spleen

I’m such a lazy glutton

Today's late breakfast/brunch thing was a quick kind of pan bagnat, which is a kind of French sandwich. You're supposed to make it with tuna and all sorts of goodies, but I made it with rosemary potatoes.

Basic recipe: thickly slice some red potatoes. Mince three or so cloves of garlic and sautee them in butter with a copious amount of rosemary. Next, add the potatoes and cook for a minute, then add beef stock, salt pepper and a pinch of thyme. Cover and simmer until potatoes are tender. You may wish to spend this time worrying over your Spanish homework, which you haven't touched (it's so much worse because you skipped Spanish Monday in order to prepare for a statistics test). You should have a good ten or fifteen minutes to agonize. When the potatoes are done, remove them from the skillet and reduce the stock under high heat. When the stock is down to a whisper, add a splash of white wine and deglaze the skillet, cooking until the whole mess is fairly thick.

Pause to check your email.

Take a loaf of French bread, cut it in half lengthwise, and scoop out some of its innards. Drizzle olive oil along the insides of the loaf, then spoon in the sauce from the skillet. Layer in the potatoes, fresh sliced tomato, lettuce or endive, and Swiss cheese. Wrap the sandwich and refrigerate for about an hour. You may wish to spend that hour agonizing some more over your Spanish homework, which you still haven't touched, you lazy bum. Remove the sandwich and cut it into slices. Munch away.

If you have a spare moment, make an entry in your journal about lunch, which is so much more interesting than that Spanish homework you're agonizing over. You big lazy bum.

Posted in food, recipes | No Comments »

bleh

I should never go grocery shopping when I'm hungry.

Currently on the stove/in the oven: chicken with cream sauce Provencal, anchovy crostini, and a roasted tomato stuffed with crab and artichoke. Of course, in the process of cooking, I committed the cardinal sin of munching, so by the time all of this is ready, I'll be too full to eat. Anyone want to come over and eat my leftovers?

Posted in food | No Comments »

searches etc.

Among the more interesting recent search keywords that have led strangers to somniloquy.org:

garmonbozia

adeste livejournal

gandhi and seven deadly sins

learning to write the alphabet

mutton sandwiches

i got money like charles dickens …

persistence of the saints

preston mark stone rice

Posted in computery stuff | No Comments »

so anyway …

Anyone who knows me knows that I cook a lot. Pretty much every night that I have the time, money and energy, I make a big elaborate dish (tonight's dish: penne alla panna and sourdough garlic bread). I do this to learn to cook better and more exciting dishes, and also because I truly love cooking.

That said, I almost always eat alone. There are certain dishes, therefore, that are just way too much work for one person. Example:

Tuscan Cooking - First Course - Lasagne
So, who wants to come over and take a chance on chicken hearts with me?

Posted in food | No Comments »

headaches etc.

So now I have this ridiculous setup with an external keyboard plugged into my laptop. Since I work on a small desk, I couldn't get both the keyboard and the laptop to fit on it; therefore, the keyboard is now resting on a closet shelf that's balanced precariously between two open desk drawers. Also, I miss my laptop keyboard's friendly chik-chik-chik sound - this cheapo desktop keyboard goes CLICK CLICK CLICK when I type. It's maddening. In an effort to muffle it a little, I have the keyboard sitting on top of a folded green and white striped shirt. So picture this for a moment - laptop, keyboard, open desk drawers, shelf, bright green and white shirt. This is all decidedly unpoetic. Frankly, I can't work like this.

The great irony is this: I just bought a Wacom graphics tablet for use in graphic design. I've wanted one for years - it works just like a pad and pencil, with a stylus you hold like a pen and navigate and write with. It's pressure sensitive, allows you to write letters by hand and convert them to type, and is really just beyond cool. That's why I was having the glass of wine - I was celebrating the fact that I won a neato graphics tablet on eBay. I had wine and listened to Tom Waits, jubilant. There was a guitar solo, and I committed the grievous and irrevocable sin of playing air guitar, and things got out of hand, and … well, now I'm sentenced to the external keyboard. But I totally can't afford the graphics tablet now, seeing as how I have to spend even more money on some kind of keyboard solution (not to mention GREs, grad school applications, etc). When it arrives, I'll probably just turn right around and sell it. I should probably figure out what else I can sell, as Micron no longer makes replacement keyboards for this model of computer and every other option I'm exploring appears more and more expensive. Of course, I guess I could just get used to the crappy desktop keyboard again.

So if you happen to run across, say, a Micron TransPort NX laptop computer that's busted up and cheap (busted up, that is, with the exception of the keyboard), do let me know.

Poems forthcoming, once I learn how to live with this bloody CLICK CLICK CLICK.

Posted in computery stuff, rant | No Comments »