A Meerkat's Bolthole

 Because I was cranky and out of sorts and it was suggested that maybe I needed protein, quickly.... (before I bit someone's nose off)

Seriously, have you looked at the ingredients list of a bottle of even "healthy" salad dressing recently?*

Challenge: to create a salad dressing that was as good as (or better than) what came from the offered bottle, made from ingredients a decently-stocked kitchen would have on-hand, and could be made in the time it took to take the salad out of the fridge and plate it.

Challenge accepted.

1 small bowl, 1 whisk or a fork.
honey
olive oil
white wine vinegar
Dijon mustard

Put a decent dose of olive oil into the bowl (approximately how much dressing you want, minus a spoonful). Add in a spoonful of honey, and an equal dab of mustard. Splash just a bit of vinegar. You can add a bit of lemon juice if you'd like - I used a lemon-flavored vinegar.

Whisk until it all blends. Use as desired.

Challenge: met.

This is why I haven't bought salad dressing in years. :-)

You can dress it up or down as you see fit - I personally don't add herbs, although I know some folk prefer it. Ditto salt.

As always, the quality of what you get is equal to the quality of what you put in. If you're only splurging on one thing, I'd say make it the mustard. Mediocre mustard is a very sad thing.

Also: if you see diced jicama in your supermarket? Grab it. One of the best additions to salad since ever, and worth the premium to have it ready-to-add.



* Stuff to give it a longer shelf-life while stored in warehouses, stuff to give it color (the honey alone will do that), chemicals to fight off other chemicals, and BTW, that "non-fat" stuff? Unless you're drinking your dressing, there's nowhere near enough fat in a salad dressing to really freak you out. And the drops of olive oil clinging to your greens will make you want to eat more.

For those who wonder, it was Pandora the Duchess who was kitty insane at a painful hour this morning (6 am 'new time' but not according to my very tired brain).

Mostly I don't mind the time change for the same reason I don't get jet-lagged in most instances -- my sense of time is fluid to begin with, and so long as I've had a few hours of sleep I can function normally. But the first few mornings of getting out of bed when it's still dark were always painful. Thankfully, in my non-commuting life, I don't have to! Freelancing FTW!

(actually, waking up before the sun is out always flashes me back to summer vacations and going fishing with my dad. So it's a pleasant memory, and makes me crave Nature's Valley granola bars.)

And, in a rare moment of indulging my slothful ways, I then went back to bed until 10am. Then it was off to a Sekrit Hideaway sans internet connection to workworkwork until it was time to head over to Dovetail for dinner.

You must understand: I've wanted to go to this restaurant since it first opened to rave reviews. Alas, it was not to be, for I am a freelancer of only occasional paychecks, until I was IM'd out of the blue and informed that we had reservations to celebrate the fact that Flesh & Fire was finally into production.

I'm good with that. :-)

( beware: here be foodie talk )

And now, despite many things pending I need to respond to (yes, you), I need to go fall over and digest for the next 12 hours....

Peanut butter chips for breakfast seemed like a good idea when I woke up craving sugar.... but then I balanced it out with a homemade nonfat yogurt strawberry-banana smoothie. So that's okay, right?

Despite the meh yesterday overall, I still managed to get in about 1000 new words, and we're reaching a Turning Point. Yay. And there was Attempted Violence. And angst. Poor Bonnie. Life after college is just no fun at all. And then I did more words this morning, and then went off to do Away From Keyboard things, including having lunch with kradical during which we bitched about how slow our respective work is coming, and then parted to go hammer out More Words. Isn't it so exciting?

There's the thing about writing being a job that you don't realize until you're actually in The Life: sometimes it's just as crap as any other brain-eating job. The plot isn't making sense, the characters aren't behaving, you hate everything you type and sometimes even when everything's flowing, you just don't feel it.

This is where storytelling differs from Fine Art. We can't wait for inspiration to strike. When it's your job -- be it your sole job or side job -- you don't have that option. There are deadlines, and production schedules, and a carefully arranged publication master plan that, when one author delivers late, or defaults, has to be reworked madly to keep the system intact [some day I may do a post about that, dredging up all my scheduling horror stories from The Old Days.... any interest?]

So anyway, even on the meh days, the ones where you just want to crawl back into bed, or play tetris all day, or photocopy your posterior.... the writing still calls. The job still has to get done. (Of course, there is still time to play tetris. Or take a nap. Or, y'know, photocopy your posterior if that's what warms your cockles. Just don't let the boss see you.) We're the same as any other clock-watching office-dweller, in that regard. It's sort of comforting to think about: from my point of view, anyway. Some of you may now be depressed at how unglamorous and drudging alleged 'freedom' can be....

This, by the way, isn't a rant or a whinge. I knew the job was a job when I took it, and I'd honestly be damned uncomfortable [and remarkably unproductive] as an Artiste. Just commenting on the mehness of this week, and how I'm getting through it, one word at a time.

And I just got to use "truthiness" in dialogue. Go me! Suddenly, it starts to click again. 1400 words and rolling....


If I can hit 2,000+ [and, really, even if I don't] there is chicken pizza in the kitchen, waiting for me to add roasted garlic and fresh rosemary to it for dinner, and a bottle of chianti that really does need to be consumed. The week is definitely ending on an up note with that, yeah. :-)

My mother made the original recipe last week, and I loved it so much I needed to try it myself. But, since this is me and I apparently cannot follow even the best recipe exactly-as-written... (in my defense, I didn't have all the specific ingredients, so I improvised. The original version was a little heavier.)

Short ribs not-so-Provençale

( the recipe, as improvised )
----------------
Words... cannot describe how fabulous this is. And filling. The couch and a movie calls...

Party went, I think, remarkably well. Few leftovers, and everyone seemed to go away happy. All you can ask for, really. And, of course, the moment the last guest was out the door, Pandora was at my heel, demanding to be fed and adored...

for those curious, the menu:

truffle'd bruchetta with tomato and fresh dill
potato fritatta
beef spring rolls with a raspberry-chipolte dipping sauce
salmon mousse en filo [ a pain in the ass to make, but popular]

mini-cheesecakes
mint chocolate chip cookies
ginger meringues (I assume they were popular, since I didn't get any)
brownies (courtesy of MH)
boutique chocolates (courtesy of JH)

port
wine
cider
single malt

Menorah is flickering brightly in the window, and the dishwasher is washing along. And now I fall over go thud.

Fear and praise me, for I have (successfully) made steamed pork dumplings*. And lo, they are yummy (still working on the 'looks pretty' part).

( the recipe, more or less )

So I am sitting here in a beam of sunlight, drinking tea and eating dumplings and reading a book purely for pleasure. I so love the day-after-Draft. :-)



*my previous success have been fried, including last week's OMG scary-delish butternut squash wontons

This article should be required reading for everyone. Yes, everyone.

http://tinyurl.com/5xfu96

"SEATTLE (MarketWatch) -- This is probably the most sobering, simple and useful investment advice you will ever receive: Do not leave uninsured deposits in any FDIC-insured bank account.
The reason I bring this up is that tens of millions of dollars of U.S. bank deposits are uninsured. They may not be yours, but they may be your parents', children's or friends'. Given the unfolding banking crisis that is likely to lead to more failed institutions, you should act now to protect this money."

Even if you don't have anywhere near the maximum insured amount in any banks total, you still should read this article. This is your economy, people. Pay attention.


And for something a little more digestible: suri's chicken-bacon stew:

Take a pound of chicken thighs, cubed, dredge them in flour and then brown them in a dutch oven. Remove and set aside. Add several cloves of garlic (chopped) and a red onion (likewise) into the dutch oven and cook until slightly golden. Add four cups of chicken broth, salt, pepper, cumin, dill, a pinch of saffron, and whatever else strikes your fancy (you can really spice up dark meat chicken if you like, but I suggest working with the smokiness of the bacon, not against it). Bring to a boil and let simmer for five minutes. Cook several stripes of bacon, dry and crumble, mix in with chicken. Set aside. Add a double-handful of red potatoes (cubed) and carrots (likewise) and the chicken-bacon mix. Toss in a handful of farro (because I can, and it always works). Simmer over a low heat until done. You shouldn't need to add any thickener to this -- the potato and farro do that just fine on their own. Satisfyingly yummy, with a slightly sweet, smoky flavor, although it could probably use some stronger warm spices once the weather gets cooler. Feeds three easily.

Also a note to myself: please stop eating popcorn. I know you love it. It does not love you. These relationships always end badly.

Is it spamming when you do it to your own journal? Or just being trapped behind the desk for too many hours at a time with your brain set on TYPE?


WEATHER: Wow. A few rolls of thunder for warm-up, a slam that set off car alarms all around the block, and then the deluge fit for Noah to go whoa opens up and washes away anything not already swimming. Seriously. Didn't we just do this yesterday? (except this time I'm not trapped at a wine tasting, oh woes)
[for the first time in my entire life, a flash of lightning actually scared me. hard white light literally filled the office, followed by a hard ice-crack.]

FOOD: I've finally figured out how to make whole wheat pasta taste good. Cook until very dead, toss with olive oil, mix in scraps of lox and sugar-cured bacon, finish with grated grana padano. Nom nom nom. Does the whole wheat cancel out the bacon, healthwise? Also: weird-ass salad of dandelion, arugula, red cabbage, yellow peppers, and feta. Tasty. Does anyone know the significant difference between greek feta and french feta? I can taste a difference but I don't know what or why....

THE WORLD OUTSIDE: In the news, politicians are again being immoral, illegal, and generally disgusting in their claims that They're Not Doing Anything Wrong, Nosir. What say we just outlaw politicians?

WORK: 2900 words so far today. Rollin' rollin'.... Looking for another thousand tonight, 3,850 words for the day, and noting a few places that suggest I'm going to have to back-track on the timeline and shove some things around to keep the pacing tight. Later, that. For now, Hero must meet Future Sidekick. Hijinks ensue.

But first, more caffeine. no more caffeine.

Brain dead and wanting only to crash, but you know I had to do this one...


1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

( oh come on, I thought this was supposed to be a challenge? )