I got my Perceforest book, and it is one of the most fascinating books I have read to date. I just finished reading the introduction, which is written by an extremely meticulous and learned translator who explains the main themes of the book, and I am completely enthralled already. I have been having some nice quiet time on my own in the movie room with my book and my laptop, but I've also been running out into the living room every twenty minutes or so to read my husbands another passage from the book and rant about how fascinating it is. I will be making a Perceforest post soon, but not tonight; I need time to absorb what I've read.
My father told me about some people he knew as a grad student, who had decided that they would only talk to each other about important things, and wouldn't discuss trivialities. It's interesting because I have come across people like that too in my life, and it's always annoyed me. I like discussing trivialities, I like fun and silliness and joking around.
But I've also been very conscious of my mortality - I think everyone around my age begins to be aware of that. And more and more I find that I want to spend as much time as possible doing worthwhile things. I want to fill every minute of my day with things that I love: reading, writing, painting, drawing, blogging, watching tutorials, learning languages, doing work that I enjoy for money that I spend on things I love, like good food and dates with my family. Ultimately, I want to spend every minute I can learning.
The motivation to learn comes from love, and I want to indulge that as much as I can. I can't get a job yet because I don't have a social, but I have freelance work lined up editing a sci-fi series for a client that I genuinely like as a person. The stories are compelling and the work is fulfilling and fun, and even though I'm not working every month, when I do work I get the same kind of money that I would if I worked in retail. I want to keep this a pattern, if I can; I want to keep doing work that I find fulfilling and fun.
Ultimately, I want to spend all of my time on love, in one way or another. I have wasted an awful lot of time on various forms of hate, and I want to expand my world and feel fulfilled in every moment now.
Sunday, 13 January 2013
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
Breadsticks and wine
Being an immigrant, there are a lot of chain restaurants and fast food joints that I've never been to. Wendy's, for example; also Dairy Queen, Denny's and Bonefish Grill. Tonight, though, I got to strike one off the list: Olive Garden.
My husband and I went out to see Les Mis today. I like the movie far, far more than the musical; I understand all the little nuances so much better and the movie made quite a few changes in terms of both musical delivery and characterization that I think make so much more narrative sense.
After the movie finished, we snuffled all the way across the street to the Olive Garden. The boy has been wigging out about Olive Garden breadsticks for years, and yet we just never got around to going. I admit that this is partly because I see it as a whitebread restaurant and have been more interested in going to more authentic joints, but today I relented and said I wanted to go and try the breadsticks.
They were, in fact, divine. I ate them Bugs Bunny style, nom nom nom. I had about six with my meal, that's how good they were.
We had the set menu, at $25 for two people. It came with unlimited salad (we finished off a big bowl between us, complete with lettuce, red cabbage, onion, olives, tomatoes and carrots with plenty of grated romano) and unlimited breadsticks (which we took full advantage of), and then we each had an entree, and split a dessert. I ordered ravioli bolognese and my husband had chicken with smoked mozzarella. Honestly, given that it referred to the bolognese as "meat sauce", it was actually incredibly good. It definitely wasn't the same as authentic Italian food, but I wouldn't really say it was worse, just different. Of course, it might well depend on the dish (I have a sneaking suspicion that their pizzas would probably be all-American, for example), but for the food we ordered? It was damn tasty. For dessert we got zeppoli which were a little more ehrzatz, but still seriously delicious in their own right.
What really impressed me, though, was the wine I ordered. I have been trying to find a red that my husband would like for about as long as he's been trying to get me to eat at Olive Garden. I ordered a carafe of house red, which was officially 9oz, but the waiter gave me close to 10 or 11oz because he was a huge sweetheart (seriously, we had the most bubbly, excitable, attentive waiter I've ever known and it made the meal so much fun), so I gave a little to my husband. As it turned out, it was very smooth, and very light, and my husband actually liked it. We ended up sharing the carafe pretty evenly because he enjoyed drinking it.
I asked about it. Turns out it's made just for the Olive Garden. If I want more, I have to go there, buy a fucking bottle with my meal and take it home! And the bottles are really expensive! I'm so furious, but I guess it just means we'll have to go to the Olive Garden more often so I can enjoy watching my honey drink red wine.
All in all, it was a perfect date and a great restaurant. All the food was yummy and I would absolutely go back there any time to eat. So begins the Americanization of Sofia!
My husband and I went out to see Les Mis today. I like the movie far, far more than the musical; I understand all the little nuances so much better and the movie made quite a few changes in terms of both musical delivery and characterization that I think make so much more narrative sense.
After the movie finished, we snuffled all the way across the street to the Olive Garden. The boy has been wigging out about Olive Garden breadsticks for years, and yet we just never got around to going. I admit that this is partly because I see it as a whitebread restaurant and have been more interested in going to more authentic joints, but today I relented and said I wanted to go and try the breadsticks.
They were, in fact, divine. I ate them Bugs Bunny style, nom nom nom. I had about six with my meal, that's how good they were.
We had the set menu, at $25 for two people. It came with unlimited salad (we finished off a big bowl between us, complete with lettuce, red cabbage, onion, olives, tomatoes and carrots with plenty of grated romano) and unlimited breadsticks (which we took full advantage of), and then we each had an entree, and split a dessert. I ordered ravioli bolognese and my husband had chicken with smoked mozzarella. Honestly, given that it referred to the bolognese as "meat sauce", it was actually incredibly good. It definitely wasn't the same as authentic Italian food, but I wouldn't really say it was worse, just different. Of course, it might well depend on the dish (I have a sneaking suspicion that their pizzas would probably be all-American, for example), but for the food we ordered? It was damn tasty. For dessert we got zeppoli which were a little more ehrzatz, but still seriously delicious in their own right.
What really impressed me, though, was the wine I ordered. I have been trying to find a red that my husband would like for about as long as he's been trying to get me to eat at Olive Garden. I ordered a carafe of house red, which was officially 9oz, but the waiter gave me close to 10 or 11oz because he was a huge sweetheart (seriously, we had the most bubbly, excitable, attentive waiter I've ever known and it made the meal so much fun), so I gave a little to my husband. As it turned out, it was very smooth, and very light, and my husband actually liked it. We ended up sharing the carafe pretty evenly because he enjoyed drinking it.
I asked about it. Turns out it's made just for the Olive Garden. If I want more, I have to go there, buy a fucking bottle with my meal and take it home! And the bottles are really expensive! I'm so furious, but I guess it just means we'll have to go to the Olive Garden more often so I can enjoy watching my honey drink red wine.
All in all, it was a perfect date and a great restaurant. All the food was yummy and I would absolutely go back there any time to eat. So begins the Americanization of Sofia!
Saturday, 5 January 2013
Under The Red Umbrella
I went out with one of my husbands last night to a cafe in our neighborhood called Under The Red Umbrella. I had meant to take him for his birthday in November, but I got sick four days before, and stayed sick for a month and a half (!).
Red Umbrella is only open for dinner on Friday nights - the rest of the week, Monday through Saturday, it closes at 4. On Fridays, it's open until 9:30 and live music starts at 7. Last night was a blues band called Ravinwolf who played a kind of steel-string guitar schtick, it would have made great driving music! It was a little loud but not disruptively so.
The cafe itself is pretty small, very cute on the outside and very homey on the inside. Tables around a deli counter, and couches and armchairs facing the stage. There's a little bar with a coffee machine and so on. The barstools weren't quite tall enough for either me or my husband (I'm Italian-Irish and he's Mexican, what are you gonna do) but it wasn't so bad.
We ordered hummus tapenade to start. I was super excited because I've been craving olive tapenade for months, and it was SO worth the wait. The hummus (served with fresh basil) was delicious and the tapenade was even better. The pita bread wasn't that great - it tasted like it had been warmed up in the oven about an two hours beforehand, cold and a little too dry, but luckily there was more hummus and tapenade than would even fit on the bread so I ended up eating the rest of it on the side of my knife once the bread was gone. The waitress recommended me a red cabernet which was delicious.
For the entree, we both ordered the same thing, the dish we'd gone there for in the first place: bison burgers. Neither of us had had bison before, and it was so very, very worth it. The meat was perfect, pink on the inside, brown on the outside. The bun was soft and light as air and I ordered it with tomato, lettuce, horseradish mayo and a side of ketchup. Fucking delicious. One of the best burgers I've ever had, by far: light, healthy, not at all greasy, and the bison tasted approximately one million times better than beef. It came with a side of potato salad that was a little too oniony for me but still really good, and better with ketchup.
Dessert was mixed berry pie and vanilla ice cream. We ordered one to split and it was still almost too much; it had to be about a quarter of a pie. I don't know what 'slice' means to them. It was also totally fucking first class. Sweet, sticky berries, perfect vanilla ice cream, flaky crust. That crust must have had about two cups of butter in it, it was so damn flaky. The pie pushed us into eating too much and no regrets were had by either of us. I finished off with an 8oz hazelnut latte - even the coffee was above par. It was complex but light, and not at all bitter. The syrup helped, of course, but the espresso itself was delicious.
A++, would go again, especially in summer for lunch when we could sit outside at those nice outdoors tables and eat tomato basil soup and olive tapenade, cookies and coffee. Or maybe just a bison burger and a carafe of red wine to share.
Red Umbrella is only open for dinner on Friday nights - the rest of the week, Monday through Saturday, it closes at 4. On Fridays, it's open until 9:30 and live music starts at 7. Last night was a blues band called Ravinwolf who played a kind of steel-string guitar schtick, it would have made great driving music! It was a little loud but not disruptively so.
The cafe itself is pretty small, very cute on the outside and very homey on the inside. Tables around a deli counter, and couches and armchairs facing the stage. There's a little bar with a coffee machine and so on. The barstools weren't quite tall enough for either me or my husband (I'm Italian-Irish and he's Mexican, what are you gonna do) but it wasn't so bad.
We ordered hummus tapenade to start. I was super excited because I've been craving olive tapenade for months, and it was SO worth the wait. The hummus (served with fresh basil) was delicious and the tapenade was even better. The pita bread wasn't that great - it tasted like it had been warmed up in the oven about an two hours beforehand, cold and a little too dry, but luckily there was more hummus and tapenade than would even fit on the bread so I ended up eating the rest of it on the side of my knife once the bread was gone. The waitress recommended me a red cabernet which was delicious.
For the entree, we both ordered the same thing, the dish we'd gone there for in the first place: bison burgers. Neither of us had had bison before, and it was so very, very worth it. The meat was perfect, pink on the inside, brown on the outside. The bun was soft and light as air and I ordered it with tomato, lettuce, horseradish mayo and a side of ketchup. Fucking delicious. One of the best burgers I've ever had, by far: light, healthy, not at all greasy, and the bison tasted approximately one million times better than beef. It came with a side of potato salad that was a little too oniony for me but still really good, and better with ketchup.
Dessert was mixed berry pie and vanilla ice cream. We ordered one to split and it was still almost too much; it had to be about a quarter of a pie. I don't know what 'slice' means to them. It was also totally fucking first class. Sweet, sticky berries, perfect vanilla ice cream, flaky crust. That crust must have had about two cups of butter in it, it was so damn flaky. The pie pushed us into eating too much and no regrets were had by either of us. I finished off with an 8oz hazelnut latte - even the coffee was above par. It was complex but light, and not at all bitter. The syrup helped, of course, but the espresso itself was delicious.
A++, would go again, especially in summer for lunch when we could sit outside at those nice outdoors tables and eat tomato basil soup and olive tapenade, cookies and coffee. Or maybe just a bison burger and a carafe of red wine to share.
Friday, 4 January 2013
Success!
It is 0425 and I have finished my editing project. Everything is packaged up and sent to the client just four and a half hours into the day of the deadline. My timekeeping is improving. It was 474 pages by the end, and I feel incredibly accomplished. Now all I have to do is hope that my client likes it enough to give me the contract for the next five, haha!
I've been missing Europe again, everything in it: London/Oxford/England/Europe. I miss having history that was right there. I've been really interested in Tristan and Isolde for one of my writing projects, and I have a burning desire to visit Cornwall. Not that it helps now, but knowing that for years it was just a few hours away on the train is very frustrating now that I'm cut off from everything. It's more than that, though; it's the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Ashmolean, the British Library. There's no Greek and Roman art here to speak of, which is frustrating my desire to see that too. The rule is, the bigger and more important the city, the more good stuff there is in it. The art museum here is nice but it isn't very fundamental and that just frustrates the hell out of me.
It just makes me look forward to living in Virginia even more. Richmond's got a better culture scene going on and there's some real history out there too. It isn't even so much that the history itself is important, as that it makes people care, and a place that is cared about is like a magnet for interesting things.
Not to mention it's five hours away from NYC, by car. When this guy has a plane, you better believe I'll be flying out there every other weekend.
Staying up all night to finish my work means that I get to take tomorrow off! I'm going to finish another writing assignment for my other client over the weekend so I can deliver it by Monday, but the important thing is that I can finally start doing other stuff again, like reading my Arthur storybook, which I am going to do now.
I've been missing Europe again, everything in it: London/Oxford/England/Europe. I miss having history that was right there. I've been really interested in Tristan and Isolde for one of my writing projects, and I have a burning desire to visit Cornwall. Not that it helps now, but knowing that for years it was just a few hours away on the train is very frustrating now that I'm cut off from everything. It's more than that, though; it's the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Ashmolean, the British Library. There's no Greek and Roman art here to speak of, which is frustrating my desire to see that too. The rule is, the bigger and more important the city, the more good stuff there is in it. The art museum here is nice but it isn't very fundamental and that just frustrates the hell out of me.
It just makes me look forward to living in Virginia even more. Richmond's got a better culture scene going on and there's some real history out there too. It isn't even so much that the history itself is important, as that it makes people care, and a place that is cared about is like a magnet for interesting things.
Not to mention it's five hours away from NYC, by car. When this guy has a plane, you better believe I'll be flying out there every other weekend.
Staying up all night to finish my work means that I get to take tomorrow off! I'm going to finish another writing assignment for my other client over the weekend so I can deliver it by Monday, but the important thing is that I can finally start doing other stuff again, like reading my Arthur storybook, which I am going to do now.
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
And you wonder why I forget your birthday
Yet another demonstration of why I had to leave my relatives. My dad has actually gotten a little better, despite the occasional guilt trip that I shrug off easily now, but my cousin is out of control.
I've explained my poly to her, and that I am in love with these boys and that that's why I moved out here, to get away from my father's guilt tripping and to be with the people I love. And yet for New Year's, she sends me an email wishing me happiness and prosperity and so on, and ending with the words:
God. I just--
These fucking people.
I've explained my poly to her, and that I am in love with these boys and that that's why I moved out here, to get away from my father's guilt tripping and to be with the people I love. And yet for New Year's, she sends me an email wishing me happiness and prosperity and so on, and ending with the words:
When are you coming home? You've had your fun, we're all waiting for you!
God. I just--
These fucking people.
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
Reward
Okay, I know that I'm going to get really close to burning out over the next four days, so I'm going to lay out my reward here:
I'm going to buy my art stuff, my binder, and Beginning of Infinity
I'm going out for dates
I'll download the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Symposium and Euthyphro for Kindle
I can finish my Arthur storybook
I'm going to the library to pick up Perceforest and put in an order for Mary Renault
If that's not a perfect reward for four days of work, what is???
I'm going to buy my art stuff, my binder, and Beginning of Infinity
I'm going out for dates
I'll download the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Symposium and Euthyphro for Kindle
I can finish my Arthur storybook
I'm going to the library to pick up Perceforest and put in an order for Mary Renault
If that's not a perfect reward for four days of work, what is???
Torta di cioccolata e arancia
This is the cake I used to ring in 2013! Served with carbonated cider for my non-alcoholic household and some sparklers on the side.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix 1/4C olive oil and the juice of 1 orange in a small bowl; set aside.
In a big mixing bowl, beat 3 eggs together with a pinch of salt until they're frothy, and then slowly add in 1.5C white sugar until the eggs become thick and pale.
Sift 1C flour, 1tbsp baking powder and 2-3tbsp cocoa powder together and gradually mix into the eggs. Then add the oil/juice and combine.
Melt 4 squares of dark chocolate and fold into cake batter. I think I used Ghirardelli 60%, but you could use anything bittersweet or dark.
Stir in candied orange peels. (I used the peels of 3 oranges - maybe about 1/4C? I'll put in a recipe for this later.)
Pour into cake pan and bake for 50 minutes.
This cake bakes up very heavy and sticky, almost like brownies. In fact, when I made it, it had that kind of brownie-like crust on top. I think it's the melted chocolate that makes the difference. But seriously; I sprayed the cake pan with Pam and dusted it with flour, and the cake still stuck to the bottom and I had to kind of squish the bottom back into it. Use a springform pan, and also use baking parchment on the bottom or you're going to have a cake tragedy on your hands. I did neither and it completely fell apart when I was trying to pry it out of the pan. It'll taste delicious, but if that happens you might consider breaking it up and serving it in bowls with some vanilla, chocolate or orange gelato.
As an aside, I got good news today! My awesome Perceforest book came in at the library! I have 9 days to pick it up, and my deadline is in 4 days, so I'll finish up my Death Of King Arthur storybook that I got last time and then go in for some Perceforest goodness!
I'm also thinking of picking up some Mary Renault books to satisfy my Alexander the Great craving until I have the time to actually read Greek literature. I hear the interactions between Alexander and Hephaistion are adorbs.
Happy New Year and kisses for everyone!
--
Salvatore
Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix 1/4C olive oil and the juice of 1 orange in a small bowl; set aside.
In a big mixing bowl, beat 3 eggs together with a pinch of salt until they're frothy, and then slowly add in 1.5C white sugar until the eggs become thick and pale.
Sift 1C flour, 1tbsp baking powder and 2-3tbsp cocoa powder together and gradually mix into the eggs. Then add the oil/juice and combine.
Melt 4 squares of dark chocolate and fold into cake batter. I think I used Ghirardelli 60%, but you could use anything bittersweet or dark.
Stir in candied orange peels. (I used the peels of 3 oranges - maybe about 1/4C? I'll put in a recipe for this later.)
Pour into cake pan and bake for 50 minutes.
This cake bakes up very heavy and sticky, almost like brownies. In fact, when I made it, it had that kind of brownie-like crust on top. I think it's the melted chocolate that makes the difference. But seriously; I sprayed the cake pan with Pam and dusted it with flour, and the cake still stuck to the bottom and I had to kind of squish the bottom back into it. Use a springform pan, and also use baking parchment on the bottom or you're going to have a cake tragedy on your hands. I did neither and it completely fell apart when I was trying to pry it out of the pan. It'll taste delicious, but if that happens you might consider breaking it up and serving it in bowls with some vanilla, chocolate or orange gelato.
As an aside, I got good news today! My awesome Perceforest book came in at the library! I have 9 days to pick it up, and my deadline is in 4 days, so I'll finish up my Death Of King Arthur storybook that I got last time and then go in for some Perceforest goodness!
I'm also thinking of picking up some Mary Renault books to satisfy my Alexander the Great craving until I have the time to actually read Greek literature. I hear the interactions between Alexander and Hephaistion are adorbs.
Happy New Year and kisses for everyone!
--
Salvatore
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