The Return of the Photo Library

It is not dead; it was merely resting. (I am giving things away at the bottom, by the way.)

A quilt for little Ms. Julianna

(It looked better in person.)

Over Colorado it looks very wrinkly.


In San Diego, on the other hand, there are beaches:


And they are pretty.


They have peculiar, six-foot-long bits of seaweed:


And long bridges.


It also boasts a multitude of flora, including cactus gardens:


Truly odd flowering trees:


And museums of 'Man'. Bah.


It is spring! (Turns out warm sunny places get there first, who knew?) The ranunculus are in bloom:


The aloes are fascinatingly patterned:


And the orchids are overjoyed.


But the TSA is, as always, pleased to inform us that it has no sense of humor:









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On another note, here are some well-meaning gifts that I do not like. If you want one- preferably for your own personal use and enjoyment, or to give to some other deserving soul- email me,and I'll check on Sunday and sort it out in the unlikely event that more than one person wants any of them. (I would like to add that I make no assertion that I will ship them quickly.)


Scarf. New. Beige. Very beige. Made of polyester. I don't do beige. Probably a little darker than it looks in the picture. The tape measure's 60 inches long, so it's a little longer than that.

My dear and well-meaning aunt gave me both of the pins below. I have carted them around for fifteen years and have not yet worn either one even once. They'd be lovely for someone's coat... LIKE MY GRANDMA. They are made by hand; ceramic with unknown glazes. Both have a locking bar pin on the back. Sorry the little one's out of focus.






Happy weekends to all. I hope it is not raining wherever you are, and that the daffodils are blooming!

Friday Photo Library: Plants, Bags, and Dresses

First, a fashion dilemma: I must go the the extraordinarily posh wedding of one of Dr. S's many cousins. Should I wear: a) my deep-burgundy-red velvet cocktail dress, which is a bit tight through the thighs (of all places) because I last wore it when I was 18; or b) my long emerald-green taffeta ball skirt, whose crinoline has been appropriated by my sister, and which no longer has a top to go with? And attempt to pull off... something like this or this or this over it? Aaargh.

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Someone's rather nice front walk; someone else's quite nice front garden.


More garden.



A memento from Dr. S's post-defense party.




Here kitty kitty! A very friendly three-legged cat. Lately I am struck by periodic bouts of longing for a) a cat; b) a puppy; c) a baby. I have none of the above. Yesterday, when I got a package addressed to 'Dr. J.F. Scientist', also longing for a PhD; ditto.


Coleus, and something that looks like a distant cousin of Dusty Miller.


Looks like sweet pea on a stick.


Osteospermum, possibly?


Latest garment project. See, it only took me two months to put in the zipper! Worn for our anniversary dinner.


The latest chapter in my plastic-reduction efforts. Veggie and fruit bags.

Friday Corruption Recipe: Cambodian Rice-Vermicelli Soup

Num Ba Chok (the kosher and vegetarian versions)

4 quarts broth
2 pounds fillets of mild white fish
-or: 2 pounds pressed firm tofu
2 stalks lemon grass
5 strips krachai
1/2 t ground turmeric
1 clove garlic
6-10 dried anchovies
-or: 1 T fake chicken soup powder
-or: 2 t-2 T prahok
1 T sugar

If using tofu, slice and sautee with soy sauce and sesame oil until browned. Simmer fish or tofu in broth 5 minutes. Pound all remaining ingredients into a paste in mortar and pestle; add to broth. Simmer 5-10 more minutes.

Sauce

2 T oil
1 clove garlic
1 T crushed red pepper, or to taste
8 oz roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped
-or: 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
7 oz coconut milk
1 rehydrated dried anchovy, smushed
5 T sugar
1 T tamarind concentrate

Chop garlic coarsely. Saute in oil, with pepper, until garlic is golden. Add rest of ingredients; cook until flavors are blended (10-20 minutes).

Garnishes

28 oz thin rice noodles (vermicelli)
1/2 pound green beans
1 green (unripe) papaya
4 oz fresh bean sprouts
2 small cucumbers
Banana blossoms
(Thai plum leaves)

Boil water. Put in noodles and cook until barely done, 2-3 minutes. Rinse in cold water and set aside.

Snap off ends, then blanch green beans. Peel papaya and cucumber and slice into paper-thin one-inch strips. Blanch banana blossoms if fresh; rinse if canned; quarter. Put each vegetable into a separate bowl.

Into a deep bowl, place a handful of vermicelli; cover with broth. Add a spoonful of the sauce and serve. Each diner will add their own vegetables. Enjoy!


***
All of these ingredients should be available at Chinese and Asian markets. If you cannot find a green papaya, an unripe mango is also excellent. Banana blossoms come canned, as does krachai; look carefully, since they will likely be labeled in Thai.

Recently, In the News

This post brought to you by a week of working my sweet little tush off; a last-minute order for 1 mCi of hot ATP, followed by the realization that a) I needed maybe 250 uCi and b) it was much, much too late; and the letter 'J' for 'Oh my gracious do I have: a load of journal work this weekend, three people to harass in person, one pissed-off author to apologize to. Also, WHY must we have the quality/quantity argument EVERY TWO MONTHS???'. Remind me to tell you about lab misadventures; they have been many. (Anyone out there do NADH-linked ATPase assays? Mine hates me. A lot.)

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A less-ratty species of the tote bag. Because real people have real bags.


Virtuously ecological grocery bags. (Not pictured: with purple straps.)


Baby gifts. Not Mr. Hippo; he's mine, all mine.




A large selection of headbands for my newly short, falling-into-Bunsen-burner length hair.


A dress that has been languishing, zipperless, for five (5) weeks.


And finally, my deeply-ingrained 'Waste Not, Want Not' meets my desire to keep the aliens out.


Hope you all stay cool this weekend. Oy, it's hot.

Friday Photo Library: Summer Flowers and Fickle Hair

Next week: Fairy Tales With Bridges; Plumbers; possibly also Blaming

And it gets cut shorter again.


Bee balm


Something pretty.


(Blurry) ornamental kalanchoe


Ornamental grass Miscanthus sinensis


Day lily


Campanula




Pretty things whose names are not known to me


Summer storms rolling in.

Lovely weekends to all!

Friday Ramblings: Insanity and a Cat

I believe it's traditional: In lieu of actual though, I give you a cat.

A fat cat. Sadly, not mine. Ever since the finch died from neglect.... (Just kidding!)

I am filled with further musings on motherhood, rural poverty, tuition assistance, wildlife preserves, the inherent bias in postdoc funding, how a few easy changes could help more women not run away screaming from science, and my dear alma mater's unrelenting, tedious habit of hitting me up for cash.* Instead of musing on these things with you, dear readers, I am reading more of the eternal manuscripts, re-doing the journal's website AGAIN, and, as ever, a mountain of lab work. Sigh.
[*Which I refuse to give them, following how both female profs in my department quit, and the best junior professor was fired against the unanimous recommendation of the department. ]

A few thoughts floated off the top of the brain:

• I never want to quit so much as a) after I talk to my advisor or b) after I talk to our tech. Who earns 2.5 times my salary and couldn't draw a straight line between two points. A typical conversation goes something like: Yes, it's broken. Broken. It doesn't cool off. Cool. Like a refrigerator. COLD!! LIKE ICE!!! Yes, call the company. The refrigerator repair person? NO!! Call the company. On the card. The card. Right here. No, I didn't break it. No. No, it just broke. It broke. Broke. You have a car? Doesn't it break? Oh my dear Cthulu why do we pay you for this? Give me that phone.
• Someone told Mr. S last week that really, Snooty U was doing poor students a favor, because they couldn't possibly have the proper preparation for a Snooty education. Mr. S grew up very poor indeed. Steam from the ears.
• Mr. S has a defense date! The paper went out! At least one of us gets to leave this hellhole.
• Right before which Titania flaked out. That thing where she and Mr. S had talked in JANUARY and she said, oh yes, I'll pay you a postdoc salary for a year? Yeah, that thing. No go! No money! Sorry! Freaking out ensued.
• Fortunately, someone offered him a one-year postdoc within a day. A good one. In fact, said someone was practically begging on hands and knees. Why yes, it was a junior professor!
• The postal carrier relabeled our box Scientists Gloomy. I guess he got tired of delivering mail to an imaginary person, and re-invented me.

Out my friend's front window in Rural Elsewhere:


Hope you all have lovely, peaceful, sunny weekends.

Friday Corruption Recipes: Iraq

(Haiti recipes updated.)

Iraq! Which the US single-handedly moved twenty or thirty spots down the list in two short years. Regardless of the colossally corrupt mare's nest we've made of their country, the food remains tasty.


Lissan el quathi ('Tongue of the Judge')

2 large eggplants
oil

1 tomato, sliced
1 onion, diced
14 oz tomato sauce
1/2 c lemon juice
1 c stock
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1 t turmeric

2 lbs lean ground meat
1 medium onion, minced
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper

Peel eggplants and slice about 1/4 inch thick lengthwise. Salt and let stand; rinse and pat dry. Either fry until both sides are brown, or brush 2 baking sheets liberally with oil and bake on one side until browned (375 or 400 F).

Saute onion, then add tomato, tomato sauce, lemon juice, stock, and spices. Simmer 10 minutes.

Mix ground meat, onion, salt, and pepper. Divide meat into sausage shaped portions 1 inch thick and 2 inches long. Place a sausage at one end of an eggplant strip and carefully roll the eggplant up around it. Place rolls in a baking dish- 2 layers is okay- and pour sauce over. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 425 F for one hour or until done.

Rice with saffron, almonds and raisins

4 c water
1 T rose water (in Middle Eastern groceries; sometimes the kind perfumeries sell is food-grade, check the label)
1 pinch saffron (Spanish saffron fine, and also much more economical)
4 T oil
2 c long-grain basmati rice
1 T salt

2 T oil
1/2 c slivered almonds
1/2 c raisins

In a dish, mix 1 c water and saffron; let sit at least 5 minutes. In a large saucepan, heat oil, then add rice and fry until it becomes more opaque and starts to brown just a little. Add all the water, including saffron water, immediately. Let simmer uncovered until most of the water is absorbed. Stir, cover, and cook 15 more minutes. Add salt and rose water.

Meanwhile, heat 2 T oil and fry almonds until slightly brown. Add raisins; stir.

Serve rice with almonds and raisins sprinkled across the top.

Friday Corruption Recipes: Haiti (updated)

By request, and from Mr. S's brilliant and inspired World Corruption Index Dinner Series. For this, we even suspend our five-ingredient rule (not counting spices and water and things you don't have to do anything to), though this recipe qualifies. I'll put up a couple more Haiti recipes at the end of this post when I have time to type them.

Like many of these recipes, it looks very odd, but I assure you that it tastes wonderful.

Haitian Sweet Potato Pudding

3 medium sweet potatoes
2 c coconut milk
3 c water
1/4- 1/2 c raisins
1 c brown sugar
3/4 c cornmeal
1/4 c flour
1 t nutmeg
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t allspice
1 t vanilla (optional)
1/2 t salt
1 T margarine or butter

Preheat oven to 350 F (165 C). Peel and grate potatoes. Mix everything but the margarine. Grease a 10-inch round pan well, then dot with the margarine. Bake 2 hours or until set in the center. Optional: Mix 2 T rum and 2 T lime juice and pour over.

Excellent warm or cold.

***
Akkra (black-eyed pea fritters)

1 lb black-eyed peas
1 onion, choped
2T hot pepper sauce or ground hot pepper
1 egg or some rice starch or flour
salt and pepper to taste
oil

Soak black-eyed peas overnight in a large amount of water. If you're feeling especially energetic, slip off all the skins. Alternatively, slip off about 1/3 of them and throw a fit.

Put all ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until smooth.

Heat 1 inch of oil in a deep pan. Fry tablespoons of the batter, turning so they brown on both sides. Check they're done in the middle. Serve with hot pepper sauce. Not very good cold.

Hot pepper sauce

1 or more hot peppers of your choice
1 onion, chopped
1/2 c chopped shallots
3 cloves garlic
1/2 c lemon or lime juice
1/4 c oil
salt and pepper to taste

Puree garlic, lemon juice, oil, and hot pepper in a blender. Mix in finely chopped onions and shallots. Add salt and pepper.

Friday Library: In Which I Am Cheerful (For A Change)

To counteract my mood of Doomful Gloom, I give you: Things That Make Me Happy.
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Walking in the woods

with my favorite hat.

Swamps


Light on the water and bright trees.


Gardening in pots- my radishes, and someone's daisies.


And, of course, flowers.

Love-lies-bleeding.


Lilacs and rhododendrons.


Something very yellow, and pinks.


Lilies-of-the-valley and a late tulip.

Yellow rhododendrons (!) and wisteria.


An impressionist view of a dogwood, and the anatomy of a double tulip.

Happy weekend, all!