The good:
I spent Friday night decompressing from fail in what turns out to be a really great way: livrelibre came over, we had alcohol and dinner and talked vehemently about intersectionality and anti-oppression work and all the recent fails, and then we stopped talking about them and played Lego Star Wars. Here is the thing about Lego Star Wars: it doesn't matter if you get killed, because you just reconstitute out of legos, and the basic goal of nearly every level is to smash, lightsaber, shoot, or slap basically all of the set decoration. We spent two hours going "oh, man, I'm going to get those fences! take THAT, fences! and the planter over there! and then I'm going to punch down this wall." It was very soothing in a simulated-destruction kind of way. I destroyed many decorative sconces.

And then Saturday I suddenly decided that I wanted a bison burger (idek), so livrelibre and I went out and talked about anti-oppression and meta and porn and tv and computers in public spaces, instead. (The conversation about computers was partly prompted by hearing other people arguing heatedly about macs versus pcs and going, huh, we could try having an intense conversation about other kinds of fandoms for a change. We didn't manage to be very vehement, though.)

And I decided to try going to the Sunday farmer's market instead of the Saturday one -- the Saturday one is (almost) year-round and is bigger, so some farmers can't get stalls there. And it was awesome, I want to go to the Sunday market every week. I think that the Sunday market shopping population is maybe 10% of the Saturday one, which meant that I didn't have to tuck my cane away because people walked into it, and I didn't have to push to get to the front of stalls, and I could buy prepared food without standing in hideous lines. And I discovered several new farmers, including people who do locally produced raw soft cheese. I saw a new cheese stall and went over to check it out, and then was so startled that before I even said hello I said "... it's soft!" I think the cheesemaker thought it was a complaint, because she explained that it was only semi-soft in other weather. And it was tasty, and I brought it home, and I am so excited about it because I'd thought we only had cheddar-like and gouda-like and blue cheese here. Plus I bought sugar snap peas (and then ate all of them with lunch) and black cap wild raspberries and many cherries for thingswithwings to turn into tarts when she gets back to the US, and warm-from-the-oven sourdough multigrain bread, and sprouted lentils and chickpeas, and shelling peas. There are noms in my future.

Less good:
I didn't get to some graphics stuff that I meant to do this weekend.

Let me just say, cab drivers, I am sometimes willing to spend $5 to get a lift home from the farmer's market when my feet hurt and it's hot out and I'm concerned about the cheese. But I am not willing to spend $5 and have to endure a conversation with you about why I'm wearing a brace, what the brace is for, how long I have to wear it, does it have anything to do with the cane, gosh pity pity, tell me more details. No. Just: no. I tried terse and uninformative, then I tried I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it, and the cab driver was still like "oh, but come on, it's got to be a great story." Fuck off, dude.

For reasons I don't understand, I watched Babylon 5 today instead of the Doctor Who season finale. *shrugs*

1. So the other day I was all, hey, I've always wanted to try goat's milk ice cream! I hear that it is tasty! And Twings was like, I've been craving strawberry ice cream lately, why don't we get some? So we did. And we brought it home. And then there was this suspicious brown layer in it that smelled vinegary, and, yes, as it turns out we accidentally bought "Strawberry Darling: Swirls of Balsamico with Strawberries in Sweet Cream." And I'm pretty open to foodieness, but, just, no. Balsamic vinegar is not supposed be mixed with guar gum and turned into a sticky caramel-like swirl in strawberry ice cream. I tasted it because I wasn't going to be like, no never! And, yes, it tasted like strawberries and balsamic vinegar, but in entirely the wrong proportions -- way too much vinegar, ugh, not at all like the way people sometimes serve strawberries to intensify the strawberry flavor. In short, LaLoo's strawberry goat's milk ice cream? Not recommended.

2. I have uploaded cards for kink_bingo, we finished and posted the kink_wiki yesterday and I've got to let it go, I've just got a few tags left to rename or merge or split, we're not posting anything today, and I am taking the day off. I am going to read some fic and eat bonbons. I have been like 1000 words into leupagus's Only Good For Legends Star Trek AOS AU for two weeks now, and I'm darn well going to finish it. And I'm going to read some remixes, too. And maybe order brownies for delivery or something. Anyway, there is fic in my future, and I plan to enjoy it.

Also there is Avatar: the Last Airbender, which I am kind of mainlining.

3. Yesterday there was briefly a toft! Which was nice! But she was just passing through. We did watch two episodes of Mythbusters, though.

4. And nonetheless she handily helped me replace my laptop keyboard hurrah. It took two tries to get the keyboard in right, but now ... whoah! It's all new and shiny! And it has a page up key! Also I was very happy to have toft and thingswithwings help, because the tiny tiny screws and the tiny tiny screwdriver and the tiny tiny connections are so not within my skills.

5. I am cranky at having to pace my life around my joints. Like, today I went out to buy groceries to make dinner, and because I walked too much yesterday that is the limit of my up for today, so I can't make said dinner. Even though I got stuff to make vegetarian pasta sauce and now I really want some.

6. Also I am sick of negative-pressure doors (the kind intended to keep the air conditioning in) when they don't have buttons to open them. I had to struggle out of the coffee shop today with a "pass the cane to the other hand, dangle it from wrist strap because also carrying groceries and coffee, hip-check the bar to open the latch, shoulder-bump the door to break the negative pressure, catch the closing door on the shoulder and lean full weight into it" maneuver. Which is too much maneuver for me. *cranky*

7. Also some jerk was like "hurry the fuck up, bitch" at me when I was crossing the street. OH MAN SORRY TO BE IN YOUR CAR'S WAY, DUDE! I mean, god forbid you wait ten more seconds to make a right hand turn! I know waiting for a lady with a cane is like the worst thing that has ever happened to you! Hey, wait a minute, do I maybe have the right of way here? OH YES I DO.

1. I have been doing experiments with a cookie recipe that I quite like, trying to get as near as possible to a power bar without giving up what I like about the taste of cookies. I'm nearly there! So far I'm at 3.8 g of protein per cookie, which is pretty awesome. I have recently discovered that applesauce covers the taste of soy protein powder better than butter -- who knew! Anyway, \o/ for moderate successes with baking! And for eating cookies for snacks without going all sugar-rushy! When I make them successfully again, I'll post the recipe here.

2. I turned off javascript on lj a while back -- not just sharethis, which I've never had enabled, but livejournal.com -- and was pleased by the faster loading times. It meant no more quick reply comment boxes, but I could live with that!

Then today I learned that the update page doesn't show the icon or the preview buttons without javascript. So I'll have to turn it back on if I post to communities. *is cross*

3. Speaking of, did you know there's a limit on the number of PMs you can send from an lj account? I didn't. And now I know that there is one, but not what it is, or how often it rolls over, because I can't find anything about it in the FAQ. *continues cross*

4. I hit the pm limit because I'm sending out little heads-up kink_bingo deadline reminders to folks who haven't posted yet according to my spreadsheet. I'm doing it kinda automatically, so if I pmed you even though I should have known you knew the deadline, uh, sorry. I just go click-paste click-paste.

5. Today is my dw-versary! I'm still in a space of squishy hugs for dreamwidth, gotta say. Here are some things I like about being here:
- the community!
- the standing-by-their-principles stuff
- hierarchical tags (♥)
- split access/subscribe list
- the little stuff! I love that /calendar now redirects to /archive, because I used to type the url wrong every time, and I love being able to leave a reason for editing a comment, and I love that I can rename icon keywords and fix my typos.
- did I say the community already? Because y'all are awesome.

ETA 6. We just had a sudden cat! We left the back door open today because it's finally nice here. I was just sitting here on the sofa puttering around on the internet, and then I looked up and there was a cat sitting in the living room doorway giving me the Disdainful Cat look. I went "aah!" at the sudden cat, and the cat went bounding away, and I think I startled thingswithwings rather a lot. But seriously, I can't be expected to not startle at sudden disdainful cat.

On December 26th last year, I wrote down what I wanted for yuletide this year. And that was:

"Nominate yuletide challenge itself! database/dynamically generated yuletide treat request page enemies!fic!"

... yes. Seriously. I was maaaaaybe a little yuletide!obsessed at the time.

Also I said that I wanted Eddie Izzard fic. "Eddie Izzard/Steve, on the moon." Per this email to myself, I contemplated Eddie Izzard/The President of Burundi. I am now thinking about asking for some sort of Eddie Izzard fic. I nominated it, anyway. And I wasn't even thinking about it three days ago! This is how I am with yuletide nominations -- I change my mind constantly.

All of which is to say, hurrah for yuletide nominations! I nominated fandoms a couple hours ago, but I totally just went back and changed them -- I realized that nobody had nominated Super Mario Galaxy. I hope someone asks for creepy Freudian Cosmic!Mario fic, or intriguingly kinky Star Bunny fic, or adorable Toad Brigade orgy fic.

***

thingswithwings and I baked a pumpkin pie a couple days ago. (Substitution: all whipping cream instead of half milk, 3/4 cup of honey for a single recipe). Last week, I made muffins! This means two things: first, that it's fall, and I'm happy to have the oven on; and second, that this is really our apartment now. Pie is the official inauguration of an apartment!

Also, it's really tasty pie. We made a recipe and a half, because that was the size of the pumpkin, so now we have pumpkin tartlets too. I totally had a slice of pumpkin pie for first breakfast yesterday. YUM.

(Between the pumpkin pie and the hum of the radiators, you can tell it's fall here. We just gave in and turned the heat on, but to be fair to us it was 58* inside before we caved. And it was COLD.)

***

Also I would like to rec isagel's new Touching Evil vid, Wither and Die. I know next to nothing about the series, but I the vid is gorgeous and interesting and sort of heart-clenchy even without the context.

So, thingswithwings and I were getting groceries this morning when we walked past an Irish pub doing its St. Patrick's Day celebration. We got about five paces past the sandwich board advertising their menu and suddenly stopped, turned and looked at each other, and said "did you just see that?"

So I went back and took a picture. ( Which I reproduce here with commentary )

Operation Cranberry Sauce* On Cheese Taste Test Commences:

Option A: Cranberry sauce on mediocre brie. (Co-op, please to be buying better brie.)
Option B: Cranberry sauce on amazing local raw sharp cheddar.

Bite from A. Result: Mmmmmm
Bite from B. Result: MMMMMM
Bite from A. Result: MMMMMMMMMMMM

Conclusion: cranberry sauce makes everything tastier, even mediocre brie. Best cheese-toast EVER.

***

* I make cranberry sauce with only fruit sugar. Basically, eight ounces of fresh cranberries, 3/4 of a small container of concentrated orange juice, simmer, eat. It is very tart and very tasty.

As with all thanksgivings, I learned some important lessons:

1. Never make pumpkin pie from the recipe on the back of the can of organic pumpkin, ESPECIALLY if you're planning to replace the dairy-milk with almond-milk. graycastle and I had to make a second pumpkin pie, because the first one a) lied about the size of pan it would fill and we had to double the recipe at the last minute b) under-sugared and c) really, really, REALLY under-spiced, which I mostly fixed, but.

2. The most awesome mashed potatoes in the world are made by using some of your extra-left-over heavy cream instead of milk. (No, seriously: yukon gold potatoes, cut up, boiled with skins in salt water. Take out. Add butter and heavy cream. Mash with a fork. Nom nom nom.)

2a. I will now be keeping a small container of heavy cream in the fridge. See, I use essentially no real dairy, and don't drink it, so even the smallest container of milk will go bad before I bake with it. But heavy cream comes in really small containers, and I can bake with it, make mashed potatoes, whip it as cream, or offer it to people for ... really, really rich coffee or tea. (I usually have to do that "um, your choices are almond or soy milk" thing.)

3. Green Star Co-op doesn't carry chicken or turkey breasts, even during the holidays. Geez, Green Star -- you carry beef. Is chicken too much to ask?

4. There is only one complete Mathnet series available on youtube. This distresses me. What if I suddenly want to watch the episode with the missing baseball and the air-lifted house? I ask you.

5. Even though I think, every time, that Mollie Katzen must be joking when she tells me to grease the spring-form pan and then line the bottom with parchment paper (before putting the pan together, which makes the assembly of the pan a total pain) when making apple-pear crostada for breakfast? Every time, I do it any way. What if it's a crucial step? And I'm just too silly to recognize that?

6. I feel kinda doofy being thankful for things several days late (I'm a procrastinator! what?), but I am still really happy that I have this magical rss feed of y'all.

I ask google for an answer to this question all the time, but google is untrustworthy, so.

What is your favorite brownie recipe? My ideal brownie is fudgey, not cakey, and very chocolatey. It can have nuts, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, whatever, I'm good as long as it's basically a fudgey, chocolately brownie. But my success rate in finding a recipe for same is pathetic; many of them come out dry, or cakey, or dry AND cakey, or aren't chocolatey enough. Thus, I ask you! Because you are awesome.

kthxbye,
eruthros

I have a huge sweet potato, and when I was deciding what to do with it I was speculating wildly about my ability to make things like sweet-potato home fries. And I'd been thinking about scalloped potatoes already (except I only have two potatoes) when suddenly I thought: omg brilliant! Savory scalloped sweet potato! (None of that weird scalloped-sweet-potato as dessert thing, with sugar and cinnamon and apples.) With cheddar cheese and bechamel! How perfect for the day after sixteen inches of snow (beating the typical April-to-date record by fourteen inches)!

However, this seemed rather like the sort of dinner revelation that should be pondered further. (After all, I am the person who suddenly and on a whim decided that crushed tomatoes, canned tuna, and white beans would make a brilliant pasta sauce. Especially when topped with cheddar. Um. It was actually kinda good. Probably a clear sign that I was really short on some essential nutrient, though.)

Hence: a poll.

[Poll #968432]

I shall coin a new saying: my eyes are bigger than my biceps.

Then I shall chant it to myself when I'm shopping on foot.

There's the trick where you only take a basket, but that doesn't really work; then you undershoot, because you can carry more on your back than dangling from one hand by two wire handles. And I was taking the bus, so I only had to walk two blocks at time on either end, so I could carry a lot more than if I was walking.

And yet! And yet. I nearly collapsed when I picked up my canvas bags after checkout.

It wasn't all my fault! I was shopping for heavy things to start with, like soy milk and chicken broth, and then the shop only had huge sizes of many things. Like, I only wanted a few carrots, but it was five pounds or nothing. Pah.

***

Today, on Grossest Food Stuff Ever: this menu item from Google's cafeteria.

An awesome recipe for next fall: pumpkin pickles. From the excellent Syllabub: Words on Food blog.

Also, Chockylit's moved her cupcake blog and did a cupcake round up of about sixty cupcake recipes from readers. m_shell and I made some of her cupcakes with lemon curd once and got nothing but compliments; I doubt that all of the submitted recipes are quite that good, but down along the left-hand side of the page are links to her cupcakes by category. She's got a pomegranate grapefruit cupcake, and a thai iced tea cupcake, and a chocolate bread pudding cupcake with toasted walnuts, toffee, and cream: I'm gonna have to make some of those for a potluck soon. Mmmm.