More blither,

[camwyn]

because I am having trouble settling on a story idea for Vm.A.

More ways you know you're me:

At lunchtime, your response to 'the kitchen is out of plastic forks' is 'then I will eat my leftover burgermac with chopsticks'. And you have them. And you're good at it, to the point where you spend the entire lunch period reading while you eat (without dropping any of it on yourself or the table), rather than paying attention to what you're doing. Meanwhile, your co-worker, a native of Shanghai, is eating melon with a knife and fork.

Also the burgermac was made with soy-based meat substitute just because.

The voice in the back of your head that compels you to impulsively purchase extra food at the supermarket is not only fully capable of switching between Homer Simpson ("mmmm, x") and Cookie Monster ("X! X! X! X! WANT X! WANT X NOW!"), but waits until you're looking at a market freezer full of Breyer's, Edy's, Ben & Jerry's, and Haagen-Dazs. . . then starts yelling "TURTLE MOUNTAIN SOY ICE CREAM SUBSTITUTE! WANT SOY ICE CREAM NOW! NOW! Mmmmmmm, maaaaarble miiiiiint fuuuuudge. . ."

Your idea of a basic noodle dish involves peanut butter, sesame oil, at least two (possibly three) fermented or dried bean products, hot sauce, and a whisk. If you're really tired you might consider using the tomato paste, oil, salt, and garlic recipe that's been in your family since as long as anyone can remember.

The most common reason for you to go 'oh, thank goodness, it was only a dream' when you wake up isn't nightmares. It's that you were having trouble resolving one of the plot points within the context of the dream and couldn't figure out why, because everything else made so much sense.

You regularly swap out your curse words, and they're not even real curse words. Your most persistent/commonly used curse word is 'Frith!', but you've been known at moments of anger/pain to yell 'fsck', 'fardles', 'poot', 'holy mother of Fnord', and similar things. Ordinary expressions of surprise also get swapped out, and your current weapon of choice in that department is 'holy cats'. You do not realize quite how silly this sounds until you catch yourself saying it while you are in the Late Period section of the Egyptian Art exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It takes you several minutes to get the grill lighted, because you won't do it until all the daddy-longleggers inside are well out of flame range and there's no good reason to do 'em harm.

It's an act of willpower to drink cola that hasn't been cut at least half-and-half with milk. Espresso soda, on the other hand, is to be enjoyed straight, preferably fresh out of the refrigerator.

The dialogue in your head when you stand in front of the Books Dealing With China section of the Met's gift shop runs like this: 'got that, got that, haven't got that yet, got that, read that one at the library, not gonna read that one, oooooooo must get those, got that, okay where does the translator live she needs to be thrashed bloody because she translated ALL THE NAMES, got that, haven't got that, haven't got that, wonder if the library's got that, got that. . .' Meanwhile your undergraduate majors were health-sciences-oriented anthropology and religion, and the graduate degree you're working towards is in MIS.

You can name at least six grades of wheat flour, three types of sugar, and four different types of salt, along with the appropriate uses for each, but you haven't a clear concept of foundation makeup beyond theatrical base, nor of how to go about changing the oil in your car. Although as far as you're concerned, the oil is probably the easier of the two things to learn, because you can get the owner's manual out of the glove compartment and borrow a pan, a skateboard, and the right tools should the need arise. You do know how to change a tire by yourself, though.

Even though you have neither religious nor medical dietary restrictions on you, you have recipes that meet those restrictions for each and every one of your friends who do have such restrictions, with the possible exception of the guy in your Foods Prep II class who's allergic to beef. And this seems perfectly normal to you.

Comments

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Contrariwise:

At lunchtime, your response to 'the kitchen is out of plastic forks' is 'then I will eat my leftover burgermac with chopsticks'. And you have them. And you're good at it, to the point where you spend the entire lunch period reading while you eat (without dropping any of it on yourself or the table), rather than paying attention to what you're doing. Meanwhile, your co-worker, a native of Shanghai, is eating melon with a knife and fork.

At lunchtime, when things are boring or the service is slow, you amuse yourself, amuse and/or embarrass your tablemates, and amaze spectactors by hanging a spoon on your nose and/or balancing various pieces of the table setting on your head.

Also the burgermac was made with soy-based meat substitute just because.

... ground ostrich/bison/other non-cow red meat. Same reason.

The voice in the back of your head that compels you to impulsively purchase extra food at the supermarket is not only fully capable of switching between Homer Simpson ("mmmm, x") and Cookie Monster ("X! X! X! X! WANT X! WANT X NOW!"), but waits until you're looking at a market freezer full of Breyer's, Edy's, Ben & Jerry's, and Haagen-Dazs. . . then starts yelling "TURTLE MOUNTAIN SOY ICE CREAM SUBSTITUTE! WANT SOY ICE CREAM NOW! NOW! Mmmmmmm, maaaaarble miiiiiint fuuuuudge. . ."

Mine insists on random Alton Brown recipes, from "Good Eats." Last incarnation? Pickled carrots. Oh, and pickled cucumbers too, but the carrots, pickled with chiles, were the real draw, and the cucumbers were merely a fallback position.

Your idea of a basic noodle dish involves peanut butter, sesame oil, at least two (possibly three) fermented or dried bean products, hot sauce, and a whisk. If you're really tired you might consider using the tomato paste, oil, salt, and garlic recipe that's been in your family since as long as anyone can remember.

You get horribly confused when you only have to cook for two people, as the standing rule is usually, "Whoever's here at dinnertime gets fed."

You regularly swap out your curse words, and they're not even real curse words. Your most persistent/commonly used curse word is 'Frith!', but you've been known at moments of anger/pain to yell 'fsck', 'fardles', 'poot', 'holy mother of Fnord', and similar things. Ordinary expressions of surprise also get swapped out, and your current weapon of choice in that department is 'holy cats'. You do not realize quite how silly this sounds until you catch yourself saying it while you are in the Late Period section of the Egyptian Art exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Frith is so a real curse word -- just ask the rabbits, only brush up on your Lapine first, obviously. Fsck is common throughout the geek world, at least the unix-flavoured geek world. Fardles and poot are also of venerable lineage, and holy mother of Fnord is, obviously, a spontaneous invocation to Eris Discordia -- again well and fitting for one of our unusual profession and avocations. "Holy cats" is common to a longtime acquaintance of mine and is therefore no longer odd.

It takes you several minutes to get the grill lighted, because you won't do it until all the daddy-longleggers inside are well out of flame range and there's no good reason to do 'em harm.

I won't kill the spiders either. Also, when George kills a bird/mouse/rat, instead of scolding him, I give him scritchies and keep feathers (not hairs, though).

The dialogue in your head when you stand in front of the Books Dealing With China section of the Met's gift shop runs like this: 'got that, got that, haven't got that yet, got that, read that one at the library, not gonna read that one, oooooooo must get those, got that, okay where does the translator live she needs to be thrashed bloody because she translated ALL THE NAMES, got that, haven't got that, haven't got that, wonder if the library's got that, got that. . .'

s/China/Scandinavia -- and include 'random friends' houses' along with 'the museum library, especially the one known for saying "holy cats" above.

... dammit, must continue in another comment ...

-- L

[lwood.livejournal.com]

You can name at least six grades of wheat flour, three types of sugar, and four different types of salt, along with the appropriate uses for each, but you haven't a clear concept of foundation makeup beyond theatrical base, nor of how to go about changing the oil in your car. Although as far as you're concerned, the oil is probably the easier of the two things to learn, because you can get the owner's manual out of the glove compartment and borrow a pan, a skateboard, and the right tools should the need arise. You do know how to change a tire by yourself, though.

Well, sure. You've got your bleached white (WHY I don't know), unbleached white, both of those all-purpose and made from a fairly generic selection of wheats. Then you have winter wheat flour, cake flour which is made from soft wheat and ground finer, whole-wheat flour, semolina flour from the hard durum wheat of South Dakota (the Italians are importing Dakotan flour these days, and shipping the noodles back to us!), self-rising flour which already has a pinch of baking soda in... okay, that's six and all are wheat, to say nothing of corn, potato, soy, buckwheat, and other grains' flours.

Dark and light brown are practically the same guy, it's all a matter of how much molasses you put back in (or didn't take out). Then there's your confectioner's versus the normal table, and the superfine grind halfway between, and the less-processed raw stuff which doesn't dissolve for poo in iced tea.

Even though you have neither religious nor medical dietary restrictions on you, you have recipes that meet those restrictions for each and every one of your friends who do have such restrictions, with the possible exception of the guy in your Foods Prep II class who's allergic to beef. And this seems perfectly normal to you.

Well, sure, there're the diabetics, the woman who may or may not be allergic to shellfish, the woman who assuredly is allergic to all seafood, the chicken-allergic one, the fellow on the low-carb diet (who I tempted into dim sum, yea and verily), the ex-boyfriend who went all anaphylactic over the slightest nut (and used them as his computer naming scheme) and the clone who just went low-fat.

Are you sure we're not clones? ;)

-- L

[camwyn]

Flours: I was thinking the following.

All-purpose, bleached or unbleached. Suitable for use in most kitchen applications, although I wouldn't want to make bread with most companies' all-purpose flour. King Arthur's all-purpose has a high enough protein content (11% or 12%)that it'll yield a decent bread once kneaded. Pillsbury or Gold Medal is more suited to quickbreads and other non-yeasted applications, or to pizza, which needs the yeast more for flavor than for gluten development.

Cake flour: Low protein, around 8%. Hard to get cake flour around here that isn't self-rising, usu. from Swan, but this enabled me to make black-and-white cookies from a recipe entitled 'Wine Loaf' that my father acclaimed as being equivalent to the cookies he remembered from New York City bakers. Booyah. To my knowledge all American cake flours are bleached, even King Arthur's (which is sold under the name Queen Guinevere).

First clear flour: Produced from the first sifting and remarkably low in protein, but without the bleaching of cake flour. Used in the production of rye bread, in conjunction with rye flour; rye having no appreciable gluten capability, SOMETHING is required to give the bread structure. I find it very, very useful in making cinnamon stickybuns, along with potato flour, but I have to buy it from King Arthur since it's not sold in stores.

Bread flour: Higher in protein content than all-purpuse (12% or 13% I think). Do not use unless your product is going to be a yeasted one; there's just no point, plus it will probably get tough if you bang it around at all or knead it in the mixing stages.

High gluten bread flour: 14% or more protein, yielding more gluten and therefore more structural strength than any other flour. Generally sold with the assumption that you are going to use a machine to do the kneading, as otherwise you won't get the full potential out of it. King Arthur sells a variety of this marked as 'special for bread machines'. Probably used by commercial bakers, but I've never asked any, so.

White whole wheat flour: Misnomer. This is ground from white wheat rather than red wheat, and is still in fact brown. But it doesn't have as strong a taste and is not as heavy in your bread as whole wheat would be (most of my recipes for whole wheat bread suggest the use of part white flour in addition to the whole wheat, so as to avoid a too-dense loaf). Good in cookies that are supposed to have some structure and texture.

Biscuit flour: Another low-protein/low gluten variety, as biscuits are supposed to have SOME structure but not be tough. To my knowledge the finest biscuit flour sold in the United States is the Southern brand 'White Lily', but I've never tried it.

Man, I could go on and on, but Mozilla's acting funny. I would ordinarily try to discount the clone idea but in the back of my mind is the memory of 'this used to be my plaaaaaayground...'

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I would ordinarily try to discount the clone idea but in the back of my mind is the memory of 'this used to be my plaaaaaayground...'

Mm'hm.

-- Lorrie

[camwyn]

The reason 'holy cats' sounded silly in the above reference is because, well... I was in the Egypt section of the museum, right? So I caught myself saying it as I peered at somebody's collection of tomb artifacts (I think it involved either linen sheets that still looked pretty good, or mummified ready-to-eat chicken), and the amused little voice of my subconscious coughed and said "Well... by local standards, yes."

I forgot to mention that I also swap in curse words from Knights of the Dinner Table, including 'firp', 'furk', and 'firk' on a fairly regular basis. Plus the occasional outburst of 'merciful Buddha!', which is a little odd seeing as how I'm not a Buddhist, but there you go.