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petroniaIf you've known me online for a while, you know how rare it is that I'd say something like this, but - it's kind of sad comment threads on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
lj_maintenance cannot be f_wanked, due to not being fandom-related strictly speaking.
(These days I tend to assume Livejournal == Fandom, The Thing Itself. But that's just my paradigmatic bias.)
For a change, food! I talk constantly about cooking for my friends but never post any recipes, due to the fact that I don't umm have or follow any recipes. ^^; Sometimes I print recipes out from the Internet and change half the ingredients. Then I have trouble remembering what I put in, since I do not really have a grasp on what constitutes a "cup" or a "tablespoon". I cannot bake for the life of me, as you can deduce. However the following is a sort of soup-stew. I made it at Justin's place a week ago. For the past several months we've been getting together loosely once a month in order to cook and talk about Deeply Pretentious Matters, the talk being triggered by the fact that we break out the bottle of wine as we're cooking, and there's typically a third of it left by the time we sit down to dinner.
2 soup bones with marrow in them
4 chicken legs
2-4 medium-sized sausages (we used Italian mild, but can be spiced up)
3 medium-sized potatoes
2 tomatos (could well be more)
1 green bell pepper
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
chunk of ginger root (we didn't have any, and I hate ginger anyway, but it does add to the soup)
glass noodles
cooking oil (I refuse to believe that anyone in the universe actually uses "a teaspoon" of cooking oil, as opposed to "enough oil to coat the bottom of the cooking implement as poured from bottle". I used half-and-half sesame seed oil for frying; if one uses canola it will need sesame seed oil for flavouring later on)
soy sauce
salt and pepper
Put marrow bones in large pot 2/3 filled with water, set to boil. As it does so skim off the top with slotted spoon, preferably while drinking and talking. When that looks about done, keep the pot on steady heat, chop the onions roughly and mince the garlic. Heat cooking oil in saucepan, fry onions and garlic until it begins to cook, add chicken legs, stir-fry until the onions are transparent and the chicken reasonably non-pink. Dump all into pot (well, carefully by increments). Chop ginger into round slices and add to pot. Chop sausages into ends (frying them would probably make the task less messy, but that might be overkill on the grease front), add to pot. Chop potatoes into chunks, add to pot. Let cook for a while, stirring occasionally; get another glass of wine, maybe chop up the vegetables for a salad. Chop tomatoes and bell pepper into pieces and add to pot. Do same for any other vegetables you feel like tossing in there. Start adding soy sauce to taste. If you desire other condiments such as Worcestershire sauce, chili, other spices (aniseed or five-spice powder likely a good idea), add away. Once everything looks ready to eat, drop in a hearty quantity of glass noodles, let it simmer another few minutes, and presto.
Should serve four reasonably hungry people. Justin and I ate the whole thing (including the marrow in the marrow bones) in one sitting with a balsamic vinaigrette salad and a pineapple for dessert, but we lack any sense of portion control.
Sometime that evening Justin quoted someone at me, I don't remember whom. "All true stories," he said, "end with death." I said that was very poetic, but from my writerly point of view not necessarily true: it depends on the scope of the story one sets out to tell. If one is telling the story of a life, then yes, it should end with death - or at a point after which nothing of importance happens to that character anymore. I don't think it's too optimistic to say that the two things are not one and the same.
lj_maintenance cannot be f_wanked, due to not being fandom-related strictly speaking.(These days I tend to assume Livejournal == Fandom, The Thing Itself. But that's just my paradigmatic bias.)
For a change, food! I talk constantly about cooking for my friends but never post any recipes, due to the fact that I don't umm have or follow any recipes. ^^; Sometimes I print recipes out from the Internet and change half the ingredients. Then I have trouble remembering what I put in, since I do not really have a grasp on what constitutes a "cup" or a "tablespoon". I cannot bake for the life of me, as you can deduce. However the following is a sort of soup-stew. I made it at Justin's place a week ago. For the past several months we've been getting together loosely once a month in order to cook and talk about Deeply Pretentious Matters, the talk being triggered by the fact that we break out the bottle of wine as we're cooking, and there's typically a third of it left by the time we sit down to dinner.
2 soup bones with marrow in them
4 chicken legs
2-4 medium-sized sausages (we used Italian mild, but can be spiced up)
3 medium-sized potatoes
2 tomatos (could well be more)
1 green bell pepper
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
chunk of ginger root (we didn't have any, and I hate ginger anyway, but it does add to the soup)
glass noodles
cooking oil (I refuse to believe that anyone in the universe actually uses "a teaspoon" of cooking oil, as opposed to "enough oil to coat the bottom of the cooking implement as poured from bottle". I used half-and-half sesame seed oil for frying; if one uses canola it will need sesame seed oil for flavouring later on)
soy sauce
salt and pepper
Put marrow bones in large pot 2/3 filled with water, set to boil. As it does so skim off the top with slotted spoon, preferably while drinking and talking. When that looks about done, keep the pot on steady heat, chop the onions roughly and mince the garlic. Heat cooking oil in saucepan, fry onions and garlic until it begins to cook, add chicken legs, stir-fry until the onions are transparent and the chicken reasonably non-pink. Dump all into pot (well, carefully by increments). Chop ginger into round slices and add to pot. Chop sausages into ends (frying them would probably make the task less messy, but that might be overkill on the grease front), add to pot. Chop potatoes into chunks, add to pot. Let cook for a while, stirring occasionally; get another glass of wine, maybe chop up the vegetables for a salad. Chop tomatoes and bell pepper into pieces and add to pot. Do same for any other vegetables you feel like tossing in there. Start adding soy sauce to taste. If you desire other condiments such as Worcestershire sauce, chili, other spices (aniseed or five-spice powder likely a good idea), add away. Once everything looks ready to eat, drop in a hearty quantity of glass noodles, let it simmer another few minutes, and presto.
Should serve four reasonably hungry people. Justin and I ate the whole thing (including the marrow in the marrow bones) in one sitting with a balsamic vinaigrette salad and a pineapple for dessert, but we lack any sense of portion control.
Sometime that evening Justin quoted someone at me, I don't remember whom. "All true stories," he said, "end with death." I said that was very poetic, but from my writerly point of view not necessarily true: it depends on the scope of the story one sets out to tell. If one is telling the story of a life, then yes, it should end with death - or at a point after which nothing of importance happens to that character anymore. I don't think it's too optimistic to say that the two things are not one and the same.
