In the category of compulsive phone habits

 I keep clicking on the "Play Store" icon though I don't want anything from there. I guess my brain sees the word "Play" and thinks "Fun" so tells me to click it.

I understand why he had to go, but I still miss him

Woke too early this morning. Gave up on trying to go back to sleep. Boiled water. Got out the blue bowl to make Cream of Wheat. (Blue, vs. white, is important for detecting the difference between the Cream of Wheat and the bowl.) 

We buy the store-brand generic cream of wheat when it's available, but when it's not we get the original brand. Generic comes in a bag. Today it was the box, thus the brand-name version. On which I expected to see the black chef in the puffy hat but of course he's gone. 

The Cream of Wheat man and the Quaker Oats man who reminded me of Captain Kangaroo were the companions of my childhood breakfasts. Along with my dad, who cooked the cereal and served it to me.

As an adult, now, I understand the historical reasons why the black chef was problematic--though if he were introduced now, when chefs are idolized, wouldn't he just be a Betty Crocker type of personification of the brand? It seems less trustworthy now that no one is on the box to vouch for it.

Acorns are nuts, therefore...

It's amazing how many of the sites telling you how to make acorns edible first give complex instructions involving hammers or advising caution in the use of serrated knives. Such clever and resourceful people, apparently ignorant of the existence of a nutcracker--in spite of the very famous eponymous ballet that is well-publicized every Christmas season.

coda: I found that tannin leached out effectively from the broken acorns that I threw into the still-warm leftover pasta water. Was it the starch? The salt?

Ground some up with flax seeds in the blender and added it to bread-machine bread this morning. Though honestly, I don't think I had enough acorn to affect the taste.

Spurred on by success, I have extracted perhaps a dozen more acorns into pieces. They are now soaking in cold water, awaiting the next time we cook pasta.

I did make acorn flour a few years ago, enough to add a quarter cup at a time to whole-wheat bread. It did add a nice flavor to the bread.

Different years yield different quantities of acorns. This fall is a mega-acorn season. We joked about needing to wear hard hats while walking to avoid being bonked.

Acorns are all over the place.

Starting to dwindle with approaching winter though.

 

fast yogurt dip

One last carrot remained in the fridge. I sliced it into long ovals then looked for humus. No dice. So, poured some yogurt into a ramekin and added:

• onion powder
• garlic powder
• cumin
• chopped chives (since they were in the garden and it's not winter)
• salt
• DILL

With a small amount of:

• smoked paprika
• crushed dried lemon balm
• tiny bit mustard powder
• splash of tabasco (may not have been enough of a splash to be noticed.)

Not bad.

The kid says it tastes like Ranch. 

Possibly. 

Cerulean Sweater

Our house is a hand-me-down sinkhole; our hand-me-downs go back decades, and swirl around in bags and the back of closets. This vintage sweater turned up on one of my daughters a few months ago. It looks like the cerulean sweater Andy wore in "The Devil Wears Prada". 

I'd previously assumed the famous* cerulean sweater monologue was just a well-written illustration of how fashion works. Now I wonder if this hand-me-down is evidence of an actual Cerulean episode in fashion history. 

Even though the label says 'Lands End' not 'Casual Corner'.

*Just search for "cerulean sweater devil wears Prada" and you get results like 

https://youtu.be/vL-KQij0I8I?si=TEd8rpEaxvvubRFA   

I had less luck finding whether the monologue was based on any actual example.

October 2024

•  Do you ever find yourself thinking, if I eat that banana, I won't have to make banana bread?
• I know one other person who's taking vacation time after the election just in case of dire outcome resulting in stress and sorrow. Is this widespread?
• Why have Krispy Klondike Bars become so stingy with the krispies?
• The problem with investing in a nice pin or brooch (don't ask me what the difference is) is that if you're dressed up enough to be wearing special jewelry, you don't want a hole on the nice shirt/blouse/dress/sweater that you're wearing. Is the solution to convert all pins to pendants? It can't be done just by hanging a pin from a chain. It doesn't hang right.
• (in spite of this, I have been unable to resist ordering some pretty pins from Poshmark.)
• We often see birds in rhododendron growing outside the kitchen window. This morning I wondered at what a tiny bird was that? It was a mouse.
• More people should know that they can use the net bags that wrap grocery-store produce as really good scrubbies for dishes and bathtubs. Just take the empty onion/orange/whatever bag and scrunch it up and knot it a few times.

plangent plucks of shamisen strings

from this month's AAA Magazine AAA Explorer, "A Tale of Two Cities" by Don George:

"On a dusky April evening in Kyoto..down a cobbled alleyway framed by weathered wooden buildings. The plangent plucks of shamisen strings floated from a screened second-floor room..."

My spouse said "plangent" was an unusual & not modern word, likely confined to the Oxbridge crowd or equivalent.

I was willing to accept it was just a word I didn't know the meaning of until I looked it up.