Sixpence Widget

Just FYI, Sixpence is cooking up a new album, so I thought I'd post their widget with some samples. They also have a Christmas album just out, called Dawn of Grace...

Done and Dusted

Ladybug here, masquerading as Pancho (as if you couldn't tell).

Well, I guess I can now say that the dissertation is done and dusted. The corrected bound copy, after much travail--well, after a lot of unnecessary faff, at least--has finally made its way to the hands of the internal examiner and thus to BoGs (the Board of Graduate Studies). I could go into a long and complicated story as to why exactly 1 page of simple corrections lingered on for two months and why I wasted 150 pounds binding 3 copies of a thesis that wasn't quite right, but it's frankly boring and involves a lot of obsessive compulsive perfectionism. Interestingly, once I screwed up that ridiculously, I found it very difficult to believe that I'd corrected everything. Suddenly the virtues of handwritten corrections became very obvious. You do them once, for example, and they're done. No worrying about whether this version of the document has all the corrections that you know you did to some version or other...

To commemorate this auspicious occasion, I decided to get a nasty stomach flu, miss two classes, and then in a haze of residual nausea lead a far-too-technical grammar discussion (+ tirade - that one's a bonus!) to class today.

Viva le PhD!

Jiggity Jig

We have landed home again and, while disoriented, starting to get back in the swing of things. I just finished shuffling things in a closet to under the bed to make room for our clothes while we camp parent-side for the next few weeks. Ladybug's Mom is a hoarder! But that does mean that when your friends come over with their 2 1/2 yr-old little boy, there's tons of things to play with, like (no joke) a pirate ship forecastle with cannons and a pirate hook, a train set with whistles and lots of Thomas paraphenalia, a tricycle...Mom says that they're her toys, and she just lets her grandson play with them now and then.

Avast ye closet! Prepare to be boarded!

Washington D.C. with family

What Finishing a PhD Looks Like

Brought to you courtesy of Ladybug's Dad, who gave us a new toy for Pancho to play with while whiling away the hours with me in the Faculty, even into the wee sma's of the morning.

Gadamer, Qt #1

I'm liking Gadamer, so a new series of quotations ripped out of context seems appropriate:

"To be situated within a tradition does not limit the freedom of knowledge, but makes it possible"

- Truth and Method (2nd rev'd ed, 2004), p. 354

Birthday Fashion - for family only

Thanks to Mom and Dad, I now have two years of Mars Hill Audio coming my way through cyberspace - yay! highly recommended - you can download a sample edition by going here. Other lovely gifts from family include (from Dom) the hilarious book Watching the English and the cd, Raising Sand, a collection duets by the unlikely duo Alison Krauss (usually paired with Union Station) and Robert Plant (of Led Zeppelin) produced by T-Bone Burnett. Also, Pancho's Mom and Dad funded some shopping for summer clothes (which I rather needed), so to give them the pleasure of seeing what they made possible, I thought I'd do a wee fashion show for them. So if you're not them, there is simply no need to watch. Seriously. I mean it. I was not made for modeling.

Zotero to the rescue!

If you haven't yet heard of Zotero, watch this. It's a free, open-source bibliographic tool that operates from within Firefox, but can be accessed on- or offline. Zotero can "see" bibliographical material on webpages--say, within an online library catalogue, or on an Amazon page for a book recommendation--and grab it, store it, and export it properly formatted for a few mainline bibliographical styles with the click of a single button.

Highlights:

• It can also be used as a web archiving tool, as it can capture "snapshots" of pages
• you can annotate snapshots with highlighting and notes that are saved to your hardrive along with a copy of the page. Wow. That is way cool.
• it organizes information into an adaptable, drag-and-drop, hierarchical folder system - again, better than Endnote
• you can put the same references into different "collections" without copying and pasting and risking not updating
• you can create links between references/files
• you can add as many separate notes as you like, and be as long-winded as you like, and attach them to whatever reference/snapshot you like
• you can attach other files to the references/snapshots -- e.g., other snapshots, or pdfs, or your essays...
• your library can be portable and not confined to one computer
• you can export and import in all the major formats (BibTex, RIS, Endnote, etc.)
• you can export properly formatted citations in some styles (Chicago, MLA, for example)
• it can and will replace Endnote, which I really don't want to have to shell out $300 for to get updates that fix problems instead of offering better features.

Also, a perfect tool for blog-cruising of wanna-be public intellectuals...

Neologism: Upbraision

I began disgruntled with the following sentence from Chapter 2:

This passage in Thomas Hoccleve’s remonstrance to John Oldcastle has generally been read as a blanket condemnation of argumentative Lollards who dispute interpretations of the Bible.

"Remonstrance" just doesn't ring. It's there because some of the 19th c. titles of the poem identify it as "Remonstrance to Oldcastle" and so the word was the first my mind (or perhaps my fingers, which have typed the phrase several times) chanced upon.

I was casting about for a better word, and the first I came up with was "upbraiding". Now, I've in general set up a new policy: the avoidance of gerunds and participles as far as possible, since they almost always (1) make syntax more confusing for the reader and often (2) make sentences less clear. E.G., with "upbraiding" the sentence would read:

This passage in Thomas Hoccleve’s upbraiding of John Oldcastle has generally been read as a blanket condemnation....

Clearly, not an improvement. In fact, it sounds a little like Hoccleve is braiding Oldcastle up into a blanket...eek.

But then I realized the perfect word: upbraision. Thus enabling:

This passage in Thomas Hoccleve’s upbraision of John Oldcastle has generally been read as a blanket condemnation....

Ahhh, the creation of nouns from verbs - what's not to love? So what if our consciously archaic Spenser was one of the last to use upbraid as a noun? (nb. the noun form was used in Early Middle English, esp. in didactic literature)

SPENSER F.Q. III. vi. 50 Faire Psyche to him lately reconcyld, After long troubles and vnmeet vpbrayes.

-- F.Q. IV. ix. 24 Through lewd vpbraide Of Ate and Duessa they fell out. (OED)

Interesting that both instances of upbraid in FQ are "unmeet" and not earned. But let us exploit that in the connotative potential of my word. Upbraision is better than upbraid. First, the sounds are better: "pbrzn" is metonymically onomatopoetic (i.e., it sounds like a rug-burn of the spirit, if the spirit were physical). It also sounds like blowing a raspberry (as they say here in the UK), an expression of contempt. And consider the homophonic potential:

His upbraision really rubbed me the wrong way
That was some upbraisive sermon this morning!

I was advised (by a grad student) to create a Wiki article for it and then cite Wiki if challenged. Hopefully, that is not evolving into "scholarly practice"???

Sunday Conundrum

A typical Sunday morning

• wake up (late) and get ready for church
• worship
• start to feel peckish while talking afterwards
• start to feel a bit hungry (at least 1/2 hr. later) while finally thinking about making a move
• chased out of the sanctuary by deacons (themselves now positively hungry), you realize, hey I'm hungry

At this point, you have a choice:

1. Invite the people you've been talking to for the last hour to go out to lunch with you
   
2. Go home hungry and wonder why there isn't much in the store cupboards (namely, because it's Sunday and the budget week starts on Monday)
   

Choice 1 gets pricey sooner or later (usually sooner). Choice 2. comes with kicking yourself for not thinking ahead and having something at the ready. But then you think to yourself, "Wouldn't it be great if waiting for me at home was a sizeable cooked lunch (so that you could invite over on the spur of the moment) that I could sit down and eat in a chilled-out 30 min. or less?"

The probem is, of course, that you've been out of the house for the last 3 hours or so. The typical <30 min. options are things that often require last-minute hustle and bustle, so that's out. All you really want to do is slide things in and out of ovens or microwaves or rice cookers. A small amount of measuring and garnishing is acceptable.

So I'm looking for recipes for Sunday post-church lunches with the following qualities:

• stretches easily to accommodate 2-4 unanticipated guests
• not just those listless variations of pot roasts with onion soup mix
• filling and warm - this should be the main meal of the day, paired with a light meal / snack at supper. Pancho can't just eat salads, I'm afraid.
  
• small amount of AM prep (e.g., browning) and moderate amount of Sat PM prep ok
• modest cleanup - not loads and loads of sticky pans!
• affordable on a modest budget
• ready in less than a leisurely 30 minutes from arriving home from church
  
• well-balanced, nutrition-wise
  
• and (do I have to say it?) delicious - this should be something we look forward to, not sigh about!

What could work:

• Slow-roast lamb shoulder, served with couscous and yummy garnishes and salad
• Carnitas?
• Artisan bread in five minutes a day (including pizza dough) - but then the oven is taken up...which may or may not be a problem
  

What doesn't work:

• Standard 1 1/2 hr roast chicken with trimmings - too much last minute faff and too many pots and pans, and it roasts too quickly to put in before church and too slowly to put in after. Otherwise, it's perfect.
  

I would like to make a collection of suitable recipes, starting with my slow-roast lamb and then possibly adding Jamie Oliver's 3-hr pork goulash. Slow-cooked cheap-cuts of meat seems like the best strategy, but I don't want lackluster pot roasts (which is what you're directed to if you google "sunday lunch church") and slow-cooker specials that all taste alike. I'm also interested in collecting quick and easy side dishes (especially if they can be prepared and served in the same dish). Here's the rub - I just know there's stuff out there that families do, or at least used to do, in order to avoid being consumed by meal preparation and clean-up on days of worship and rest. I just don't know where to look for the recipes! Any ideas or tips would be very welcome.

Straight from the (now) Pope's mouth

Pure objectivity is an absurd abstraction. It is not the uninvolved who comes to knowledge; rather, interest itself is a requirement for the possibility of coming to know.

Here, then, is the question: how does one come to be interested, not so that the self drowns out the voice of the other, but in such a way that one develops a kind of inner understanding for things of the past, and ears to listen to the word they speak to us today?

from "Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: The 1988 Erasmus Lecture"
By Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI

Zee Recipes

First, some pictures:


Yes, it snowed on Easter!

See the previous post for direct links to some of the recipes we used on Sunday. Panna cotta is a super-easy do-in-advance dessert, by the way! Highly recommended.

Prosciutto-wrapped Asparagus
Brought in by A., this was a super-easy starter: simply wrap asparagus spears with prosciutto in a spiral, put in a roasting pan, drizzle the tips and ends with olive oil (and sprinkle with a bit of freshly cracked pepper) and roast in a 450 degree F oven for 5 minutes. Shake and roast another few minutes until the asparagus tips are nicely browned. Voila! and delicious.

Slow-Roasted Lamb
This recipe I concocted with reference to Nigella's overnight slow-roasted lamb in Nigella Bites (also posted on BBC Food), Jamie's version in Jamie at Home (plus advice from a forum of Jamie readers). My version:

1. Preheat oven to 140 degree C. Drizzle a large roasting pan with oil.
2. Poke holes all over the fat cap of a whole bone-in shoulder (mine was about 6 lbs.). Rub all over with spices (harissa, coriander, mint, sea salt, and garlic) and a bit of olive oil.
3. Place shoulder fat-side up in roasting pan, throw in two cups of water, cover tightly with foil, and roast at 140 degrees C overnight (mine was in for 12 hours - in the future, I would check to make sure the water hadn't totally evaporated when I woke up).
4. Remove from oven and let rest for about 30 min. to 1 hr.
5. Shred with forks - it will literarally fall apart
6. Sprinkle over freshly chopped mint and coriander and some more sea salt.
7. Serve warm with haroset, harissa, pita, hummous, etc. DO NOT EAT COLD.

The verdict: pretty finger-lickin' good, but could have been better by adding more liquid and making sure there were no holes in the foil for moisture to seep out of. The moistest bits were delicious (if you like strong flavours), especially with the haroset and the harissa.

Haroset
See here for several recipes and some comment on the Seder dish, haroset or charoset. As the website says:

Haroset (also charoset or charoses), the blend of fruit and nuts symbolizing the mortar which our forefathers used to build pyramids in Egypt, is one of the most popular and discussed foods served at the Seder. The fruit and nuts found in almost all haroset recipes refer to two verses in the Song of Songs closely linked with the spring season: "Under the apple tree I awakened thee" (8:5) and "I went down into the garden of nuts" (6:11). The red wine recalls the Red Sea, which parted its waters for the Jews....The real purpose of the haroset is to allay the bitterness of the maror (bitter herbs) required at the Seder.

I took a glance at these and adapted a recipe for haroset in Nigella's Feast based on affordability and my desire not to blacken the bottom of the pan with burnt sugar (in other words, I added more liquid and cooked it for less than 1.5 hours). Key element in mine was muscat, a sweet and orange-blossom scented dessert wine (1/3 c.).

Berry Couli
Well, really, this wasn't a real couli, just a sauce made by adding a small amount of water, some sugar, and frozen mixed berries into a saucepan and heated until it was the consistency I wanted. It still worked brilliantly with the smooth milky panna cotta.

Elderflower and Blackberry jelly
Again, a made-up special. I needed a dairy-free dessert that was low-hassle. I found some sparkling elderflower presse in the fridge and simply made a jello of sorts by adding gelatin. Someday, I'd like to figure out how to keep the bubbles in it:

1. Measure out 1 English pint of elderflower presse (or elderflower cordial mixed with water to taste).
2. Soften a packet of gelatin (about 2 1/2 tsp.) in a small amount of water.
3. Heat up the elderflower presse until just about to boil. Remove from heat and stir in gelatin until completely dissolved.
4. In glass tumblers, place some fresh (or thawed) blackberries. Pour over elderflower gelatin and chill for at least 4-6 hours, preferably overnight. Serve with berry sauce or a tiny amount of cream on top.

That's all folks! The rest was just bought: cheeses, crackers, mints, fruits, and nuts, laid out on bowls and platters at the appropriate time

Zee Menu, Mesdames et Messieurs

Entracte

Appetizers: olives, cornichons, melon, asparagus and prociutto wraps

Prime

Green salad with orange, fennel, and asparagus,

served with a crisp white wine or juice

Mains

Harissa-spiced slow-roasted lamb shoulder with haroset, couscous, pita, and hummous

served with a robust but soft red wine

Dessert

Vanilla panna cotta with summer berry couli, or an elderflower and blackberry jelly

served with Sauternes

Fromage

Brie, Blue, and Comte, with biscuits

no more wine for you!

Cafe et The

Coffee, tea, and chocolates

Sortie

Fresh and dried fruit and nuts

Zee chefs extraordinaire

A. (zee hostess) et Ladybug

....et zee sous chef langue-suffering

Pancho

Planning the Easter Feast

Inspired by Nigella AND with the idea that it would be best to feast in a way that doesn't require lots of kitchen time at the last minute, I'm leaning towards slow roast lamb.

Did you know that you can roast a lamb shoulder overnight? How cool is that! I'm thinking of adopting Nigella's all-night technique and giving it a spice rub of something like ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, harissa, lemon, etc. I'm still pondering side dishes, but I think definitely quickly-cooked seasonal veg and possibly a funky salad (e.g., watercress, pecorino, and pear). Updates will follow, and hopefully we'll take pictures this time around!

Political Propaganda - Yay McCain!

Click on the McCain banner on the right -- you know you want to...

Empty Larder, Empty Table...blame the PhD

Apologies for the excessively boring blog of late, and especially for the lack of food news. These hungry souls have been fasting instead of feasting, especially now that I am trying to finish writing up in the next few months while job searching at the same time. To prove to you that this is a reality and not just an excuse, let me give you the rundown of my meals so far today:

breakfast: bran flakes
lunch: bran flakes and strawberry yoghurt
snack: espresso macchiato and a granola bar

Also, I did have bran flakes for dinner (and Pancho had porridge) a couple of nights ago. So things are looking pretty sad. Good news: fish planned for dinner, thus getting me out of the Kellogg's food group.

On the up side, Pancho has established his foodie creds by cooking more or less by himself (avec a sous chef) Bible study dinner for 10--including a veggie option--that garnered almost universal praise. (Personally, I thought the veggie sauce had a bit of fennel seed overdose, but that was, apparently, just me. It is certainly the case, however, that his penne was perfectly al dente, even a few days later.)

Christmas in Cambridge!