Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
image: a mess of greens, as it were, on a fancy plate.

I tried sweet potato greens. I followed this recipe: https://thewoksoflife.com/yam-leaves/.  By chance, I happened to have Shaoxing wine leftover from another dish, so I duplicated the instructions fairly faithfully. Normally, I also have sesame oil around, but turns out I'd used that up without remembering to buy more. That may have made a big difference to the taste, but maybe not.

What I decided about this dish was that it was strongly "okay." I was not blown away, but I was also not "ewww."  I did tend to prefer the leaves to the stems, even though I was clearly supposed to use both in this recipe. Perhaps I didn't cook the stems long enough, but I found them to be kind of woody/crunchy? It might be intentional to have both textures in this dish, however, since otherwise the leaves were very wilted and soft (which sounds bad, but which I found to be the yummist part.)

I saved out a few of the yam/sweet potato leaves because, in doing further research, I discovered yam leaves are used in some much more exciting looking dishes from Sierra Leone and other parts of the African continent. I watched a few videos of people making various dishes and I suspect that if I try any, I will have to go looking for palm oil. Everyone I watched seems very adamant that palm oil is essential to authentic taste.

Of course the real trick will be convincing my family to try, but both Shawn and Mason like Ethiopian food and I am hoping whatever I end up making will be enough similar that they will at least taste it. I should probably plan to make it for a lunch, though, so in case my family chickens out, I won't have too huge a pile of food with no one but me to eat it. :-)

Looking in the fridge, the only other stuff I still need to use up is the cabbage and the beets. I have plans for a big part of the cabbage tonight as we're having pork pot stickers. With whatever's left over, I'll make borscht. Unless it gets hot, in which case, I'll start looking into beet salads. But honestly, I can see why my ancestors liked beets. They keep really well. 

In other news, this is Mason's birthday week. He's turning 17 on the 24th. It seems unreal How can it be seventeen years already? But, I guess that's the funny thing about kids: they grow up. I think I reported that we finally managed to get his fancy laptop delivered. So, he's actually been enjoying his big birthday present for a week already. 

In fannish news, I've been binging Star Trek: Discovery. I just finished Season 2, Episode 5: "Saints of Imperfection."  So far, I am not as big a fan of season two as I was of the first season. HOLY CRAP I loved the first season. I emailed my friend tallgeese to say just how much that first season was my JAM.  Second season lacks some of the punch for me, I guess? At least at this point. Perhaps it will turn around. However, I will literally watch Michelle Yeoh read a grocery list. I've been a fan of Yeoh since I saw her in various Hong Kong action films, when I used to go to the midnight Asian Film series at the Riverview Theater back in the early aughts. Her character in the second season is a scenery chewer, which I adore. I only have a few more days on my free week of the CBS streaming service, so I'm going to watch what I can and then call it good enough. 

Shawn expressed interest in re-watching some of the newer Star Trek movies, so we might do that as well.

What are you all watching? Anything interesting?

 I drove home today in "wintery mix" --basically snow, but mostly the sort that melts the instant that it hits the ground. It has since decided to stick. I took a picture of the big maple tree. It's a bit blurry because, I didn't actually want to step outside now that the temperature has dropped enough for our first official few inches.



As I was driving around in this awful mess, I got a craving for the kinds of songs that I LIVED on during the 1970s and 1980s (and, let's be honest, well into the 1990s when I was marching in the "Take Back the Night" marches in Loring Park). You know, hard core folk music where Utah Philips sings about dumping the bosses off your back and lyrics like, "if blood be the cost of your awful wealth, Good God, we have bought it fair."  I cleaned out our hall closet where we stashed our (STILL WORKING!) turntable and all the vinyl and found all sorts of gems including old Holly Near and so much Pete Seeger.  

Plus, this:



The Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy--that's the album that has "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" as sung by the late, great Leonard Nimoy.  And, an album on which Nimoy reads "The Cool Green Hills of Earth" by Robert Heinlein, as well as "Gentleman, Please Be Seated."  Such good stuff.  I intend to send this snowy day listening to uplifting music.

Right now, Pete Seeger, recorded in Carnegie Hall in 1963 is singing "Oh, Freedom!"

JUST. What. I. NEED.

It's been a long time since my last post, so I have a few things to report. First of all, y'all were absolutely right: the "Star Trek" re-boot rules. There was so much awesome and everyone's already seen it so, yeah. What you guys said. Only one very, very small moment of fangeekitude regret for me. Okay, I know that this is an alternate universe (which was deeply clever and totally worked for me), BUT the Kobashi Maru, didn't live up to its hype. I wanted the Old Universe Kirk to, yes, cheat in terms of re-programming the simulation, but also do one of those "I totally pulled this con act out of my ass and you were punked" kinds of things ala "The Corbornite Maneuver." I wanted a hint of the part of Captain James T. Kirk that is all about the hunches that we know and love. I found the whole "whatever. I'm just munching on an apple" attitude really annoying, and the only part of the young Kirk's characterization that seemed a bit off (and off-putting, for me.)

Another thing I've learned about myself the older I get is that the characters I used to find square and uninteresting totally turn me on now. Spock was hot. It blows my mind to think that I feel that way now, but put Spock up there with Captain America and Daredevil as a character I used to be vaguely uninteresting that now rocks my world. I'm so glad he got to say "fascinating" at least once too.

I wonder.... is Spock/Kirk getting its own relaunch? (Weirdly, I might actually read that.)

In gardening news, I put a lot of plants in over the weekend, including some herbs from Shady Acres. It was a lot of work, but the yard is very slowly starting to appear more "intentional" which is my constant goal given my tendency towards overgrown, weed-friendliness.

As we were coming back with some gardening supplies from Menards on Saturday, I saw a live baby bunny hopping through our underbrush. Seeing that made the whole sad day much less so.

Okay, got to go work. See you all soon.

Actually, I KNOW I'm a Trekkie. Mason and I were staring, bleary-eyed at the box of frosted Mini-Wheats at breakfast, and I saw the Starfleet uniform shirts they had on offer. Mason thought they looked cool and I ended up spending the rest of the morning before school recounting the plots of some of my favorite OT episodes ("OT," of course, meaning Original Trek or Old Trek to those of us who used to be on the STREK-L listserv before I...er, killed it.)

Shawn turned to me in the car while I was explaining "Trouble with Tribbles," and said, "You've been waiting your whole life for this momment, haven't you?" Passing on the "nerd" torch? Hell yeah. Besides, it's a time honored family tradition. My mother is a huge OT fan.

Speaking of which, while Mason was finishing up his frosted mini-wheats, I ran upstairs to the closet and unearthe the Starfleet shirt my mother sewed for me when I was in high school (probably as a Halloween costume). It's a whole lot of awesome, and, I'm happy to report, I still fit into it. Though I had my mom sew on the rank of Captain (I'm sure I wanted to be Kirk), in it Shawn pointed out that I look more like Yeoman Rand without the bee-hive.

Then I got giddy about the new Trek movie which, as I noted on Facebook, kind of sort of might look cool. (I'm nervous about liking it too much. I've been disappointed so often by my fannish desires. Think: midiclorians.) But, but... Kirk looks... hot.

Have you checked these out? Star Trek trailers

Dude.