Step #4, Alligator sandwiches, Navelgazing and Last Thursday
DrSita comes back late this evening and in the meantime, I’m baking bread. Sudarat gave me a bread baking stone and it’s getting it’s baptism by yeast today. When DrSita rang yesterday she seemed to be reeling from culture shock from visiting New Orleans, and this morning I turned my computer on and got this Skype message:
[6:21:11 AM] WIFEY! says: i can’t believe i forgot to tell you: i ate alligator!
I dunno, you let her wander off for 48 hours and this kind of thing happens…
What else? I went to Bertie Lou’s this morning for breakfast, had a long chat with Stu & Anne yesterday, watched Cloverfield last night, Hancock the night before, and life’s pretty quiet all in all.
I got tagged by Colibrà and El Charro Negro for an “upload a photo and say 16 things about yourself” Flickr meme thing, so i have to do that. I didn’t realise it had to be in Spanish though, and thinking of 16 things to say was harder than I thought so I just googled about for ’50 questions’ type posts and came up with the following:
1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
Jesus, that’s a lot of white hairs in me beard. Time for a shave…
2. What is your favourite ringtone on your phone?
Any of them are fine EXCEPT the one that I used to have as an alarm at 6am meaning it was time to commute to Sunnyvale for Yahoo(!). Still gives me shivers when I hear it.
3. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Hoping DrSita was alright in her haunted hotel in Louisiana. Wishing the Colbert Report would go on a bit longer, and mulling over the implications and repercussions of time travel in LOST.
4. What’s a word that you say a lot?
In English, anyroad
In Spanish, orale
5. Favorite age you have been so far?
23 was a good vintage.
6. What is your current desktop picture?
Laptop: That Ubuntu heron thing
Home PC: Bokeh-y grass
Work PC: Yes we canine. On black.
7. What do you do when vending machines steal your money?
Pump the return me money button, rock the machine a bit, send another coin in after it, swear, weep.
8. Last magazine you bought?
Word magazine. Best music magazine on the planet. If we lived in the same country for more than 10 months at a time, I’d subscribe.
9. Can you cook?
Now and again. I can follow a recipe if it has pictures of what the result’s meant to look like. The House Speciality is Shepherd’s Pie. And right now I’m 6 hours into a bread recipe.
10. Last movie you watched?
Cloverfield, 2 hours ago. Monsters rock!
11. Do you like marmite?
Hellz yeah! ‘cept nowadays it gives me terrible acid indigestion.
12. Favourite crisps?
US: Funyuns
UK: Quavers
Mexico: Lays, amarillo
13. Do you own a donor card?
Yep. Help yourselves.
14. Are you a collector of anything?
We move too often to amass a serious amount of anything, I’ve 11 and a half thousand photos on Flickr though and I think my two dual lens vintage cameras might be the start of something bigger….
15. Do you believe in ghosts?
Nope.
16. Have you ever done anything more self-obsessed than this?
Can I interest you in my blog..? agaveweb.com/blog
Now I have to translate all that…
The Continuing Adventures of Me’n’Mario’n’Ange:
Last Thursday. I shifted my hours at L&C to a bit later so we could explore the area a tad. It was a misty morning & Atticus was full of beans and came with us.
I thought the park by the Sellwood bridge would be pretty atmospheric what with all the fog so we had a little wander round there before heading up to Tryon park next to where I work. We managed a fairly large loop of the trails there, the mist had more or less disappeared but the sun was low in the sky and casting some nice beams through the trees. I also took advantage of having two experienced dog handlers to pass Atticus over to so I could use my TTV contraption. Here’s one I liked:
We walked briefly around the L&C campus then I went to a meeting about the new CMS we’re going to be adopting at the law school. It’s an impressive system and will eventually make everything run more smoothly… but I think the changeover is going to be a little bumpy. Nothing too severe though, and I likes a challenge.
After than we went CD & poster shopping round Hawthorn way. Word Magazine cost 17 bucks. But it’s rarer than hen’s teeth in Oregon so I bit the bullet and paid up. I shall read it very slowly…
In the evening, ‘tapas gringas’ and beer in Clinton with everyone + a Spanish friend of ours.
Lovely. Anyroad, off to try step #5 in Leif’s recipe…
So Sita fancied a large ‘bite’ of the Green Snapper?
We were in a reclamation yard in Bridgwater today (as one sometimes is) and saw an ancient cast iron stove with its name- ‘Tortoise Oven’. Perhaps that might tickle her tastebuds next time she’s over here.
Meanwhile, some of us have moved on to Intrebid Ibex. Hardy Heron is SO 2008…
Sounds like the metal detector’s working then 😛 What were you ‘reclaiming’?
Yeah, yeah. If I could trust my laptop not to die in the middle of an installation I’d upgrade, in the meantime. If it’s not completely broken, no point in trying to fix it…
Mum promises to bring the metal detector to Minehead beach. But only if it is much warmer. Gill was looking for sources of cheap flagstones for her garden- but as we found you have to pay something like 30 pounds per sq metre wherever you look.
Fun outing both am & pm therefore…
I loved Millenium records! I should own a place like that 😛
Te gusto el disco de Ximena Sariñana?
One day you’d arrive there and find your mum had thrown away all the records though…
Me gusta el disco de Ximena nomás que no he tenido tiempo para escucharlo otra vez. Está en mi lista!
También nos llegaron unos tenis por correo… parecen ser de tu tamaño…
What’s the first line? 1 cup of flour and 1 tbsp of flour mixture? What is that?
I had the very same question, J, I had to ring up the recipe author…
It can be anything really, a different type of flour, grains, cereals, nuts, olives, garlic, seeds. I used chopped almonds and it turned out alright. Are you going to have a go at this one? Best of luck if so- try a maximum of 1 teaspoon of salt. And this recipe doesn’t make a huge amount of bread so double all the quantities if you can.
Can I just say too, what a lovely bunch of gravatars on these comments. Fair warms the heart. Mario, sort it out!
Yeah I like making bread. Never one so complicated though i.e. making a starter and leaving it 12 hours. Yours looked so tasty too! So I’ll add thsi to my todo list 🙂
Y te quedaron los tenis?
Dicen que lo que cuenta es la intencion, y pues, se que originalmente no era la intencion, pero podria ser un regalo de cumpleaños tardio….
jajaja, ni me atrevà ponerlos, Mario. Gracias! a ver si a la doctora le guste que por fin su marido lleve tenis “de moda”
Precisamente pensaba en tu sentido antifashion…. igual serian un buen juguete pa´l Atticus.
Just thought I’d let you know I made the bread this weekend. Didn’t get any photos because firstly it didn’t last long, but also it was a bit flat. Got the timing a bit wrong and started too late, so didn’t leave enough time to let it fully rise at the end. Still I shall get some more interesting flour and try again some time. And read the recipe properly so I give myself enough time.
Congrats, Jamie! It always tastes better when you make it yourself, no matter what. Yep, following this recipe takes a while (up to 15 hours) and I’ve still not mastered it. Still you’ve got a good few months to practice till the Taunton Flower Show… 😉