Mishaps and other haps

Just as I was starting to think about bedtime last night, a friend of mine sent me an instant message.

“This is going to sound weird, but how tall are you?”

Turns out she was trying to find out whether I would fit into a costume that was ordered in her size.  Thus, I have acquired a short term project that should be a lot of fun.  I am going to be an extra (or “super”) in Madison Opera’s production of Faust.

I will have to attend some of the rehearsals (and all of the performances).  I think I am going to be a nun or a statue.  I’m excited!  I’ll post more after rehearsals start in a couple of weeks.

I ended up spending a bunch of the afternoon playing around in the kitchen.  I made a pot of lentil soup and then decided I wanted to do *something* with a couple of bosc pears that were about to become too mushy for consumption.

I thought that something along the lines of pearsauce (think applesauce, but with pears) would be good.  However, in the past few days I have had some very good Middle Eastern food.  It inspired the lentil soup I made today and started me thinking about spices I have in my pantry.  I love keeping a variety of spices around and occasionally make a big run to Penzey’s when I am running low on the ones I use most.

I thought of cardamom, a lovely spice.  I don’t use it often enough, but it makes dessert (and rice) taste fabulous.  I peeled and diced up my pears and cooked them for 5-10 minutes with honey, cinnamon, and cardamom.  I’m not even sure how much of each ingredient I used.  As with most experiments, I eyeballed it.  I mashed the mixture up a little once the pears softened.

It’s a simple recipe, but the results were fabulous.  I could eat tons of this pearsauce warm.  I also tried it semi-frozen and that was equally wonderful (methinks it would be a swell summer dessert).  I intend to buy a bunch of pears and make a more significant amount sometime.

We are having oatmeal (me) and Malt-O-Meal (Michael) for Easter breakfast.  Wow, do I love stove-top cooked hot cereal!  Oats are a particular favorite with me.  Rolled oats or steel-cut oats are both nifty, but a five-minute cooking time is a must.  I don’t have the patience to spend forty minutes waiting for a bowl of oatmeal.  Luckily, even steel-cut (or pinhead) oats can be purchased in short cooking time varieties, although they are a little harder to find at the grocery store.

Michael has been sick since Thursday with a horrible cold or sinus infection.  He made it through the work day (and we even had our date night) on Thursday, but by the next morning he had a fever and did not make it in to the office on Friday.  I suspect he didn’t miss too much since it was a half-holiday for both of us.  Yesterday he felt about the same, but this morning he seems to feel a little better.  Time to start getting some food back into his system since he has been living on a mostly-liquid diet the past few days due to lack of appetite.

Chicken is cooking upstairs in the slow cooker.  It will probably become chicken & rice later in the day.

I went into work yesterday and worked a half day.  I enjoy having the extra money from overtime, but it’s a little frustrating that we have more work than people to do it right now.  I don’t like it when work spills into my evenings and weekends on a regular basis.  There’s not really a solution now in sight, as we are replacing very few positions and adding even fewer new positions.  It seems to be a problem throughout my division of the company.  I debated going in today also, but decided I need at least one work-free day every week.

My plans for the day are to relax at home, maybe enjoy some books, blogs, and online entertainment.  I might consider making brownies or cookies later this afternoon.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and a wonderful Easter/Passover/Spring!

On Friday night, we had the opportunity to see the movie Food, Inc., a documentary about how food is produced in America– the plethora of products we buy in grocery stores all over the country.  The makers of the film shed light on the risks to consumers and food industry workers from current production practices, as well as the (often) very terrible living conditions for animals grown for their meat, eggs, and milk.  I think that any American who eats should watch this film from start to finish.

I have previously had some exposure to most of the issues presented in the film through my own reading and research.  It made me review my food choices once again, though.  With the economic downturns of the past few years, it has been very easy to “skip” buying organic and locally-produced products because the cost has been rising (along with the price of everything else).  I find myself thinking that $5 is OK for a gallon of organic milk, but $6 or $7 is ridiculous!  For a while, I waffled.  Recently, I have started buying organic again.

We went to the grocery store on Saturday, after viewing the film.  I picked up my locally-produced, organic milk, but was avoiding the issue of meat until Michael suggested that we might want to have tacos for dinner this week.  I started browsing the commercially-produced ground beef, but he picked up a package of organic, grass-fed beef.  We’ve certainly bought organic meat before, but it has always been at my instigation.  He compared the prices and we both weighed the fact that it costs more.  But we realized that for $6/lb., we could divide the package in half and have two nights of tacos.  Looking at it that way, 4 servings of meat is only $1.50 per serving.

We bought the organic meat.

When we got home, I reviewed our receipt and noticed that we spent as much on a few “snack” and “junk” items as we did on the organic meat.  Thinking about it that way, it’s really easy to justify spending a little more on high-quality, humanely-produced food that is ACTUALLY NUTRITIOUS.

Michael said that the idea from the film that really registered with him was “voting with your dollars”, which is something he has already consciously done with bigger purchases.  Why not vote for the foods you want to see in grocery stores and markets?  Makes sense to me.

The outdoor Saturday Farmer’s Market on the Capitol Square will be starting up again in a few weeks.  I am looking forward to that.

Here it is the second of April and I have conveniently neglected to mention that Michael’s birthday was March 19th and we met his family at Ginza of Tokyo that evening for dinner and cake … Very last birthday before becoming a married man.

There hasn’t been too much to report the past few weeks.  I worked quite a bit of overtime the last couple of weeks in March, but this week I have been working normal hours, mostly.  I feel much less stress when there is a balance between my work, social life, and “just us” home time.  That has been better this week.

We had a few more inches of snow last Saturday evening, the 28th.  Matt came up from Chicago for the weekend and Josh joined us on Saturday for some RPGA activities, followed by dinner at Old Chicago and shopping for an iPhone for Matt at the Apple Store.

The roads went from messy to messier while we were out, but we made it home fine and managed not to spin in a circle, despite Josh’s best intents.  Granted, he only *tried* to spin around on our very quiet residential street.  While 2002 Saturns have great mileage, they don’t spin too well.  Or maybe it was some combination of great tire traction and sucky snow that impeded the spinning.

The snow melted pretty quickly on Sunday, but most of the last week has been overcast, cool, and rainy.  Not exactly “Spring” weather, unless you live in the Midwest.  Hey, we do!

The cats had their two-year-old vet checkups on Tuesday and did a good job.  They both have a clean bill of health and recovered from the car ride/examination ordeal pretty quickly.  Xaxxon wants to go back and visit the pretty vet and vet tech.  The past two nights he has been spending a lot of time in the cat carrier, hoping that we will take another trip to see the pretty ladies who made such a fuss over his fluffy grey self.

On Wednesday, we met with the owner of Cranberry Creek Cafe to book the wedding catering and put 50% down on the catering bill.  Woo, large wedding expenses!  It was a little exhilarating to write such a hefty check.  It’s good to have the cash in the bank and have it PAID FOR, though.

Catering is usually the largest single wedding expense and I think this will hold true in our case. We are planning to pay majority of our wedding expenses out-of-pocket, which makes me feel good.  We will have none of this “paying it off for five years” bullshit.

Tonight, like most Thursdays, is date night, but we are taking a little break between dinner and the movie we are planning to see in just a bit.  I like living five minutes from an IMAX.  It’s convenient.

This weekend we will have our usual games (well, probably) and plan to attend a few of the Wisconsin Film Fest selections.  Michael has been working on Terry’s computer for a couple of weeks now and will likely be doing more of that on Saturday, too.  I keep toying with the idea of going into work at some point.  I may just work a little later during the week next week.  We’ll see.