Hi. Remember me? I’m priding myself on the fact that I now consider going missing for two weeks a real “blog hiatus.” Remember when we left for six months without giving you any notice? Yeah.
The biggest reason SiS is MIA is this: I have a new job! If you’re keeping track, this makes FOUR jobs for me. I swear, I’m only doing it to see how many I can juggle. For the first time in my life I’m going to be able to say that I’m busy. Though I think that at some point I might have to start dropping commitments when I take on new ones.
My new job is at the Legislative Assembly Office of Alberta. I’m working for Hansard, which is the office that transcribes and edits everything that is said during House sessions and committee meetings. So far, a week and a bit into the training, I’ve learned that this involves the judicious use of a lot of commas. Other punctuation too, but especially commas. I am simmering in a stew of commas. You should see the size of our style manual. Good thing I love love love good punctuation. Not that you can always tell around this blog.
What does this mean for you? This blog is going in one of two ways. Maybe you will enjoy a punctuationally pristine pavlova of perfect paragraphs. Or! I will, be venting; my unused-punctuation mark rebellion — in! all! entries, making an over-salted mess of: unecessary; incorrect; and irritating commas/ellipses-colons and semicolons… you get the idea.
Have I stretched the punctuation-as-cooking metaphor far enough? I do think it’s an accurate one. A good punctuation mark is like the perfect amount of salt. Too much, or in the wrong place, and it makes things unpleasant or even incomprehensible. Used well, both salt and commas just make everything make sense.
Okay. Since Carlo and I made some resolutions this year that didn’t have anything to do with “stop procrastinating” or “make sense on the blog,” I will not apologize for my hiatus or for the above lack of sensicality. I’m working 12-hour days, okay? Finally getting to the point of this post, I present:
Supper in Stereo’s Food-olutions
-Memorize a new cocktail recipe that we love each month -Cook a new fruit or vegetable every month (first up… rutabaga) -Master pie pastry (I need to catch up with the rest of my expert family here) -Learn to fry things -Make soy milk -Make ricotta -Find some new things to do with lentils (hey, we like our bank balance going UP, not down) -Cook more with our favourite girls (aged 6, 3, and 2) -Try not to put bacon into EVERYTHING -Grow tomatilloes -TBA
I love a good resolution, but I hate to be tied down. The above is a start, but I hope this year will be FULL of great food discoveries and adventures. That’s if I can find time between jobs to get into the kitchen.
So… does anyone have any advice about what to do with rutabaga?
8 comments
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January 13, 2009 at 7:59 pm
CourtJ
Congrats on the job, hopefully that won’t mean no time for a foodie get together :-)
January 13, 2009 at 8:13 pm
onlyhereforthefood
I’m seconding Courtney’s congrats on the job, and on the hope that we can still all get together.
On your soy milk resolution – my parents used to make the stuff by hand (squeezing it through a sieve took forever), but they bought an automatic soy maker last year, and it makes the process a cinch.
January 14, 2009 at 10:12 am
Isabelle
Four jobs! Wow. I feel like I’m busy with one (and a quarter).
Making your own soy milk is something that never would have occured to me, even though I know you can do it. I’ll be inerested to hear how it goes.
As for rutabaga … hmmm. I’ve always been confused about the difference between turnip and rutubaga. Which are the small ones and which are the big ones?
January 14, 2009 at 6:32 pm
EB
Man, with only 3 jobs… I’m a total slacker!!! I love your food-olutions…. except the ban on bacon of course.
January 15, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Andrea
I love punctuation, and love the abandon with which you used it in this post ;-) Such under-represented marks! I’ve made my own almond milk (!!) but never my own soy milk. I hope you won’t get so busy that this wonderful blog will fall off the face of the earth. I think I might actually cry if it did.
January 19, 2009 at 9:38 am
Jude
Geez four jobs? The thought of it is making my head spin.
Also, should we expect more alliteration? :)
January 19, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Scott at Realepicurean
I’m a fucker for going missing myself, but I don’t get any sympathy ;)
January 28, 2009 at 5:47 pm
kelly
I like your food-olutions! You’ve got me thinking on what mine might be…