Range tops

Look for the first post on Season two Buffy tomorrow. In the meantime check out the comments on the wrap up posts for season one.

So, it’s really hot where I live right now–as most places and very hot weather often drives insects inside. The other morning at around 8, I came downstairs with the baby and sat down at my kitchen island to eat breakfast or work on the computer or whatever and I looked over and I saw a BIG COCKROACH.

This cockroach was not behaving in ways that cockroaches usually behave. It was just sauntering around the kitchen floor, un-disturbed by the light, it didn’t scurry or scuttle or anything. It was just like, “hey man, what’s up? Pretty hot outside, right? I thought I come in here and chill out for a few hours.”

So, I did a little silent freak out, went upstairs, deposited the baby in his crib and came back down with a shoe to squish the totally too-cool-for-you cockroach. It never attempted to run and hide. (Normally, I would have gotten my husband to squish him, but my husband, is, alas, allergic to cockroaches. I can’t wait for the baby to be old enough for the responsibility of cockroach squishing to be his job).

Now, after this, my husband pointed out that the area underneath the range top was a little dirty and could perhaps be a cockroach magnet. So I agreed to clean under it. Let me tell you–it was disgusting. You never know how much stuff jumps out of your pots and pans and through the cracks surrounding the flames in the range top. It was all in there–4 different shapes of dried pasta, shriveled up little bits of sauteed vegetables, drips from cooking oil, little mouse turds from when we had a mouse a couple of months ago (yes, I should have cleaned under there after we got rid of the mouse–but my husband isn’t allergic to mice so it didn’t seem as urgent).

My point here is to tell you, if you have a gas range, lift it up and clean under there right now, today, before any more stuff can build up in there. use clorox disinfecting wipes and a vacuum with the narrow hose attachment.

You’ll thank me later.

My Advisor came for dinner

Words to strike fear into the heart of any dissertating student.

My advisor came over for dinner tonight — being in the area he wanted to visit and see if I had any questions about the dissertation. he was very nice and supportive which makes it all worse somehow.

So, because I’m not going to talk about that, I’ll tell you what I made for dinner.

A green salad with sweet balsamic vinaigrette
Chicken with 40-cloves of garlic and french bread to mop up all the yummy garlic sauce
Asparagus with Warm Tarragon dressing

We went out for ice cream for dessert, but if I had made dessert I would have done a strawberry shortcake or maybe just some strawberries and cream or else lemon mouse.

Don’t you wish you were eating dinner at my house?

I’m a flake.

Okay, so I’m a big fat liar. I didn’t post and didn’t write on Thursday. Don’t even ask what I was doing with my day because I can’t remember. It probably involved cleaning and napping.

To make up for it, here is a little more detail on the whole lamb dish I made the other night.

Get some cute little lamb loin chops, sautee them for 4 or 5 minutes on each side or until they are done to your liking. Then, you take whatever vegetable you want (I used tomatoes and zucchini) and sautee them in the lamb fat in the pan until they are browned and cooked through. Serve everything with the pistachio sauce.

Pistachio sauce:

1/2 cup of pistachios (shelled, duh).
1/4 cup of fresh parsley
water

process nuts and parsley in processer and then add water in a stream while the processer is running until it reaches the consistency that is appealing to you. Do this slowly and scrap down the sides of the processor bowl several times. You don’t want the sauce to get too watery.

You could probably make this with a mortar and pestle if you favor the low tech and/or are in a bad mood and need to bash some things.

Gathering thoughts…

So, we’re about halfway through the first season of Buffy. The rest of the episodes are

Episode 8 — I Robot, You Jane
Episode 9 — The Puppet Show
Episode 10 — Nightmares
Episode 11 — Out of Mind, Out of Sight
Episdoe 12 — Prophecy Girl

I’ll be writing these up over the next two weeks. In the meantime, refresh your memory of these episodes by checking out this website. I particularly like the body count per episode feature.

Buffyworld: Season 1

Random thought about dissertation: If you want to go to graduate school, think a lot about how well you take criticism and whether you are self-motivated or motivated by outside feedback. Self-motivation is key in graduate school and a really thick skin.

Last night I made some lamb for dinner. It was just some on-the-bone blade chops (which were surprisingly inexpensive), sauteed. But the key component was a really yummy pistachio nut sauce.

heart attack for breakfast

For breakfast this morning I had one of those weird cheese bagels where they melt a slab of cheddar cheese over the top, thus destroying the symmytry of the bagel and making it impossible to split and half and toast and spread with something and eat each half seperately.

Well, you could do it, but the bottom half with have almost no cheesy goodens and the top half would be overwhelmed with it.

So, I made a sandwich.

Cheesy bagel, split and toasted, spread with cream cheese. Two slices of bacon cooked at a low simmer for a long long time to preserve some chewiness placed on top of the cream cheese and the whole thing closed up again, smushed together and eaten out of one hand held with a napkin while I watched a show on dogfights on the history channel. Not woof woof dogfights, but rather dogfights between enemy fighter pilots.

I think for lunch I will be making a roast beef sandwich on toasted cheesy bagel. I stick with a good thing when I find it.

Pears and Proscuitto and Mint, oh my!

Last night I had honest-to-goodness company I wanted to impress so I made some appetizers. I adapted (that is, made way simpler) something I found on Epicurious. Thin slices of ripe pear with a half of mint leaf on top wrapped with a thin strip of prosciutto. Oh, this was fantastic and very simple and it impressed. Job well done, I think.