Archive for August 2007
life in the delta quadrant
Posted on: August 31, 2007
- In: d'oh!mestic! | geekist me | knitwit | the capt'n
- Leave a Comment
This is how rockin’, married hipsters spend their weeknights. Or how THIS rockin’ married hipster spends her weeknights: knitting and Star Trek.
The Capt’n long lamented my disinterest in the different franchises — I didn’t moon over the original series, I hadn’t seen any of the movies, I self-identified as a Star Wars girl — but we have to remember that when the Capt’n was merely a cadet, he won Nickelodeon Super Slinky Star Trek Saturday trivia contest and was somewhat biased. I was redeemed only when I was able to identify Next Generation episodes within 30 seconds of tuning in, a skill developed in college.
For years, I basked in my Star Trek ignorance. It was one of those comedic barbs. Star Trek IV? Wasn’t that the one with the whales?
However, during this past winter — where it actually snowed, how do you midwesterners stand it? — Spike started rerunning Star Trek Voyager, the Capt’n started Tivoing it, and somehow I got sucked into the Star Trek vortex.
And then, when I started knitting in the round, there was the inevitable comparison of the shape of the sock with the shape of the letter which gives that quadrant its particular designation and now I can’t think of it any other way.
We’re going through the second cycle of episodes, first so I could catch up with the ones I hadn’t paid attention to the first time around, and then to just see the fucking crew get home. Again. Because, y’know, this time they might not make it.
In seven seasons, I have completed a cardigan, a baby’s afghan, five socks and half a scarf. Not bad for a lesser series.
We’re pulling into the station with the last batch of episodes before (OHEMGEESPOILERS!) Admiral Janeway blows the Borg out of the galaxy, and then we’ll go back to a more mainstream passive entertainment schedule with “Heroes” and “How I Met Your Mother” and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe “Grey’s Anatomy” if I can stomach it. I’ll still knit. It’ll just be slightly less nerdy.
And that’s kind of sad.
throwdown of the morning
Posted on: August 29, 2007
- In: coffee | d'oh!mestic! | experiments | the capt'n
- 1 Comment
The Company has crappy coffee. I don’t think stating that The Company has crappy coffee impugns The Company’s honor in any way, given how generous it is with its employees (Hello, raise!), it’s just a fact. The coffee? Isn’t something to swan over. Hell, I’d speculate that unless you work for a small, independent coffee company or live in the vicinity of Kailua-Kona, your office has crappy coffee, too.
For a while, the crappy coffee situation didn’t bother me. The Company is situated within walking distance of Starbucks, and while I’m not in the OHEMGEEZORStarbucks! crowd, I like the baristas, and they’ll give me a grande in a venti without hassle. Except, I hadn’t counted on the busy season, a time — once every quarter — where all of our clients go a little bit nuts, and I don’t get up from my desk for 12 hours.
So after missing my afternoon jolt one too many times, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I dusted off the French press someone had given us for Christmas, and — after doing some research on the intarwebs — bought a pound of course-ground coffee from Satellite Coffee and became my own barista.
I don’t have to tell you that I fell in love with the French press experience.
The Capt’n praised me for being proactive in the name of caffeine, and started making wistful comments about hanging around the office at coffee time, just so he could experience this French press bliss-in-a-cup. So, after much consideration, I brought home the press and the coffee, just so he could try it.
I didn’t realize it would turn into a battle royale, a fight between the ever loyal Ol’ Brewski — an unassuming Black-n-Decker 12 cup jobbie that has held on since the last Clinton administration — and the upstart from Gay Pareeeee, French Prezzors!
(I have a thing about throwdowns, if you couldn’t tell.)
The first cup was from the press. I presented it to the Capt’n, who took a mighty wiff and said, “This smells like the kind of coffee they give you in Europe.” He took a sip, and then his eye exploded.
Okay, his eye didn’t explode so much as it popped open with alarming speed and kept twitching for the next twenty minutes. Every so often, he’d come out with some nugget of half-praise, “Boy! That’ll put hair on your chest” or “This coffee takes cowboy coffee and makes it its bitch” or “My coffee is formulating plans to invade Russia in winter.”
I think what he was saying was that it was strong.
And then the Capt’n begged, pleaded for me to make normal coffee in Ol’ Brewski. “Because it’s Ol’ Brewski,” he said. “And also, I think I’m going to die from caffeine overload. I need to flush my system.”
The Capt’n claims the second cup of coffee was better, but that was before I caught him sneaking in some of the dregs from the press.
I don’t think we have call for a second, home-based press, but I do think I’ll bring home the office press every so often — like when I have a deadline to meet, or when my dad will be at the house, or on the odd occasion I want to remind the Capt’n what strong coffee with a lust for conqust is like.
Until then, I will continue to rely on Ol’ Brewski for all my home-based caffeine needs.
crappy monday mushrooms
Posted on: August 28, 2007
When I rang the Capt’n, it was a catalog of doom which began and ended with “The Civic blew up.”
While that’s not exactly true — only the battery went kablammo — it’s knocked us down a car, and the Capt’n is already in the middle of an engine transplant. My car is it for the time being.
From three cars to one and a whimpering Capt’n — that calls for dinner.
We had a bag of beautiful brown Italian mushrooms the Capt’n found at Albertsons, some cream cheese, a half an onion, cheese, some herbs from the windowsill and one teeny-tiny jalapeño.
I destemmed the mushrooms, sliced up the onion and threw the whole mess into a sauté pan with some olive oil.
And then, while thinking about it, I threw in some rosemary from the window garden, some salt, the baby jalapeño, some garlic, some salt, some New Mexico red.
When everything was nice and delicious-fied, it was mixed in with an 8 oz. package of cream cheese, more rosemary, more garlic, more salt, and more New Mexico red. The mushrooms were stuffed with the mixture, and for an added kick of the ridiculous, I covered everything with cheese.
It went into a 350º oven for 10 minutes. The result?
Damn tasty.
Crappy Monday Mushrooms:
• 18 – 20 big brown “Italian” mushrooms — stems removed from caps and diced
• 8 oz cream cheese — softened
• 1/2 yellow onion — diced
• garlic powder (add in some some freshly minced, if you have it lying around)
• kosher salt
• enough rosemary to last until Judgement Day
• olive oil
• New Mexico red chile powder and a small jalapeño
• Shredded cheese — whatever is lying around
Sauté the mushroom stems, onion and jalapeño in olive oil, and season with salt, garlic, rosemary and chile to taste.
Mix the softened cream cheese with the same spices as added to the mushrooms and onion.
Mix the contents of the sauté pan with the softened cream cheese. Fill the mushroom caps with the cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle with shredded cheese.
Bake at 350º F (175º C) for 10 minutes.
socks
Posted on: August 27, 2007
At the beginning of the year — right around the big-assed snowstorm that flipped New Mexico the bird and dumped 18″ in my back yard — I took up knitting again.
Not that I hadn’t not been knitting, really, but I had fallen into a one-pattern rut for the previous (cough) five years, churning out different sizes of the same afghan over and over again.
Capt’n Husband suggested I try socks. “I’ve always wanted a nice pair of cozy socks knit just for me.”
So I learned how to knit socks from the intarwebs, and the first pair of socks were kind of a disaster — they looked like the big, doofy not-really-tube tube socks of my early adolescence — but I did figure out this whole double point needle thing, and I was able to suss out that the wonkiness of my stockinette stitch came from knitting through the back loop at all times.
And you wonder why I’m calling this blog “D’oh!Mestic.”
Once I got my knitting issues sorted out, I spent time searching the intarwebs for a slightly sexier pattern that wouldn’t require too much from me, skillwise. The Thuja socks from the Winter 2005 edition of Knitty seemed like a winner.
Ensign Sarah’s Thuja Sock
• Yarn — Artyarn Superwash merino #135.
• Mistakes — About six that I can see, all of them minor.
• Probability of holding up through three wearings — 7 in 10.
• Time to completion — 7ish hours over two days.
I really like the way the pattern has turned out, and I’m fond of the orange, too. Now it’s just a matter of finishing its mate.
d’oh!
Posted on: August 27, 2007
I have a full time job, a full time husband, a digital camera, a copy of the Gourmet cookbook and a mother who taught me to knit. I adore the idea of living in a restored, architecturally interesting restored home, but I live in soulless suburban hell. I enjoy wine, sushi and Star Trek.
This is my slipshod, half-baked space to show off all of my projects. D’oh!Mestic.
