indiboi.com

I’ve been ill, sore throat and congestion, since the day after Thanksgiving… thanks Layna.

I saw David when he was home last week.

I purchased a fancy new Calphalon Tri-ply Stainless 12″ Everyday pan just so I could cook French onion soup; turns out I really like the pan and later bought the fancy 3 quart chef’s pan too. It was nice to be able to finally deglaze properly. I’m now planning on upgrading all of my cookware to that particular line; like All-clad, but with glass lids and significant reduction in cost.

My 75 gallon aquarium has had water in it for a couple weeks now; no leaks, no crashing through the floor, no horrible states of unlevelness. Also, no gravel… That Pet Place was sold out, pretty much a wasted trip. I’ll try again next week, calling ahead to make sure it won’t be another wasted trip. Plus side is I’ll be able to get the lighting system on that trip too.

I’ve been cooking dinner nearly everynight since the end of October. With the exception of the last week, mostly, due to the whole sickness and the lethargy that made itself a sidedish. If you’re stuck in a painful dinner routine, I really do recommend trying some of the Kraft recipes available on their website… it’s a bit trailer-parkie, but damned tasty.

I’d been agonizing between asking for a Global hollow-ground Santoku knife or the same style as made by Kershaw in their Shun Classic line. Ultimately I decided that I preferred the classic look of the Shun Classic Santoku over the modernist cliche that is the Global knives. I really need to point out that I’d been interested in Globals long before Top Chef and all that… and didn’t have a clue who Anthony Bourdain is until I started more research into possible alternatives. I still don’t care about his opinion; although, Alton Brown, whose opinion carries a little bit of weight, endorses the Shun Classics. It’s a big deal because I do not intend to ever purchase knives again if I can help it, with each knife hovering around the $125 range, average or so, I’ll have a small fortune invested once I have all the ones I want. Yay for Japanese steel.

Due to reasons unknown to me the hallway outside of my bedroom started to smell quite badly. That musty cat pee smell, but I know Gabbie wouldn’t have ‘had an accident’ … nor on purpose. Perhaps moisture came up through the concrete slab, just enough to reactivate the horrible legacy of having so many cats (not on purpose) all those years ago. It turns out that Oxi-Clean does a pretty good job of, shock, oxidizing the nastiness. Forget those special enzymes… at least at first. Ultimately that carpet will be trashed and replaced with new, thankfully.

I really hope it warms up a bit between now and Christmas, I have projects to work on, but I just can’t imagine going to the workshop when it’s 21°F outside. If it doesn’t, well… I’ll have to do unplanned Christmas shopping… blegh.

I finally finished the cheapie gray scarf I’d started at the beginning of the year; my learning to Purl project. It’s not so bad, if you look past the incredibly low quality yarn.

I bought the cutest little tin at Walmart this morning. It has a penguin on it… and yay for benzocaine lozenges, the reason for the trip.