s a universal law for you: drink your quarter-bottles of champagne fast. They don’t last –unopened!–worth a stale canapé. Peter says it’s something to do with volume and surface area. Ah, I say wisely. Like why a cow goes splat when a mouse bounces.^^^
^ Hannah gave us a silver champagne stopper for a wedding present. Well, the only other possibility was a silver chocolate salver and I think she made the right choice.
^^ It usually goes in the next batch of soup really, which isn’t quite so brutal.
^^^ As you will have realised by now, my grasp of all things scientific is a trifle . . . undependable. So I went to google and typed in ‘volume surface area gravity how hard something falls’ and after almost being lost forever in some serious science chat I fetched up at this rather enigmatic site–who are these people? Do they just compose and hang basic educational science essays for fun?–whose article on size and scale is very interesting and expressed in nice straightforward non-scary language but it would nonetheless have done a lot more for me if they or their proofreader knew the difference between ‘its’ and ‘it’s’. However I will repress my inner third-grade grammar teacher and say that they were going on about house flies and geckos and things, and how while I know about claws and sticky suction cups, I still think walking on the ceiling is magic–I might accept ceiling-walking in house flies but geckos are too big–which is perhaps on the list of Why I Write Fantasy. . . . And about the way water striders walk on water. But I didn’t know this:
“If by chance the water strider did break the water tension and take a plunge, it would not be able to dry off with a bug-size towel. At this size, surface adhesion forces would keep the towel stuck to it. . . . It would also be impossible for the bug to read a book by the pool, since once the pages were scaled down to bug-size, surface adhesion would keep the pages stuck together.”
http://invsee.asu.edu/nmodules/sizescalemod/unit4.htm
Cool. All right, I amuse easily, and I never got past basic biology and basic chemistry in high school.+ And if I get this entry done before I sag forward and fall asleep with my head resting on my keyboard, I’m going to go read What’s That in Your Dog Dish? and biofilms. Biofilms?
+ I managed to take Environmental Science my final year of high school–yes, we did have Environmental Science back then, although only just barely–which involved falling in rivers, being charged by moose, etc.
† No, really. Can’t bear to. They live longer on the plant! I think the one occasion I ever seriously raided the garden at the old house was when Peter’s elder son was getting married and they had the night-before party there. And now . . . feh. Although Mme Gregoire is going to be pretty amazing in about a week.
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Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.
Okay, then.
Very warranted applause to you all!
Huzzah!
Hooray!
YAY!
:)
only virtual champagne from me, as I am underage. But hugs and admiration and chocolate are always good too, yes?!
–Julia
Congratulations on all the very hard graft put in by these Food Blog Heroines par excellence! Hip hip hurrah! Hip hip hurrah! Hip hip hurrah! And Zito!!! (Greek expression of similar usage which is the imperative of live).
On the origins of hip etc it would be Hierosolyma est perdita, wouldn’t it? Or does the Latin delete the second o?
I have an ambivalent relationship with champagne: most of the time there are other things I would rather drink, but occasionally nothing else fits the bill. But according to my reading and my on-the-spot or perhaps on-the-bottle research, the way to go with champagne is not quarter bottles but jeroboams. The quality of the champagne is so much better because of the extra volume and usually the price per ml is better too. So although the overall ouch is greater on your credit card, you do get more bang, or fizzle for your buck.
Yes, but does it last long enough for two low-tolerance people to DRINK all of it? That’s why we usually have a quarter bottle or two lurking somewhere–I have quite a LOT of occasions where only champagne will do–
And as for the Latin, I’m only cutting and pasting, ma’am.
I like Zito. How does one use it? As one raises a glass in a toast?
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No Zito! goes pretty much where Hip hip hurrah! does. With fervour, much along the lines and sounds of Opa! (If you have seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding). If you’re raising your glass, its Eis Hygeian (Iss Yghian – meaning to health in Ancient Greek) or Geia mas (Our health – in Modern Greek). And these ladies deserve a jeroboam – which lasts better stoppered as well.
Well if ALL the regular posters met somewhere I’m sure we could get through a jeroboam–but HOW LONG it lasts better stoppered is the question I still find critical!
Okay, Iss Yghian it is–I’m not going to go for modern! Ugh! :) (I didn’t actually *like* My Big Fat Greek Wedding much, except for the line about the Snow Beast! *He* is so icky!)
Re: Science
I did the same as you– Earth Science, Bio, then Chem… but I chose Envio Bio over Physics, and a good thing I did. Funnily enough, my EnvioBio experiences also included falling into rivers. No moose in CT, but we did chase frogs and light fires and watch hawks and count blackbirds and chase butterfiles and cut down trees and plant seed and things. I declined to eat the bugs, however, conveniently dropping them and putting the empty hand to my mouth. Some things I will not eat, and sow bug eggs are most definitely one of them. I did have to eat the cattail root freshly pulled out of a lake (and dragged uphill in the mud and so on), and the acorns and things, however.
[but I will have to take some science/math at some point – my college requires it. Oh well. It can be fascinating, and it also can be painful. All depends. I guess. Which reminds me, have you read Bill Bryson’s book A Short History of Nearly Everything ? Very good. Very large, but informative. And entertaining. Anyway…
Hugs!
–Julia
I don’t recall we had to eat anything peculiar. We did however camp out (hence the moose) and had to COOK OVER CAMPFIRES. Which meant eating peculiar things. :)
Yes, I had distribution requirements too: I got out of my maths one by taking astronomy!! And I took biology . . . well, that’s kind of a saga . . .
I’ve read quite a lot of Nearly Everything (!) but in pick-up-and-put-down snatches.
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Hurrah for the 5 heroines! :) And thank you for all your hard work!
Huzzah the Heroines!
***And hands up anyone who didn’t start saying ‘My bad’ as a result of watching Buffy? These people take Buffy as a cultural phenomenon waay too lightly. Of course it’s true I haven’t been a teenager in many decades and I don’t get out much, but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? People like me say ‘my bad’ too.***
Also the adding of “age” to nouns – slayage, smiteage, cleanage… And I quote from the works of Whedon at the drop of a hat, thereby driving my children crazy. They now assume anything odd I say must be Buffy. Not always true, but close. Sometimes it’s Firefly. Or Angel (although only if Spike said it). Or Monty Python, or the Goons.
They now assume anything odd I say must be Buffy.
*********** LOL!!!! Yes. I’m there. (Which I also got from Buffy. :)) . . . And by the way, I’d've read this perfectly straightforwardly, translating as necessary, without your Cletus remark. We’re all fairly *similar* chumps on this blog, I think! :)
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And, of course, as soon as I walked away from the computer, I realised my mistake.
“Age” is added to verbs to make them into nouns; i.e. “slay”=>”slayage”. At least, I hope that’s what I meant.
Just call me Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel.
Now, now. My names book says that ‘Cletus’ means ‘illustrious’. :)
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Heh. It’s from Buffy – Willow on only getting (“only”!) 740 on her verbal SAT:
“WILLOW: This is a nightmare. This is… My world is spinning.
XANDER: It’s not that bad, Willow, really.
WILLOW: 740? Verbal?! I’m-I’m… pathetic! Illiterate! I’m Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel.
XANDER: That’s right. And the fact that your 740 verbal closely resembles my combined scores in no way compromises your position as the village idiot. ”
Illustrious? That makes Willow’s remark even more interesting. I wonder if the writers knew that.
We’ve turned the younger daughter on to Buffy; we watch one episode every Saturday night. Last night’s was “The Pack”. She’s in the same grade the kids were in Season 1, so she really enjoys the high school as Hell vibe.
I remember this now you remind me, but I Have No Memory. I can *just about* remember ‘my bad’. :)
Thank you, Heroines.
I love what nerds do with their spare time. No one else would put up educational essays on the internet that anyone can understand.
LOL! Yes, isn’t it great? Can you imagine floundering through a great shelf of physics books at the nearest uni library, trying to find something you’d understand? There ARE definitely moments when I LOVE the internet! :)
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These are the sort of people who understand calculus but don’t make a big deal out of it, who run numbers through calculators just to see what happens, and who do silly things like try to find food^2 (1600). Even if they may not have excelled in their English courses, they make me smile.
who do silly things like try to find food^2 (1600).
******* Please explain? I would like to smile too?
F=6
O=15
D=4
6+15+15+4=40
40^2=1600
Thus, food squared equals 1600. (Ta-da!)
The square root of food is harder to figure.
LOL!!!!! I love this! I have NO IDEA! Er, where are you coming from???
What? I am confused. What do you mean where am I coming from? Oh, the original numbers? Their numerical position in the alphabet. (A is 1, B is 2, C is 3…)
In honour of the opening of the playing with food pages, I offer this favourite recipe:
Sticky rice with shrimp, scallops and chinese mushrooms
(it’s of Cantonese origin)
dried chinese mushrooms, 6 large
dried scallops (gong yu chee, 1/8 cup
dried tiny shrimp (ha miy), 1/4 cup
2 cups glutinous rice (uncooked)
sesame oil (to taste – start with 1 tsp)
soya sauce (to taste – start with 2 tbsp)
sugar , 1 tsp
salt, 1/4 tsp or to taste
spring onions, chopped finely,
shelled peanuts, unsalted
water
Rice cooker
(Dried ingredients can be had at an Asian supermarket or dry good store.)
Rinse separately rice, mushrooms, shrimps, scallops. Soak mushrooms and scallops in a full jar of water until tender. (I usually do this overnight, the day before I want to eat my sticky rice.) Drain off the excess water, wash the now soft mushrooms, rinse the scallop pieces. Dice the mushrooms. Shred the scallop pieces. Add the diced mushrooms, shreds of scallops, tiny shrimp, soya sauce, salt, sugar, sesame oil and rice to a rice cooker. Add 2 1/2 cups water.* Turn on the rice cooker. When finished cooking, mix up all the ingredients well. Top with chopped spring onions and roasted peanuts. Enjoy!
This type of dish is traditionally a winter dish as it is quite heavy and rich. You can replace the scallops with chicken meat if desired. It can also be made by steaming it wrapped in lotus leaves as well.
*The rice is supposed to stick together but still have individual grains visible.
By the way, my two rabbit-girdled pear trees seem to have survived and have blossomed out nicely. Now to wait and see if there are any pears… The bloodgood Japanese maple, on the other hand, seems to have given up the ghost. Oh well. I guess I’d rather have the pears anyways.
Audrey
Oooh, lovely! Thank you. I am a total wimp about Strange Cuisine but this looks like the gentle, friendly end. And having a Real Person (as opposed to a cookbook writer) say ‘here, this works’ also helps. :)
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‘Hieroslyma est perdita’
Actually, “perdita” means “lost;” the Crusaders here were not referring to lost in the sense of defeated, but rather to the fact that in the days before precise mapmaking and GPS systems, it was sometimes hard to find a city (even one as large as Jerusalem.) In shouting “Hieroslyma est perdita” as they passed through the countryside, the Crusaders were, in essence, asking the fellow on the corner for directions.
************
No. As your resident medievalist commenter, no–that story sounds like total bollocks to me on multiple levels. The Germanic tribes never “fought jews.” The crusaders did not have any recorded “battle cries” that I’ve ever read reference to. Even if they did, they would more likely be in the vernacular of the crusading army than in Latin. And etymologically it makes no sense at all. Pbbt. As you say–pull the other one.
the Crusaders were, in essence, asking the fellow on the corner for directions.
********** LOL! Then it WAS different in the 12th century! MEN WOULD ASK DIRECTIONS!!!!!!!
I’m glad the resident medievalist supports my ‘bollocks’ theory. I don’t like slick, and I especially don’t like *historical* slick.
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LOL! Then it WAS different in the 12th century! MEN WOULD ASK DIRECTIONS!!!!!!!
Yes, but only in Latin, so no one could actually understand them. They could pretend they were talking about football scores–”Jerusalem est perdita, sed Acre vicet est super Tripolem 24-18.”
I laughed out loud so hard at this I GUARANTEE Peter will ask me tomorrow (he’s upstairs, theoretically asleep) what I was laughing about . . . :)
Thanks and congratulations to the PWYF blog heroines. They have engendered a Resource.
I am deeply suspicious of the “Hip hip” explanation. Germanic tribes fighting Jews? in the High Middle Ages? Hmmmm . . . But the INVSEE site looks interesting and worth exploring.
My husband has fallen asleep in front of “Snakes on a Plane.” Words are insufficient to describe this movie, not that you actually need much more than the title. My girl was very good today and showed beautifully, to no avail, and the weather ignored the forecast and turned hot, 93 F, which is better than tornadoes–we are in Kansas, after all–but not good. And I have to get up at 5:00 a.m. tomorrow–no, this–morning. ::headdesk:: –What a useful expression!
Hope you are feeling better and your weather is cooling down.
I have just been having a HEADDESK moment . . . a rathe rLONG one . . . trying to get the last photo to **go where I wanted it.** I am hoarse from shouting. Sigh.
Back in the Good/Bad Old Days when I occasionally had time, I would have watched Snakes on a Plane. I’ve seen The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, I’ve seen Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! I *should* see Snakes on a Plane. But I suspect those days are over. . . .
I’m really tired of these stupid judges who don’t give your girl any ribbons. Send ‘em over here and let me give ‘em a talking to.
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Well done on your girl showing well. I always say to myself as I leave a show – whether win or lose, “I have the best dog here”, and I look at my dog and said dog grins back at me, and we often then get lost in the car park, but we’re happy to be winning or losing or getting lost together :)
Alpha bitch sounds like a great girl, good luck with the next shows, and just point me at the judges, I’ll bite their bum/s!!!
Oooohh! and what news about the potential puppy??
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“I have the best dog here”,
********** Yes. That covers a lot of ground, even outside dog shows. :) Yaay us. :)
I am fascinated by the house gecko(s) in my new apartment. What they don’t tell you is that they are so fast! I can see sticking if you take the time to plant each foot, maybe, but RACING over the counter up the wall and around a corner so fast you are a blur?!? Just shouldn’t be possible for anything with actual bones and other heavy bits.
Any champagne/fizzy wine recommendations for someone who can get a hangover headache before finishing a glass? I love the taste but the headache isn’t worth it. Do you tolerate some better than others?
Yes, but it tends to be wildly individual. The firs tthing to do is try to find some that does NOT have sulfites in it. Don’t ask me!
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I find geckos so fascinating, that friends and I composed geckos jokes while on a retreat in Hawaii. Their geckos (Hawaii, at least on Molokai) laugh. My south Florida ones do not. So we decided the Florida geckos needed some good* jokes. *”good” is in the ear of the listener
For example:
A gecko is eating in a restaurant and calls the waiter over.
“Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.”
“Yes?”
“My complements to the chef!”
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Hawaii geckos are very good creatures, they eat the flying termites! We used to watch them on our dining room window, chasing and catching the termites. I miss them now that I live in Florida, sigh. We have anole here (they can go from bright green to brown to match up to their surroudings), but they’re not nearly as much fun as the geckos. And yes, Hawaii geckos do laugh! We lived in Pearl City, on Oahu, and had lots of them around and in the house. We had to try to keep our cats from hunting them, though.
Couldn’t they just stay on the ceiling?! :) I’d get *used* to geckos, but the few times I’ve been around them all that whistling around just at the edge of your peripheral vision gave me the jumps. I like the *idea* though, it’s not really different from encouraging hedgehogs so they’ll eat your slugs.
I love house geckos. We have some on the balcony and they move into the house over the summer so as to cool down. I feel they keep the roach population in check. I’d rather have them that nerve gas any day.
Champagne is notorious for hangovers (say I who am amongst the fortunate ones never to get one). I believe because the gas pressure forces the alcohol into the blood at an earlier point in time, so I am afraid most will bother you. But Robin is correct. Try one without sulfites or other additives in it and that may make a difference. Otherwise drink lots of water before and after, have an aspirin and a vitamin C to wipe up all those free radicals and open up your arteries and you should bear up better.
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I didn’t know champagne was more hangovery than other things. I don’t get hangovers either (what does happen is if I have more than a glass or two I simply never wake *up* the next day) but I first ‘discovered’ champagne because it didn’t wipe me out. (I’m a cheerful drunk however. :))
I’m vocal and I dance even more than I do somber so that is saying a lot. But I am a social drinker and that on increasingly rare occasions. I love wine and other alcoholic concoctions (the time is coming for Pimms on the balcony), but I would rather eat my calories than drink them.
I like ‘I dance even more than I do somber’. :) Good for you! –Oh, I’d be sorry to give up drinking a few calories too.
Tattinger! Oooh, I had the opportunity to taste the 1994 (I think) vintage about two years ago at the restaurant where I work, very smokey and rich!
This reminds me of a thread from Days in the Life (LJ) about list-making: I recently made lists (which I love to do) for the fridge of “things to do” and “things to buy”. To lighten things up, below “lawnmower” and “new window blinds” I included “champagne”!
Well done! :)
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“how many times has she looked at herself in the mirror since and said, possibly even aloud, Why? Why? ”
Nah, great fun! :) It was a very interesting few weeks and I’m glad we all got where it needed to be in the end. And it was great to get to know my four colleagues a little better, too, as part of the working together.
Aprops of surface:volume ratios, that’s why you’ve got several dustpans of fur to deal with and I’ve only got a smidgeon. You have two canine companions who must be in the running for beings with one of the highest surface to volume ratios around, and I have one small (8 lbs) feline companion who although slim doesn’t have the length of body or leg that your two do. :)
And we were out visiting one of the Hardy Plant Society plants sales and shows this morning when who should come bounding up (on leash) but a being who could have been Chaos’ elder sister – and she wanted to play, Right Now!
LOL! Yes, they’re like that!
Re: surface area and water…
This morning I was browsing through “Everybody’s Book on the Queen’s Dollhouse” and found the chapter on the lifestyle of the Dollomites, that is the hypothetical people who would be able to live in the Queen’s Doll house. I especially enjoyed the comments on the peculiar table manners they would have to have, since they could not, for example, sip from their glasses but would have to suck out the contents, etc.