I seem to have devolved into a once a week blogger, so I guess I might as well report on my week.
Backwards – weekend to weekend. We were going to go to Chicago this weekend but got scared off by the weather predictions of ice storm and crazy wind. It turned out to not be so bad on the ice & snow front, but is indeed another of our winter weather roller coasters. Yesterday the high was 37° and it rained most of the day. This morning it was still 31° at 8:00 a.m. but is dropping steadily and is supposed to be -3 by 8:00 Monday morning.
I was hoping to see Laurie Simmons at MCA – she was there to give a talk Saturday afternoon, and I had reserved my two free tickets and everything, but the show will be up until May, so it didn’t seem worth a white knuckle drive to see her. We also thought we might go to the first in this series of concerts, in honor of Rudolph Ganz. I guess this first one is on Ganz’s 142nd birthday, but there are still 2 more in the series, and my friend Alison is playing at the next one in March. So maybe we can go to that one.
And, this is my first free weekend in several – last weekend I had Chief Inspector training on Saturday and dessert potluck on Sunday. The weekend before was the Garden Expo. I also have a ton of grading to do – that I’m on break from right now … so another reason to stay in Madison.
I did try the little chocolate cakes that I made for the potluck the next day, and they were still good, but had lost their appealing crunch. The idea of serving them with pastry cream, like I did at the potluck, is a winner. It’d be a great dessert when I have my (mythical) fancy restaurant (this is a dessert more likely to be served at Dinner at DebS, or just when you come over sometime) – the little cakes served warm, in a puddle of chilled pastry cream.
I was going to say Monday was a normal work day, but it wasn’t – there was more shoveling in the morning, and Mark was home because the ALA gives staff Presidents’ Day off. I got to work by 9:30 for a connection check with a remote speaker that I had booked for my Wednesday class, and they didn’t show. We rescheduled for Tuesday. I went to visit at the polling place where I was scheduled to work on Tuesday, then went to credit union and got money to pay the cleaners. Back to work and stayed around to peer review another instructor’s class and oh, right, have to write that up … and finally got home around 7:00 and ate leftover cauliflower curry with buttered mini tortillas for supper.
Then I still had to tab the poll books, highlight the absentees, and make a double batch of muffins for poll workers – and us. I used basically this recipe, which I liked for using whole cranberries, and I glazed them with leftover icing from the back of the fridge since cookie season. I added candied orange peel, too.
Working the election went OK – getting there by 6:00 a.m. might’ve been the hardest part. A lot of us Chief Inspectors were sent to different polling places, sort of an opportunity for cross-training. I was at Porchlight, a low income housing and feeding the homeless operation in a former SRO YMCA. Madison’s version of Moosewood, a 1970s hippie vegetarian restaurant called Main Course used to be there. They have a facebook page, but are otherwise long gone. In the early 1980s, when I was dating a Vietnam vet, he lived there. So I think I might’ve spent the night there once or twice. Anyways, it’s a little weird as a polling place, but it was super slow. Aside from the people who live there, most of the voters in Porchlight’s district are students, and this was a primary election to select mayoral candidates and school board = not a big draw for students.
After I went home to do that connection check and work until the cleaners showed up, then went out to meet Jane for coffee, pick up a few things at Whole Foods, and finally voted myself. I got home about 5:30, planning to make a baked pasta with sausage, pepperonata, all the ends of bags of pasta that Anna opens, and Ed Chwae’s home made ricotta. But by the time I got there, Anna was in bed and had already eaten, so I decided to make the pasta anyways and stick it in the fridge for another night. (We ate it Thursday when Mark was home, so more people to eat – better anyways). I made myself a cheeseboard for one. Huntsman, ski queen, peppadews, olives, baguette, crackers.
Wednesday there was more snow to shovel: 3-4 inches of fluffy stuff in the morning then another about 2 of heavy snowman snow in the evening.
Thursday was meeting to meeting all day long, well, there was a job talk and a work lunch in there too, then home for that baked pasta for dinner.
Friday we went to see Bohemian Rhapsody, that I just watched win a bunch of Academy Awards, and Mark & I ate the last two slices of Jane & Jonathon’s peach pie for dinner after. I had mine with the last bit of custard sauce; Mark chose ice cream.
Sunday morning we had French toast made from the Christmas morning cinnamon rolls that had been in the freezer till now, and bacon, and orange segments.
Here’s my current stuff to cook list:
I’ll let you know how it all turns out
I’m having a bacon butty with the milk bread for work lunch today. It’s that fluffy white bread where you make a paste of some of the flour and milk before mixing with the rest of the flour and and yeast and butter and egg. Evidently it’s a Japanese technique. I had this Food52 version saved as a page in my phone forever wanting to try it, but ended up using Cuisine at Home, because I just got the mag in the mail, and it’s a small batch. That recipe doesn’t seem to be online, but recipes for milk bread are all over the place – King Arthur, NYT Cooking …. I’m doing rolls next!
Bacon Butty Fix’ins