Books, food, flowers
Apr. 9th, 2006 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksDaffodils are everywhere. Probably about to fade. Except in my backyard, because the bulbs didn't bloom. My brown thumb strikes again. KateR posted a list of plants that will survive a brown thumb as part of her Thursday Thirteen; I've printed the list and will be trying some of them out this spring.
Took the FSWE yesterday. I'm not in a rush to change jobs, but it is something that I meant to do when I finished college and never got around to. Anyhow, the circumstances were less than ideal, and I imagine that the ACT people (who administer the exam) will be hearing from some of the test-takers. The exam was held in one of the conference rooms at the convention center...while a cheerleading/dance competition went on. Lots of cheering and squealing and loud music. The exam itself was fairly straight-forward. Part of the test was like a high school civics test and a reading comprehension test, while other parts were very touchy-feely, about communication and negotiation. Eh. It's crossed of my life-to-do list, no matter what the outcome :)
I've been trying to read Elizabeth Vaughan's Warsworn for the past week or so. I enjoyed Warprize, the first book of the trilogy, but this one is dragging. The heroine, Lara, is whiney and pouty and verging on TSTL, and I'm wishing she had died of The Sweat right about now. It would end the trilogy abruptly, I know, but still, the book is really dragging right now. It may have been better to publish all three volumes as a single epic book rather than draw it out into a trilogy.
Doug posted about cooking for people. His mention of cassoulet is causing a craving. I may have to go to Petit Louis for dinner tomorrow night. Must scare up a dinner companion who is willing to split the cassoulet, since they only do it for two. Shouldn't be too hard. Reading his post made me think of a passage from Deborah Smith's A Place to Call Home.
(c) Deborah Smith, 1997
Took the FSWE yesterday. I'm not in a rush to change jobs, but it is something that I meant to do when I finished college and never got around to. Anyhow, the circumstances were less than ideal, and I imagine that the ACT people (who administer the exam) will be hearing from some of the test-takers. The exam was held in one of the conference rooms at the convention center...while a cheerleading/dance competition went on. Lots of cheering and squealing and loud music. The exam itself was fairly straight-forward. Part of the test was like a high school civics test and a reading comprehension test, while other parts were very touchy-feely, about communication and negotiation. Eh. It's crossed of my life-to-do list, no matter what the outcome :)
I've been trying to read Elizabeth Vaughan's Warsworn for the past week or so. I enjoyed Warprize, the first book of the trilogy, but this one is dragging. The heroine, Lara, is whiney and pouty and verging on TSTL, and I'm wishing she had died of The Sweat right about now. It would end the trilogy abruptly, I know, but still, the book is really dragging right now. It may have been better to publish all three volumes as a single epic book rather than draw it out into a trilogy.
Doug posted about cooking for people. His mention of cassoulet is causing a craving. I may have to go to Petit Louis for dinner tomorrow night. Must scare up a dinner companion who is willing to split the cassoulet, since they only do it for two. Shouldn't be too hard. Reading his post made me think of a passage from Deborah Smith's A Place to Call Home.
My family was defined by food. Food meant competition and compliments. Every weekend we held our own informal county fairs, with unspoken prizes judged by empty bowls and naked platters speckled with crumbs.
We had feasts: deviled eggs, baked chicken, roast beef, fried trout; heaping bowls of collards and peas and sliced yeast rolls, and corn bread; bowls of homemade chowchow, casseroles steeped in Velveeta, and canned cream soup; coconut cakes, apple coblers, pecan pies so rich they puckered the tongue, and molded gelatin salads filled with submerged green grapes and cherry pieces and pineapple chunks, as colorful as a stained-glass window. All of it washed down with sweet iced tea and hot coffee and soft drinks.
The women set it out on the kitchen table with practiced modesty and a quick, furtive darting of eyes -- an "Oh, I just threw it together" coupled with the brass pride of secret recipes and personal techniques no gourmet chef could have bested. We all suspected, for example, that the quality of Aunt Lucille's potato salad was defined by the exact, crisp, finely chopped celery in it -- I swear she must have measured each piece with a ruler.
I think Roanie was stunned by our vittle-heavy gatherings. I could sense his isolation, his ingrained mistrust of the bounty. At the long, laden kitchen table we fed one another and knew we could count on one another; we knew where we belonged. Roanie didn't have that kind of kin, that satiating surplus. He'd never really eaten.
(c) Deborah Smith, 1997
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That is nice . . .
Date: 2006-04-10 12:15 am (UTC)I would make cassoulet more often, but something about it gives me heartburn from hell. It's just so damned rich. I prefer foods that taste special but don't come back to haunt me later. Kra dook comes to mind (Thai bbq ribs -- I posted the recipe a while ago, should be searchable). Or even something simple like "salt water chicken" (what my son calls roast chicken, where I have brined the chicken ahead of time). It's amazing how tasty a correctly roasted chicken can be. Hmm . . . that might make for a good post!
Doug
no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 02:31 pm (UTC)I thought it was just me. I was so excited to get it in the mail from Amazon on Saturday that I started reading almost immediately then, after about four chapters, completely lost interest. Not sure if I can wait an entire year but I am really tempted to wait for the last before reading this one.
Beverly
(bevreads @ readernetwork.com/forum/)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 02:33 pm (UTC)Beverly
Re: That is nice . . .
Date: 2006-04-11 01:35 am (UTC)No heartburn for me from cassoulet, I just end up feeling kind of sluggish and sleepy after eating it because it is so rich. It's a once every so often kind of dish for me, not something I eat regularly.
Hmmm, salt water chicken, I like that as the name of a dish. It reminds me of a cookbook that my brother's kindergarten teacher wrote for each of her students. She asked her students how to make different dishes and wrote their directions down, then bound them and gave them to the parents. My brother's recipes included chicken (chop vegetables, put in pan with chicken, bake at 15 degrees for four hours) and dumplings (mix one cup water with one cup flour, squeeze with hands, drop balls in boiling chicken juice). I'm pretty sure Mom has that little book among her keepsakes.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-11 01:40 am (UTC)I've checked out the reader network -- wow! Great site!
Live journal is kind of funky about quotes and formatting. It seemed easier to me than blogger or blogspot, since I'm a computer moron really. I may someday feel confident enough to switch over, but for now I feel safe with the templates, etc., here at lj.
I've set Warsworn aside for the time being. Reading it was too much like work; it wasn't fun. I may pick it up again in a couple of weeks, or it may languish on my bookshelf until Warlord is published. I'm glad (sort of) to hear that I'm not the only person having trouble with the book.
~jmc
no subject
Date: 2006-04-11 08:54 pm (UTC)Glad you like RN. Hopefully, it will develop over time into a resource readers can really use.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-11 08:55 pm (UTC)