Stop what you are doing right now and listen up: I HAVE PERFECTED MY SEEDY BREAD RECIPE. I know you all thought it was perfect before, but you didn't know that it could be made perfecter. Now you know!


The secret is buttermilk! This is officially my new favourite bread. It is just as soft as bought bread and sooo much tastier. And cheaper! And better for you! Buttermilk, contrary to what I thought until yesterday, is not fatty milk. It's milk with good bacteria in it! It tastes kind of like plain yoghurt. Who'd-a-thunk-it. Anyways, it makes a pretty delish loaf of bread. Apparently you can also use it in salad dressings.

( Recipe )

See more at The Cast-Iron Darling!

Confidential to rivka:

Half an hour later, someotherguy says, "You can tell it's fake because of the eyes." :-)

(11:25:51 AM) James: suffer with me http://www.stupidvideos.com/video/song_dance/Beatles_Ukulele_Kid/
(11:26:42 AM) serenefornow: omg kawaiiiii
(11:29:12 AM) serenefornow: http://www.stupidvideos.com/video/song_dance/Young_Ukulele_Kid/

[LJ only, because it's only relevant to LJ users]

Hey, LJ-ers, Joule is back!

Hope you all have a wonderful and safe new year

I enjoyed this book...

but I think its got more of a philosophy behind it then it does a finished story. So many threads and it kind of...ended

I may have to ponder this one a bit, not a usual Koontz tale thats for sure

1) Dragged poor sick someotherguy to the grocery store (not really -- he wanted to go, but he is poor-sick) and brought home lots and lots of yummy stuff for the Kickstart thingy. Right now, I'm making pasta tossed with a verrrrrry garlicky spinach/pesto thing, to try to help ward off the nasties invading his sinuses. Poor boy.

2) aquaeri, is there an evolutionary advantage to PMS/PMT? Because, um, Do Not Want! and I'm looking for a way to reason with it so maybe it'll go away.

3) Oh, man, that's really garlicky.

4) I called in sick to my trip with bastette_joyce to the new science museum in San Francisco, but she said she heard it was crawling with kids on winter break, so maybe it's for the best that we go later, when they've gone back to school.

5) No, really, if you don't want to smell garlic, don't come within a block of my house

Here's a paragraph of the first line of each month in my journal. I'd love to see yours, either here or in your journal, if you feel like it:

Woke feeling oogy. I just bought tickets to go see my mom in April. Today is my first day off my meds. You knew this already, but my friends are geniuses. Adorable kids (okay, they're probably adults, but I'm getting old and they look like kids to me) signing Jonathan Coulton's "First of May", not safe for work in any fashion, but utterly adorable. Returning to crossposting to LiveJournal, though I've really resisted making that my practice. Things I have done this week to take control of my finances: 1) Eaten work-provided food and drunk water, rather than buying breakfast and coffee. Done with the bar exam; I hope he passes. I am not, in general, a huge fan of nature photography. Got to San Diego around 7 on Tuesday; 68 and partly cloudy turned into a lightning storm on our way home, but it never really rained much. Good things today: The kid is just really great to be around lately, and I'm enjoying her company. I wish I remember who pointed me to this first (probably [info - personal] wordweaverlynn or [info - personal] supergee, I'm guessing), but it's been kicking my ass (in a good way) for a few days, and I am finally getting around to posting it: An Adult Child Abuse Survivor's Guide to the Holidays.

That is certainly the question.

I have not been to I-CON for at least 6, maybe 7, years. When I did go, I rather enjoyed it. And, I have one very memorable story about my Jeep breaking down one year when I went, coupled with other hysteria of trying to get said Jeep from Suny Stony Brook on Long Island, NY back to Centreville, MD.

For the last few years I've been hankering to go, and if I'm not going to go on a cruise this year, which is how things seem to likely be panning out, then I could possibly consider going to I-CON this year. Early registration ends on the 31st of this month, then the price goes up from $49 to $54. Cut off for registration is March 10th. So, I have some serious thinking to do.

If only they had more programming on their website (http://www.iconsf.org/) up, that would certainly convince me to go, especially as I particularly enjoyed the authors panels the last time that I was there, plus it might be good to see if Charlie is still running his classic Star Wars WEG game after all these years (doubtful, but one never knows and they were the best games at the CON.)

(angrychicken do you have any insight to add to this? Particularly since they are moving it back to Suny Stony Brook University?)

Lisa, who is laboriously pondering going... with or without anyone else.

As is frequently (REALLY frequently) the case, firecat has said something far more articulately and concisely than I feel currently able to say it. She's also kind enough to let me just gank her words to speak for me:

I really wish people who get defensive about hearing that there is racism/ablism in some entertainment product they enjoyed would figure out that if someone points out the racism/ablism, it doesn't automatically mean "and if you enjoyed the movie/book, and/or didn't notice the racism/ablism, you're a horrible bad person."

I do look for racism/ablism in movies, because it helps me become more aware of racism/ablism in me and the rest of my life, and I think being aware of it is a good thing.

I'm not sure how the race of an actor can be a metaphor, deliberate or not. But metaphors can certainly be racist.

I tend not to enter into discussions about works I haven't seen or read (unless invited), but I certainly enter into metadiscussions about the discussions.

In this case, although I haven't seen the movie, I have seen the preview, and that is racist/ablist enough. I don't have to see the whole movie to know that's part of what's going on.

And the preview told me the whole plot of the movie because I've seen so many other "what these people need is a honky named Marty Stu" movies and "a disabled person isn't a real person until they get a functioning body" movies, and those genres exist because of the racism/ablism in my society.

So apparently, if one sees Avatar and thinks it's racist and ablist, one is looking for racism/ablism. Also, the race of the actors is a deliberate metaphor, so it can't possibly be racism.

Discuss.

(And on top of that, if one evaluates a good number of people's reviews and decide the work is problematic (*waves at vito*), the person is completely misinformed, shouldn't enter discussions about this, and the only way they're worth listening to is if they go watch the movie. Sorry. It didn't work with "The Passion of the Christ", and it's not working now. Cameron isn't getting a cent from me, no matter how many of my friends think I'm facile for saying so.)

I sometimes wonder about what it says about my level of feminism when I can have a day like today* and still feel like I've done nothing all day. Maybe it just means my glass-half-full drive is on HIGH, since after all, I did want a day to do nothing all day.





(* Cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the family; washed dishes; called around to find a vet to check to see if the found cat is chipped; posted to lists to try to find the cat's owner; called and made dinner reservations for the kid's birthday; etc.)

I have been hearing about the Jack Reacher novels since the day I took over my store

This is the first one in the series and I will be reading the others. I get the impression its not a fluid series where things build and then resolve, seems like ol Jack has a wandering spirit and each book is another town and another problem

We shall see

Good things about this Christmas Day:

1) The traditional leftovers and playing-with-new-toys phase of the holidays. I love it.

2) Mythbusters marathon!

3) Visiting family are gone and we have our house back

4) I love my awesome presents. Among them? An SD card that means I can take 720 high-quality photos on my digicam instead of 9, the aforementioned bread bags, and a really thoughtful gift of my special shampoo from the kid.

5) No one killed anyone. Yay for avoiding prison!

6) I had an utterly lazy day. Did a few dishes, but not all of them. Beyond that, it was just eating and watching TV. It was delicious.

So we opened sogwife's presents early, because she's heading to her family's in a bit.

Gather 'round, foodies -- especially bread-bakers -- and see what the amazing sogwife made for me. From scratch!!

My bread is going to be so happy now! (Note the choice of embroidery on the larger/squarer, just-right-for-a-round-loaf bag. Is that awesome and hilarious or what?)

1 (fa la la): My beaversoncrack list is starting to have lines through it, yay.

2 (merry merry): The kid woke in a good mood, asked to talk to her grandmother (they used to hate each other), ate a big bowl of hot cereal, and is now making sweet-potato pie while I eat my breakfast. Her parents were going to call last night with their hotel-room phone number but didn't, so we're waiting on them to call. I don't expect that to happen before noon.

3 (ho ho ho): My mother has plane tickets to Philadelphia, where a big ice storm is on its way. Poor mom!

4 (deck the halls): I am being benevolent, and ignoring the pro-Republican "christmas greeting" glurge my mother sent me in email today. This is not actually virtue; it's self-preservation.

5 (o come, all ye faithful) Had a nice talk with the kid about the difference between blood family and chosen family. I think she likes these concepts.

6) (glo-o-o-ria) Have a wonderful time if you're celebrating; have a wonderful time if you're not. Much love!

I truly enjoy all of the Miles Vorkosigan books I have read, each one has its own flavor while still meshing with the rest

Happy Holidays everyone

Be safe be well be loved