God Bless the End of the Work Week

1) I don't know Hindi but that doesn't stop me from singing along.
2) Breakfast with other people than Liz. That's a big social step forward for me.
3) Attempting to actually use my creative abilities. Bought one small shadowbox at Goodwill. We'll see where this goes.
4) Listened approximately 12 times to "Electric Sky" a song so gently beautiful I actually shed a few tears (I do that sometimes). You can hear a lovely but not quite as perfect version on Eleanor Murray's MySpace page. The one I have is from a homemade CD I bought at Goodwill of her - I assume now defunct - local Washington duo Eleanor & Benny. It's just not the same with only one voice and no banjo.
5) I want two bodies so one can go running and the other can snuggle down and knit.
6) I miss snuggling.
7) When's spring? I love winter, but this winter sucks.

My Name is Darcy, and I'm a Stephen King-aholic

I just finished the novel Lisey's Story by Stephen King and thought it was time to take stock of which books of his I have read (far more than I realized). If I recall it all started with The Shining in the 8th grade...

1. Bag of Bones
2. Carrie
3. Cell
4. Christine
5. Cujo
6. Danse Macabre
7. The Dark Half
   
8. The Dead Zone
9. Desperation (read at least 4 or so times)
   
10. Dreamcatcher
11. Dolores Claiborne
12. Everything's Eventual
13. Firestarter
14. Four Past Midnight
15. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
16. Insomnia
17. It (read 3 times)
    
18. Just After Sunset
19. Lisey's Story
20. The Long Walk
    
21. Misery
22. Needful Things
23. Night Shift
24. Nightmares & Dreamscapes
25. Pet Sematary (read twice)
    
26. The Regulators
    
27. Salem's Lot (read twice)
    
28. Skeleton Crew
29. The Shining (read at least 3 or 4 times)
    
30. The Stand (read at least 4 or 5 times)
    
31. Under the Dome
    

Sleeping Beauty; At Last!

My sister was here last weekend. I likes her! As usual it was a lot of eating and being silly and that's perfect. We made Greek food and pasta with mushrooms and a homemade cream sauce (several attempts, but the last one came out delicious). The primary reason for her visit was to see The Sleeping Beauty Ballet, which I have waited my whole life to witness in person. I did not disappoint. Visually excellent - great costumes and use of color and a clean set. Dancing is always a weird mix of "That doesn't look so hard" and "Holy crap!" I'm torn in deciding the best part of the ballet. It was one of two things. Either the evil fairy (played by a man, of course) who FLEW by way of harness, was heralded by explosions and lighting, and who had a bit of the Baba Yaga about her if I do say so myself. OR, the skeleton. Yes, the skeleton. At the end of the second act the fairy appears at Princess Aurora's birthday party and starts kicking up a fuss. One of four princes there to court Aurora (who seems a bit of a tease) pulls out his sword to do away with the fairy and is struck down by a fireball. No one seems to notice his demise and his corpse just kind of lays down stage left. When the heroic prince shows up at the castle one hundred years later he is greeted by sleeping courtiers and...a skeleton. A finely dressed skeleton. God bless you, ballet skeleton.

Friday: I'm Exciting

1. Wanting a little container attachment for my blender so I can make my own hummus.
2. Working on sweater sampler from Jacqueline Fee's The Sweater Workshop.
3. Grousing about postal carriers who don't check mailboxes for mail.
4. Preparing for President's Day (get ready, y'all).
5. Trying to find a sports bra so I don't get "clocked in the teeth by my tits" as a fellow busty runner once commented.
6. Enjoying the new Masterpiece Classic version of Emma.
7. Attempting to budget.
8. Desiring a haircut.
9. Thinking about where to spend some time outside this weekend.
10. Missing people.

I am the single most thrilling person that I have ever encountered.

Duck Carnitas: Part 2...and snow

Today Liz and I went cross-country skiing. We wanted to go to the snow and do something, so we drove up to the Nordic Center at Snoqualmie and on the spot decided between snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.

Um, whee?

Skiing it was! And MAN, is it a WORKOUT. It was really, thoroughly entertaining. We took a lesson for about an hour then went out on the trail. Just around 2 1/2 hours of activity and we were wiped out. I'm probably going to hurt tomorrow, but it was worth it. SNOW!!!!!!


Homeward we traveled and I began the final stages of duck carnitas in which you submerge the duck legs in pork fat, surround with garlic cloves, cook for 2 hours, then shred and fry quickly in - that's right - pork fat.

Reheating the fat.

Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuum

Meantime while the duck is cooking you blend together tomatillos, jalapeno, cilantro and onion to make the MOST delicious salsa. Combine duck and salsa on tortillas with a dollop of sour cream and a squirt of lime juice and you have heaven in taco form.

I'd be happy if this were my last meal.

Duck Carnitas: Part 1

Homer Simpson: "Lisa, honey, are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon? Ham? Pork chops?"
Lisa Simpson: "Dad! Thos all come from the same animal!"
Homer Simpson: "Yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, maaaagical animal."

Today I began the journey toward duck carnitas, which I mentioned last week. It's a recipe from Rick Bayless, a chef whose show, Mexico-One Plate At A Time, makes me hungry every time I watch it. I want to be his friend so I can go to his backyard parties with huge pots of food and tequila tastings. But even though it's got duck in the title, this recipe is really about pork lard. Yes, pork lard. There is something satisfying about cooking with lard in a world constantly trying to produce substitutes for the evils of butter - I like heading the other direction sometimes. I had a heck of a time finding pork lard, so instead I just cooked up 2 lbs of bacon (ate a lot while cooking and will now have breakfast sides, BLTs and maybe some macaroni?)

Not quite 2 lbs of bacon...since I probably ate 1/4 lb in the process.

This produced an amount of grease which, on the one hand, is horrific, but for the purposes of my recipe just may not be enough since you have to SUBMERGE THE DUCK in lard when you put it in the oven. I didn't think about the fact that some bacon is not as fatty as others so one of my packages didn't yield as much liquid gold as I had anticipated. Oh well, I'll make do.

Still, that's a LOT of grease.

It's almost attractive in a weird way. Though it won't be once it cools into a cloudy, awkward mass. It was also a bit of clean up, but the reward is sweeter when you work for it, right?

Where's my maid?

After the bacon came the marinating of the duck in salt, oregano and lime juice (I'm already hungry). Now to let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours. Tomorrow night, the journey continues.

Alice Hoffman Makes My Soul Hurt

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman. Pretty depressing. Surprisingly depressing, actually . Story wise (har har) I would not call it one of my favorites. I tend to be a case by case Hoffman reader - some stuff makes me go "Meh" and some makes me go nuts with joy (thank you, Practical Magic) - but she makes my soul hurt in the best way possible. I simply cannot get over how she can use plain old words to make simple objects, situations, the smallest interactions seem so quietly, yet overwhelmingly beautiful and meaningful. Never has a book made me want so badly to eat a tomato, sit in the grass, or garden.

Artistic glory. Yum.