Blogolalia

Monday, July 19, 2010

We made brisket in the crock pot for yesterday’s lunch (it’s super easy - put brisket or roast in crock pot; pour in a bottle of BBQ sauce (I used Famous Dave’s Texas Pit); set cooker to Low and cook overnight; in the morning slice or shred the meat and allow to continue in the cooker until lunchtime. Thanks, Granny!)

I had picked up some zucchini and decided to make my mother’s Zucchini Imperial recipe. It’s oh, so good. I posted the recipe at Tasty Kitchen, but here it is for you, too.

(Pictured: Brisket Sliders on Beau’s homemade buns, Zucchini Imperial, leftover Five Guys french fries.)

Zucchini Imperial
Serves 8

4 cups cooked, well drained zucchini slices
1 cup Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 Tbsp margarine, melted

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. Clean, slice, and steam your zucchini. I usually salt veggies that I steam and I did this time also. If you do that, then reduce the amount of salt you add later.

3. In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients except for the breadcrumbs and margarine. Gently fold to mix well.

4. Pour mixture into a greased 9X13” baking dish or casserole.

5. In a small bowl, melt the margarine in the microwave - about 10-15 seconds. Add the breadcrumbs and stir until well mixed and crumbly. If it seems too wet, add more breadcrumbs.

6. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until nicely browned.

This can be made a little ahead and refrigerated prior to baking. If you bake after refrigerating, take out of the frig while the oven is heating. Then cook for 40 min minimum.

Enjoy.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

There’s a new blog link list in the sidebar. Now added is the Gourmandery list - food blogs. It was past time to do this, really. And then I just added a new one to the list this morning because Beau’s cousin Karen (of the lavender olive oil cake last weekend) has brought to my attention another lovely olive oil cake from cook eat Fret - zucchini olive oil cake with lemon crunch glaze.

Time to get baking…

Friday, July 09, 2010

Months ago, Jared Wilson posted a prayer from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers. I think it was actually the prayer called The Valley of Vision. I liked the prayer and promptly put the book on my wishlist as a gift idea for Beau.

To my happy surprise, I received a copy for my birthday back in March. We have been slowly reading through it as a bedtime devotional on the nights that we are actually able to go to bed at the same time. Lately, that has been rare because of the kids or one or the other of us being utterly exhausted. But on the night’s that we’re able to read one of the prayers, I have been struck by the beauty of the language, the total submission to the authority of God, and the simplicity of the gratitude and understanding of God’s grace and mercy.

God is God and He is good and His mercies endure forever.

In Prayer

O Lord, in prayer I launch far out into the eternal world, and on that broad ocean my soul triumphs over all evils on the shores of mortality. Time, with its gay amusements and cruel disappointments never appears so inconsiderate as then.

In prayer I see myself as nothing; I find my heart going after Thee with intensity, and long with vehement thirst to live to Thee. Blessed be the strong gales of the Spirit that speed me on my way to the New Jerusalem.

In prayer all things here below vanish, and nothing seems important but holiness of heart and the salvation of others.

In prayer all my worldly cares, fears, anxieties disappear, and are of as little significance as a puff of wind.

In prayer my soul inwardly exults with lively thoughts at what Thou art doing for Thy church, and I long that Thou shouldest get Thyself a great name from sinners returning to Zion.

In prayer I am lifted above the frowns and flatteries of life, and taste heavenly joys; entering into the eternal world I can give myself to Thee with all my heart, to be Thine for ever.

In prayer I can place all my concerns in Thy hands, to be entirely at Thy disposal, having no will or interest of my own.

In prayer I can intercede for my friends, ministers, sinners, the church, Thy kingdom to come, with greatest freedom, ardent hopes, as a son to his father, as a lover to the beloved.

Help me to be all prayer and never to cease praying.

Amen.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

I finished reading a fun book yesterday. Chris at Rude Cactus mentioned it a couple of weeks ago and since I’ve tried books that he’s mentioned in the past and thoroughly enjoyed them, I thought I’d try this one, too. I quickly looked it up at the library website, saw that it was not available in an audio version and promptly put the hardcover on hold.

The first novel of Marshall Karp, The Rabbit Factory is a fun detective novel in the classic sense.

Welcome to Lamaar Studios. Once a small Southern California animation house, it has grown into an entertainment conglomerate encompassing movies, television, music, video games, and a sprawling theme park called Familyland.

When an actor portraying Familyland’s beloved mascot, Rambunctious Rabbit, is brutally murdered on park grounds, Lamaar executives fear that their idyllic image of ‘50s America will be shattered. Feeling pressure from the studio, LAPD Detectives Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs must conduct their investigation while avoiding the public eye.

But as more murders are committed, Lomax and Biggs uncover a sinister plot. Someone has a vendetta against Lamaar, a vendetta worth killing for. With the media closing in and political pressure mounting, the partners must race to discover the Lamaar-hating madman before he brings the family entertainment giant to its knees.

The mystery is intriguing and takes several surprising turns as the story progresses. The characters are colorful and hilarious and touching. The dialogue is very witty. I highly recommend the book. I’m looking forward to reading Karp’s 3 other novels. I give this one 4.5 stars.

Warning: There is adult and sexual content and language.

Bonus Material: Karp has a blog - Lomax & Biggs - that I’ve added to my list in the sidebar because I have a feeling I’ll be visiting often.

Saturday, July 03, 2010

[via Thinkling Bill]

Thanks to Beau’s cousin, Karen, I have discovered Smitten Kitchen. Dear me. And I mean that in the best possible way you can say, “Dear me.”

This recipe is in our future, but of course, I’ll have to replace the bleu cheese with something else.

And then there’s this, too.

I’m attempting a pineapple upside-down cake with fresh pineapple this weekend - for Beau. He loves his fresh pineapple. And I’m going to make another batch of crock pot rice pudding, this time for my mother. I’ll do this batch with uncooked rice to see how that improved the recipe. I’ll post more, with pictures, after baking.

On that, I’m going to try to take better pictures of the recipes I present here. No more quick shots with the Blackberry. I’m going to attempt to take good shots of the food I make. If I can get good shots of my jewelry, I can get good shots of food.

Friday, July 02, 2010

I’ve been blogging for about 8 years now (the actual anniversary is in August). That’s just cuh-razy. You’d think at this point my readership would be through the roof. However, that is so not the case. I think I can count on one hand the number of regular readers, outside of my family, who still visit ye ole blogge. I can lay the blame squarely at the feet of Facebook. I spend way more time over there, post way more often, and comment on stuff there as opposed to the blogs that I visit. And yet, I still have a deep affection for my blog and the folks who do still read my drivel. There are several of you who have been with me going back to the beginning and you deserve better. So it’s time to make a change and a commitment.

I commit to you, dear readers, that I will post more meaty content here at Lintefiniel Musing. I promise more humor and news commentary. Maybe some politics - that’s a big maybe given my employer and the climate today. Definitely some spiritual stuff. Less complaining (this is something that I need to do in real life, as well). More TV, movies, books? This means I’ll need to watch more TV and movies than I am currently, but I can work on that. I can’t talk about work stuff anymore - frankly it’s way more boring than at the courthouse and I’m not at liberty to share most of what I see or do. And there are no colorful personalities in my immediate daily worklife. I know - sad. (Not really - I’m happy for no drama, believe me.) You tell me - what do you miss that I used to do here? What wouldn’t you miss if I stopped doing it here? [Added Later] More recipes? More jewelry/business talk? Help me help you.

And I commit to commenting more faithfully at the blogs that I visit, too. Because I do visit quite a few, but I’ve been too darned lazy to take the time to say something, anything, to my fellow bloggers.

Also, and this will take a lot more time and effort than my job and family may allow, but I think it’s time for a visual change as well. I’ve been thinking of switching to WordPress, but that’s a rather large job that may mean the loss of years’ worth of posts. In the meantime I hope to work on a new template, a freshening of the look here. A wider format, for sure. Techies, prepare yourselves for questions.

Let me know what you think…

Friday, June 04, 2010

I inadvertently offended a friend with a comment I made on Facebook yesterday. I am sorry that the person was offended and I have apologized to her directly (well, via email). I knew as I typed it that someone probably would not like what I had to say on this particular issue, despite the fact that I said I sympathize and have no judgments about it. I merely shared that I have a question about an aspect of the issue. I almost didn’t post it.

The thing is that there is nothing anyone can say on this particular topic (that shall remain nameless) that won’t ever offend someone on some level. I have read enough blog posts from people who deal with this issue to know that anyone who doesn’t deal with the issue treads pretty heavily if they say anything about anything on the topic. I know that this particular issue is a deeply emotional one and I also know that because I don’t deal with this particular issue that I cannot fully understand the person who does.

Anyway, without opening the can of worms into something that might irreparably harm my friendship with the individual, I’ll stop here. And I will not speak of said issue again, in any venue, because there is clearly nothing I can say, in any way, that won’t offend. I am deeply sorry for the hurt my comment caused.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

There isn’t much I can say about the LOST finale that hasn’t been said already this week. It was both disappointing and amazing. A full week after seeing it, I still have a mostly positive opinion of it and think that it was a good ending.

For more insights, The Thinklings have a long discussion thread going, but be aware that it is highly spoilerish, of course.

I’ve started to re-watch from the beginning. What’s interesting is how much I have forgotten that happened back then and also to see those early events through the lens of knowing how it all ends and what some of the mysteries really are (like the Smoke Monster). The first 5 minutes were intense and awesome and reminded me of how great a show this was from the very start.

I am sad that the ride is over.

Friday, May 14, 2010

I love this insight into The Hobbit.

We’ve been part of this adventure with Bilbo from the beginning. We’ve found ourselves comfortable in the Shire and suddenly thrown, partially against our will, into an adventure with a band of dwarves and a quirky wizard. We escaped trolls, goblins, Gollum, spiders, and wood-elves; we’ve discovered a magic ring and a sword. At this point, about 2/3 of the way into the book, Tolkien makes a very deliberate story transition: “…we are now drawing near the end of the eastward journey and coming to the last and greatest adventure, so we must hurry on” (end of chapter 9, “Barrels out of Bond”).

From here, we step into Lake-town, a small wooden village of people (not elves or dwarves) a few days from Dale and the Lonely Mountain. Dale is the town and the Lonely Mountain the dwarf dwelling places that were destroyed by the dragon Smaug, and the reason for the whole adventure: The dwarves are returning to reclaim their treasure and defeat Smaug. In Lake-town, a fascinating little legend (or fairy tale) had been told for many years that the Dwarf kings Thror and Thrain would return “and gold would flow in rivers through the mountain-gates, and all that land would be filled with new song and new laughter.”

In other words, a land plunged into darkness by an evil dragon would be returned to a state of glory by the return of a king. Sound familiar?

Go read the whole thing. Makes me love The Hobbit even more.

[via Brandywine Books]

Thursday, May 06, 2010

This is who The Pioneer Woman missed out on the other night.

Shame to miss that cuteness, no?

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

The Pioneer Woman was in town yesterday as part of her cookbook tour. The shindig was scheduled to start at 6pm. I had a plan - I was going to leave work early in order to have time to get home to freshen up a bit and pick up Molly and get to the bookstore by 5pm. I figured I’d be home by 7:30 or maybe 8pm.

I got home in record time. Molly was just waking up from her nap, which was perfect. I got my stuff together, which included a fully loaded bag for Molly with diapers, milk, snacks, and even jarred food for just in case; and my tote bag with my cookbook for signing, MP3 player for the car, Blackberry, wallet, and the box containing the earrings that I made for her, see my crappy camera phone picture below. I did take better shots with my real camera, but I haven’t downloaded them yet.

OK, so we’re at the bookstore and I am waylaid by an employee asking if I’m there for the book signing. I confirmed that I was and after also confirming that I had my book already I was given a neon green slip of paper with a sticker that was now my ticket for the signing. I headed to the coffee shop to get a snack for myself and a cold beverage and then headed in the direction of the chattering magpies who had already assembled in the back corner. Here’s where I got my first sign of foreboding - they had only set up about 30 chairs and all were already occupied. And there were about 50 other people gathered around those chairs. I maneuvered around to a place at the left side, in a row of stacks to stay out of the way of the employees who were marching up and down this narrow path. Since I had the stroller I was super conscious of space and the potential for annoying people.

And then The Waiting began. Not too long into the wait I saw my friend Kris and waved her over. Having her with me helped keep time moving - we had a nice conversation. Molly was well-behaved and charming to the ladies around us. You can sort of see the growing crowd in this shot, also taken with my phone because I figured with Molly there was no way I could actually use a real camera so I didn’t bring it.

This is just about 1/3 of the crowd at that point, maybe 5:45pm or so. To the left of that shot is the rest of the crowd, the seating, and the podium. And more were pouring in. I speculate that there were about 300 people there. I was told that each color group of tickets was 50 people. They easily had about 7 color groups of tickets and maybe more that I didn’t see.

Promptly at 6pm, Ree arrived. Everyone started taking pictures and she grabbed her camera and started taking pictures of us. Here’s the one shot I got of her doing just that.

She spoke for about 2 minutes then took questions for about 5 minutes and then they took her to the opposite end of the store to set her up for the signing while they then started organizing the masses by the colors of their tickets. Yellow was lucky - they went first. Then I think it was orange, purple, biege, magenta (Kris was that color), and then my color was called.

The employees were smart and used the stacks to weave us through the store to get to Ree. I got in line at about 6:30pm about 2 sets of stacks away (closer to the signing end) than where I had been standing for the first part. It took an hour to get a little less than halfway. It was at this point that I started to consider bailing because of Molly.

She was a trooper. Despite not being able to feed her any kind of dinner she held up really well. Add to it the stifling heat - it had to be 90 degrees in our corner of the store because of all the bodies and talking. And Molly wanted to be held, which made it even hotter for both of us. Fortunately, the gals in line with me were very sweet and tried to help keep her happy. A friend from my church was two people behind me with another friend of hers. And it turned out that one of the two directly behind me also went to my church so the 5 of us enjoyed our time in line together, talking about church stuff, TV, books, shoes, etc.

At about 7:30pm I noticed that Beau had called me so I called him back. He asked how it was going and I explained that I was only about halfway through the line and that Molly was done. He asked if I wanted him to come get her. I was reluctant (she was my conversation prop for when I got to the signing table, but I’ll explain more about that in a minute), but she was so miserable that I said yes. About 20 minutes later I saw Beau and Jesse headed my way. The ladies around me all kind of swooned at my rescuing hero. It was hilarious. They all said he gets major brownie points for coming to get Molly. I agreed. And they cooed over Jesse’s cuteness, too. At that point I considered asking them to stay, but I knew that Jesse would get too antsy, so they left. And I felt naked without Molly.

What was I going to do when I finally got to the table? I was counting on having her there to help with the small talk. I stink at small talk. I’m too shy and I stumble and I have a hard time making eye contact and I’m a complete dork in these kinds of situations. I was doomed.

By 8:45 I was next in line. I had my book out and ready and my little jewelry box, too. So I get up to the table and ham-handedly place the box on the table. “This is for you,” I said to the table. Ree thanked me sweetly and started to sign my book while I stumbled around for something to say. “So you flew in yesterday?” I asked, already knowing the answer because she said that at the beginning! D’oh! “Yes, and I fly out tomorrow,” she replied. “But I’m coming back in September with the family to do some home school touristy stuff!” I told her that’s a good time to come because it isn’t as hot. Really? That’s the best I could do? Where’s Molly? Then my friend Kris came to the rescue with her camera - she took a picture of me with Ree and then I think (hope!) I thanked Ree and I walked off.

I am a total dork. But my cookbook is signed and Ree couldn’t be more lovely and gracious. The line behind me went back to where I had started so I think she had about 90 minutes to 2 more hours of signing to get through. She took time with each person who wanted pictures, took several of her own, and smiled through the whole thing. Her face must hurt after all of the smiling she does at one of these things.

Later, in the car, I thought of the perfect thing I could have said to her, “Ree, thank you for helping my family to eat really well during our 3 blizzards this winter.”

[UPDATED]: Here are better pictures of Ree from my friend Kris.

Friday, April 09, 2010

The Pioneer Woman is one of the funniest bloggers out there. And she’s super talented.

She writes well.
She cooks well.
She photographs well.

She has adorable kids.

And she is hilarious. This post made me LOL the other day and This post got me LOLing today.

I have her cookbook and I’m very excited that she’s coming to a Border’s near me in early May. I plan to stalk see her there and I’m hoping to get my copy signed.

Monday, March 22, 2010

I shared about the blog with my small group tonight. We’re reading Jared Wilson‘s Your Jesus is Too Safe together and they asked how I knew him. Since I have never met Jared in real life, I had to explain the blog.

What amazed me is to remember that I’ve been blogging since August 2002. I first met The Thinklings sometime before their infamous What Color is This Liquid? post. I was comment #61, posted on May 6, 2003, asked to chime in by Bill. I was the first non-Thinkling (unless you count Bird’s and Bill’s wives), to post a comment. It was all downhill from there in blogland.

It’s yellow, by the way.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Four hours into the new season and I’m optimistic that this season of 24 will be better than last season’s crapfest.  ***SPOILERS follow***

As always, Tuesday’s reading requirement is Dave Barry’s blog. Today’s quote:

Jack got sucked into a plot to kill the head of the Generic Islamic Republic, President Sham, who has been negotiating a nuclear treaty with President Woman President and also bonking a professional journalist who has been set up as the fall person for the plot by the real plotters. Jack and Chloe tried to explain this to CTU Director Brian Hastings, who does not believe them because, in keeping with established CTU-director tradition, he has the anti-terrorism instincts of lasagna.

And The Amazing Steve’s recap, too. His quote:

Davros tells Cole to make everyone move to the northeast. Cole calls it in, but says that Davros is with him now! Just as Davros is about to pull the trigger to kill Cole, Jack shoots Davros! Just in time! Davros is dead, and Jack takes pictures for his CTU Memories Scrapbook.

I may be reading Magic Lamp during the new season of LOST, too, since it looks like he writes about that as well. Woo.