katallison

Some people know aioli as a sauce--"garlic mayonnaise, right?", they'll say. And yes, it is that. But Le Grand Aoili is in fact a meal, a celebration -- and, in my annual trip through cycle of the seasons, the ultimate festival of high midsummer. It is, to my knowledge, the only holiday feast that is defined not by some sort of big-meat entree, but by a mere ("mere," heh) sauce.

I first got to know Le Grand Aoili through the Minneapolis Bastille Day festival of the same name, formerly put on by the New French Cafe (and which I wrote about several years ago, in my old blog). When the New French closed and the celebration went by the boards, I decided to continue the feast, at least, and have prepared it every year somewhere in mid/late July.

And this year, filled with some sort of culinary grandiosity, I decided to try making the sauce the authentic Provencal way...( Read more... )

Today's boring chapter in the Saga of the Aging Body:

So for the past few weeks I'd been experiencing chronic medium-grade distress in the digestive regions, which delicacy and kindness to readers forbid me from elucidating further. At first I just assumed I'd eaten something funky (entirely plausible, given the state of everything in my refrigerator); then I thought maybe I'd picked up a transient stomach bug. When it persisted, my inner Deranged Hypochondriac sprung to life, telling me that this was definitely colon cancer, which the gods were smiting me with as recompense for having chickened out on the Really Unpleasant Check-Up Procedure last year. (My inner D.H. is all about the guilt-tripping.)

And then, over the weekend, some vestige of a clue drifted into my brain, and I thought to myself, Self, I thought, this sounds exactly like the accounts and descriptions I've seen of lactose intolerance (which apparently can crop up suddenly in later life). So I immediately ceased all consumption of dairy products, and -- within 24 hours, le crud digestif had completely abated.

It could be, of course, that there was something else entirely going on with the innards, and it just happened to subside at the same time I stopped eating dairy products. So the final step will be to re-introduce the independent variable (I *knew* all those research methodology classes would come in handy someday) by picking a low-activity day and slamming down a couple of glasses of milk, and seeing if I experience a recrudescence, as it were (and boy, were it ever) of the Inner Distress. If so -- well, *dammit.* I've always loved milk and cheese, they're two of my foundational comfort foods, and I would be very sad to lose them. I'll have to investigate those Lactaid pills, I guess...

I think I should start a Memory group of recipe postings, under the rubric "How to Come Off Looking Like a Genius Gourmet Cook Despite Being Lazy and Inexpert." The shrimp risotto would go in, as would the chicken with artichokes, and also today's post, ( The Fabulous Stuffed Pork Roast )

Gnarrr. Have hit an inconvenient plot-snarl in my dS Sekrit Santa story; I'm either going to have to think my way through it, or else do a little distracting sleight-of-hand around it and hope nobody notices.

I tell you what, realism-whore though I am, I feel very lucky at times to be writing in dS, where there's no canonic precedent for, say, slavish adherence to actual police procedure, or pettifogging nitpickery about the laws of space, time, and physics, or whatever. One can simply give the "magical realism!" wand an airy wave. And it's nice to remember that the show itself often tended to use its A-plots with a certain negligence, treating them as a pretext for the *important* stuff--character interaction, relationship development, dialogue, etc.

As a viewer, I've never minded this at all--it takes grand-mal plotline incoherence along the lines of later-season XF to really put me off. And as a writer whose default story line is So, these two guys sit around and talk about stuff, and who is deeply impaired in the development of plottiness, I cherish it.

At the risk of jinxing myself, I plan to get prodigious amounts of writing done this long weekend. There are only two Thanksgivingy social events on the calendar--first, dinner tonight with Mr. P, featuring:
--a pork loin which will have many incisions made all over its surface, into which will be inserted much slivered garlic and rosemary, the whole thing then roasted to a fine crackling turn;
--a gratin of creamed leeks and fingerling potatoes, with gruyere;
--brussels sprouts, halved, steamed briefly, and then sauteed with finely chopped toasted walnuts and a dash of sesame oil;
--a compote of dried cranberries and chopped dried apricots, simmered with brandy and some orange zest;
--a bottle of excellent red wine.

Note the complete absence of turkey! Because that's just the kind of wild and crazy rebel I am! Hah!

And also because I shall get turkey on Saturday, when debchan, lapillus, jackiekjono, and I will gather for consumption of Deb's leftovers and viewage of various things, which should be great fun.

Other than those, and the obligatory visit to aged parental units, my agenda for the weekend is simple: Write. Lots.

My best wishes to all of you celebrating Thanksgiving for a peaceful and relaxing holiday, devoid of familial strife, travel mishaps, or subsequent digestive upset.

ETA: And if you haven't already, go read Laura's, Lum's, and Cereta's entries, because they express much more eloquently than I could the gratitude I feel toward fandom and toward all of you.