LaughAloud

Happy Birthday to Chip!

There have been a couple times over the last several years I haven't gotten to spend Chip's birthday with him. But in the past, I've missed his birthday because I'm away briefly for a conference, not because I'm actually living somewhere else. So even though I'll get to see him and celebrate with him this weekend, it's still different somehow. I've been thinking about him a lot today & how wonderful he is. Here's one of my favorite pictures of him from our trip this summer, eating in a little cafe in Edinburgh.

Happy Birthday, Chip!

Making Paneer

Cooking for one instead of two means there are less nights it seems worth spending a lot of time to do something overly complicated. It also means, I east whatever I like, without worry if Chip will like it, even if its the same thing night after night. One of my dinner staples is Palak Paneer. Delicious spicy spinach and soft cheese. Trader Joe's has a great boxed version that is super easy, and even easier when you make it with their frozen rice. Five minutes in the microwave and you're ready to eat. But, could it really be that hard to make myself? And surely it'd be healthier.

I've looked several times for paneer cheese in various grocery stores & markets to use in various Indian inspired dishes, but I've never found it. Earlier this week, I finally looked up how to make paneer. No wonder I've never found it in the store! It's so easy to make, why bother selling it pre-made! It's basically cooked, curdled milk, strained of all whey. Today, I picked up all the ingredients for the palak paneer, and made the paneer.

I used a couple different recipes I found online to inform my paneer. Here's what I did.

• 8 cups (1 half gallon) whole milk
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup warm water
• cheesecloth for straining

Mix lemon juice and warm water & set aside

Bring 8 cup (1 half gallon) milk just barely to a boil. Stir in water and lemon juice and stir until the milk fat separates into large curds and the whey is clear and separate from the curds. My whey looked yellowish, but some recipes said it would look greenish.

Remove from heat & let cool. Use the cheesecloth to strain over a large bowl. Squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Rinse the pressed curds (still in the cheesecloth) under running water and press again. Apparently, this should take away the sharpness & acidity of the lemon juice. Form the cheese in a disc re-wrap in the cheesecloth. Set heavy pan or weight on top of the disc for about 2 hours to squeeze out all the excess liquid.

And done! See how easy? It took a while, but it was mostly waiting for the excess liquid to be squeezed out.

So, what about the whey left behind? I have a large mason jar of whey left over from cheese making process. A few suggestions I found online: use it as a milk substitute in biscuits or bread; use it instead of water in cooking rice; make ricotta cheese. Luckily it will keep for a few days so I have a little time to decide.

Here's the final outcome, a beautiful disc of paneer. Tomorrow I'll try using it in palak paneer. Hopefully that will be my dinner & reward at the end of the day!

Resolved

I always find myself buying beautiful note cards. They're so tempting, with their captivating pictures, and blank insides - ready for whatever one might have to say. The problem is, I hardly ever use them. I mean to, and I plan to, and I occasionally actually do, but almost never through the mail. I think about writing people letters, about what I have to say, but I rarely sit down and write. Often, because it seems like so much to say, and then the next time I think about it, there's that much more to say. So much to say, it paralyzes me into not saying anything at all. 

I read an article a few weeks ago that made think about the magic of the mail, and how we don't need to say everything we ever wanted to say, just to send a letter. The article was actually about a Twitter by Post experiment - the author spent a month writing postcards of everything he usually would have posted to Twitter. He described the experiment, included pictures of his postcard "tweets" and then about halfway through the author wrote:

"Back when people wrote letters, they didn’t have to be the long catch-ups that people tend to write today. We write long letters now because we hardly write letters at all, so we feel obliged to make them something special, to pad them out with lots of news. This makes them long and tedious to write, which means we’re disinclined to write letters; so we don’t write any at all..."

That made me stop and think. Already I had felt inspired to send people things in the mail. There is something so special about opening your mailbox and finding something in there someone sent just for you...not a catalog or a bill or junk. But a card or note. Usually I only find those in mail box around Christmas, my birthday and the occiaionsal wedding invitation. How nice would it be to make other people mailboxes sparkle at random? And it wouldn't to be anthing long, or insightful or news worthy, just a card, a brief hello.

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but this year I am. By the end of 2012, this box of cards will be gone. Sent to friends and relatives, hopefully bringing a smile to their face as they open their mailbox and find an unexpected surprise. I'm planning to work my way through my address book, what is left of an address book (maybe I need a new one?). If you think I don't have your real world address, and you'd like to receive a note from me, please email, Direct Message me, send me a message on Facebook, whatever medium is easiest for you. In the spirit of things, you don't ned to say anything, just write out your address.

This evening after work, I stopped by the post office and got my first book of stamps. I will certainly need more, but it is a good place to start.

The Life Imagined

 

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

 

As quoted in an interesting article about changing the words of famous people so their inspirations are pithier and more exclamitory. Above is the real line, as written by Thoreau in Walden. No exclamation points needed.

At Last!

I've finally posted all the photos from our trip! They're up online on my picasa page if you'd like to see them, but there are A LOT!

A taste of Edinburgh, crowds on the Royal Mile:

Mitchell's Fold

Stonehenge may be the most dramatic and well known of the Stone Circles in Britain, but it is far from the only one. Since our travels would not be taking us in the direction of Stonehenge, and we had a car for a week of our time in Britain, I decided I would fine another stone circle for us to visit. As luck would have it Mitchell's Fold, a stone circle labeled but not named on our Britain Road Atlas, was not terribly far from where we stayed in Shropshire. After a Sunday afternoon (7/17) in lovely Shrewsbury we headed out in search of the stone circle on our map.

The day was a little stormy, raining on and off, with a blustery wind that picked up the higher up you went. Little did we know as started out from Shrewsbury, this was going to be the most exciting adventure of our trip, leading us far off the beaten path. We drove most of the way on a main road, out in the country, but still a main thoroughfare, until the directions I had pulled up on the iphone indicated we should turn off on to a narrowroad, still large enough for two cars. On our right as we turned was a field with the stone ruins of a small building. As we drove, our paved road turned to dirt. We crossed over a livestock/cattle guard and kept going, as Chip asked, was I sure we were going the right way? Then our road abruptly ended with a sign that said we were entering a private road, only foot traffic allowed. Luckily, the map on the iphone still showed we  were going in the right direction, giving us the courage to pull off the road and park in a small patch of sheep poop filled grass, and continue on foot.

We started off up the private road, passing a small house where a dog watched our progress and a farmer waved. Up we went, the path getting steeper and rockier, wild looking sheep looking at us as we passed. At this point we were glad to have parked the car, it probably wouldn't have made it up, especially with all the mud. We passed another farm house, and then as we climbed higher  , it was just us and the sheep, and tall grass on either side, until finally up ahead and above, Chip spotted the circle.  

Its scale is  small, only 15 stones left of maybe 30, most broken, only one or two standing at the height of a person. But from here, it seems you can see forever, Wales spread out to the west, England to the east. And you can see why, 3000 years ago, people chose this as a spot for something special, whatever it may have been. Paths lead up to the circle from all four sides, there must be other ways people get here and find this place. But our way was exciting and felt like a real adventure of discovery. What amazed us most, or struck us as the most foreign thing about the place was that up in that wild sheep pasture, with no seeming official place to p  ark or even way to get there, there was still an official English Heritage plaque explaining the site. It's hard to imagine an attraction or site in the US that is important enough to be given some official designation, but where you're not given clear directions or instructions for how to get there, where it's ok to park, etc. Luckily, none of that had stopped us, and we'd found the circle. Our reward was a grand and awe inspiring view of an ancient and beautiful place.

For more pictures from this adventure, including some glaring sheep, check out pictures from our trip on picasa. Part 2, Shropshire is where you'll find more from Mitchell's Fold.

Last Day in the UK

Today was the last full day of our UK vacation. We packed it full of more London exploring and a last bit of souvenir shopping. We fly home tomorrow afternoon, leaving at 3pm and arriving at 6pm, we'll be in the air for eleven hours with the sun chasing, but never catching us. We've had a great time on our trip & I plan to write more about our adventures and post more pictures after we get back home!

Picture below: me, at our last stop of the day.

Falling Behind & Moving On

Today (Wednesday) we leave York and head for Scotland, stopping for a few adventures of the way. I'm falling behind in my posting (and pictures!) but am so tired from all the fun we have each day it's hard to keep up! I still plan to post about the rest of our adventures in Shropshire as well as on the Peak District and in the beautiful York. But for now it's onwards and north! Tonight we sleep in Scotland!

Adventures in English Cooking

At the center of every English dream kitchen, is an AGA stove. A new one can, apparently, run up to £20,000, though older ones can be found in kitchens all over the country. A very fancy kitchen will have both an AGA and a regular stove. Because is AGA is not regular.

An AGA is always on, always hot. It has two large burners with lift covers. One burner is hot, one burner is warm. It has two oven compartments, one hot, one warm. You can change the "hot" temperature, but it will take hours to change. Now imagine cooking (& baking!) just with these hot and warm burners and compartments.

Our American hosts in Shropshire have one of these stoves. It seemed crazy when we first saw it, and I especially have trouble imagining baking, but I can also see the charm having lived with it for a few days and even getting a little cooking experience on it. On Saturday evening our hosts had a gala to attend in Liverpool, so we babysat the kids, including cooking dinner & breakfast the next morning. After a couple days watching how it's done & with a few instructions, I managed cheeseburgers & french fries for dinner and a full English breakfast (minus baked beans) in the morning, but including eggs, over easy. Even the toast was made on the AGA! The warm burner makes a mean toast!

I'm not sure how I'd feel about living with an AGA instead of my gas stove, but it was a fun challenge, and I can definitely see the advantage of an always on oven making your kitchen toasty warm in the damp & chilly English weather.

Shropshire

We survived our first British driving experience in one piece and made it to Tibberton in Shropshire yesterday (Thursday) evening. Chip drove, and stayed remarkably calm, even in the hellish traffic circles. Navigating was much more stressful than I expected, especially since sitting on the left hand side meant I automatically kept checking the mirrors, except I couldn't see anything out of them!

Today we had a relaxing day starting with sleeping in and a home cooked English breakfast. Chip slept till almost 9am which is unheard of! That driving on the wrong side really did take a lot out of him. We had a tour of the Lilleshall sports training facility later in the morning, which is amazing, both in building, scenery & training facilities. The core of the training center is a old English hunting lodge (ie mansion in the woods) with more modern facilities built around it.

After our tour, I finally got in the cross-Atlantic coaching session I've been waiting for, and found I have a lot of work to do, but am doing better than expected in some. But mostly have a lot if work to do. I expected that, but now I have a better idea of how to direct that work.

I'm falling behind in posting pictures so below are a few from today. In order: our home for the next few days, the view from the top front window (see the sheep?!), and two shots of Lilleshall.