Remember Soul Coughing? Loved them. Dig his newer stuff too:
This one mentions petting parties (awesome):
And, I’ve been listening to Robert Bradley lately in the car:
Because Robert Bradley mentions San Antonio in the above song, I looked for Sara Hickman. This is one of those songs that makes for a great cover:
Can Glen Hansard just come home and live with me?
And, because I can’t leave us with quiet at 5:30 on Friday:
I happen to be wearing corduroy today.
Yes, there’s a corduroy day.
I was in college when the Berlin Wall fell. I remember watching it on teevee in the common room of my dorm.
I had been in Berlin 3 years prior to the fall. After traveling there and going through to East Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie and experiencing having to wait to eat lunch–3 people come out of the cafe, 3 people are allowed in. No exceptions for American teenagers. It was hard to believe that the wall had fallen. I didn’t think it was ever possible.
I remember riding the train into Berlin and looking over the fence at people who lived in East Germany as the train chugged alongside. Concrete block buildings abounded. The food in East Berlin was horrible, especially after the bureaucratic wait. In our broken German, we asked the guard why we couldn’t go into the cafe, there were seats available. That’s just how it was done and so we waited.
After eating chocolate that was made by German and Swiss angels for several weeks, we were appalled at how craptastic it was in the East. We had to exchange 25 Marks when we crossed and we were expected to spend it all while in East Berlin. I don’t think anyone in our group could. We ended up giving our leftover coins to some kids who were thrilled and chased after us for more; their mothers silent. I kept one coin. A 2 Mark piece that is so incredibly light. Like the government couldn’t even take pride in its money.
I remember my friends and I sat around in the sun, that peaked out of the clouds, at a public park after seeing a few sites, buying a few things. We waited until it was time to meet up with the rest of our group to cross back into Berlin. It was a sobering trip. It’s appropriate that it was mostly overcast that day.
I wrote on the wall and chipped a piece off (on the West side, of course). It looks just like a piece of concrete from anywhere. I still have that piece wrapped in plastic lingering in a drawer.
We upgraded my computer to Windows 7 and saw this during the process. Way to go Dell:
So, yeah, been in a funk. But, what usually fixes the funk? Cooking. Tonight the better-half is taking care of things for his mother and so I decided to make lentil soup (it’s funny that link takes you to a time a couple of years ago when I was in a funk and I made this soup to feel better).
I used French lentils we had in the pantry and the carrots were straight from our garden. Awesome. I still don’t have the bird of paradise spice/herb that Alton Brown’s recipe calls for and so this time I used Herbs de Provence which I bought this summer for another lentil recipe.
This entry is definitely not featuring fancy food photography because it doesn’t look like much…the lentils are really dark. But the soup was outstanding. I cooked it for a little longer to completely make the remaining whole lentils creamy (I used the stick blender to puree everything) and I can’t wait to eat it tomorrow for lunch. And, judging by the amount of soup currently in the pot, we’ll be getting at least one other meal out of it.
A co-worker just walked into my office and said, “Oh, you are here.” I looked at her like she had 3 heads. She said the marker next to my name on the In/Out board said I was out. I told her there shouldn’t be a marker next to my name because I removed it over a year ago. She laughed and then walked away.
I listened until the coast was clear and then stood up, walked over to the door and looked at the In/Out board. My name still doesn’t have a marker next to it.
She never said why she was checking up on me. And, since I have to walk past her office every time I use the bathroom, she should have seen me within the last hour so she knew I was here. Wonder what that was all about?
I’ve been in kind of a funk lately. But, the google image today is making me smile every time I go to the page.
We recently purchased a Krups fryer (we picked the model we did because it has a filter so the house doesn’t stink up) and Friday night was the maiden voyage. We weren’t sure exactly what to fry first but finally decided on fish and chips. The better-half was in charge of frying while I fretted. I was a candy maker during a few summers in college and having lightning hot candy syrup burn you makes for fretting when there are high heat splattery things going on in the kitchen. He once worked at Jungle Man Dan’s French Fry Hut and so he has some professional experience with hot oil and frying things.
Background: Usually when we fry we set up the propane tank outside and then I run back and forth between the warming oven and the fryer while he works. This makes for hit or miss frying results. The indoor fryer is a much better way to fry.
The fries were outstanding and AMAZING (yes, in all caps) and we’ll never fry those outside again. The fish was equally good…cod in a beer batter. Both were sprinkled with malt vinegar.
Speaking of vinegar, we polished off a jar of dilly green beans that I canned this summer (recipe is in the Ball’s Blue Book). Spicy and tangy and oh my sweet hopping john they were good.
