Archive for farmers’ market
happy Brussels sprouts day!
Posted in Kids, pictures with tags Belgium, Brussels, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cooking, farmers' market, Gemmifera, home cooking, national day, progoitrin, sinigrin, Veganuary, winter foods, Winter is coming on January 31, 2026 by xi'an
a journal of the Pacific and Northwest tƿēnight
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life with tags 10k, Africa, Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, bagels, bakery, Barnes & Noble, book review, boulangerie, bread making, COVID-19, farmers' market, First Nations, frijoles, glacier, huckleberry, Journal of the Plague Year, JSM 2024, Miguel de Cervantes, Mount Baker, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Mount Hood, Netflix, Oregon, Pacific North West, Paris 2024 Olympics, Portland, ramen, Russian invasion, rye bread, Seattle, sequel, skillet, smoked salmon, spelt, Thai cuisine, Ukraine, USA, wheat, William Marx, William McIlvanney, wynn rune on September 7, 2024 by xi'an
Read both the first (1605) and the second (1615) books of Don Quixote along with the (William) Marx commentary (Un été avec Don Quichotte) over the PNW vacations, a delight in discovering how modern it is! Even modern enough to write a follow-up (II) and to initiate the meme that sequels are not as good as the original, although the parts where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza debate of their own characters in tome I are hilarious and the prologue of tome II made me discover a certain Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda had written a (poor) sequel of his own, published in 1614. As well as the detective novel The Heretic by Liam McIlvanney, set in Glasgow in 1975, which I enjoyed a lot (except for the lazy, easy, hurried ending), presumably due in part of the references to places near the U of G that sounded so familiar. The political aspects are more stringent than in the earlier book. (And those of his uncle.) And Gab’s Road to Freedom, of course! Also came back from a Sunday aft at Barnes & Noble, in NE Seattle, with a pile of books that threatened to overflow my luggage allowance!
Made frijoles negros over a rainy day in Mount Hood Village. As it takes a while to soften the black beans and then further simmer them to turn them into a yummy paste, this was the perfect opportunity! And I made enough to recook the dish several days in a row, improving each time! I also learned there how to cook with an iron skillet (found in the first airbnb cabin we rented), after rescuing (overcleaning?) the skillet from its greasy state and starting the fire alarm a few times (only frightening the nearby bear, I presume). Mount Hood Village where I bought some outanding smoked salmon from a local First Nations fisherman, with a long discussion on running (as I was wearing my Huckleberry 10k tee-shirt) As I had not time at all for cooking while at JSM in Portland, I gave into the opportunity to get great lunches at Hat Hei Belmont (advertising Thai levels of spicy that remained rather mild) and Kiboshi (red) Ramen (that fuelled a great training session the next morning). While near Mount Baker (with no true bakery on the radar!, as many “bakeries” I came across neither bake nor sell bread…), I baked our daily (whole wheat if not rye) bread with a spelt substitute I had brought from France and on the same bake made a first attempt at whole wheat plain bagels, which ended up eatable if on the hard side. (Blame the oven!)
And watched no Netflix or any other video during the entire PNW trip, mostly due to early sleep – early run schedules, followed by long hikes on most days, and on top of frequently checking the Olympics events in the (PNW) mornings. And of course due to meeting with (no enough) friends during JSM! (Leaving Paris during the Olympics was presumably a wise move in this respect as I would have otherwise spent most of my days there watching events!)
burn baby burn…
Posted in pictures, Travel with tags agricultural subsidies, agriculture, environment, EU's common agricultural policy, European subventions, European Union, farmers' market, French politics, gilets jaunes, greenhouse-gas emissions, pesticides, polluters, protest, subsidies, unions on January 28, 2024 by xi'an
a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and death year
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags book review, books, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, dark fantasy, farmers' market, film review, four horsemen of the Apocalypse, grimdark, Isle of Lewis, Journal of the Plague Year, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Korean cinema, pandemics, peatbogs, rhubarb, Russian invasion, squid, Terry Pratchett, tuna, Ukraine, waguy beef, war orphans on June 25, 2023 by xi'an
Read both following volumes of Peter May’s Lewis trilogy, The Lewis Man and The Chessmen. The stories remain focussed on the same few characters as in the first volume, with some predictable developments and a rather heavy borrowing to the local history in the shape of a peat-bog mommy or a plane crash. And of the terrible early 20th Century policies of dispatching orphans throughout Scotland without ever checking on their well-being. Rather disappointing in the end with way too many convenient coincidences, implausible twists of fate, and larger than life characters. (And very artificial dialogues of teenagers, either in the 1980’s or in the 2010’s.) Read also two remarkable Tanizaki’s short stories, Fumiko’s feet and The mermaid’s lament. Which demonstrate impressive writing style. And his Diary of a mad old man, written in a completely different way, about an hypochondriac old man obsessed by his son’s wife, who negotiates glimpses at the highest price. It reminded me of Kawabata’s Sound of the Mountain, although the later is much more ambiguous on that relation. (Obviously not the only one to note the similarities.)
Moved the title of this recurring post to add another horseman for another year. Next round, if any, I will have to borrow a fifth horseman from Terry Pratchett!
Had another great lunch at KGB, in the Odéon district of Paris, which stands for Kitchen Gallery Bis and has no obvious Russian connections. Both the surprise collection of primi piatti (incl. a wagyu bouillon and a cold squid salad) and the half-baked tuna were original and an avalanche of flavours. I skipped the desert, centred on rhubarb, as this is our current fare, making fresh rhubarb [from the farmers’ market] marmalade once or twice a week (with a heavy spoonful of ginger).
Watched part of The Mother, a total waste of time as another action movie with implausible situations, a complete disregard to real life constraints, and the permanent glorification of guns.
art brut
Posted in pictures with tags art brut, Channel, farmers' market, fishing, homecooking, ink, Normandy, squids on January 7, 2023 by xi'an
