Miss Cellaneous

The very last one in this oddly adorable interactive animation is bugging me. Pun as always intended.

*sneeze*

Otherwise, I plan on not meeting anyone tonight: nice change after Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Instead, there will be cake & organic steak - not at the same time - at the parents', who are at a birthday brunch now and will have old friends over later. (I do have to bake said cake first, but hey. Am thinking Dutch Apple Tart, and also have so much love for the Search function on Dreamwidth.)

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If you had all the thyme in the world -

what would you cook/bake/otherwise prepare with a truckload of these specific herbs?

They're fresh and were, together with rosemary and bay leaves, the contents of a box from my organic supermarket that said "Herbs de Provence." One's gotta wonder if there were any left for the rest of the region. Srsly.

Made muffins with some of the thyme - wait; actually, I made some muffins with some of the thyme. The rest were sour cream/raspberry muffins, which I'm sure is a pairing no one will quarrel about.

( 2 Kinds of Muffins: photos )

ETA: Jesus Christ, these savoury muffins are spectacular. Om nom nom!

This calls for a recipe re-post...

( Olive'n Goat's Cheese Muffins with Herbs de Provence )

Excuse the Babelfish in the prep section, babes. I worked until 7pm, then worked out at my gym for an hour, and only then baked these two trays of muffins. & ;-)

Oh, wow. This vanilla pudding made from scratch (Rezept auf Deutsch, Recipe in English via Babelfish*) and with organic ingredients is incredible.

::eats it up WITH A SPOON::

* Eheheh. Best. Translation. Ever. Let me amend: "Food Strength" = starch, "Kurdish Worker's Party" = package of.

I just made a simple gazpacho: amazing, especially when it's so warm outside.

In the same vein, for the first time ever, I also bought a bottle of white wine - ( a Pinot Grigio 2008 )

By popular (no, really) demand:

( Apple-Yoghurt-Lime Muffins )

Last email exchange of Little Med Student & Me went thus. ( This is Relevant To The Topic At Hand. )

Look, I don't really do cars, fast or otherwise, and I have cheerfully managed to walk through life without ever watching any of that The Fast and the Furious franchise.

That said, I don't think I have to in order to find this spoof vid hilarious: The Fast & The Bi-Curious. Yes, I'm twelve.

::

Also made apple-lime muffins after coming home from the parents, and they're purrr-fect: crisp on the outside, fluffy & moist on the inside (the only visual downside is that they didn't really rise much...or if they did, they sunk again).

Anyone want the recipe?

::

No, really. Gym now. Absolutely. Any minute.

In non-fannish news:

1. Did I already ask y'all if wasabi-covered peas count as one of your 5-A-Day servings? (Om nom nom.) To my defence, I just had curry-flavoured kale'n garlic omelette before. Don't look at me like that: it was the perfect dish after my quick knee routine at the gym, all veggies'n protein.

2. Speaking of my knee: Not super but quite bearable to the extent that I haven't taken painkillers in what, two weeks, not even while walking in London. AND IN HEELS. (For the geographically and otherwise challenged: like Leeds, only prettier.)

3. My right leg is still noticeably thinner than the other. Woe. It does make me remember one of the rehab clinic physiotherapists, though, who was oddly cute and also a bit fond of me, in an of course very professional manner. Or at least he liked certain body parts of mine (healthy ones). I quote, "Now THAT'S a thigh! *admiring pat*" Don't we all want (oddly) cute people to tell us they love one - just one - of our muscular thighs?

Either there's something in the water (all the way down to Switzerland!), or I was some sort of "featured date" on this Online Dating Service: after a lull of several weeks - when admittedly I didn't even check in - I now had a dozen messages or so in my inbox. ( Isn't this sort of thing supposed to *further* social life? )

::

Signed up for this new fitness studio today. Honest as I am, I answered the lady registering me that the true reason was the utterly unbeatable price. Remember the fancy-shmancy "health club" with the test subscription( ??? )

::

Came home hungry, then. Proceeded to make herb quark from scratch (basil and parsley and spiced pepper and salt), and ate it on dark whole-grain rye bread. ♥

::

And it's almost time for bed again: bi-monthly office meeting in the middle of the night at 8:30am.

Baked muffins and had the parents over. All of these v. pleasant today. Babelfish'ed recipe beneath the cut.

( Caipirinha Muffins *sans cachaca* )

::

Just now watched the rest of TransGeneration, the Sundance documentary.

Highly, highly recommendable. Inspiring and touching, not to mention touching upon issues beyond transgender ones: sex and class and race and the concept of privilege, inseparably connected. Much as this is a rarity in transgender-themed productions, my occasional tears here were happy ones - at ( spoilers for the documentary ) this old church ladies' warm smile and her words, "Well, you're never old enough to change."

(kaizoku, have you seen it?)

::

Read over and collected RaceFail '09 entries but in a typical flash of even more typical brilliance managed to crash and wrongly re-load Firefox so all my bookmarks from the debate over SGA vids to Skins graphics sites were gone.

But.

toft_froggy has a sum-up post with many links that I saw last, but you could pretty much just go and read my friendslist for an in-depth look and mentions of the relevant contributions. Off the top of my head, among the contributors not yet linked by Toft, let me point out bossymarmalade's post here, and of course ciderpress's own words as well as the ones she forwards.

Guys, you all are - tired, I know. But also amazing.

hermine just left - arrived here in the afternoon, and somehow the time flew, and it was so late we decided she might as well stay: almost time for watching today's Tatort, which was a lot more fun with two. There was also a quick lentil curry dinner, with bonus pineapple for dessert. (No, Grim, it wasn't a personal pineapple, sorry.)

Beforehand, to properly cheer her up these days, I had baked yet more muffins. (The last batch I'd made Thursday night from 11pm to midnight because said co-worker was leaving for London, and I'd promised her a taste of my famous muffins - no, really, famous! See my lj moniker, as given to me by the ever-apt stultiloquentia).

See?

( Organic Strawberry-Yoghurt-Muffins, with a dash of lime. )

Since I feel I should enjoy it while I still can:

( My skiing(-free) retreat, in pictures. Annotated, too. )

Made it home. Made a large bowl of freshly-made steaming ( tomato-cheese soup )too.

And then, then I watched Bones, kindly alerted by chele74. Aw, I'd missed the show - Bones and Cam, Hodgins and Angela. Missed female characters who are confident and off-beat and aware, and no, I'm not just talking about the regulars. The dialogues make me laugh and their dynamics make me shake my head so fondly. Speaking of, in spite of the fact that Booth is not my kind of guy, I'm still eating up the Bones/Booth with a spoon. With. A. Spoon, people.

I've been reading this guy's blog for a while, mostly because of the sheer TRAINWRECK! factor: He searches for, posts, and then comments acidly upon actual internet personal ads posted on public dating boards by men.

"[...] The general problem with the lot of male personal ads these days is that women tend to think of the ( not-safe-for-work ) as an appendage to the man, while most men write their personal ads as though they were the appendage to the ( not-safe-for-work ). “Look at this amazing ( not-safe-for-work )” their ads bellow, “have you ever seen such a glorious organ?” But she's looking at the background of the photo, where a mangy dog is eating a seagull in the living room, there's a dinner plate on a milk crate, and the bed showcases what appears to be a ( Do I really have to cut this in these post-Eve Ensler times? ) consuming a carrot. She could care less about your ( still-not-safe-for-work-nope ); she's essentially ( keeping lj safe for two-year-olds ) an apartment with all the welcoming conviviality and charm of a mid-winter downtown Detroit Greyhound bus depot during a NAMBLA convention."

The whole post is gold, I find. (And yes, the owner is calling his blog, Why Women Hate Men.)

In foodie news, popping some diced garlic into a pan rubbed with olive oil and adding, in that order, fresh cut snow peas, a dash of pepper and a pinch of salt makes for a fab li'l dinner.

I JUST SUCCESSFULLY FLIPPED MY (LARGE) PANCAKE* IN THE (LARGE) PAN.



::wins at cooking::

* Spelt, of course, with organic milk & a dash of organic yoghurt, plus that organic fair trade raw cane sugar that saves not just me but the world, like, twice over. Here's the recipe; as I didn't have baking powder (again), I used baking soda and the yoghurt. Applied chemistry FTW.

( They cancelled SGA. )

Anne & I didn't just talk life & media creations; we also made cheese'n-carrot muffins. I know, they are no substitute. I'm just sayin'.

( Photos of our Cheese'n Carrot Muffins )

( The recipe, run through Babelfish real quick )

With my mother still not feeling too well, I baked her a cake. (What? It's a valid way of showing one's love.)

( Photos of the garden, the ingredient, and *la creation* )

( The recipe: Lavender Lemon Tea Cake )

You know what's to die for on a hot day? Take a pack of frozen raspberries, drizzle honey or maple syrup over 'em, add a plain yoghurt, let stand for a bit, and enjoy in lieu of ice-cream.

::does just that::

I'm inclined to agree with the Random Proverb Generator athena25 has last linked me to there.

In other news, had my last Oral Prep Session with Di in the morning and a long, lovely lunch with a new friend who's awesomecakes.

Speaking of, I baked shortbread.

( Photos & the recipe )

Also, I looked fab today, with my boot-cut faded jeans and my sleek little black turtleneck. But let's face it, I didn't look quite as tasty as these cookies. So, uh, photos of me reserved for when the competition isn't so steep.

I took a study break to
a) be true to my current lj name and make muffins from a new recipe, and
b) watch Torchwood.

ad b) ( Torchwood S2 finale )

ad a) ( More Muffins! With recipe & photos )

Who says reading the flist isn't educational?

- jwaneeta links to the thing we have all been waiting for: BREAD WANK.

Hilarious, isn't it? Then again, the only time I ever got close to a vocal argument with witchsis, and also the only time family members raised their voices and stormed out of the room in a huff after our teenage years was when we we were in the kitchen together, baking or cooking: Srs bznss, indeed! It's fascinating to see so many people feeling so strongly about their recipes, methods, and ingredients--sure, yes, it's food, I'm a foodie, and all of us need that more than music or shows on tv...but still. Is it in part because we've grown so used to Doing It This Way (And No Other), since childhood if our parents taught us or since the eureka! moment at the stove if we're self-taught and proud of that?


- fishsanwitt links to a few articles about John McCain. I confess I don't know half as much about him as I know about the Democratic candidates, and that isn't the most extensive knowledge ever either, but I know just enough to be vaguely confused about friends of mine who tell me they consider him a bright politician and could imagine voting for him--Germans and US-Americans alike. And no, not talking about Republican/CDU-FDP voters: I mean the usual (US-)liberal, moderate crowd.

( Exerpts & links )