The Good Dirt

...mine are missing pieces and parts, but every once in awhile i do something that makes me happy.
Kirsten introduced me this website yesterday, and on it, i found  a recipe for something involving involving a ton of spices and nothing else.
the spices were:
coriander
cumin
peppercorns
salt
fennel
dried mint

within the recipe were also sesame seeds and hazelnuts.

I realized with a shock that I had everything except the dried mint, the hazelnuts, and the fennel seed, but i wondered if i could substitute almonds for the hazelnuts, since i'm not a huge fan of hazelnuts anyway; and i knew the anise seed in my cabinet would make a fine, albeit less aggressive, substitution for the fennel seed, and well, frankly, i could do without the dried mint, since i really just wanted to see what this recipe was all about.

it's a recipe for dukkah, and it took me some digging around to find out what one actually does with dukkah: in egypt, it's sold with pita bread and olive oil as a dip. you dip your bread into the olive oil, then into the dukkah, which makes a crust over it, and then you eat it.

K had brought over some frozen ciabatta rolls that we thought we were going to have for lunch, but we went out for sandwiches instead, so i toasted all of the ingredients over low flame, watching it all very carefully, pulsed the mixture until it looked like a fine-grain sand, tore up the ciabatta, and spend the evening in front of West Side Story stuffing myself full of carbs and fat.

it was awesome. if we do end up having an international party in honor of ShelterBox, i'd love to serve this. i'm also thinking it'll make a great crust for the pork chops that are in my refrigerator, which i might make for jim tonight when he gets home from his interview. the almonds do well where hazelnuts wouldn't do, in this application.

er. i didn't take pictures, which i will do next time.

last time i saw a gutted building like this, it was grey out.
i'm glad it was sunny when i spotted this one.

...the 24-hour one?
i didn't win. neither did mike. now that the sting of *that* has worn off, here's my entry.
if you'll remember, the prompt was having to do with a winter wedding.


Borrowed

"I can't believe you gave him up." Lu was crying into Scott's shoulder, but she pulled back when he spoke.
    "Wha—What?" She swiped at the tears, trying to see him clearly.
    "You heard me." Scott brushed the hair from Lu's face. He was trying to be tender, but his words hurt.
    "Scott, I didn't have a choice!"
    "Why would you say that? You could either have brought him home with you or left him there, and you chose to leave him." He shook his head. "That dog loved you, and you just left him." The accusatory tone was undeniable.
    Lu tried again. "She's been so lonely, Scott. You should have seen her: Ever since Dad died, she's been knocking around that huge house. She adores Beto. They're good company for each other. She needs him more than I do."
    "She makes your life miserable. She criticizes everything you do. I bet right now, she's telling herself that you left Beto because you're pathetic, because you wanted desperately to please her, something like that." Scott's voice was trembling. "I can't believe you just left him," he said again.
    "I can visit."
    "You know it won't be the same."
    "I know." Lu sat heavily on their couch, pulling one of Beto's hairs from the fabric and winding it around her finger. She put it in her pocket.
    Scott sighed. "Well, how was the rest of it?"
    "It was…okay. We got on alright." The two weeks with her mother had been exhausting, and Lu was too tired to tell the truth.
    Scott kneeled down so he was looking directly into her eyes. "Did you tell her we were getting married?"
    "Yeah, I told her." Lu whispered. 
    "What'd she say?"
    "She said she'd think about it."
    "Lu, the wedding is three months away! Didn't you say you wanted her to be a part of everything?"
    "Yeah." Lu picked at the chenille on the sofa. She didn't look at Scott.
    "Well?"
    "I was thinking. Maybe we should elope."
    "Elope!! Lu, look at me."
    Lu looked, dutifully. She'd never seen Scott so serious.
    "Don't you want our friends to be there? And what about my parents?"
    "But…she doesn't want me to marry you."
    "Lu."
    "I can't, Scott. I just can't. I can't have a massive wedding without my mother there."
    "Fine," said Scott, and got up. Lu started crying again. She saw through another haze of tears that Scott was leaving.
    "Please don't go," said Lu.
"I'm not leaving," said Scott, "I'm going to call everyone we have to call so that we can still get some money back from our deposits. And then I'm going out. You find us a place to elope."
"Oh," said Lu, feeling stupid.
That had been a week ago. Now, Lu and Scott stood in a small church, a minister and his wife their only company. It was only just the end of February, and Lu mourned briefly the fact that she'd wanted a spring wedding and wasn't going to get one, but she looked deep into Scott's eyes, and knew that this was as good as it would get.
The minister intoned the final words of the vows, and then continued, "If anyone can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or forever hold your peace."
It was just a formality; the pews weren't going to speak. Lu leaned in, ready to be pronounced man and wife. She was interrupted by a cough. All four turned to look.
"Hush," said Lu's mother to the shaggy speckled dog staring intently at Lu from the last pew. "Hush, now."
Lu forgot entirely about man-and-wife. "Beto!" she called, and the dog shot up the aisle and wiggled madly at Lu, whimpering, dancing on all four paws. Lu's mother followed more slowly.
Lu cried into Beto's fur, pulled at his ears, kneaded his paws. Scott stood by, quietly. He shook Lu's mother's hand and scratched Beto between the ears with his other hand.
"Mom," croaked Lu. "How did you know?"
"I didn't," said her mother. "Your dog's been miserable. I come to this church when I need some peace and quiet. I thought it might help him, too." She sniffed. "I think he misses you," she said. She looked up into the beams of the old church. "What are you doing here, Lu?"
Lu straightened, wrapped her mother in a hug. Her mother didn't reciprocate, and Lu pulled back. "We're getting married, Ma."
"Without me?"
"Yes, Ma, without you."
"How could you possibly think that would be okay?"
Lu felt cold, all of a sudden. "I gave you my dog. Isn't that enough?"
"I would have rather known about this." She paused. "Take your dog back. I never wanted to pay this price."
Lu squared her shoulders. She reached for Scott's hand, pulled him to stand close to her, wound Beto's collar through her fingers. "We were getting married, Ma. I'm glad you're here."
"You're glad the dog is here." Lu's mother's eyes hardened.
"I'm glad you're both here. Will you stay?"
Lu's mother tipped her head back, and Lu saw, with a shock, that her eyes were red. "Your father and I were married here," she said. "You would have done this without me...!"
Lu felt Beto leaning against her, warm on her leg, and Scott, steady on the other side. She sighed. "I didn't know, Ma. I'm sorry." She thought for a moment. "I couldn't have gone through with it without you anyway."
Scott tightened his grip on her hand. She could have done, and they both knew it. But of Lu's mother and Beto, only Beto would know the truth.

...there is a greater-than-average chance we will be moving back to New York.
Jim has a day-long interview on Friday with the group he'll be working with. It's only coincidence--or, perhaps, engineered forced employment--by P3psi, whose HR department would love to hire someone they know back into the fold.
My feelings on this are mixed, for obvious, and perhaps not so obvious, feelings. I don't feel this is a company that has treated Jim especially well; I have lukewarm feelings about the corporate culture of this specific company; I am absolutely at odds with the personnel choices they've made from the very very top all the way down to Jim's level.
I am not even a fan of their recent branding efforts. I find them very slightly intriguing at best and absolutely moronic at worst, with most of my feelings veering towards the latter.
But this morning, as I was paging through the New York Times, I thought about how nice it would be again to read the newspaper of my choice and have it be immediately relevant to my life: to read the article about the trees being massacred in Inwood Park, my old running haunts, and feel capable of doing something about it; or to read the review of the new rendition of "West Side Story" and maybe just walk down and see it; or maybe tear out the article about the new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society and just take the train over to glance at it, without being aware that my time is limited.
Part of this is my fault. I tried getting the Chicago Tribune, and became so irritated by its reams of advertisements that I just felt better without it.
I wasn't much a fan of the writing either, preferring to get my news through the local NPR affiliate.
I do like it here. I feel, as a friend put it, that we've only lived here just long enough to just barely scratch the surface of what life can be like here. This summer we were fully planning on spending more time swimming in Lake Michigan, for instance, taking advantage of the three half-mile-long swim lanes that line the shore here. It would have made us better triathletes.
I have to keep on reminding myself that I never pictured myself a Chicagoan.
Then again, I never pictured myself a New Yorker before I moved there and grew to love it, either.

...like, yesterday:

1. a sportcount lap-counter-cum-fashion-accessory. c'mon, someone dare me to wear it out. dooooeeeet.
2. twiglets. baked snacks in a marmite-like covering. i believe they have the coveted umami taste, although i thought them burnt when i first tried them. whatever, i'm hooked now, and amazon is delivering 15 bags to me in the next few days. i hope, anyway.
3. a big box of PG Tips.

clearly i miss england already.

i forgot to mention that jim bought a new bike frame. my boyfriend is the most resilient person in the whole wide world. only he would purchase a ridiculously expensive bicycle frame on no salary. we got a peek at it a few days ago, and it...is...hot. yum. it's *almost* as pretty as Grub is, but not quite.

     

Click here to download:

things_i_have_purchased_recent.zip (105 KB)

i'm just re-reading a critique group member's comments about my last manuscript.
this same member, a long time ago, described a work using the words "unimaginative" and "boring." now, re-reading her words to me, i have the horrid feeling that she might have been talking about *me*. yikes.
even more daunting, her remarks belie an incredible amount of work to be done on a manuscript that i knew was in first draft form, but that i thought was so much farther along.
it's truly shameful, to think you're in one place when your readers think you're in another.
onwards.

I just submitted my resignation to the bookstore.
I feel a little bereft, but it certainly wasn't the wrong thing to do....that store has cycled through four different managers in the two years I've been there, and I told myself that if this last manager didn't work out, then I was done, too.
Well...she didn't work out. And I really liked her. Much as I liked the last one. And the two other girls on the current team that I really liked are about finished. We'd have made a formidable team, but each time, *something's* gone wrong, and no one is willing to take accountability for it. Oh well. It was just way too much aggravation for the simple, small joy I got out of it, and I've never been able to talk myself out of the fact that my time is just worth more than what I was getting there. I come back from the bookstore totally exhausted, and if that's just a sign of my personality, well, then, I guess I just wasn't cut out for that atmosphere.
I'm slowly settling back into my normal life, getting things cleaned up, packing stuff away. I came home to a clean house (thanks, Jim!) and promptly trashed it with kit and ShelterBox paraphernalia, bowls of popcorn and Kleenex, dirty laundry. But I'm on the right track now, I think, clearing out the junk that doesn't need to be there.
I think the bookstore was part of that.
I've got a new gig working with a publisher of children's nature books on their materials, and that's been really fun so far. God help me, there's something about producing backup materials that really makes me happy, although that sounds so terrifically mundane. I love newsletters, sell sheets, tip sheets, small items of beauty that can be used to push an item. I know I'm good at the actual selling, but I'm really not as fond of it as I'd like to be.
Anyhow. It's fulfilling work, but we'll have to see if it works out...if my efforts don't result in immediate sales, well, then, this might dry up too, but I believe in their product and I think it should be on bookshelves everywhere.
Er. ShelterBox. Oh, ShelterBox. Those nine days were the hardest thing I've ever done, and probably the best thing I've ever done. I'm well aware that it could have been harder, if the weather hadn't cooperated, if the old guard had been there, if if if....but I have to tell you, I think this is the first time I've walked away from a challenge thinking, "If it had been harder, I could have done, still." This is a damned fine feeling.
The first five days of the exercise are spent pretty much beating you up. They set you up to fail, again and again; they deplete you physically and mentally, and this is all so that they can make you go into a mock deployment of tremendous scale as screwed up as you can possibly be.
at least, that was my reading of it. :)
anyway, it was a terrific experience.
it was especially nice to experience it with people i already considered friends. j0hn cord3ll, st3ve t0nk1nson, and k1m k1m are all friends from the two-day assessment in Florida, and i was quite surprised to see how well we all got on, even after only spending two days together, and all in different groups. they split us all up, predictably, so that no americans were on the same team at any given time.
the final icing on the cake was getting to come home to an awesome roast beef dinner with proper yorkshire pudding and an appreciative audience for ShelterBox matters in the form of Lara and Roj. i'll be forever grateful that they welcomed us with such an incredible meal and such sensitivity to our incessant yapping about nine days they weren't even there for, but the reality is, I couldn't have possibly asked for better companions with which to decompress.
my last few days in london were quiet. we had a very very quiet evening out with sioned and dan. it felt almost like being with family--no one minded the tired silences, and the food was terrific; we picked off of each others' plates and felt like we all were on the same page...it's funny, how you can fall into that with certain people.
by then i was suffering the effects of not taking proper care of a head and chest cold turned sinus infection, so i hope that no one got too sick from my lurgy and that it wasn't too disgusting to be around me. [oh. maybe that's why the silence all around. hmmmm.]
tuesday morning we had the distinct pleasure of having Mike over to Lara's flat, complete with proper cakes from Marks and Spencer, and then we went shopping for my new pack. yes, yes, more kit! it turns out, if my 24-litre deuter is properly packed with gear you need to survive for 24-48 hours, i end up with my sleeping bag hanging off the back of it and other odds and ends and bits hanging off of it. "sure to be nicked," as my british friends would say.
er. this is quite long already, isn't it? right. i'll break here, more later.

...thanks, kimber!!
here.

Jim, on his job prospects at P3psi and F1scher Nuts:

"This week I hope to hear from both the mothership and the nuthouse."

Mmmhmmmm. And who else will you be channeling, m'love?