All the trimmings

Lots to tell you all, but I'm way too tired and it's way too late.

So here's the Cliff Notes version... on second thought, even the Cliff Notes version makes me tired, so I'll just show pretty pictures instead.

And no, it's nothing horrible (as in: DANGEROUS) but it is rather complicated (welcome to my medical life this year).

The title of this post is a pottery pun: "trimmings" refer to the shavings from the wet (okay, leather-hard) clay which has not yet been fired. Trimmings are generally removed from the foot area of each piece; they are "trimmed" (hence, the term).

And since it is Thanksgiving weekend, well, the pun amused me.

Examples of leather hard greenware (i.e., unfired) clay are shown below.

Once they are fired, but before they are glaze-fired, they are called bisqueware, examples of which I have shown previously.



The example below is a bowl that was well shaped, with interesting glaze patterns, but I found the color too dark for my taste. However, my sweetie found it pleasant enough that he took it home with him. Hooray!



As you can see, I have many, many (so much more than enough) pieces at home in any case, from the pieces I had left unglazed when I abruptly disappeared from the studio before surgery and treatment, etc.



This bowl is actually a combination of 2 glazes and warped slightly during glaze firing. You can't tell from this view, but if you look at it from above, it looks like an egg-shaped ellipse (is that redundant?) instead of a round circle. (Okay, I know that is redundant.)



Okay, since it's now INSANELY late, it's a good thing I am taking Monday off from work, so I can go visit my friend Margaret and her husband and baby out in Long Island. (They are back east visiting his family for a few days.) All I have to do in the morning is go meet the doctor first, for a consultation regarding some questions I have, and then not sleep past my stop on the Long Island Railroad.

Deliciousness

Last night my friend Ellen had her annual pre-Thanksgiving potluck, accurately described as all of the food and fun, without the familial angst. The spread was photo-stitched together above (think of the blurry arms and hands as action shots) and most of the menu is listed below.

There was homemade guacamole which I avoided only because one bite would have led to eating half the bowl. Unfortunately, I did not follow this wise tactic with Lawrence's dangerous and diabolically delicious duck fat mac and cheese, which is adapted from a 2006 NY Times recipe, Creamy Macaroni and Cheese. Lawrence is a neurologist, not a cardiologist, so I guess keeping our arteries clear is OUR problem, and not his, although he did helpfully prepare a vegetarian version for our non-flesh-eating friends.

And Ellen cooked a beauteous bird indeed, helpfully prepped by Fairway -- it was a Murray's organic turkey -- arriving complete with cooking instructions and a roasting pan which nearly set her new stove on fire. (As EG put it, the new appliance is now officially baptised.)

My spicy sweet potatoes were paired with a consolidated version of a cranberry sweet potato bake, which combined and altered 2 different yet overlapping versions, eliminating extra sugar, OJ, granola, and replacing dried cranberries with raw. (I brought not one but TWO sweet potato dishes... Am I turning into my mother?! But I was determined to bring something besides the "classic" overly sweet mush buried in 'mallows.) Let me know if you want me to e-mail you the recipe.

Laura L's super munchable (and aptly named) best brussels sprouts ever came from Molly O'Neill's A Well Seasoned Appetite. It was originally published on the NY Times website in 1995 (!) but without Laura's helpful warning that prepping the sprouts is VERY time consuming.

Mel's dangerously addictive spicy pecans and light and fluffy whipped carrots and parsnips both came from a 1996 cookbok, Stop and Smell the Rosemary: Recipes and Traditions to Remember. I'm not sure if her pumpkin pie came from the same cookbook.

Laura S. made collard greens with dried cherries. Yum. (I will post an update/link if I get the recipe.)

EG's huge and yummy apple crisp used Mary Ann White's Apple Crisp recipe, substituting with Courtland apples instead of Crispins.

Jackie's pear olive oil cake was FANTASTIC... and I'm still drooling over it and today, I savored the slice I took home with me. (Gone, all gone, of course.) She's sent me her recipe so let me know if you want it. It deserves its own star turn.

Ellen also sent us home with "party favors" of individually wrapped yogurt mini-cakes (the size of mega-muffins on steroids). I forgot to take a photo of mine before I attacked it this evening, and I sent my sweetie off with his early this morning, when he went off to work, so it will remain a mysterious object of gustatory desire for those who weren't there...

And now, time for bed, since Fresh Direct is showing up bright and early during the 6:30 - 8:00 am slot in the morning!

Zombie food

This poor beastie (an appropriate symbol considering my alma mater's mascot) really captures the way I feel these days, so much so that I am contemplating adding a new label/tag category to the blog: STRESS (a/k/a, the opposite of my RTBT). I was so frazzled that tonight I left the office, walked across the passageway to our neighboring building (soon to be sealed off by its new owners, presumably), walked down the hall (in other words, I walked 2 city blocks) and was waiting for the elevator before I realized that I had left my MetroCard on my desk... along with my card key. This meant that not only could I not get on the subway to go home, but I couldn't get back in the office to retrieve the cards either!

So I went back and started dialing for dollars: calling various people in the analysts' group next door, hoping they were still there, so that they could let me in.

Yep, really doing well these days. (I even forgot to take a photo of the dinner I made for my sweetie & myself last night: sausage and sweet currants with whole wheat pasta, an event I thought would never happen, says Ms. Food Photophile [is that even a word?])

I feel like a pseudo-victim of a zombie attack, since it feel like someone has eaten my brains. "BRAINS!" (gobble, slobber, burp -- for more vivid descriptions of gore, check out the zombie world trilogy by David Wellington; I've only read the middle one, Monster Island, courtesy of the public library, and I'm working up the nerve to read the others... maybe on his website, where he's posted them in serialized format... hmmm... )

Now where was I? Oh yes, besides my mom's health scare, and my unnerving confrontation with her mortality -- (sure she's healthy [er, sorta, for 80] but 80 is not a number to be blase about like, say, 60 ) -- one of my coworkers was wiped out by a bug for a week (tiny microbes: 5, Big Mike: 0) leading to a wee bit of stress on our cut to the bone team, especially with all of the new planning projects landing on our desks (i.e., they're doing planning, so we're doing vast amounts of research for each campaign), right next to our regular workload.

Don't get me wrong, since I am SO GLAD to have a job still, but more pressure + less staff + personal stress (hi Mom!) + other family obligations + lack of sleep (I've apparently forgotten all about my "take care of myself" rules from treatment time... and blathering/blogging here at all hours is cathartic/self-destructive, can't decide which) = BEYOND FRAZZLED.

Clinging to the edge of that mental cliff until Turkey Day holidaze. I even skipped my Tuesday night ceramics class because I was feeling so queasy.

Ahem. End of whining. For now. Mostly.

Today was my coworker Julia's 25th anniversary with the company. Yes: Two. Five. I was still in high school when she started -- what a funky concept. She was the one who saved that tiger cover art above -- "Tigers Catch Cold" from a 1998 Asian reinsurance mag -- because a then-colleague had photocopied it with a caption that read, "Not another research request!"

So we all had one of our little potlucks in the morning (she was taking off this afternoon) and I originally made almond apricot muffins last night (even toasting the almonds), since her twin sister said almond was one her favorite flavors. However, they felt worryingly hard and dry this morning (although my colleagues later claimed they were fine and tasty) so after my sweetie left at his usual unearthly hour of the morning, I made chocolate red velvet cupcakes (nee cake, but cupcakes are easier in an office setting) with NO FOOD COLORING thank you. Of course, that is also why they are not day-glo red.

Oh well. Two recipes to work on refining, but damn, a whole cup of butter does make that red velvet cupcake taste fine! (5 pts for one! eek!) But I was highly gratified to note that out of the 21 chocolate and 8 almond munchables that I brought in, only 6 and 1 (respectively) were left by quitting time. Heh. AND I managed to only eat ONE choco-vel!

And on that thought, I will leave you with my "junk food" reading, By The Sword (a Repairman Jack / horror series which I am so fried that I borrowed 2 copies from different branches of the library without realizing it!) which is an intermission from both The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble (set in historic and modern Korea), and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan for one of my book clubs (set in pre-modern China... morbidly fascinating footbinding details, in case you ever wanted to know, with a cringe-inducing photo montage on YouTube which I refuse to link to -- search for it using the book title and "trailer" if you really want to see the ickiness).

And now I need to sleep! Desperately! (I am such a dork sometimes.) Ciaooooo...

CAN you dig it?

So last night they were filming Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps at the New York Federal Reserve Building (and yes, Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen appear to be listed as members of the cast, according to IMDB). So since they helpfully floodlit the facade, I took advantage of the photo op. Nice, eh?

We were on the way to see this year's NYC CANstruction exhibit (they have contests in different US cities). I love those competitions since they donate all of the food (100,693 cans this year) to local food banks after each year's exhibit closes, and have posted photos on my Snapfish page, if you're curious.

Here's a photo of my favorite entry, PumpCAN Pie (does this count as food p*rn?), which while not as structurally challenging as the Walk/Don't Walk sign (the display changed depending on where you stood) or the 4-sided Beatles display (which won for best use of labels), still tickled my fancy.

It used over 2,500 cans of food, and the accompanying sign listed the "ingredients" such as the number of cans of creamed corn needed for the crust. Heh.

It's a good thing we went last night, because apparently one of the sculptures, which I think was based on the still in progress Shanghai Tower, collapsed this morning. My coworker Julia said it was the same location as the collapsed entry last year, which leads me to winder if there is some slight imbalance in the floor. Otherwise, the idea that a structural engineering firm built a structurally unsound object is a little unnerving!

Extra crispy

Today was a beautiful day, as you can see. Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Columbia University looked golden in the afternoon sunshine, almost like a painting, no? Not that I would know firsthand, since I changed back into my jammies in the afternoon (woohoo!) because it was just such a relief not to have to go anywhere or do anything. Woke up early (the early bird catches 5 washers!) and tackled the laundry, fed my sweetie breakfast, and got a Fresh Direct delivery (including 5 lbs. of sweet potatoes for next weekend's dinner at my friend Ellen's place).

Last night, for example, my sweetie and I attended the annual banquet organized by the Wing Tsun school he attends. While it was lots of fun (as you can see by the destruction we wreaked upon our table, Table 4) and the inactive disco lights at Grand Harmony Palace were morbidly fascinating, it was nice to cocoon with my engineer today.

Tomorrow night I'm looking forward to visiting this year's Canstruction NY exhibit after work with my coworker Julia. Sadly, I missed last year's CANda panda display, although the time lapse video of its "canstruction" was entertaining. I will have to keep an eye our for the entry submitted by my engineer's firm. Here is a link to their 2006 entry (although my sweetie was not working for them then.)

Last Monday was my last follow up visit with the surgeon (which I completely forgot to mention since I was rushing around after my mom's health problems last week... she's better now, thankfully, but it's really frustrating to realize that older parents will just never follow medical advice about changing their diet -- I should just get used to that fact RIGHT NOW). Good news on my medical status at least: he was very pleased with my post-radiation healing progress, and indeed, the surgical scar seems oddly better after all of the post-radiation skin peeling & healing. So he kicked me out until next year (yay!) which prompted the receptionist to say, "Wow. You must be doing really well -- a whole year and not 6 months or whatever."

Speaking of diet, I am making excruciatingly slow progress on the WW front, but at least it IS progress, minute though it may be. I just have to get back into the habit of being more attentive to what I eat.

Well, as they say, take ownership of your choices. So while yes, last week was very stressful, which causes me to want to eat, I made a conscious choice about my stress eating (i.e., "Yes I am going to do this"), instead of just mindlessly grazing. Do you see what I'm saying?

At least I can control my own homemade meals. The recipe for this curry, for example, came from Whole Foods and used LITE coconut milk, and not regular. Not only was it surprisingly simple to whip up, but I even had most of the ingredients on hand. I substituted chicken thighs for the pork sirloin, though, since that's what I had on hand. (Bonus: it's less WW points with chicken than with pork too.) Plus, all of the tasty veggies add fiber.

However, staying up late and being tired the next day is NOT helpful, so I need to go to sleep now. More updates on books and ceramics another day (night). So I leave you all with a shot of tonight's sunset. Ciao!

UFOs

I am tired. I am very, very tired. As the parents among us may already know, I have discovered that it is more stressful when your nearest and dearest are sick than when you yourself are sick. This weekend my mom had another intestinal bleeding episode and she waited several hours to tell me about it. (When I vented to my sweetie about this lack of promptness and how at least his parents had each other to keep and eye on themselves -- if you see what I mean -- he reminded me that his mom kinda forgot to mention her aneurysm... for 3 weeks. DOH! And yes, she is fine.)

So yes, I was staying with my mom for a few days and keeping an eye on her. We think it's her diverticulitis again (what a genetic inheritance: between my mom and my dad, no wonder my GI tract is a mess) which occasionally leads to diverticular bleeding. And since she has no GP to speak of, we were staring at an extended jaunt in the ER. (Yes folks, poor people treat the ER as a primary care facility, just one of the many reasons healthcare reform is so desperately needed.)

She is much better now, and since my sister and I can't take the idea of her being without a GP any longer (I count the government clinic/hospital she goes to as on on par with a Wal-Mart walk-in clinic -- actually, I view the Wal-Mart more favorably: they don't even pretend to be a primary care facility) we have decided that she will be using my sister's Medicare-accepting physician in the future. (Mom does not know this yet, but since we are the ones who will be dealing with her heathcare providers, we're picking someone we trust.)

As my poor sister pointed out, (a) one day, Mom will be living with her, so we might as well start building her history there now, and (b) if Mom does need to be admitted, it is easier for both of us (siblings) if she is in the CT hospital and not a NYC hospital. So Mom will be kidnapped in CT for a comprehensive physical after Turkey Day. (Sssh! she doesn't know that yet either.)

So on to more cheery subjects, like my return to the ceramics studio. I have slowly been making a dent in glazing my pile of unfinished objects (UFOs) from January, and two pieces finally came back from the kiln. The brown pieces above, although similar in color, actually use 2 slightly different glaze combos: new tyler amber + cornwall, and new tyler amber + gloss white. (Not surprisingly, I have discovered that after the past year, I approach my pottery with a more relaxed, more experimentational attitude.)

THe other photograph of celadon objects was part of a gallery display at the studio -- they redecorated while I was gone, and while everyone was gratifying pleased that I am back in the studio, it was a little disorienting because everything have been moved around and some new procedures were added re: clay processing, etc. Well hey, I was gone for 10 months!

Okay, lunch time is OVAH.

Time Delay

So guess what I dug out of my WIP pile? (Or maybe it would be more accurate to call it the MIA pile... since I started this in 2006!) Now that the weather is cooler, the idea of knitting an afghan doesn't inspire horror and actually seems rather appealing, which is good, since the materials for this project take up an entire 78 quart storage bin.

If I finish it in time, my sweetie's parents' anniversary is in December.... On second thought, maybe I should shoot for Chinese New Year, since it IS a bed-size log cabin blanket.

Other time lapse projects include these macerated peaches in sweetened red wine. Yum! I peeled them Wednesday night and dropped them in sweetened red wine, using this recipe. It turned out to be a very tasty use indeed for leftover wine and peaches on the cusp of growing their own feet and walking around the fridge on their own.

Best of all, except for the blanching, there was no actual heat-involved cooking.

On the flip side, here is fairly easy dish which requires only a little chopping: curried pork chops with yellow peppers, apricots and onions. Therefore I found it perversely amusing to serve it all on a yellow plate as well.

Ok, since I could barely finish that sentence, it's time for bed.

More later.

Ciao!

Halloween weekend

Halloween means scary things, and some people think brussels sprouts are scary indeed. I always used to think so until one year my friend Margaret introduced me to roasted brussels sprouts. Yum! I was sold on the idea! And now, if Fresh Direct has a sale on them, I am THERE!

However, this does not mean that I get around to using them promptly. Oops. Same lack of promptness apples to mushrooms, so I was elated when I found this recipe on Recipezaar for marinated brussels sprouts and mushrooms -- two birds with one stone! It turned out to be quite tasty, but then, what doesn't, when marinated?

The only downside is that marination drains some of the bright green color from the sprouts and turns them a bit yellow. Oh well.

And that other bowl in the background was sweet'n'spicy sweet potatoes, a recipe from Woman's Day of all places! Another bonus find, as I needed to use my Japanese and American sweet potatoes (hence the different colors). Not bad, but next time, I will decrease the sugar and increase the cayenne pepper.

Also very scary is this site -- I mean, who thinks up these things? Some of THOSE recipes are utterly terrifying, like Twinkie sushi or the Twinkie casserole encased in strawberry Jell-O. (No, I am not making this up.) Yes, Twinkie seems a popular ingredient on that site (as if they weren't scary enough by themselves).

Of course, some people might think that my banana oat bran muffins (or in my case, banana wheat germ muffins), which I posted about recently, are scary themselves.

Tonight, I made something not scary: cassoulet using this recipe, except with chicken sausage and not turkey kielbasa, and fed my friend Sam with the resulting concoction. (Okay, I used twice as much red wine as the recipe called for because I had a leftover bottle, but how is that a BAD thing?) Tasty as it was, I decided not to post a photo here because, well, it looks like just a big pile of brown slush...

Yesterday, my sweetie drove us up to visit my sister and brother-in-law. We were entertained (when he was not napping) by my great-nephew Nicky, who has the cutest, most pinchable cheeks ever (now I understand why adults pinched my cheeks so much when I was little). My sister and older niece (Nicky's mom) were both cheery and well.

Unfortunately, although my brother-in-law looked well physically, he was doing noticeably worse mentally and I had a very difficult time communicating with (understanding) him, eventually settling for just agreeing with him. His diction is still excellent, but his sentences are incoherent or full of non sequiturs, so after a while I was mentally exhausted.

This dichotomy may be why I still can't quite really grasp the situation: he looks fine and healthy, but it's like someone else has taken over his body because the person I knew is not there any more. I mean, intellectually I can understand the situation, but the rest of me hasn't quite accepted it yet. It's not exactly denial, but... okay, it is denial. Fine. But I'll get there eventually.

Ummm... (continuing to avoid the subject)... speaking of getting there, riding the subways in NYC on Halloween is really quite the spectator sport. Saturday night, on my way to Jersey City to see my engineer, I lost track of the number of pirates, devils, space aliens, punk rockers, princesses, cocktail waitresses, marines, and assorted other costumes I saw, but THIS guy wins hands down for the most entertainment value, I say. And due to the placement of the eyes on his costume and where he was sitting, it seemed as if he was ALWAYS looking at me. Eeek! (But where does his keep his MetroCard?!)

Of course, I should have realized that anyone who wears a fullbody costume is not exactly shy (or if they are, the complete anonymity will loosed them up!) since when another passenger with a SERIOUS camera setup -- and there were many that night: think of the streetscapes! -- moved to get a better shot of him, Mr. Chimp [don't remember seeing a tail on that costume] started doing Charles Atlas poses. Heh.

Moving in the other direction, tomorrow night is my first ceramics class in almost a year! Yippee!

I will be so rusty, but it will be nice to start reclaiming my normal routines and remembering what my life was like before I learned all about the cancer coverage features of my health insurance. And since it's also Election Day, I'll need to go vote (NYC mayoral race) in the morning before work. So... good night!