Food

For some reason, wintry weather makes me feel like cooking. Last year I became pretty dedicated to regularly making my own veggie broth and seitan, and to cooking big potfuls of tasty food for the whole house (eggplant and peanut soup, some dal-like thing, delicious miso soup, chickpea noodle soup, chili, some other stuff). Maybe it's because cooking is a comforting, warm activity in the Minnesota winter, getting  to stand over the stove and and thaw. Maybe it's because I get really excited to cook for Thanksgiving and it carries on from there. Maybe it's because I get bored more easily. Maybe it's because our yellow kitchen looks nice in that snowy, white-gray winter light. Whatever it is, I'm getting that feeling again.

I've started out the season with a few mini-inspiration dishes over the past week. Just now I finished off the last of a pasta dish I made; I used up the last of my acorn squash and tomatoes from my garden by roasting them up all tender (roasted some garlic for good measure), and threw that all in the pot with lots of salt, olive oil, black pepper. Super simple and tasty. Then today Joe made a delicious rendition of his ever-delightful beans and rice. We ate it with a perfectly ripened avocado and celebrated the snow by cracking open a jar of the salsa my mom and I made out of garden tomatoes and peppers (we canned it ourselves!).


My family never leaves town for Thanksgiving anymore, and this year it looks like I'll have a few good friends around to share the holiday with too--unfortunately Anya might be included here since she broke her foot and probably can't go to New York, but I will try my best to heal her with scones, chickpea gravy, and squash soup.

For good measure, here's some stuff I from my kitchen that I like.

For instance, my totally awesome vintage blender. I had a cheap blender for a while that was light and flimsy, and the screw-on part on the bottom kept cracking. Stupid! But I found this lovely baby at the antique store up the street from my house, and it's really sturdy. Even better, it's a great kind of pukey-green retro color that this photo does not do justice. I love my blender.

Then there's my beloved pink electric mixer. This little guy came from the vintage store next to Eclipse, and not only is it adorable but it works like a charm!
And while I'm at it, here's a picture of the cats being cute.

Well, a week ago was the day that Wilfred Owen died. I love him and feel bad that I'm seven days late to the game, but I think this is about as good a reason as any for me to give a tip of my hat to Veteran's Day.

This is what I did last weekend! At this show I had one beer poured down my back, another one poured all over my head, I was almost smothered by 20-30 something fanboys in the front, and I got a kiss from Mitch Mitchell. Not a bad night! I am buried somewhere in this pile of drunk dudes.



And this appears to have been filmed directly over my head.
What an amazing weekend.

This is awesome.

File under "masochistic things I love to do"

Reading the most ridiculous anti-feminist or conservative-with-Christian-or-Tea-Party-bent websites and editing them in my head, writing lab style. The best are the ones that look like they were made in 1997 and are full of lengthy screeds wherein the writer tries as hard as they can to use big words to prove that they're an underground mastermind patiently waiting to bowl over the matriarchal liberal establishment. LOVE IT. Ego stroking fun that doesn't make me feel the last bit guilty.

Update: Reading Kanye's Twitter feed is also included in this category, but that's more awesome and silly than totally depressing.