Beuklz

According to Alton Brown, 'pickles' is a botched pronunciation of Beuklz, who was a 14th century Dutch fisherman who made famously good pickles. I wonder if they tasted like mine. This recipe is adapted from Alton Brown's. I've tweaked it several times so you don't have to make the same flavor mistakes.

In a pot, combine-

1 cup water
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar
2 Tbls sugar
2 Tbls sea salt
1 1/2 Tbls whole pickling spices
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp white mustard seeds
1 heavy dash of hot pepper flakes

Bring to a simmer for four minutes to awaken the spices.

Remove from heat and add to the pot-

1 small onion, sliced not too thin
2 pickling cucumbers, sliced not too thin
4 cloves garlic, chopped

Cover the pot and let the pickles soak until the mixture is cool. Transfer to mason jars and refrigerate.

Earth Hour

Last night at 8:25 p.m., you could have found me digging through junk drawers and closets, gathering tea lights and large dusty candles that crackled and sparked when lit with the strike-anywhere matches that I found in the nick of time in the cat-food-and-scissor cabinet right before the clock struck 8:30, kicking off Earth Hour 2009.

I turned off my computer. I unplugged the twinkle lights in the living room and pulled the chain on the reading lamps. I did open the refrigerator a couple of times but I booed and hissed at the bulb inside. Around 9pm I peered out my window and noticed that all the way down the block, my neighborhood was shirking Earth Hour. The sight made me feel lonely, and resolute. Scott juiced some blood oranges by candlelight, divided them into glasses with a dose of vodka and we sipped these luminous drinks at the kitchen table.

At 9:04 p.m., I discovered that our bedroom lights were still on. A thin glow issued from under the door and I leapt like an avenger to snuff it out. Our apartment has only two rooms, so I'm not sure how we managed to sit in the dark for half an hour feeling righteous without knowing that the lamps were blazing in one of them.

To atone for our transgressions and perhaps subconscious aggressions toward the movement to fight global climate destabilization, we left the lights off for an extra ten minutes or so after 9:30. It's a symbol, I thought, so the actual energy we used during this hour is beside the point. We tried, we spent some time conscious of our impact on the planet, and that's what matters. Like how you are still a better person for buying someone a really bad gift.

Dinner

VegWeb is my new favorite website. I keep catching myself ogling pictures of vegetables in various states of undress.

For dinner tonight I made cabbage and beans.

Amazing Pakistani Dal

This recipe, in a slightly different form on www.vegweb.com

1 cup dry red lentils
1 diced onion
3 diced or crushed garlic cloves
1 tsp grated ginger root
1 can of chopped tomatos
2 tsps curry powder
dash of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
4-5 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat 3 cups of water until boiling, add lentils and boil for 1 minute. Reduce heat and simmer until lentils are tender.

While lentils are simmering, heat oil in frying pan. Add onion, garlic and ginger. Fry until soft.

Add cayenne, cumin, coriander, turmeric and curry powder and saute for 2-3 minutes.

Add tomatos and saute for another 3-5 minutes.

Combine fried spice mixture with lentils and stir.

Serve with toasted whole wheat pita or over brown rice. I wilted a handful of raw spinach into mine while it was still hot. Perfect. Recipes like this are why people buy spice racks.

Smoothie Recipe Du Jour

2 oranges
1 carrot
1 chunk of ginger root
2-3 kale leaves
3/4 a bunch of green leaf lettuce

Spicy!

My Heart Wears A Drug Rug

I was riding my bike home from the grocery store tonight wearing my knitted mittens and balancing my reusable tote bag full of organic yams and dandelion greens when it hit me like a ton of patchouli- I'm like some kind of hippie or something.

I know how to pronounce 'quinoa' (that's KEEN-WAH, you hippie), care about animals and go to farmer's markets. I bought a bronze statue of the Indian Buddha at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago, which is especially incriminating.

I don't have anything against hippies necessarily, I just don't want to do drugs or have dreadlocks or anything. I realize that those are among the more external traits of hippiedom. Maybe a lot of us are walking around voting No ON 8 and Yes ON 2 (You know, free love and save the animals), while opting out of eating meals on bamboo dishware.

I really liked that bamboo dishware that Scott's brother and his girlfriend had at their house.

Oh, I'm hopeless.

Fleas and the MFA Monster

The number of inhabitants of my apartment has seen a decided spike in the last three weeks, to a now estimated one thousand living creatures. Broken down by species, that's two human beings, two felines, and 996 fleas.

I'm not a dirty dirty girl! The vacuum is my altar! The flea comb is my rosary! I regularly terrorize the cats with these two items in an effort to decimate the flea population, including their tiny salt-crystal eggs. Poor Happy has earned the nickname Crusty, because she's scratched herself to scabs. Both cats have developed the peculiarly smart habit of avoiding floors all over the apartment. Happy is the most zealous in this pursuit, careening from say, the kitchen stool across the living room and scrambling up the arm of the couch to a high table, her next ivory tower. Reports around town are that it's been a worse than usual flea season, and I take comfort in knowing that everyone else with pets is also living in a den of parasites. Wait, that's not comforting at all.

Anyway, ankles itching, I have begun the full transformation into an MFA monster right here in my own flea nursery. I posted a list of schools recently, then deleted it, and have a slightly different list now. Okay okay I'll post it again.

UT Austin
U North Carolina Greensboro
U Florida
UNH
UMass
U Illinois, Urbana-Champagne
UC Irvine
U Oregon
Washington U St. Louis
U Alabama
Syracuse
U Wisconsin-Madison
U Michigan
Indiana U

Five of the fourteen programs are more competitive than Harvard Medical school, i.e. with acceptance rates lower than three percent. None has an acceptance rate above nine percent. Am I crazy? No, I'm just an MFA monster.