This thing? This thing is fantastic.
Prudence enjoyed this a little more than I was comfortable with:
Paraphrased from Mari our intern minister’s debut sermon:
“Faith is trust that the power of love will make the world a better place, and God is a personification of that power.”
I like this. A whole lot. Defined positively, forward-looking, self-aware, functional. I could say more, but it would be pages long.
I didn’t figure out what she was doing till like three-quarters of the way in.
Wow!
From The Lies of Locke Lamora by Mister Scott Lynch:
“Conté, I do believe Master Fehrwight has just requested nothing less than a ginger scald.”
Conté moved adroitly to fill this request, first selecting a tall crystal wine flute, into which he poured two fingers of purest Camorri ginger oil, the color of scorched cinnamon. To this he added a sizable splash of milky pear brandy, followed by a transparent heavy liquor called ajento, which was actually a cooking wine flavored with radishes. When this cocktail was mixed, Conté wrapped a wet towel around the fingers of his left hand and reached for a covered brazier smoldering to the side of the liquor cabinet. He withdrew a slender metal rod, glowing orange-red at the top, and plunged it into the cocktail; there was an audible hiss and a small puff of spicy steam. Once the rod was stanched, Conté stirred the drink briskly and precisely three times, then presented it to Locke on a thin silver plate.
Conté moved adroitly to fill this request, first selecting a tall crystal wine flute, into which he poured two fingers of purest Camorri ginger oil, the color of scorched cinnamon. To this he added a sizable splash of milky pear brandy, followed by a transparent heavy liquor called ajento, which was actually a cooking wine flavored with radishes. When this cocktail was mixed, Conté wrapped a wet towel around the fingers of his left hand and reached for a covered brazier smoldering to the side of the liquor cabinet. He withdrew a slender metal rod, glowing orange-red at the top, and plunged it into the cocktail; there was an audible hiss and a small puff of spicy steam. Once the rod was stanched, Conté stirred the drink briskly and precisely three times, then presented it to Locke on a thin silver plate.
It will be mine. Yes: I will make and have myself a ginger scald. After the success of Sausages a la Camorr, there is no way to avoid making the cocktail concoction that immediately made my mouth water when I read the description. There are a couple hurdles to overcome, of course.
Firstly, ginger oil is relatively expensive, ringing in at about twenty bucks an ounce. My reading of the above indicates that a ginger scald probably uses two ounces, and forty bucks for a cocktail is a little steep. Of course, I could make my own ginger oil — if I had an alembic, a run-of-the-mill piece of equipment that any good alchemist would have. However, as I am not a good alchemist, I will have to jury-rig an alembic using a light fixture.
Luckily, pear brandy is relatively easy to come by. What isn’t easy is ajento, primarily because it is a fictional liquor. Therefore I will just have to make my own. It’s a cooking wine flavored with radishes? Pah, that’s easy. I’ve got a jug of chablis infusing radishes as I type. It should be ready in a few days…
If I’m feeling especially puckish, I’ll video it for the amusement of the internets, but I am really looking forward to giving this a try!
This is what I want: an RSS Reader that aggregates content into the format of a forum. Each post is its own topic, and the reader keeps track of comments such that when a post gets new comments, it gets bumped up the list and lights up. If I’ve read all the comments, the post gets greyed out and slowly sinks under the posts getting comments. As the user, I obviously choose which blogs are aggregated in ‘my’ forum, and which blogs go in which categories (although a really slick version would sort based on post flags and categories using rules I set up).
Maybe I’m just not using my own feed reader (NetNewsWire) correctly, but while I get to read the initial post of the hundred-plus blogs I follow, I only see the comments that are already there when I read the post. I don’t have any good way to keep track of comments and participate in the resulting discussions. This I would like to fix.
Has somebody done this already, or is there some way to jigger an existing feed reader to do this?
One, each person is worthwhile,
Two, be kind in all you do,
Three, we help each other learn,
Four, and search for what is true,
Five, all people have a say,
Six, work for a peaceful world,
Seven, the web of life’s the way,
That will bring us back to me and U.U.!
Sang this in church this morning!
We’re reading The Lies of Locke Lamora here at the Robern House (well — Meg is rereading, I am reading), and when Meg came across the description of the Gentlemen Bastards cooking up some “sausages and pears sautéed in olive oil” she was consumed with a desire to try it out. This is what we came up with, and it is OMG TASTY.
3 bosc pears, sliced long
1 brown onion, julienned
4 sausages (we used some chicken-and-apple sausages)
1 tsp cardamom (or three seeds ground up in a mortar & pestle)
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
1 T agave nectar
olive oil
Heat olive oil to hotness. Throw in pears, onions, sausages. Sautée on high heat until onions are transparent. Throw in the rest of the ingredients and kill heat to almost nothing and simmer — the longer the better.
The success of this dish means I will now have to try to make a ginger scald…