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Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Today Mr. Pamuk turns 56 years old. (And it has been nearly a year since I first started reading his books.) I wish him a long and happy life of writing. 
posted morning of June 7th, 2008: Respond
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Friday, June 6th, 2008
Wilted spinach salad is one of my old favorites. Tonight, I figured out how to make it without bacon, since Ellen and I are trying to limit slightly, how much fat we are eating. The figs have a similar flavor profile -- sweet and smoky. The mushrooms give a meaty texture. Vegetarian Spinach Salad
Serves 2
- about ½ lb. baby spinach leaves, picked, washed, and dried
- a bunch of scallions, washed and chopped
- 5 dried figs, chopped small
(fresh figs would probably be good too)
- 6 mushroom caps, cut into quarters
- olive oil
- sherry vinegar*
- balsamic vinegar
- grated pecorino romano
Combine spinach, scallions and figs in a salad bowl.
Heat oil in a heavy skillet; when hot, add mushroom caps. Season with salt and pepper and saute a minute or two.
Pour vinegar into pan -- about one part sherry vinegar to two parts balsamic to six parts oil. Quickly remove from heat and pour over salad. Toss salad up into skillet so that it gets warm and wilted.
Top with grated cheese.
This makes a very nice, light dinner served with bread and cheese and red wine.
 *(I had some sherry vinegar on hand from when I was making Redfox's Onion Jam recipe -- so I thought I'd use it. It seemed to give a very nice flavor in this dressing, though I can't think of any other salad where it would really be appropriate. It's not an ingredient I'm really familiar with.)
posted evening of June 6th, 2008: Respond
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 Thanks, Shelley! Shelley came along to Sylvia's dance recital last month (Sylvia is a student at Lydia Johnson Dance) and took a lot of pictures, which she gave to Ellen today -- I've uploaded them to our family album.
Sylvia's dance was with two other girls (all of them wore baseball caps for the dance) -- the three of them choreographed the moves together.
posted evening of June 6th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about the Family Album
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 Ellen and I were married 15 years ago today, on June 6, 1993. And furthermore: we have been a couple together for 19 years, since 1989. This is half as many years as I have been alive. Happy crystal anniversary, Ellen!
Anniversary plan: send Sylvia to Kaydi's house for a sleep-over; cook a relaxed, interesting dinner with Ellen.
posted morning of June 6th, 2008: 1 response
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Here are some songs that get played almost every time at the Menzel Violins jam. If I would learn them, I would get a chance to play leads there more frequently. (A song I did get a chance to play tonight, with a guitarist whose name I did not learn -- Robert maybe? -- was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which turns out to be a lot of fun.)
posted morning of June 6th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Fiddling
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Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
 ...So even as I was writing my last post, news was coming out all over the Internet that Hillary Clinton is leaving the race. I guess my initial perception of the speech as a concession speech was accurate on some level.
 In comments at Obsidian Wings, Cleek points out a beautiful bit of date synchronicity: - August 28, 1963: Martin Luther King gives his â??I Have A Dreamâ? speech.
- August 28, 2008: The first black presidential nominee will give his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.
(And read the post to which Cleek's comment is attached; it's a fine one.)
posted evening of June 4th, 2008: Respond
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OK, so I'm feeling bad about leaving the previous post up at the top, and want to at least move it down a little. It was intemperate, and saying "Screw you, Hillary" probably contributes to the atmosphere of misogyny they're discussing over at the Edge of the West. When I was listening to the speech I had a lot of cognitive dissonance going on. I didn't experience the speech as "graceless" and "classless", like a lot of commenters I've been reading today seem to have; it sounded like a really good speech to me, just totally out of place and not suited to the occasion. So anyway. I'm sorry I reacted that way and I just hope Ms. Clinton will leave the race in a civil way and one conducive to Democratic victory.
posted evening of June 4th, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, June third, 2008
Sweet -- so I just turned on the TV and Larry King or somebody was saying that CNN projected Obama would secure the Democratic nomination. Hillary is going to be speaking in a minute... Come on, Hil! You can do the right thing! You can avoid going down in history as the woman who wrecked America!
...Oh thank you, Hillary. Thank you! ...Oh wait, I spoke too soon. Screw you, Hillary. Screw you! ...But it really sounded to me like she was making a concession speech. What's wrong with me?
posted evening of June third, 2008: Respond
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Monday, June second, 2008
I just found out about this: a new translation by Maureen Freely is out, not of Pamuk but of another Turkish author named Fethiye Çetin -- the book is a memoir of her grandmother, an Armenian Christian kidnapped by a Turkish officer. This sounds interesting on any number of points, and Mr. Pope's review makes it sound like captivating reading.
See also this longer review and interview with Çetin, by Fréderike Geerdink.
posted evening of June second, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about My Grandmother: A Memoir
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Sunday, June first, 2008
So more songs on the Feel Alright mix tape than I would have expected, turn out to be fun to play along with, even for a group with talents as strictly limited as myself, Bob and Greg -- we were listening to it this afternoon and of course the fast jazz is just nice for listening, and of course the rock-ish tunes like "Ophelia" and "Caldonia" and "It's Alright With Me" were easy to play along with -- but there were a couple of surprises too, like "Arpay" which Greg and I did pretty nicely I thought -- a harmonica and pan pipes have something in common -- and "Boogie-Woogie Blues"; and we all jammed pretty nicely on "The Museum of Sex". We also did some nice stuff on our own, without the tape -- great version of "Ophelia" after we stopped listening, "Dock of the Bay" with this weird-but-appealing sort of accidental key change on the break, "Mr. Spaceman".
posted evening of June first, 2008: 2 responses
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