Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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Like my brownhouse:
   stir fry success
Tuesday, March 4 2014
At various point in the night when I awoke (pinned-in, as always, by Ramona, Eleanor, Sylvia, and Clarence), I felt as if the inside of my nose and (whatever that void is directly above the hard ceiling of the roof of the mouth) had dried out. Actually, in that space above the roof of my mouth it was as if a hard waxy material had replaced the more natural biological materials that should have been there. This indicated to me that I was probably coming down with a head cold, so I added Vitamin C to my usual morning supplement regimen of Vitamin D, Vitamin B complex, and Omega-3. Strangely, though, the head cold (such as it was) didn't seem to worsen over the course of the day. I'd occasionally feel a mild need to blow my nose, but nothing much would come out. And instead of a sore throat, the soreness in the back of my mouth was concentrated on the gum around my right lower wisdom tooth, a much more convenient place for such discomfort.

In need of my two most important stimulants: Red Rose black tea and pseudoephedrine, this afternoon I loaded up the dogs and drove out to the Hannaford in that skeezy plaza just northeast of Uptown. I'd had such good luck with my last eggplant and green pepper that I bought another of each.
For dinner tonight I made myself a simple stir fry using leftover red onion fragments, mushrooms, a whole red pepper sliced into large (though thin) pieces, half a small Italian eggplant, and two thirds of a block of tofu. I couldn't find any of the spices I wanted to use (I guess Gretchen doesn't believe in powdered ginger), so I used a little cardemom, some fake chicken bouillon, and some red paste that claimed to be Thai. The main flavor, though, came from lots of my dehydrated hot pepper and soy sauce. After adding the resulting stir-fry to leftover basmati rice, the concoction was so good that I scarfed it down and immediately returned to the kitchen and made myself a second bowl of it. Though it seems like stir fry should be an easy thing to make, I actually hadn't had much confidence in my stir-fry-making talents. Consequently, stir fry hasn't been among my go-to dinners on those few occasions when Gretchen has wanted me to cook. But if this is what it's going to taste like, that could change. For me, the key to a good stir fry is green pepper, which unfortunately Gretchen dislikes. But I could probably substitute broccoli or other crisp green vegetables.
The great thing about cooking for myself is that I have absolutely no performance anxiety, and that gives me a willingness to try new vegetables and odd spice combinations. If I could just channel the feeling I've been having about the kitchen while Gretchen is away into times when she is around, I could make a bigger contribution to our evening dinner ritual. The thing is, though I have food preparation performance anxiety, Gretchen doesn't actually judge my kitchen performance at all. She's just happy to get a break from cooking all the time.


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http://asecular.com/blog.php?140304

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