As good as a prize

Or maybe even better. Sara, over at Moving Right Along, who sort of got me involved in this whole thing in the first place, and who is an all-around great gal, has made this handy "mission accomplished" badge to post. I guess I should add it to the previous post, or maybe I could put it on the sidebar somewhere. But I'm going to add another entire post, just so I can say I posted 38 times this month!!

Well, I guess that's it, then

Here it is, the last day of NaBloPoMo, and I still haven't gotten around to posting anything really serious or profound. But you know what? I suspect that I'm just not that kind of a blogger. I don't know why I thought I might do that. I guess that because I think about serious and profound things from time to time, and I occasionally talk about them with friends and with colleagues here at the rocket surgery plant, I thought I could write about these things, and post them here for youall to read. You know: stuff like the economy, farm subsidies, urban sprawl, the ethics of animal research, what it means to live in a rape culture -- I'd probably wanna throw in a little epidemiology now & then to lighten things up a bit.

Maybe next year.

But, as I mentioned the other day, I'm glad I participated in this little exercise, and more than a little relieved that I didn't bail out or -- especially -- forget. I actually am taking a break from work to post this last one so's I don't forget it. I'd feel particularly silly to forget to post on the last day. And anything could happen once I leave the office.

Plus there's the fabulous prize aspect. I know that there's a random drawing involved, but I'd like to point out for the record that this is my 37th post in November, and there are only 30 days in the month of November. Which is to say that I exceeded my NaBloPoMo obligation here, and also rather wildly exceeded all of my previous posting efforts.

It hasn't been all that difficult, to be honest. I've had a couple of notable slumps, but I did manage to crank out 28 posts in April 2006; 25 posts each in October 2007 and July 2006; and 23 in March 2006.

For my next trick, I will attempt to post a greater number of posts in 2007 than in any previous year. Which I guess means that I need to add 12 more in December to exceed 139, which is how many items I posted in 2005. I think I can do it. I've already exceeded my 2006 efforts by 28 posts!

And so what if Mrs. Kennedy and her friends don't send me a prize? I'm not in this for money or prizes. Participation is its own reward, right? I have had so much fun doing this, in fact, that I'm going to give out prizes to you!

If you are one of the first eleven people to send an email containing your snailmail address* to me at xmasCD2007 -at- alphabitch -dot- org, I will send you a CD copy of my annual selection of festive holiday music. I'm not sure what's on it yet, as I'm still listening to all of the songs on the Christmas/holiday playlist, and trying to delete whatever I sent out last year. Plus I can see there are some recordings that I've acquired in the past year that need to be added to the mix.

I'm planning to mail them out early next week, so let me know if you want one. I think I still have a few copies of last year's if you want that too. It's got Joni Mitchell, the Be Good Tanyas, the Flaming Lips, Big Star, Bruce Cockburn, the McGarrigles, and Maddy Prior, among many others.

*Your address, if you send it to me, will not be used for any purpose other than sending you this one item; it will never be shared or sold or added to mailing lists for organizations you are likely to disagree with, or to subscribe you to publications you'd rather not get. Word of honor.

Ruby dismantles the sofa!

Ruby is used to at least two long walks a day, plus free run of the back yard whenever she wants. This "short leash walks only until laceration heals" thing is getting on her nerves. And mine. We go out in the back yard on the leash and she just stares at me. We go back in the house and she gets into something the minute I sit down.

If I'm doing laundry or chores that take me from one room to another, she follows me around happily. In the sewing room, she takes the fabric scraps out of the wastebasket. I put them back in, she takes them out again. Harmless enough. Nothing in there that will choke or injure her.

But last night I sat down at the computer and the next thing I knew, Ruby had a sofa cushion in her mouth, and she was shaking it. It's quite large. I was kind of torn: do I laugh? Do I yell at her? Neither. I got out the camera. But of course by the time I got the camera out, she had had enough fun and just stood there calmly, looking at her handiwork:


I sat back down, and she got the zooms again, but I couldn't get a good action shot of her picking up the sofa cushion. It wasn't the first time she's taken the cushions off the sofa, but it was the first time I'd seen her shake one of them like that. I left the flash effect in her eyes in this shot; she does look kind of possessed, no?


I know from previous experience with the sofa cushions that putting them back too soon is asking for trouble, so I left it there. She played with her toys quietly for half an hour or so. This particular sofa cushion is undamaged. The other one is scheduled for repairs. I'll use fabric from the matching pillows, which are, alas, damaged.

This just in. Or not.

I heard on the radio this morning that Americans are using less gasoline, that maybe rising costs at the pump are causing drivers to, like, drive less. Or drive more fuel-efficient vehicles. Or something.

You don't say! Higher prices might make consumers reconsider their spending priorities? Capitalism in action! The Unseen Hand of the market made manifest!

But actually, they went on to say that gasoline sales were not actually down so much as they hadn't continued their upward trend at quite the expected rate. So we're not using less gas; we're just not using more.

This shocking story was followed a little later by a fluff piece* about the demise of the roadside attraction. Apparently the venerable tradition of giant balls of string, enormous fiberglass animals, and painted toilet seat collections is in decline across the nation. No mention of a corresponding decline in the road trip itself, just some stuff about how the little home-based businesses are overtaken by development, their eccentric owners die or retire or get bored, or the attraction itself breaks or dies or loses its unique appeal.

Between that and the Babe the Blue Ox beheading in California, I just don't know what to think.

*I heard these stories on NPR's Morning Edition. Transcripts are not posted yet, so there's no link. [Update: Here's the roadside attraction story. The other must have been part of the newscast, as I am not finding a transcript. But I'm pretty sure I heard it and did not merely dream it.]

Everything's coming up roses

I have been looking all over my backyard, trying to find whatever it is that keeps cutting Ruby's foot. OK, it's cut her foot twice, but there's obviously something dangerous out there. I've been out there several times lately, getting rid of loose pieces of wire mesh, removing old nails sticking out of boards, and generally trying to tidy up back there, but I haven't found any obvious hazards since well before her last injury. Mostly because everything is still covered with ivy and leaves, and I can't see way down in there until the green dies back.

But this morning I found some old, overgrown bushes that I think might be rosebushes in several different parts of the yard. At least two of them had enormous and terrifying thorns, and the gnarled, twisted branches were growing low enough to get your foot caught in if you were a dog. I will try to get some pictures of them. The other ones had smaller thorns and all the branches were high enough off the ground. But all of them are located near excellent hiding spots for squirrels and chipmunks and mice.

It's not over til it's over

I got an email today from our fearless NaBloPoMo leader (the lovely and talented Eden Kennedy, whom I would like to thank at this time for bothering with this whole thing) cheering me on, and reminding me that there are only a few short days left in the whole blogging every day event. I have to say that it's gone by pretty fast. Yeah, there have been a few days I didn't want to bother, or almost forgot, or wrote something that bored somebody, but I do that anyway. At least those last two items. And I had a lot of big ideas I had for Really Interesting Posts on Really Fascinating Topics, but it's increasingly unlikely that I will get around to writing them, or at least posting them, this month.

I do think it's a good idea to try writing something every day, even if it's not for publication or even for blogging. Because it's just not the end of the world if you write something boring, or even if you write it badly. My theory about writing, and about all creative work, is that at least 90% of your output is going to be lousy, so you might as well get to work. You don't have to publish all of it. And you can always re-write it later.

Even when I'm not blogging, I write something, somewhere, almost every day. Sometimes it's just a note to myself, or an annotated grocery list, or a letter to someone that I never ever send. Never even intend to send. I shred a lot of what I write; I have certainly burned a fair amount of it. Sometimes I open up a new file on the computer, write my little heart out, and then when I close the file and it asks me do I want to save the file, I click "no" and close the file and it goes away.

It's not that I'm so critical that I think that what I write is terrible and has to go away, it's more that it has served its purpose, for the moment. And it's never really gone of course, just like the shredded paper is never gone, nor the burned journals. It's all still here in my head.

Plus, I also sometimes think of poor dear Franz Kafka, on his deathbed, telling his friend Max Brod to burn his notebooks, and what does the bastard do? He published them.

But on the other hand, there are also piles of notebooks I have that contain, taped to the pages, sonnets written on the back of envelopes, essays written on the backs of 'while you were out' notes, and even love letters scrawled on the 'personal directory and notes' pages torn out of the back of the yellow pages. Stuff that, if it's good, I've transcribed or revised elsewhere, but I've felt moved to preserve the moment in which I wrote it. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but I do have a sentimental side, y'know.

Blogging is different (for me, anyway) than journaling. And rocket surgeons like myself do write things for publication now and again, so I've certainly been there and done that. But I put stuff out here and it's, well, out here. Wherever "here" is. Sure, I can alter and delete posts, but there are archives somewhere. And anybody can read them, any old time. Sometimes I am a little unnerved when I remember that this blog has an actual audience that includes people I do not know. Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted when you stop by, and when you comment & alla that.

But I digress. All I'm saying is that writing something every day, for any reason, is a good idea. Try it sometime. And, after today, I am obliged to putting in only four more days of it, if I want to win the prize. Who knows what I'll do next month. But soon, sometime in January if I recall correctly, it will be the start of my fourth year on this little backroad in blogtopia [Jan. 30, 2005, was the first post on this blog - ed.].

Thanks for stopping by, yall.

Ruby does not like wasabi peas

I dropped a wasabi-coated roasted pea on the kitchen floor. Ruby chased it enthusiastically and got to it before I did. I tried to explain that dogs don't like wasabi very much at all. She ate it. And then she looked up at me with the most hilariously horrified look on her face. I took pity on her and gave her some supper a little early: some kibble and half of one of those awful Scotch Pies I made the other day.

She's had a rough coupla days.

Yesterday is over; tomorrow is another day

I'm planning to have a good day today, because yesterday was really really lousy. It started out fine. Ruby's friend Kalei had spent the night, and they were having a great time. Running around in the backyard, taking naps in the sun, sleeping on the couch. I was determined to change the furnace filter, because when I turned the heat on the other day I realized I couldn't remember when I'd last done it, so I turned it off again and of course it got cold. I tried to open the furnace and check for the size, and couldn't remember how to open the damn thing up. The one in my old house had a snap-off front and it was easy to open that, but the bracket was kind of tricky and you had to lie on the dirt floor in the crawl space to reach it. This house has a great basement anyway, with real floors. So I looked up the specs online and bought what I thought was the right size filter.

I went down the basement, with my toolbox, and found that you not only had to unscrew the panel, you also had to remove another panel to get the relevant one to move. It was fairly simple once I figured it out. The bolts were not on the spec sheet, but at least one of them was clearly added later. Maybe they all were. I got the old filter out, and it was one of the fancy high-end reusable ones, which was good because it was also four inches smaller than the one I'd bought.

So I brought it outside and started to clean it out. It was pretty seriously filthy. I decided I needed hot water, so I brought it inside and blasted it with the shower thingy. With which I immediately splashed and sprayed my fleece bathrobe and got soaking wet. Very soon it became clear that the tub drain was obstructed, so I turned the water off and let it drain a while, then decided I needed to add some drain cleaner to give it a hand. As I'm doing this, I hear wild barking and dogs running in a huge circle: hallway, kitchen, dining room, living room, hallway, kitchen, dining room, living room -- up on sofa, down, then run the other direction. There is a dog toy involved.

And then I notice that the floor is covered in blood. There is blood everywhere, and I have no idea which dog is bleeding; they've both got blood on their paws just from walking through it. And they won't stop running. Neither of them seemed upset or angry at the other, and neither of them was limping or seemed impaired in the slightest. I finally shut both of the hallway doors and cornered them in the bathroom.

It was Ruby's ankle. A fairly small cut, but maybe it needed stitches? I didn't see anything still in it, no broken glass, etc. Had Kalei bitten her during the scuffle? I got the bleeding to mostly stop, and the dogs to collectively calm down. I called a friend to come and get Kalei, because every time I turned my back and tried to wipe up some of the blood, they started running around in circles again.

The place looked like a crime scene. All I needed was some yellow tape.

After Kalei left, I got the wound cleaned up. I was still kind of on the fence about whether to take her in, but my friend seemed to think I was overreacting. Ruby was asleep on the sofa. Not fussing with the cut or anything, but the furnace was still not reassembled and it was getting colder fast.

I gave up trying to clean the filter without a pressure washer. I thought about it briefly and wondered how difficult it would be to cut a furnace filter. Not that difficult, it turns out, so I cut four inches off the edge, and went downstairs and popped it into the proper spot, facing the proper direction. Sort of. I couldn't quite get that one corner to pop in the holder. The old one had 16x25x1 inch stamped on the frame and it had fit perfectly. And I'd cut exactly four inches off the 20x25x1 inch filter I'd purchased. I couldn't quite see or reach that farthest-away corner, and kept thinking maybe it was just caught on the bracket or something. And part of the problem is that the furnace is perched on a weird little concrete platform-type part of the floor, which slopes away from it precipitously and in more than one direction, so I couldn't quite get down on my knees and still reach at the right angle.

I tried to reach with a screwdriver, a long piece of wood, a hammer. I was cursing loudly and banging around, and poor Ruby got a bit restless and came downstairs to see if she could help. And before I knew it was out the dog door and chasing something in the back yard.

I rounded her up and got her back into the house and of course her foot was bleeding all over again, and she was all excited and trying to outrun me. I caught her and soaked her foot and cleaned it up again. I also put a sock on it, which she didn't seem to mind too much.

By then I needed a time-out. I sat with her on the couch for a while and listened to the news. Then cleaned blood off the floors again, and I got the bright idea to measure the old filter with a tape measure. Because it had fit in that bracket pretty snugly, and I thought maybe I'd mis-read the dimensions printed on it.

It was 15-5/8 inches x 25-3/8 inches x 7/8 inches. I went downstairs, cut another 3/8 of an inch off the longer side of the filter, replaced the cardboard frame along that edge, popped it right into the bracket, reassembled the front panels, and came upstairs and cranked the thermostat all the way up to 62. And then later I went back and turned it up to 66 and made myself some cocoa.

Ruby is fine. The furnace sounds vastly happier. The bathtub drain is clear. And this morning? I scrubbed all the floors. Soon, I am going to go grocery shopping just so I can use my nifty new mixer (see yesterday's post).

And I didn't have to get married to get it

My mother has been going on and on about what she was planning to get me for Christmas for months now. I had my suspicions about it, that was probably some kind of kitchen gear, because she brought it up in every conversation about recipes. But I didn't really want to think too hard about it, because she was having so much fun and I didn't want to wreck it. And then there was all this drama about how on earth she was going to mail this item to me, how to get it to the post office.

She has a history of mailing bizarre things, and I've had to go to the post office before to pick up cardboard boxes full of pickle-flavored packing peanuts and broken glass. And some very large rocks that she thought I would enjoy using as bookends. Last time it happened, the post office manager called me to come and get a package that had been damaged, and did I know anyone at [my mother's address], and I said yeah that was my mom and how I hoped she hadn't sent pickles again. And she said: "Pickles! That's it! I was about to call the HazMat team to clean it up, but it smelled so familiar; I thought I'd check with you before I shut the place down, see if you were expecting a package."

It was a serious bummer, as her pickles are about the best anywhere.

So it makes me nervous when she talks about mailing things.

Apparently she'd been fretting about this difficulty to everyone who would listen. Someone suggested that she just have the store ship it to me, but she didn't want to pay the shipping charge. I suggested a gift certificate, but she said I'd probably just spend it on laundry detergent and bath towels or something, and she really really wanted me to have this item. I guess her neighbor finally got tired of hearing her fret, and took her to the library and helped her purchase it online. Free shipping & everything! Mom was stunned by the simplicity and elegance of this transaction.

"Have you ever bought anything over the internet before?" she asked me. "It's really easy."

But anyway, she went ahead and mailed it early, and told me to open it right away because she wanted me to have it in plenty of time for my holiday baking needs. It's a shiny black and chrome KitchenAid (r) mixer.

I could not be more thrilled. I've been wanting one for years, but it's one of those things that I just couldn't come up with a good reason to go buy it. Let alone come up with the big bucks they cost. I had sort of resigned myself to the idea that my decision to remain unmarried would mean that I would never ever get one.

Plus, if I get bored with the shiny blackness of it, I can get decals to decorate it, according to Biker News Online. Behold:


You can buy the decals on eBay. Right over the internet. It's that easy.

That's not a picture of my new mixer. That picture is from Biker News Online.

How not to have a relaxing afternoon

I hope youall had a pleasant holiday. I certainly did, except for the part about scorching the potato kale dish, same as I did last year. It's a tradition now, I guess. Except next year I am not going to cook it in the pressure cooker. Nor even on the stovetop at all. I'm going to put it in a casserole dish and bake it, even though it takes much longer, and you never get the perfect texture, the way you do with the pressure cooker.

I was able to salvage it, both last year and yesterday, by pouring it all into a soup pot and cooking it for a long time. Although last year it was way worse, and I had to add more kale and more potatoes. It's a total mess, and you leave behind the crust of scorched stuff and spend the next two weeks soaking and slowly scrubbing out your pressure cooker, bit by stubborn bit.

It's weird, though, because I've made this dish, or something very much like it, at least three or four times since last year's debacle, and it's worked just fine. But I think my pressure cooker can sense fear or something, because I was very nervous and watched the cooker and listened and lifted it up a bit to make sure it was still sloshing around in there. And I had spilled something on the burner that smelled burnt, so I was unsure about whether I was smelling that or the contents of the pan. Plus of course I was in a hurry to get done cooking, walk the dog, get dressed, and go to my friend's house so I could relax and be all festive.

It was almost a relief when I finally realized it was in fact scorched and I had to release the pressure and open the thing RIGHT AWAY. The kitchen still stinks, and the pan has started its long soak.

The original recipe, from "Cooking Under Pressure" by Lorna J. Sass (out of print, alas), is more or less as follows:

Kale And Potatoes

• 1 lb. kale
• 1-1/2 lbs. potatoes
• 3 Tbsp butter or oil
• 1 medium leek (1 cup)
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1 large onion
• 4 scallions
• 3/4 cup water
• salt
• fresh parsely (optional)
  

Melt butter, then saute leeks, garlic, onions, and scallions. Add water. Alternate layers of kale, potatoes, kale, potatoes. Cook under high pressure for 5 minutes. Add fresh parsley before serving.

She does recommend using a heat diffuser to prevent a crust from forming on the bottom. Which I guess I'd forgotten about. I can't find mine anywhere. Seems like they're more useful on gas stoves anyway, if I remember correctly.

But I've been making this stuff, without incident, for years, without a heat diffuser. I've never had a problem with scorching it before. It's so yummy, and a great dish to serve to people who aren't quite sure what kale is. It's almost always popular -- even my dad liked it and he hates any green cooked vegetables at all. And my friends liked it so much last year (even partly scorched) that they specifically asked me to make it again this year.

Over the years, I've changed the recipe a bit. For one thing, I got a bigger pressure cooker than I used to have, and a few years ago I started eating meat again (after 20 years as a vegetarian). I had no idea bacon was so yummy. I hated it when I was a kid.

I keep chopped up bacon in the freezer to use when I need a little bit of fat to cook kale or spinach or collards in. Just grab a handful, toss them in the pan, and you're good to go.

I don't know why bacon always has one end that's practically all fat. And the way most of it is packaged and displayed, you can't see it when you're selecting which package of bacon to buy -- even the really thick cut, organic, nitrite-free kind of bacon seems to have this feature. It's like with bags of onions & potatoes, how there's on rotten one in every single bag. It's as if there's someone at the packing plant whose job it is to put one cruddy looking item in each 5 lb. bag.

But it grosses me out, that super-fatty end of the slab of bacon slices, so I cut about a third off & chop it up & put it in a freezer bag. Also, the skillet I usually cook bacon in is pretty small, and the shorter pieces fit in it better. Yeah, I could buy a larger skillet, I know. But this suits me just fine.

So here is my latest version of the recipe:

• 2-3 slices bacon, cut into bits (or 3-4 Tbsp olive oil)
• 1 large sweet onion, diced
• 2 leeks, finely chopped
• 2 shallots, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock, or water
• 2 bunches kale, thick parts of stems removed, and chopped up
• 3-4 lbs. little red potatoes, halved and cut into fairly thin slices
• 1 lb andouille sausage, cooked & sliced (optional)
  

Stir in the following before serving, to taste, if desired:

• splash of cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar
• chopped scallions
• fresh dill
• tamari or salt to taste
• Texas Pete (r) hot sauce, which is more or less like Tabasco Sauce. But any kind of hot sauce is good, if you like that kind of thing.
  

Cook the bacon over fairly low heat until just before it starts getting crispy. Turn heat up slightly and add the onions. When they are about half done, add the leeks; then when alla that's almost done, add the shallots and garlic. Add the broth or water, then layer the kale and potatoes over it. I usually cook it in the pressure cooker for 6-7 minutes. Lower the pressure, open the pot, drain excess liquid, if any, and add the andouille sausage, if you are using it; the sausage doesn't do so well under high pressure. Or you can cook it all, including the sausage, in a very large saucepan or smallish soup pot. Takes an hour or so; don't use too high a heat or it will scorch. Stir it once in a while. You can also pile it all into a casserole (use only 1 to 2 cups broth or water) and bake it at 350 to 375 (F) for 45-60 minutes or so.

In fact, I highly recommend that you do NOT use the pressure cooker. I've only ever scorched it twice, but there is nothing worse than the stink of burnt onions & garlic.

The texture of the potatoes should be sort of mushy; you can leave the extra liquid in, or even add more broth than that & call it soup if you are in the mood for soup. Or it can be more in the chunky mashed potato consistency range.

Thank you

That is all: thanks. To everybody. For everything.

Negotiations

Mandy and Ruby got along OK, all in all, but they did have to establish some boundaries. Here they are working out joint occupation of the sofa.

I hope Mandy comes again soon; they seemed to have a great time. Ruby didn't seem to mind sharing the furniture, the toys, and had fun trying to determine who was the boss of whom (I think it's still an open question), but she did not like it one bit when I spent any time at all petting Mandy. All three of us sitting down together quietly was not an option, unless I stayed across the room from the two of them. It was pretty funny, as Ruby has been fine with me petting other dogs before, even right in her very own house or yard. Of course, none of them has ever tried to spend the night before.

I was glad Mandy had a crate to sleep in.

I'd been thinking maybe Ruby needed a sibling, but last night probably cured me of that delusion for a while.

Dogs on furniture: the sofa edition

Here they are on the sofa; you can see their faces a little better in this one, as I used the flash. I love how similar their muzzle markings are, yet how completely different their faces are. Mandy's sandy blonde coat is velvety soft.

Ruby & Mandy

It was very difficult to photograph these two -- they squirm constantly, and it was just a little too light out to use the flash. Shoulda used it anyway, but there you are. You can't really see that Mandy is just about 75-80% as big as Ruby. Mandy's a little more delicate-featured and dainty, with a smaller head. Her ears are not as expressive as Ruby's, but she does have her charms, Miss Mandy does.

This morning

Here is Ruby with her new friend Mandy, out for their second wild run and rassling match of the morning. It was dark the first time we went out. It was a little bit foggy, and their hot doggy breath was visible in the early light.

More of Ruby's ears

Because I know you can't get enough of them either. Tonight she's having a sleepover party with her friend Mandy. I don't know if I'll have time to post anything or not. I hope so.

Ruby's encounter with the law

Sometimes the dog park is a bummer. We walked in yesterday and there was all kinds of mayhem. That dog whisperer dude on TV would have said there was a lot of "unstable energy." My pals Artie and Snuffy went off and played ball, oblivious to other goings-on. Ruby got in a couple of minor scuffles right off the bat (two of them with dogs she knew, none of them escalating into anything, but there was a weird lady who started kicking Ruby and trying to get her to leave Tigger alone, and telling me my dog was out of line. I tried to explain that she and Tigger knew each other well and played like that all the time.

She told me to control my dog, and kicked at her again. Then another dog charged Ruby, and that dog's owner was nowhere around so I pulled Ruby away and kept her and Tigger occupied a while until these three unruly, poorly controlled (but quite sweet) Dobermans left. Things calmed down a bit, pack behavior-wise, but then another lady, who (I think) had been talking to the weird lady who'd already kicked Ruby, appeared out of nowhere, about four feet away from me, holding a snarling, angry poodle aloft.

Ruby got very excited and tried to jump up (is it a squirrel? a treat? why is she waving it around like that??), scaring the poor woman (who was not exactly frail and elderly, but she wasn't young & spry either) and making the poodle angrier. Very bad case of fear aggression in the poodle. The lady kicked Ruby a couple of times in the few seconds it took me to grab her and put her on the leash. I apologized to her and left the park immediately.

I'm not one to argue with people about whose dog was at fault, or whether the owner's behavior was perhaps the problem, but I don't like it when people kick my dog. And yeah, she's boisterous. She was not going to give up on the squirrel poodle as long as it was being waved in her face.

On my way out, I ran into a friend (a dog rescue person, who is very experienced with dogs) in the parking lot. She hadn't seen what had happened, but had had words with the poodle lady already, apparently. My friend was leaving on account of the chaos, and we talked a little about how sometimes the vibe is just bad and it's better for the dogs if you just leave.

As we chatted, the poodle lady walked up and started screaming at me that my dog needed to be put down and how I should be arrested if I couldn't control my dog and how somebody coulda been hurt and her poor little precious poodle blah blah blah and how she was going to call the police as soon as she got home and I should get the hell out of the park if I knew what was good for me. They impound dogs like mine.

Or something. I couldn't follow her arguments, and I'm not sure she was making any sense.

I pointed out to her that there was a squad car at the other end of the park, and she could save time by just going over there and reporting me. I told her I wasn't leaving right away, as my friend was still in the park with his dogs, and that I'd be happy to talk with the police about my bad dog.

I just wanted her to go away, but of course she marched over to the cop car and reported me. So then the two cops came walking towards us, smiling. My friend stopped and talked to them briefly on her way out. Then Ruby and I walked over to meet them, and Ruby obligingly sat when told and was utterly charming.

We chatted for a bit, and they told me that a couple of people had complained to them about the lady and the poodle, but that there was only the one complaint about Ruby. And me. No charges were being filed, however. They patted Ruby on the head and went off to fight some crimes or something.

Neither of us was arrested or impounded.

I almost forgot

I was about to go to bed without posting anything. Now the stress is on; we're more than halfway through this NaBloPoMo thing, and I'd really hate to mess it up. So here's a picture of Ruby in the back yard, taken the other day.

Good night.

Some things just don't work out like you'd hoped

Take Scotch Pies, for example. There are still six of them in the fridge; help yourselves. Maybe other people make them better, but these are not very good. I was so hopeful; they seemed like perfect cold-weather food, and easy to pack for lunch, etc. Crust, yummy filling, you can hold it in your hand: what could go go wrong? I mean, calzones, burritos, pasties -- all good, right? And, less portable, you've got pot pies, ravioli, pierogies, all kinds of yummy things stuffed into crust or pasta or some such.

The crust, mostly, is what can go wrong. I know it wasn't supposed to be light & flaky like a puff pastry, but this was tough & chewy.

I read about Scotch Pies on the BBC last week; there was a contest, with a record number of entries, and I was intrigued. I had never heard of such a thing as Scotch Pies, so I looked up some recipes, and it sounded easy as, well, pie. And I gathered that, traditionally, they are filled with a cooked ground lamb & gravy mixture, but can hold pretty much anything from meat & vegetables to leftover vindaloo to Italian sausage & pasta, which seems weird to me too, but it had to do with a soccer game (which Scotland lost anyway). Scotch Pies are frequently served at football matches, it turns out, and are sometimes even fried.

They are not exactly haute cuisine, it seems. But I liked the idea; I frequently make leftovers -- especially curry! -- into regular old pot pies, with either a biscuit crust or regular pie crust. Which is what I'll do with the rest of the filling I made for these.

But I made the first batch of filling the other night, and didn't have time to bother with the crust. It was too late when I started cooking, and I wasn't even hungry by the time I had the filling ready to go. Ruby quite liked it, and I tried a little dish of it; it was in fact yummy. We had some for breakfast the next morning as well. I fact, we'd eaten about half of it by the time I got round to trying the crust.

But finally last night I went for it on the crust, after making a second batch of a slightly different filling, just in case I ran out.

I followed a recipe I found online for a kind of pastry I'd never made before: hot pastry, which is regared as essential for Scotch Pies, as it holds its shape best. Apparently. All the recipes I found are more or less similar: flour, lard and/or butter, hot water, and salt. You melt the lard or butter in the hot water, pour it into the salted flour, and proceed as usual. Being careful not to let it cool to much, nor to overwork it.

Of course the recipes all had wacky English measurements, but I carefully converted everything, and then weighed it to make sure. I didn't use lard. It mighta been better if I had. It mighta also been better if I'd used more flour. Dunno. I definitely overworked it. And it probably got too cool. And it was difficult to get the sides high enough, so they ended up too short, resulting in a suboptimal crust-to-filling ratio, which was especially disappointing given how yummy the filling was and how chewy and lousy-tasting the crust was.

So here's the first filling recipe:

2 pieces bacon, cut up into tiny bits
2 cups random vegetables, cut into tiny bits (in this case I used a 2 cup container from the freezer which had carrots, celery, onion, parsnips, and shiitake mushrooms all mixed together)
3/4 lb. ground lamb (or lamb cut up into tiny bits the size of peas or smaller)
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 c. flour (more or less)
1-2 cups vegetable stock and/or water
dash of Worcestershire Sauce, which I would recommend leaving out, but I used it
tsp or so of balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

So you put the bacon in the pan, and when it's mostly cooked, add the chopped vegetables and cook until fairly close to done. Add the lamb (you could use a whole pound, and when it's cooked, stir in the garlic and the peas (which I microwaved a few minutes and then drained). At this point you could add leftover gravy and skip the rest, but I didn't have any, so I added 1/4 cup of flour and stirred it into the meat mixture; it makes a thick paste and you have to keep stirring for a few minutes, and then add your liquid. A cup is probably enough, but it will depend on how much moisture the vegetables released, etc. Then add your Worcestershire Sauce, vinegar, and salt & pepper to taste. If you don't have balsamic vinegar handy, use tamari or soy sauce (and omit or cut down the salt).

The second filling was pretty much the same except I used ground beef (I used ground sirloin - if you use something less lean you might want to drain off some of the fat, leaving about 1/4 cup, which includes the bacon fat from cooking the onions, etc., to make the gravy work) instead of ground lamb, onion & potatoes instead of all the other vegetables, and didn't use Worcestershire sauce. I cut the potatoes into little cubes about the size of peas, and put them, the peas, and a cup & a half or so of vegetable stock + water in the microwave for about four minutes and added them after I added the flour.

Put this into your favorite pastry shell, cover with a top crust, make some decorative holes in the top for the steam to escape, and bake for 45-50 minutes at 350F. Or go ahead and make the oil crust, fuss with it to make individual pies. Use pre-made refrigerated crescent roll dough, or frozen puff pastry if that's what you like.

Life imitates blog post. Or something.

Michelle, over at Well Hell Michelle actually tried my duct-tape leg-hair removal technique. It didn't go so well for her, alas, and I feel kind of bad about that. But she thinks that maybe she used some inferior quality duct tape, and I don't think I emphasized quite enough in my original post that it's important to use the extra-sticky high quality stuff: either gaffer's tape, or the kind they use on actual sheet metal-y duct work.

It was either inferior duct tape or that she has super-strong leg hair. She's considering trying it again, in the name of science. Or something.