Random Cooking And Eating

My first attempt at making tamago with my new tamago pan.  As you can see I need a great deal of practice.  Maybe I should have watched the "how to" videos on Youtube before I tried out the pan?

In other news, I misplaced the lid to the Nutella jar.  I guess that means I have to finish the jar.

Deeeeep Thought

I have a lot of decorative thoughts.  I'm always adding extra atmosphere to my experience, thinking about what is happening to me with kind of a theme in mind.  I don't know if I can explain it better than that but I'll try and maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about.

For example, back in the early 80's I usually had a sort of apocalyptic, sci-fi, futuristic filter with blocks of neon colors that I tried to see things through.  The pop culture of the time, music, movies, music videos, helped to enhance this.  It made things seem more romantic and important I guess.  It helped take my mind off the suckiness of adolescence.

More recently I'll use a more gothic approach or try to see things as magical or mysterious.  Sometimes I'll go kawaii and think of everything in terms of puffiness, sparkliness, light, sugar, artificiality and high oxygen.

I guess I've always wondered what reality would be like if I looked at it this way or that way.  I don't think I can manage a full-on, hallucinogenic invention of reality - just a superimposed what-if scrim to look through.  It seemed like a good modus operandi for a person who is trying to make things.

I imagine that anybody who has a distinctive fashion style does the same thing: Steam Punks, Goths, Rockabilly folks, surfers, minimalists, Martha Stewart acolytes, etc.

The goal of meditation is to have the practitioner  experience "the moment," unadulterated, while meditating.  Eventually the goal is to live constantly in the moment.  This, you can see, is the antithesis of my mental practice of a lifetime.

Supposedly it is better to experience life as it really is (whatever that means) so that one can act and feel appropriately.

That's logical, I guess, but what about imagination?

Clearly I don't know.  Maybe it's true and if everybody lived always in the moment no one would cause anybody else any hardship.  Unavoidable difficulties would always be dealt with philosophically and peacefully.  Then we wouldn't need imagination.  (No imagination sounds dreadful to me)

It seems very unlikely that that will ever happen.  What I want to know is is it really better for me, right now, to live in unadulterated reality?

I'm trying it and it's really hard.  I feel impoverished.  "Real life" isn't doing it for me.  I'm not even sure it is "real life."  What if what I'm experiencing now is just a different aesthetic interpretation?  One that is less to my taste yet still one that I have chosen for myself?

It's putting me in a really crappy mood and making it harder for me to get any art work done.  Supposedly if I keep at not making my life feel more comfortable than it really is the things that aren't working in my life will become apparent and I will be able to act on them.

The problem is I'm not very good at acting when I can't get out of bed due to depression.  I'm uncomfortable but I don't exactly know why.  I certainly don't know what to do about it.  There has to be some sort of balance or incremental reward to doing this.  Or else maybe I shouldn't be trying to take it that far.

That's probably the key.  Keep the mindfulness to the meditation time and let that slowly change how I think at a pace that I can deal with.  I can be a goofy as I like the rest of the time.

Whoo!  Alright!  I can paint myself pretty pictures again!

Did I really figure this out or did I just let myself off the hook?

Has anybody out there tried this?  Do you have any insights?  I'd love to know.

Shy Girl (I Think It's A Girl)

Look who was kind enough not to bite the hell out of me when I picked up my gardening gloves today:

I found out she's a "Pisaurina Mira" or "Nursery Web" spider.  They don't trap prey in webs, they hunt and catch their prey.  They are no danger to humans but they can catch tadpoles and fish.

Somnolence

Fay and I are very tired.  I, for one, am stupid.

I couldn't wake up today.  Again.  I'm starting to wonder if I have Lyme Disease or anemia or something.

A good thing I have right now is an excellent view of a juvenile robin.  It's sitting on a branch outside my window.  Its mom came and give it some lunch a couple of minutes ago.  Now it's taking a nap with its little beak tucked into its wing.

Oh - there - it woke up and did a little stretch.  And settled back in to nap position.  Now a motorcycle went by and woke it up again.  Oh - and here comes Mom with some  more lunch.  Yay Mom!

This Is Ready Though

Rhubarb!

Rhubarb Crisp!

At least, what's left of it.

Not So Far Along

I'm a bit cheesed-off at my garden right now because I think it should be farther along than it is.

When I look at the garden I tend to see the things that shouldn't be there first.  Then the things that should be there aren't far enough along for me.  The things I think of as big aren't big yet.  There are some pretty big weeds though.  There aren't strawberries yet.

I have to keep reminding myself that it's still spring.

Just Checking

Just checking my blog to see if I posted anything new...

Nope.  Oh well.

Silly Person

In other news (which nobody but me cares about) I was feeling a bit over-padded so I'm doing the South Beach Diet.

I WANT BAKED GOODS!  COOKIES!  CINNAMON ROLLS!  PIZZA!  CUPCAKES!  I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT!!!!!!!!!!

A Cool Thing In The Garden

Look at what my cherry tree is doing:

Naturally I googled "red nodules on cherry leaves" and I found out what it is, courtesy of "Ant Man" (page down in the comments):


"Cherries generally have glands on their petioles. They secret nectar that attracts ants. Studies on various plants that have similar glands (like passionflower vines) indicate that the ants help the plant by killing and otherwise interfering with insects that would otherwise eat the plant. Sort of like the plant paying "protection" money to the ants.

Also, as another poster indicates, ants often farm aphids as well for honeydew. The cherry tree's strategy is to provide nectar directly to the ants, removing the "incentive" for ants to farm aphids, This way the cherry tree avoids the damage by the aphids that ants would otherwise protect."

It's working!  I think that is so cool.

Garden Adventure, 2010 Continues

Back on April 30th I finally got a chance to deal with some of the butterfly bushes I ordered in March.

I rarely do before and after pictures of anything because I'm so embarrassed by the state of the before in the picture that I don't want to show anybody what it was like, I just want to fix it.  It is nice, though, to have evidence of how far you've come I guess.  So this time I thought I'd go for it.

Unfortunately all the batteries in all the cameras were dead.  Fortunately my Flip camera was all charged up.  So below you can view digital evidence of half-assed gardening in action:

If I were a fully-assed gardener I would have planned ahead and prepared this bed a year ago.  Since that's now how I roll - I'm all about impulse plant purchases - I have to make it up as I go along.  The landscaping fabric plus mulch might smother the weeds beneath them but it might not.  If not, then the weeds could all make a beeline for the holes in the fabric around the plants and be even more competition for the poor little nursery-grown darlings.  So this is an experiment.

Weather Report

I just want to point out that four days ago it was snowing.  Yesterday and today it's in the eighties out and really humid.

I think the weather is trying to kill us.

Fay refuses to go outside just like she does when it's pouring rain.  She's not stupid.

Wherein I Become A Shill

I knew 120 million people were not waking up every morning and making dashi fresh with kombu and fish flakes.  It's not like it's super hard to make - though it is hard to make well.  Even so, I knew there had to be an instant powder that comes in a jar somewhere.

Enter Amazon.com.

This "Amazon Associates" thing I'm doing now has definitely increased traffic to their site.  I'm going there daily now.

If you've been reading this blog for a while you will know I'm interested in Japanese cooking.  All of the cookbooks I have contain a recipe for tamago, the Japanese rolled omelette often sliced and made into sushi.  While I enjoy eating tamago it's the skill I'm after - I want to learn how to make it well!  So I searched Amazon (because you can find anything on Amazon and read the reviews before you buy) and I bought this pan:



I haven't used it yet but it's very well made and has a non-stick coating.  It's also tiny and cute as hell.  Kawaii!!!  A recipe for tamago came with it in the box.  The number two ingredient was "Hondashi (Japanese instant soup base)"!

There it was!  I knew it!  Instant dashi!  Thank you again, Amazon!  Well, thank you, House of Rice who included the recipe with the pan.  But I wouldn't have known about The House of Rice without Amazon.

So back to Amazon I went and ordered some:


I think this discovery will open up a whole, new world of Japanese culinary success for me.