What we've been up to this summer, or some reasons (besides PhD) I haven't blogged much lately

Hiking in Wales and a day at a Cardiff beach with John, Yu-Chiao, and Beatrice




Church picnic, Balsham Manor, home of Sir Fred and Lady Elizabeth Catherwood



And click through to some Cambridge decadence back in June...

Ladybug's new calendar

A few days ago, I came home from another day slogging away ineffectually at an article to find roses, a card, and a small package awaiting me -- a surprise from Pancho! My confidence had been flagging to levels of near collapse, but Pancho zoomed to the rescue with encouragement and presents.

In the package was a Moleskine notebook, a posh planner that I've been eyeing for some time now but couldn't reconcile myself to the price (£10 for something I normally pay £3 for) or to the risk of the self-conscious pretension involved in buying myself a 'serious' 'professional' calendar. It bears noting that Moleskine vaunts itself as "the legendary notebook of Van Gogh, Chatwin, Hemingway, Matisse and Céline" and the website even carries images of itself carrying the work of such luminaries.* I was amazed at how all those qualms disappeared when Pancho gave me one - if it's a present, it can't be pretentious to have it, right? Now I am only in danger of pretension in the use of it, I suppose.

So I'm a few days into my new Moleskine-directed life, and while I am still entranced by it, I have to admit I feel somehow obligated to live up to it. Though it is essentially a week-at-a-glance calendar, it pairs the week with a blank ruled page, presumably for all the elegant thoughts I would be having if I were Satre, Gertrude Stein, or George Bataille. That the blank lines can stand as a rebuke to me reminds me that pride takes the most mundane opportunities to make you an ass. I'm not really that keen on the thought-life of Satre et al., but neither am I always content with the thought-life of Ladybug, and PhD-ing in particular often makes me feel inadequate and foolish. Still, I think my moleskine is a good thing, an opportunity to take every moleskine captive for Christ, and I've decided to use the extra space to record brief, gloriously inelegant jottings about what I read in the Word day-by-day and go back to the long-lost habit of sermon notes on the blank lines every week, thus substituting a temptation to want to be greater than I am with days read in light of God's transforming work in my life.

Grand plans, and hopefully not wholly prompted by a spiritualized desire to be 'serious'. I take it as a good sign that I almost missed a rehearsal yesterday because I failed to check my new calendar.


* Can we perhaps cite JKR as a possible user, given the importance of Hagrid's 'moleskin' in keeping things safe for Harry in Deathly Hallows?

Drumstick undergoes identity crisis, meet . . . Pancho

Well, the good news is that internet identity crises don't need to involve any form of surgery. And that the pointed and rather angular pseudonym of Pancho's past can finally be set aside. I was never a fan of his previous alter ego -- it made me feel like all my protestations of affection could be read as battered wife syndrome. The new, cool, 'that's so ethnic' identity connotes all the feel-good cuddliness that Pancho excels in. Although he doesn't guarantee that this new name will stick for good, Pancho thinks that I shouldn't go back and erase the record of Drumstick's (largely putative) existence, so Drumstick will remain as a spectre of the past haunting these pages. Hopefully, he will not become a revenant or start wildly murmuring about poison in his ear...

Stem cell update: turns out, we don't need embryos (or even eggs) after all that hype

After all that hype about how embryo-destructive stem cell research was necessary to save people suffering from disease etc., it turns out (and see here for a UK version of the story)that one doesn't need to destroy embryos (at least, not mice embryos) in order to get the pluripotent cell that carry the promises cited by researchers and advocates of (is it fair to say, relatively unlimited?) stem cell research.

Great news, but at the moment, of course, even better news for mice, since the results are based on research done with mice, not with people, and there are significant difficulties with carrying them over into therapeutic technologies. Not to mention that the side-stepping of one ethical problem hardly obviates them all...but whatever. Now we can say even more emphatically, 'yes I'm for stem cell research when it uses such pluripotent cells or adult stem cells, and doesn't have to destroy embryos or rely on the morally dubious harvesting of eggs from women.' Coincidence that this comes on the eve of the voting on a bill to try to override President Bush's current limitations on research? hmmm...

Interesting report of a recent bioethics conference on totipotency and then a reaction to the news on the First Things blog, particularly helpful in the scientific and ethical distinction between pluripotent and totipotent cells, as well as human life and human beings. My thought: wow, because of a interdisciplinary conversation between Christians thinkers, who care quite a lot about this issue, and others (who may are may not agree) the result is that they all actually think harder and better about both the ethics and the science together, not artificially separated from each other! Their conversation continues; I just wish the general public would follow suit...

Weeknight supper: Chicken with orange, ginger, and white wine

We had a lovely meal the other night -- and it was fast, cheap, and easy! I got the main recipe for Pan-grilled chicken breasts with orange and onion shards from the website for the APM radio show I've been listening to on the ishuffle, The Splendid Table. I then added rice and a stir-fry of my own concoction (see below), but Drumstick spearheaded the shopping, chopping, and prep. The original recipe is fairly flexible, and has a 'flavoring' set of ingredients that you are free to choose from or improvise on your own. I followed the recommendation for the ginger (shredding in about 3/4 in. of that lovely root) and just added that for flavoring, which was refreshing and delicious. The chicken cooks up very quickly and needs virtually no preparation if you just use a fine grater to zest the orange and grate the ginger. If you're really speedy, I bet it's a 30-minute meal or less, and from our experience, minus a short snag on the timing (Drumstick read '30 minutes' when it actually said '30 sec', but I rescued us at the 15 minute mark and it wasn't too terribly much the worse for wear), it is something that you don't need a lot of cookery know-how to do. So click through the link and check it out. Here's my stir-fry:

Orange and Ginger Stiry-fry
Serves 4, thereabouts
15-20 minutes from start to finish

• chinese cabbage / bok choy, either shredded (for the cabbage) or leafed (for the bok choy)
  
• a bunch of green onions (use about 6-8), julienned or cut on a sharp diagonal
  
• 2 carrots, cut into matchsticks
• 1 in. piece of ginger, cut into tiny matchsticks
  
• 1/2-1 tsp. sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• rice to serve with
• 1/2-1 orange, juiced (use the orange you zested for the chicken, and then eat the remaining pieces if there are any)
• salt and pepper
  

1. Heat the oil in a wok or large fryping pan and add sesame oil
2. Add carrots and ginger and stir fry for a few minutes
3. Add all the greens and salt and pepper to taste
   
4. As it comes together and is cooked to your desired flabbiness (or lack thereof), squeeze the juice of the orange over, stir it around briefly and then serve over rice

The orange-ginger combo is pretty dang refreshing and goes well with the chicken! And it's easy and good for you...highly recommended. If we make it again, I'll post a pic.

Oh yeah, and have a listen to The Splendid Table - it's often a pretty interesting show, having the editor of Cooks Illustrated as a guest certainly convinced me of the host's good taste, and I was captivated by the conversations about the production and distribution of food, wines, foraging,...all sorts of interesting stuff. The only downside is that you start getting a bit peckish while you listen.