vital functions
Aug. 9th, 2020 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettReading. I finished To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers) and was very cross about it.
I also finished Soulless (Gail Carriger), and was mildly appalled that (1) it didn't get any better but (2) it invoked two of my bulletproof kinks. Which is (I say, mournfully, for comic effect) the worst of all possible worlds. Again, this is Definitely Rollicking and probably works great if you're not upset about application of Alpha/Beta dynamics in 1870s alt-London, with a protagonist who ends up girlishly squeaking apologies for being Not Terribly Sexually Experienced while also very much an 1870s 25-year-old spinster. It's not that they're generally more sexually ~liberated~ or anything -- kissing in the streets is still scandalous -- it's just that's apparently an appropriate way to talk to someone of substantially higher class than you while you're making progress toward fucking them but are convinced they don't want to marry you?! It. Was not great for my suspension of disbelief.
The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern. This is a reread: I've read it once, and wanted to do so again. I am already going !!! at the structural and thematic things it's doing in the prologue that I didn't pick up first time through. I am rolling around in this extremely happily, albeit in small chunks because I'm having a bad week for RSI and I own... the hardback.
I'm also chipping away at the e-book TBR, which means: short stories! The Winged City, Yoon Ha Lee, which I think was actually a reread; I still don't understand it, in that I think it's doing something multi-layered and self-referential that I'm not quite awake enough to follow. Also: The Lady Astronaut of Mars, Mary Robinette Kowal, which didn't quite work for me though I can see why people would love it.
Writing. Okay no I'm going to squash the urge to gloss over it: it is a very short talk on ROCKS: how old are they?
Watching. All seven episodes of American Hedgehog Warrior in one sitting, good grief. Particularly appreciated the shoutout to hedgehog rescue services and responsible adoption, and the announcement-style "vets approve this kind of enrichment activity provided xyz conditions are met".
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, S01E03: I put a loaf of bread in at the start of the episode on the grounds that I could definitely get up for a couple of minutes to get it out when the bread was done and then... was utterly absorbed. I'm continuing to wince a lot at Rebecca being a Terrible Friend and also Acting Out All Her Worst Impulses but it is super nice to be feeling sympathetic to her even while I'm burying my face in my hands and groaning.
The Old Guard, as a rewatch, with a group chat, for LOTS OF YELLING. Thing that upset me most this watch-through: the exchange in which Nile says "How many others are there?" and Andy gets a Look and says "Four." WHO IS THE FOURTH, I thought, DOES SHE MEAN... FOUR... INCLUDING ME...?
no she's talking about Quynh.
and then -- and then -- look! at Andy's face! when she overhears Nile waking up from the dream about Quynh! because the dreams stop when they meet so that's why Andy gave up because she didn't believe Booker that they were really still happening (and he was the only person still having them) and Nile gives her confirmation.
The other main Feeling was about Booker's complete failure to recognise that he is loved, but there we go. Yes I enjoyed this WOULD WATCH AGAIN, still want the sequel, T H A N K S.
Cooking. OKAY LET'S SEE. sweet potato and chickpea salad; quiche, with onions from the allotment and new potatoes from my mother's garden; salads, with lots of garden tomatoes; and tonight I've roasted 'lotment cherry tomatoes and some onion-potato-sweet potato-'lotment squash to go with some of the rest of the quiche. (I'm sure there were more dinners, because I repeatedly went "ugh what even is food" and considered Making The Internet Bring It To Us but didn't, but I don't recall... what.)
But: I'm particularly proud of the blackberry jelly: 2kg of berries and one allotment lemon and 400g of sugar converted to 1.25l of jam, approx. I think this is probably the most successful jam I have made thus far: I tend to panic about how RUNNY it is and want to keep cooking it until it's become viscous while hot, which is always an error, but on this occasion I took a deep breath and trusted the beginning-of-wrinkles-forming (rather than holding) and then panicked while it sat there being Runny in its jars while it cooled down and actually we tried some of the first jar this morning and it's perfect and I am super proud of myself.
This left me, naturally, with a significant volume of blackberry pulp, which we have more-or-less decided is... still... food? So that's (AS I TYPE) in the oven turning into Experimental Crumble with some Bonus Pears, and we'll see if it... works.
Earlier in the week we did another batch of blackberry clafoutis, also, because good grief it is Blackberry Season (I think I'm up to ~1.5kg in the freezer and I'm managing to sort of trip and pick another ~750g every time I go to the plot without really... having to think about it).
Growing. we are hitting tomato season. yesterday I brought home one Feo de Rio Gordo, five Purple Ukraine, and ten Chadwick Cherry. The Cosse Violette beans are also coming along well, and turn out to be delicious to the point that I'm actually seriously contemplating growing them again next year, despite thinking of myself as someone who Doesn't Really Like That Form Factor Of Bean. I've also been harvesting SQUASH and ONION.
Elsewise: the Chaenomeles japonica from my mother is not dead yet. The cucumbers are being very slow about producing fruit but we are about to get another one. The luffa have produced flowers but not yet set fruit; the same continues true of the Pattison Blanc. Peas continue, to my delight, to pea; Greek Gigantes are starting to set pods I think. Maize has visible tassles! Who knows if we'll get fruit! And there's another courgette about ready for eating, too.
I also finished Soulless (Gail Carriger), and was mildly appalled that (1) it didn't get any better but (2) it invoked two of my bulletproof kinks. Which is (I say, mournfully, for comic effect) the worst of all possible worlds. Again, this is Definitely Rollicking and probably works great if you're not upset about application of Alpha/Beta dynamics in 1870s alt-London, with a protagonist who ends up girlishly squeaking apologies for being Not Terribly Sexually Experienced while also very much an 1870s 25-year-old spinster. It's not that they're generally more sexually ~liberated~ or anything -- kissing in the streets is still scandalous -- it's just that's apparently an appropriate way to talk to someone of substantially higher class than you while you're making progress toward fucking them but are convinced they don't want to marry you?! It. Was not great for my suspension of disbelief.
The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern. This is a reread: I've read it once, and wanted to do so again. I am already going !!! at the structural and thematic things it's doing in the prologue that I didn't pick up first time through. I am rolling around in this extremely happily, albeit in small chunks because I'm having a bad week for RSI and I own... the hardback.
I'm also chipping away at the e-book TBR, which means: short stories! The Winged City, Yoon Ha Lee, which I think was actually a reread; I still don't understand it, in that I think it's doing something multi-layered and self-referential that I'm not quite awake enough to follow. Also: The Lady Astronaut of Mars, Mary Robinette Kowal, which didn't quite work for me though I can see why people would love it.
Writing. Okay no I'm going to squash the urge to gloss over it: it is a very short talk on ROCKS: how old are they?
Watching. All seven episodes of American Hedgehog Warrior in one sitting, good grief. Particularly appreciated the shoutout to hedgehog rescue services and responsible adoption, and the announcement-style "vets approve this kind of enrichment activity provided xyz conditions are met".
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, S01E03: I put a loaf of bread in at the start of the episode on the grounds that I could definitely get up for a couple of minutes to get it out when the bread was done and then... was utterly absorbed. I'm continuing to wince a lot at Rebecca being a Terrible Friend and also Acting Out All Her Worst Impulses but it is super nice to be feeling sympathetic to her even while I'm burying my face in my hands and groaning.
The Old Guard, as a rewatch, with a group chat, for LOTS OF YELLING. Thing that upset me most this watch-through: the exchange in which Nile says "How many others are there?" and Andy gets a Look and says "Four." WHO IS THE FOURTH, I thought, DOES SHE MEAN... FOUR... INCLUDING ME...?
no she's talking about Quynh.
and then -- and then -- look! at Andy's face! when she overhears Nile waking up from the dream about Quynh! because the dreams stop when they meet so that's why Andy gave up because she didn't believe Booker that they were really still happening (and he was the only person still having them) and Nile gives her confirmation.
The other main Feeling was about Booker's complete failure to recognise that he is loved, but there we go. Yes I enjoyed this WOULD WATCH AGAIN, still want the sequel, T H A N K S.
Cooking. OKAY LET'S SEE. sweet potato and chickpea salad; quiche, with onions from the allotment and new potatoes from my mother's garden; salads, with lots of garden tomatoes; and tonight I've roasted 'lotment cherry tomatoes and some onion-potato-sweet potato-'lotment squash to go with some of the rest of the quiche. (I'm sure there were more dinners, because I repeatedly went "ugh what even is food" and considered Making The Internet Bring It To Us but didn't, but I don't recall... what.)
But: I'm particularly proud of the blackberry jelly: 2kg of berries and one allotment lemon and 400g of sugar converted to 1.25l of jam, approx. I think this is probably the most successful jam I have made thus far: I tend to panic about how RUNNY it is and want to keep cooking it until it's become viscous while hot, which is always an error, but on this occasion I took a deep breath and trusted the beginning-of-wrinkles-forming (rather than holding) and then panicked while it sat there being Runny in its jars while it cooled down and actually we tried some of the first jar this morning and it's perfect and I am super proud of myself.
This left me, naturally, with a significant volume of blackberry pulp, which we have more-or-less decided is... still... food? So that's (AS I TYPE) in the oven turning into Experimental Crumble with some Bonus Pears, and we'll see if it... works.
Earlier in the week we did another batch of blackberry clafoutis, also, because good grief it is Blackberry Season (I think I'm up to ~1.5kg in the freezer and I'm managing to sort of trip and pick another ~750g every time I go to the plot without really... having to think about it).
Growing. we are hitting tomato season. yesterday I brought home one Feo de Rio Gordo, five Purple Ukraine, and ten Chadwick Cherry. The Cosse Violette beans are also coming along well, and turn out to be delicious to the point that I'm actually seriously contemplating growing them again next year, despite thinking of myself as someone who Doesn't Really Like That Form Factor Of Bean. I've also been harvesting SQUASH and ONION.
Elsewise: the Chaenomeles japonica from my mother is not dead yet. The cucumbers are being very slow about producing fruit but we are about to get another one. The luffa have produced flowers but not yet set fruit; the same continues true of the Pattison Blanc. Peas continue, to my delight, to pea; Greek Gigantes are starting to set pods I think. Maize has visible tassles! Who knows if we'll get fruit! And there's another courgette about ready for eating, too.
CXG
Date: 2020-08-09 07:19 pm (UTC)Re: CXG
Date: 2020-08-09 07:41 pm (UTC)Yup, that's the context I know people talking about it in! I'm coping with it at the beginning in part because it comes so highly recommended. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-09 07:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-09 07:41 pm (UTC)Thank you! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-09 07:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-09 09:07 pm (UTC)I'm finding Cherokee Trail of Tears pretty good, too, FWIW. (I'm growing them side by side, and generally cooking them together and not going "okay obviously there are Good Beans and Bad Beans here" when I eat them. But so far they have only been Beans In Things, not Beans As Beans, where I might notice more.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-09 09:10 pm (UTC)I thought I didn't really like beans except, sometimes, in things!
....... I like these beans SO MUCH. BY THEMSELVES.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-10 09:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-09 09:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-10 02:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-10 07:56 am (UTC)I enjoyed your rock slides :-)
I remember being a bit meh about The Lady Astronaut of Mars as a story when I first read it, it means more after inhaling The Calculating Stars & The Fated Sky because now I'm invested in the characters, but I don't love it the way I do the novels.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-10 08:12 am (UTC)Also: I love these posts for many reasons, including that it’s v interesting to hear where you are with regard to growing season. We are juuuuuuust getting to tomatoes, here.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-10 09:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-10 02:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-11 08:36 pm (UTC)