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s. king’s latest

s. king’s latest

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when i saw there was an additional book from stephen king out, i thought oh boy! he’s really on a roll now. i mean, we all know he writes monster books (heh could be a double meaning) and quite often. earlier this year i’d purchased “the outsider” and was amazed that a second one was already published.

i stopped at BN in the moa to pick it up and…

it’s so little!! of course i still picked it up. it’s fewer than 200 pages with large type, more of a novella than a novel. i finished it over the course of two days; it would have been one, but i started reading at 10:30 p.m. and had to go to sleep.

like all king books, it’s got a little weird element to it, but it’s an uplifting story (heh – again) with a lesson for readers.

i know i’ve said this before, but i’ll say it again. if you’re afraid to pick up one of his books because it’s attached to horror, just push that aside and dive in. most likely you’ve already watched a movie adaptation of one if his: shawshank, stand by me, green mile, etc. what i like about his writing is that he ties a lot of the stories together, a lot of times to the man in black.

if you are looking for a decent one to start with, pick up 11/22/63, my favorite. it’s got the right mix of weird (there’s always something weird in his books), sentimental, and thriller-esque.

do NOT pick up the tommyknockers. only book of his i was literally scared.

(or IT. read that one after you’ve read a few of his and start wondering what the heck is going on in derry, maine, and you’re fully acquainted with the king-style weird.)

non-meme monday

non-meme monday

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since no one had any grand ideas for a monday replacement (none of you seem to have any ideas), here i am again with a meme monday.

sort of. it was going to be “winter is coming” but turns out winter is already here -_-

first our spring was non-existent. then our summer was instant. fall was mediocre. and now it’s january in november. i mean, come on.

in related news, i ordered some new mittens.

(lands end was having a 50% off sale. got these for $25!)

bonus: foodie saturday

bonus: foodie saturday

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i had a very foodalicious saturday so i thought i’d share.

first i made a chicken wild rise hot dish that was at brewlash this year. it had 2 cups of gouda cheese in it – that was enough to make it worth making.

after eating that deliciousness, i attempted the … wait for it….

MILLIONAIRE SHORTBREAD.

yes, this was the one recipe i saw on the great british bake off that i was just flabbergasted that i’d never made and that looked absolutely delicious.

i went to america’s test kitchen and found a recipe.

of course i had to make some adjustments. since i was out of flour, and it sounded like it would be delicious, i swapped out AP flour with almond flour for the shortbread. i made the caramel almost to the recipe. since i don’t eat devil’s syrup, i used lyle’s golden syrup instead. and then instead of dark chocolate on top, i used milk chocolate and added dark chocolate shavings and salt on the top.

these aren’t that difficult to make – the most tedious part is making sure the caramel doesn’t burn, but that just takes paying attention for 15 minutes.

as you can see, i wasn’t winning any presentation awards from paul hollywood, but i kid you not – one of the more delicious things i’ve eaten in my life. definitely will make again.

caturday 2

caturday 2

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poor stan has a complex. he’s been licking his arms and a spot on his shoulder so much that he’s starting to go bald. i just plugged in some cat calming pheromone stuff, so hopefully he stops with the obsessive licking and his hair grows back.

foodie friday: GBBO edition

foodie friday: GBBO edition

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oh yes, the time has come to review what i’ve made after drooling over the great british bake off.

ok, well, after doing a bit of research, it turns out i’ve only made ONE recipe so far, but in my head i’d counted an additional one because i got a paul hollywood handshake from jane.

SO. first, i made the apricot couronne, which is really tasty.

(photo not mine)

i made this over easter or something a year or so ago, and it was actually pretty easy to make (when you know what you’re doing). while i’m not a huge fan of working with yeast (it never seems to cooperate), the apricot filling in this along with the almonds and icing on top really made it worth worrying about yeast.

the second recipe i was thinking of was actually recommended by lynn from the splendid table: the squash galette. man, it’s delicious!

the crust is flaky and made with whole wheat flour. the filling has squash, sour cream, cheese, spinach, and while the recipe is for vegetarians, i like to add bacon for a little bit of bacon-y goodness. i’ve already made one this fall and i definitely plan to make at least one more. hmmm… maybe i’ll make another tomorrow!

all this to say, sunday i will be making the MILLIONAIRE SHORTBREAD. this was made during caramel week on  GBBO, and i could NOT believe that i had never had it or made it. it looks absolutely delicious: shortbread crust, caramel, and then a layer of chocolate. of course they have to be perfect on GBBO, but i don’t even care if they’re a mess because i will EAT THEM WITH A SPOON. i am so excited to make these and even more excited to eat them on monday after my stupid dietbet is over!

(this pic not mine either)

i’m going to use some almond flour in the crust, and i’m trying to figure out a good way to add some peanut butter. we’ll see what happens.

as an aside, i’m also making chicken wild rice hotdish this weekend, so if anyone wants to visit me, i am open to that 🙂

TBT: se minn style

TBT: se minn style

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on my calendar for today, i have “remember when i lived in rochester LOL”

haha i think that’s appropriate! as much as i rag on rochester as a whole, i’m glad i made that move.

it was a lot of work. between having to sell a house, buy a house, sell a house, buy a house and one rental, the housing situation wasn’t great. plus there were 6 months of commuting from st. cloud to austin on the weekends and then austin to roch every workday at the beginning, then from st. charles up to st. cloud for four months on the way back. the thing i had to keep telling myself was that this was temporary and it would be done eventually, and at the end it would be worth it.

now southeastern minnesota is a perfectly lovely place. it’s got great bluff country, and the rivers are great. winona is a fantastic little college town. rochester, despite its weird hoity toity worker vs. mayo class system, is a nice looking town (much prettier than metro st. cloud looks).

some things i liked about rochester: it had a trader joe’s. and a costco (altho we are CLOSE here in st. cloud. the building is being erected). sushi tokyo is delicious. i like that it’s in a valley, and there’s a lot of historical buildings. i like JENEE and she’s in rochester. i liked my job! it was a great school.

some things like liked about living in st. charles: i like that lanesboro was close. i liked that i could go to winona instead of rochester to get my groceries and do my shopping. i liked that right past lewiston, you drove into the bluffs down to the river. i liked that whitewater was 9 miles from my house. the running situation was pretty darn good! the good sport was yummy, and i ate way too much a&w. i peaked at kitchen owning. i will never get better than that kitchen at my house in st charles. oh, and that deck we built was pretty darn good!

but dang it i do like lakes and trees and the hills of central mn. i think it’s the way the trees crowd in the more north part of minnesota. i like driving 5 miles to st. john’s and getting on the water. i really like running in the woods. i like the yellow of autumn (well except this fall. good grief. what a bad fall we had). i like not having to drive 15 miles to get from target to a walmart to a barnes and noble (st cloud’s retail is pretty centralized; rochester’s is not).

i guess yeah, i lived in rochester for four years. i kind of wonder about it – a weird blip. but if i hadn’t taken that job, i wouldn’t be where i am today, and i wouldn’t have met jenee. and i’m pretty happy about that.

word wednesday

word wednesday

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so i just learned this the other day whilst browsing reddit.

the word bear actually is derived from old english bera, meaning the brown one – this is common throughout norse, dutch, german, etc. it’s derived from greek and latin, which have the root for bear, but why do these languages call a bear just by its color?

well, olde timey hunters in the northern parts pretty much replaced the names of wild animals because of a taboo on names of wild animals. other names for bear were the good calf, honey pic, the licker, honey eater. there are also variations of calling it the wild.

bears were so stinking scary to hunters that they couldn’t even call it by its name.

i did some very brief research on native american words for bears and tried to look up some etymology on those. the closest thing i could find that was sort of similar was the ojibwe word mukwa for bear, which actually means great. so sort of the same thing – replacing it with a descriptor. although, isn’t that a lot of words we have, especially onomatopoeia words?

roar
review tuesday: these elections -_-

review tuesday: these elections -_-

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when i wrote up my schedule for kablpomo, i forgot that election day was in there. so instead of a review for the three books i’ve recently read or the movie “get out”, you get a review of my election day 🙂

when i left home this morning to go vote, it was flurrying – yay the first flurries of the season. that was not an enthusiastic yay, in case you missed it. i’m not particularly happy about losing daylight saving time either!

weather aside, i drove the avon township hall, which is about 3 miles from my house out in the boonies. i like driving out to the boonies to vote alongside my fellow ruralites (even though we may hold different political views). the town hall is a bright red building among the avon hills, and there is a BIGFOOT silhouette just hanging out in the parking lot.

the line was pretty much non-existent at 7:45! i walked in with a couple and went through the checkin process. they had ipads this year to look up names, which i had known since i’d voted in the primaries. then it took me maybe 5 minutes to fill out my ballot and TADA i got the sticker!

consider my civic right fulfilled.

i’d like to point out that i did try to get nate to vote but after the third time i asked him, he got really annoyed, so i stopped.

so, fellow citizens of this country who choose not to vote, why do you not vote? after all that susan b. anthony and our forefathers went through to secure a democracy/republic that allows all to vote, what about it makes you not want to partake? registering and requesting a mail-in ballot isn’t difficult; you can do it all online these days. you don’t even need to find a stamp since the return envelope is pre-paid. what could be easier? do you want the ballot to show up in your mailbox unannounced so you can just fill it out? (would compulsory voting work?) do you not want to do the research on your candidates? i mean, there are easy questionnaires you can fill out online that will tell you who to vote for after asking 10 questions. what is it?

hmmmmeme?

hmmmmeme?

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i have meme mondays slated for this month unless you readers have a different topic you’d like me to talk about on mondays. i’d be open to that!

before i delve into memes for today, i’d like to take a moment for a shoutout to whirlpool. i had a tine break off my stove grates and i tweeted it:

i got a direct message from them asking for my address and phone. they called and left a message, to which i tried calling back 3 times! their business hours are totally wonky. but i finally left a message and said i tried calling during normal business hours but it says you’re closed and i don’t know what to do. i got a message today:

“…we’re going to look for a grate in your area to send it to your address at no charge…”

😮

i checked OEM replacements for these, and they run $200+

😮  😮

 

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onward to meme monday!

A meme is a virally-transmitted cultural symbol or social idea.

back in the day, memes were lists of questions that you filled out on your blog. or it was a quiz you took on a website and then copied/pasted the code into your blog. i used to do a lot of them on my blog! in fact, i bet if you searched the early archives, you’d find quite a bit.

these days, our attention spans are shorter so we have to write two sentences on a picture.