Pork and pears

I finally got around to taking a whack at Manny’s pork and pears or pork and apples recipe. I had expected to do the apple and calvados version, but to my surprise, we only had pears in the house.

The recipe calls for whipping cream and lots of buttah. I used the buttah and skipped the cream, using nonfat milk and yogurt at the finish (I mostly don’t care for high-fat foods). But I blew my timing and the yogurt curdled. Still, it was very tasty. Mindful of Manny’s concern for the shallots, I used a few less and added a quarter of a regular onion.

I was also a bit lazy and did not pound the meat, choosing to use a slightly more tender chop cut and to slice it in quarter-inch strips.

Viv says “It was very peary.” And so it was, it was yummy.

Pix still in camera, to come.

Redrunk

NaDruWriNi 2004 is a-formin.’

In this entry, I linked to all my stuff from last year – but where’d it go?

Oh, say, some of it’s at archive.org.

Gumby Bare. The Black Crowned Night Heron, Part I. Bum Poo. Bum Poo 2. Nevermore, props to Matty! Chloe. Xombies. Uncoded.

I really gotta make a local archive of this stuff.

Also, it’s so weird that I think I can’t write fiction. I mean, really, this stuff is lightweight, but look! Character! Situation! Setting! Plot! Challenge! Resolution!

Okay, maybe not always in the same story, but still.

Something's Fishy

Tonight I’m serving tasty salmon to Adam, Chris, and Sabrina. Also on the menu are a bunch of Spanish goat and sheep cheeses found, of all places, at Safeway. Not only did Safeway have these improbables, but also a long-adored rarity from the Alps, raclette. Now I must find the cornichons.

Thus, webtime is short.

Thrift

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Yesterday we went thrifting. This place, J. T.’s Attic, is up on Greenwood near 85th. It’s only open on Saturdays from 1 to 5. It’s a real mixed bag, and the store suffers from that overstuffed, cluttery feel that some secondhand shops can fall prey to. It’s easy to get snagged on something and wind up pulling a lamp off the shelf. While such places are hazardous and hard to take in, they are also my favorite kind of secondhand shop, because the noise of the clutter means things get overlooked, and suprises can be found.

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This Cue Cat, marked as a “computer mouse,” is five dollars. It was the only dot-com excess item I noted. It looks like that’s about right, going by eBay.

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This old Singer, in nearly-new mechanical and cosmetic condition (you should see the finish), hideaway sewing table included, was fifty bucks. Needless to say, we now have a new sewing machine. The table’s finish is extremely rough, but other wise it’s in great shape. It looks as though the machine and table were folded up and stored somewhere dry but prone to chemical spills for fifty years. We’ll need to get the cord on the machine replaced, though, as it is pretty chewed up. The actual machine itself runs like it was serviced yesterday, though. I haven’t researched the serial number of the machine to see when it was made, though.

I’m pretty sure it’s a Model 15. Here’s the manual as a PDF (!).