I saw this recipe recently and decided to give it a try. Verdict: YUM! Plus lots of leftovers. Warning: you'll need a big crock pot for this one. And vampires need not apply.

Ingredients:
 - 8 chicken thighs, bone-in, with skin
 - 8-10 chicken legs (drumsticks), bone-in, with skin
 - 1 large onion, diced
 - 4 stalks celery, cut into 3-inch pieces
 - 2 large carrots, cut into 3-inch pieces
 - 1 generous teaspoon dried tarragon
 - 6-8 sprigs fresh parsley
 - 1/2 cup olive oil, plus 1-2 teaspoons for the skillet
 - 1/2 cup dry vermouth
 - dash fresh ground nutmeg
 - 2 teaspoons kosher salt (or to taste)
 - fresh ground pepper (at least a teaspoon, but as you will)
 - 40 cloves garlic, peeled (you can cheat and get these at the store)
 - Fresh loaf of crusty bread of choice

Directions:

Put 1/2 cup oil onto a large rimmed plate. Oil chicken pieces until all pieces are evenly coated. Heat a little oil in a large skillet. Sautee onion until it colors up nicely and is soft. Transfer onion and juices into crock pot; return pan to stove to keep hot. Add cut carrots and celery to crock pot; layer in parsley. Put oiled chicken in batches into hot skillet and cook 2-3 minutes per side to give chicken a bit of color. As each batch finishes, transfer to crock pot. Layer in garlic cloves around chicken as you add it. When all the chicken and garlic has been added, toss on the tarragon, salt, and pepper. Pour vermouth over the whole and cover crock pot with foil, and then lid. (Make sure you crimp the foil to keep a good seal and not cause steam to condense and drip all over your counters.) Cook on high 2-3 hours or low 4-6 hours (more cooking time won't hurt, but check the chicken temperature if you're trying to skimp on time).

To serve: Place piece of chicken, pan juices, and at least 3-4 cloves of soft smooshy garlic in a bowl. Place bowl on plate with slices of bread. Spread soft garlic all over the bread, then dip the slices into the pan juices and devour along with the chicken.

Put leftover chicken into a container separate from the pan juices and veggies/ garlic. Strain out garlic for future eating. Strain pan juices and store separately, or puree the remaining juices plus veggies for a nice thick sauce and/or the start of some killer chicken soup.

Current Mood: accomplished

Way, way back in the dark ages of time, what was then LiveJournal offered up a one-time opportunity to purchase a permanent account. I took them up on the offer.

Fast-forward to today, when the company that was LiveJournal was bought up by the Russians, moved all the servers to Russia, and just now changed the user agreement.

Is my account still permanent? Well, if I post every six months or so, maybe.

Is LJ permanent? ...that's rather a thornier question. Plus there's the whole agreeement-only-binding-in-Russian thing and a whole host of other issues.

So I'm going to back this journal up to Dreamwidth, just in case. It's not like I'm doing a ton of blogging these days, but I'd hate to lose what I have, or have my content subject to rules and laws I can't read, much less understand.

Stay tuned.

Fair warning: this post contains a LOT of pictures, so expand accordingly.

Today was the Women's March. I had decided to go along with fisherbear, and my friends A and F decided that this was important enough, and likely to be mellow enough, to be their daughter K's first protest event. Given logistics, we decided to carpool to the light rail station and travel together to the access point closest to the start of the parade.

Well, we and everyone else living in our end of town.

This is the train car we were in. Keep in mind that we got on at the VERY FIRST STOP, the terminus of the line. There was no one on the train before we started boarding.
( Images and text behind the cut. You have been warned.Collapse )

All in all, a very good day. I've seen absolutely zero reports of any vandalism or aggression from the marchers. It was exactly what it was meant to be, a peaceful protest and an astonishing display of communal activism. And I got to break out my camera and exercise my rusty documentary skills as an extra bonus.

...although really it's been almost a year since I last posted here, so I could honesty call this an annual post. Except I don't *mean* for this to become an annual exercise. I'm still working hard at my not-so-new job, I'm writing and gardening and walking and kniting, and the cats remain cats.

And I really do intend to get back to journaling someday.

...and so is this journal, although obviously I'm not posting here very often. Things have been very, very busy in Jaunthie-land this past year.  I shan't go into details, but suffice it to say that I'm working for another company, that I'm writing and gardening and walking, and that the cats remain cats.

Oh, and this year's garden experiment plants: watermelons, to go along with the cantaloupes. I actually got cantaloupes last year, so I figured that I'd try watermelons too this year. Goodness knows it's hot enough!

As some of you might know already, Will has been studying bees for a long time now. Last year he discovered a colony of rare bumblebees, the Western Bumblebee, and evidence that the species might be spontaneously recovering. He did a ton of work over the fall, winter, and spring, coordinated with the USDA, USGS, the Xerces Society, and a whole bunch of other folks. Now he and a team of volunteers are trying to put together a series of research trips to try and find out what's going on, including whether what's changed might help other species of bee recover.

But the campaign still needs funds. So if you're in the mood to donate, here's the link to the Indiegogo campaign. If you'd like to read up more about this first, the Seattle Times did a really nice write-up here.

Spread the word! Help make this happen!

So it's that season again. Rose-petal jam season. (Also garden season, but that's a much longer season than RPJ season.) And naturally enough it's fallen into a really busy time, where I was out of town, and then on a deadline, and oh, of course, the weather couldn't actually co-operate, naturally not.

On top of all that, I was out of several of the ingredients required for RPJ (it isn't *just* roses). Some, like sugar, just require a trip to the regular grocery store. Other, like canning jars, require a more specialty trip (particularly if your regular grocery is a) teeny-tiny b) not serving an area where home-canning is a common practice anymore or c) you want something other than your standard pint jar).

So this morning I went off in search of one of the ingredients I needed. The usual grocery where I go for this was closed, worse luck, but the neighborhood it's in has several little hole-in-the-wall ethnic groceries, and sure enough, the one almost literally across the street - a persian-greek-mediterranean grocery (seriously, as far as I could tell, that was the actual name of the place) - had an open neon sign flickering in the window. So I went on over.

And oh, opening the door of the little place was such a wonderful sensory experience, I almost stopped dead in my tracks. For one thing, it was *warm* - both temperature-wise (it was about 50-odd degrees outdoors, and I'm guessing somewhere 70-plus inside, and also 'this is a tiny family business' wise, with hand-made God's-Eyes around the doorway, and an older man all the way in the back, hand-sharpening knives, looked up alertly when the door-bell rang, and who grinned welcomingly at me when I waved to let him know that yes, I was a customer, and no, I wasn't in a huge rush. For another thing, the smell! It was a wonderful melange of middle-eastern and Mediterranean ingredients, cumin and oregano and saffron and garlic and onion and citrus and probably half a dozen other things, all melded together into one giant YUM. I felt tension I didn't even know I was carrying loosen from my shoulders, and a happy smile curve my lips.

Like I said, it wasn't much of a place: a few tiny tables for customers who came in to eat whatever lunch fare the owners offered that day; a few wire shelves that held packets and containers of spices, oils, grains, and other bulk ingredients; and the counter all the way in the back, with a tiny refrigerated glassed-in cabinet below, and a metal counter on top. There was a teensy old-fashioned cash register jammed off to one side about midway through the narrow shop. But they had exactly what I needed, and the owner was happy to pause in his knife-sharpening and come out to ring up my purchase, and oh, if it hadn't been early morning, I would have been *severely* tempted by the saffron ice-cream advertised by the hand-written notice on the whiteboard.

Such a lovely experience, and one that I don't know that I'd have had, if I wasn't out shopping for RPJ ingredients on a Saturday morning. Incidental bonus of RPJ, definitely.

Current Mood: happy

I have peas coming up in my garden.

I planted two rows as an experiment early in March. I knew it was too early to plant, but the weather was so mild, I just couldn't help myself. So along with planting some radish seed (two different kinds of radishes, actually), I planted some snap peas.

And wouldn't you know it, they're up and growing.

It's garden season! Whee!

I swear it was just August around here a minute ago... *sigh*

So life continues on a rocketing pace this year, and yet I don't feel I have a heck of a lot to show for it. Sure, work is busy; when is it not? And the garden yielded some pretty decent harvests, particularly in the beans, onions, greens, and sunflower seeds department (the latter particularly surprising). I had a successful photo show. There was bee-chasing and climbing and lots of walks and writing and...yeah, okay, so my life has plenty of things to keep me busy. But still, it seems like a lot more to juggle this year than it has in years past.

Perhaps I'm just tired. I certainly know I need to get more sleep.

Which makes the perennial question of "To NaNo or not to NaNo?" rather more difficult to answer with an enthusiastic "Yes!" than I would prefer. It's a valuable exercise, no question: makes you put your writing right up in the priority list, no excuses, no whining. I did it, and won it (as they define 'winning') five years running.

Last year, I took NaNo off. I wrote quite a bit in November, but I didn't officially sign up, and it was really, really nice not to have to worry about official word counts or anything like that.

But there's also no getting around the fact that I didn't write as much LAST November as I had done in previous years. I didn't make creative writing a priority in the same way. And I really, really need to make it more of a priority.

I don't know. I'm conflicted. I want that completely-arbitrary deadline effort, and yet I'd rather focus on quality over quantity, and not have the pressure of meaningless (but historically effective) expectation hanging over my head.

Meh. When in doubt, go for it. And I probably will.

But I'm not signing up officially juuuuuust yet.

Current Mood: tired

Yep, you read that right. Surprise Dalek cake, even. Home-made rose-petal-jam flavored Dalek cake. I have the most awesome friends ever!!!


Behold the evidence:





It was exterminated with absolute joy and thankfulness. And it was extremely tasty. :-D

Current Mood: silly

I've mentioned before that there are certain things that I can grow very well in my garden. Other things I try to grow I fail at fairly consistently.

This year, most if not all of the normal rules seem to have gone by the wayside.

For example, let's talk garlic and onions. In previous years, I have grown garlic, and I have been able to grow it in truly epic quantities. I plant garlic, it grows like crazy, I harvest braids and braids of the stuff. Nothing easier.

Except for this year, apparently. I planted garlic, and pffft. Nada. Nothing. My elephant garlic produced single cloves instead of heads. My regular garlic fizzled out with nothing to show for it whatsoever. Granted, I'd never tried growing garlic in that particular bed, but seriously? Totally baffling.

And then there's onions. I have tried growing onions before, several times. And I failed to get actual onions every single time. The best I ever managed was to harvest some of the green tops; the onions themselves never grew beyond quarter-size.

Except for this year, apparently.

I wasn't even going to bother trying to grow onions this year. I passed on the opportunity to split onion sets with Jake. I did not order seeds. I was skipping the hassle this year, not going to bother, too many other things I'd rather plant and not enough bed space, nope, not going there. Except there I was at the Flower and Garden Show early this spring, and there was this vendor selling onion sets at $4 a bundle. That's practically giving them away. And they were nice, fresh-looking, likely-looking sets that actually smelled like onion plants. They even had two varieties that I was actually interested in growing, Big Daddy and Walla Walla.

So I was a sucker and bought $8 worth of onion sets. Of course it was too cold to plant them in the ground that week, so I chucked each set into a pot with some potting soil, and pretty much ignored them afterwards until it was much later in the spring when it was time to plant things. And they were still alive, despite being randomly chucked into pots that were really not big enough. Looked pretty good, even. So I unpotted them and planted them in two of my side beds.

And they grew.

One bed had two volunteer pumpkins sprout (not an uncommon occurrence in my beds; long story). And I let them grow instead of weeding them out, because at least that way I'd get something out of that bed when the onions invariably failed. I used the same rationale when transplanting a parsley plant into that bed. And when I planted out the green beans I'd started in peat pots in the other bed with onions in it.

Well, apparently someone forgot to 'splain things to Lucy, or whatever the name is of the onion god this year. Because the onions did *not* fail. They grew, and kept growing. And then there started to be roundnesses poking up through the earth at the base of the plants that looked remarkably like onion shoulders. Perplexed, I consulting my gardening resources, and they suggested that this was normal onion behavior, but that I could mound over the onion shoulders with some extra mulch, if I wanted to. So I did.

And they kept growing.

About a month ago I was making something for dinner, and I realized I was out of onion. So I went outside, and sure enough, there was one onion plant that looked like it had an onion big enough to be actually useful. So I harvested it, and yep, it was just the right size, and yum.

Weird. This couldn't possibly happen with the rest. And oh look! The Big Daddies that were looking so promising, all their tops started flopping over (aided and abetted by the pumpkin vines, which are aggressive beasts.) So yeah, I might get an onion or two more, but surely the rest is doomed, right?

I harvested a few more onions (pretty much any time I needed one for cooking), and they were good. And today I decided maybe I'd better check about how to tell when onions were actually ready for harvesting, and drying, and storing.

Turns out that's about a week after the tops flop over, maybe two. You let them cure in the ground (presumably you stop watering them), and then you lift them out and dry them on some sunny, dry surface or hang them in the sun for a week, if you're going to try and cure them for storage.

Whoops. Well. I guess I'd better go see about those Big Daddies.

And lo and behold:




I harvested four and a half dozen onions out of that one bed. Some of them are the size of softballs. Plus a dozen-and-a-half shallots. I braided them in lots of three, and there they are, currently drying on the ornamental trellis in my yard, plus a bunch of the tomato cages. Because I sure as heck wasn't ready to harvest onions, and I didn't have anything better to use as drying racks.

And that's only half the onion harvest. The Walla Wallas aren't flopping over yet. I probably have another three dozen onions to look forward to, maybe more.

I am flummoxed. Fershimmeled. Confounded. And up to my ears in onions, if they cure properly. (I'm not taking chances with the Walla Wallas; I'm going to caramelize and freeze them in job lots when they're ready.)

It's the same story with my peas, which I can usually grow by the pound and have been utterly mediocre this year (several plants failed entirely). On the other hand, I can't grow dahlias, and yet look:





Dahlias. Growing in my yard. I'm having to *deadhead* the things, they're so prolific and happy.

Well played, Mother Nature, well played.

My friend Andrew (and his lovely wife) have a website. Every so often Andrew will find and post about things that are inherently absurd/terrifying/WTF, such as Food Frights and really what-were-they-thinking? merchandising.

Well, Andrew, in the spirit of your infamous Oreo Barbie post, let me introduce you to...



Mexico Barbie! Complete with a miniature pet Chihuahua and a passport to record Mexico Barbie's travels. Note: while all of the Barbie "Dolls of the World" line come with passports, none of the other ones specifically note that the passport is to help record her travels. Because, y'know, papers are extra important when you're Mexico Barbie. *facepalm* Edited to add: oh, my mistake: Chile Barbie also has that little note about recording her travels. I'm sensing a theme. *double facepalm*

Yeah, you read that right. Choking yet?

(Apparently TPTB over at Mattel learned nothing from the Oreo incident. Surprise.)

And if that isn't enough to make you queasy, let me introduce you to her cousin:



Twilight Vampire Barbie! Complete with glowing red eyes and undead skin!

I now return you to your regularly-scheduled day, which hopefully contains much less absurdity.

Current Mood: silly

Naturally enough, I was sleeted on walking to the bus yesterday, and snowed on today. :-D

Some people are disgruntled at this persistence of winter. Me? I'm delighted. We had a very mild winter for the most part, and early spring is supposed to be variable and changable. I love watching the snow fall, and now I've had that chance. It's not like it was a serious snowfall that caused problems.

And there are daffodils blooming everywhere. Who can help but be cheerful when there are daffodils shining out from every yard, park, and scrap of ground?

Now if I could just get some time to get my garden in shape for spring - and the weather break I need for it - then all would be perfect indeed. Or at least very, very good.

Current Mood: cheerful

A strange thing to celebrate, perhaps, but definitely a topic well worth discussion, because e-piracy is a real problem.

A little background: Author Chuck Wendig wrote a post on his blog about piracy, declared Feb. 6th to be International Please Don't Pirate My Book Day, and invited others to write, blog, or post on this theme today.

Now as many of you know, I am an aspiring fiction writer. My pay-the-bills job also involves writing in a technical capacity. And e-piracy affects both my aspirational career, and my real-life one. A

s someone who would *love* to make a living by my own creative writing, I admit that e-piracy seems like a huge barrier to that dream. The vast majority of fiction writers can't make their livings solely by their books and stories, even when sales are good. Most of them don't have the resources to defend themselves against aggressive pirates, either. Some resist electronic editions of their works, simply because piracy seems such a threat. How is this good for writers, or for book-lovers, or for anyone?

 And more to the point, I can't understand stealing from someone whom you don't even know, particularly if you profess to be a fan of their work. That just baffles me. If you like something a person does, you show it by stealing from them? WTF???

I understand not having a lot of money to spend on things. Been there, done that, still have some of the habits I learned when I was trying to stretch every penny far enough to be able to buy things like groceries. And you know what? During that time, despite being a huge bookworm, I didn't steal books. I borrowed books from the library. I saved up to be able to buy exactly TWO books in that time period, neither of which was terribly expensive, both of which I desperately wanted. I made friends with other bookworms, and happily accepted the loan of books and shared book recommendations. And I wrote. I wrote scenes and stories that I wanted to read.

Nowadays, of course, there are so many more resources available for free to people than there were then. There's gutenberg.org, and free e-book editions and samplers from many different presses, and the wikipedia ebook library, and on and on. Not to mention more freely-available fanfiction than anyone could read in a LIFETIME.

So I don't understand people who try to justify stealing books by claiming that they can't afford them. (I happen to agree that the pricing of ebooks often seems arbitrary and out of hand, but that's a different question, one that is being worked out as we move into a new world of publishing.) There are VAST QUANTITIES of books already available to EVERYONE for FREE. So don't tell me you can't afford to buy something to read. And don't pretend that you have some kind of RIGHT to someone else's work. That's someone's blood and sweat and tears, someone who probably struggles to pay the bills just as much (if not more) than you do.

And then there's my pay-the-bills work, where I really HAVE had my work - my research, my writing - copied and reprinted wholesale, with no acknowledgement of the source, much less payment. Where other people have gotten credit and praise for their plagarism of my words and effort.

Let me tell you: that sucks big hairy donkey balls. It feels awful, enraging and saddening and sickening all at the same time. And that's without directly impacting my ability to earn a living, at least in the short term. I can't truly know how much worse it might be, seeing piracy going on when it really does affect your bottom line - but I can use my imagination, and it makes the very idea of risking my stories in the e-pirating age seem like utter lunacy.

There you have it. Some of my thoughts on piracy, and along with it, my devout wish that no one pirates ANYONE's books, much less any of my own.

Current Mood: contemplative

Rest well, Grandma, and be happy again with Grandpa. You had an amazing life, and I was lucky to be part of it for so many years.

Current Mood: sad