Celeste's Breadbox

Fesenjan

I've recently become addicted to making Fesenjan, a traditional Persian dish. My grandmother, who spent many years in Iran, claims it's only right when made with duck. Since duck is not that easy to come by unless you have a trigger-happy relative, I make it with chicken, and I don't see what's so wrong with it. It does take over an hour to make, and involves ingredients most of us probably don't always have stashed around, but it's well worth the extra time and effort, and always turns out fantastic. It also involves tumeric, which can stain white surfaces. I serve it with rice cooked with the seeds from 2 whole cardamon pods. This recipe is adapted from "The Art of Persian Cooking" by Forough Hekmat.

INGREDIENTS
1 large chopped yellow onion
1 pound poultry (chicken, duck, I bet turkey would be good too, but haven't tried it)
1 cup chopped walnut meats
1 1/2 cups pomegranate juice (this is the unusual ingredient, but trust me, there is no substitute. Can usually be found at middle-eastern grocery stores, but I have best luck getting it at Trader Joe's. TJ's rules!)
1 eggplant

STAPLES
pepper
tumeric
cardamon
flour
salt
cooking oil
hot water

In a large, deep sauté pan, brown the onion in 2 tablespoons oil with 1/2 teaspoon each tumeric and pepper. Remove the onion from the pan with a slotted spatula, leaving as much oil in the pan as possible. Add the poultry to the pan, and cook until lightly browned on all sides. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of flour over the poultry, and add the walnuts. Sauté, stirring well, for a couple minutes. Add the pomegranate juice and about 1/2 cup of hot water. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking to the pan.

While the stew is simmering, peel the eggplant and slice it lengthwise. Sprinkle each slice with salt, and let stand for 10 minutes. This is a good time to start the rice. Rinse the eggplant and pat dry. Heat a small amount of cooking oil in a frying pan, and cook the eggplant until lightly browned on each side. When the stew has been cooking for 30 minutes, add the cooked onion, and lay the slices of cooked eggplant over the top. Cover again, and cook over low heat for 10 minutes, or until a thick, brown gravy rises to the top. Add 1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamon and mix thoroughly. Cook for another 2 minutes, and serve on rice.

news graphics

If you've ever worked in design get burried in stock photo catalogs. Browsing these catalogs I'm often wondering who the hell would ever need some of these images, and why. Some of them are just in poor taste, but another large percentage are just plain ugly. So who actually pays money to the digital artists to keep them churning out these ugly images?

CNN.

And the worst of it is how these collages are arranged. They think that by just mashing together 5 images that they are somehow communicating something coherent. Sometimes it looks like some kind of Photoshop acrostic puzzle that uses all these cheap stock images in a way that someone out there must think is clever. How else to explain this one, which only by looking at the page's title was I able to pull any sort of meaning out of.

However, there is one that I don't feel should be included in this survey, because I was actually there, and it was exactly like that. No information has been distorted in that image. It's direct and to the point, and it does not deserve to be lumped in with the other lot.

Via Signal to Noise.

Not the cabinet of

You know those films that are just so completely strange that after you watch them, you just can't help but wonder if you really just watched that, and was it really as totally bizarre as you thought? I clearly remember watching Dr. Caligari, I remembered it was really fucked up, I remembered it had Fox Harris in it, and I remember one particluar character kept squawking "Chinchilla, chinchilla, chinchilla" over and over again. I know that part was true because several other people I know who have also seen the film, join with me in the compulsion of squawking "Chinchilla, chinchilla, chinchilla" whenever we see said species.

Anyway, it was time to watch it again, just so I could prove to myself that it really was the way I remembered. But that meant going to Movie Madness and trying to find it in their stacks. "Hard-to-find video." Yeah, even harder to find when you get in the store. I know the "back room" at MM pretty damned well, and I could swear that Dr. Caligari was never there, either in the "cult movies" section, the "bizarre" section, the "psychotronic" section, or the "L.A. performance artists" section. Why, you might ask, are all these different sections necessary? Ask away, I've been wondering for years. Miraculously, there it was this time. Supposedly though, Cafe Flesh is in the "back back room", which I am almost afraid to go into. I mean, this is a store that keeps hundreds of '60s soft-core at kiddie eye-level, so what's in the other room?

Dr. Caligari was pretty much exactly how I remembered it. Fox Harris as Mamie Van Doren, yellow vinyl suits, and not quite as much of Jennifer Balgobin as you get in Straight to Hell. Good if you are in an extremely odd mood.

Oh, and A. had to follow that with Santo against the Martian Invasion. Like all Santo films, it was way more watchable than you'd think.

Hammer House of Horror

I just love Hammer films. I don't know what it is, the luscious Technicolor, the period costumes, the Peter Cushing? Well, probably mostly the Peter Cushing, but the costumes really make him in so many of the films. The films are so English, and even though I'm not really an Anglophile, I find them interesting for their Englishness. And you really have to respect them as a studio. They made so many films, so quickly, and most of them don't suck. It's odd, almost every Hammer film I've seen (and that's a lot of them) are totally watchable. Many of them are repetitive, un-original, and relatively poorly scripted, but when you put them up against the sophomoric shit that passes for a mass market horror film these day, any Hammer film will seem sophsticated, clever, and unexpectedly gorey in comparison.

Which is why I'm so happy that Hammer are back in business with some Kiwis making new, cheap, sincere horror films.

YAY!!!!

http://www.hammerfilms.com/

Adbusting

Awsome adbusting action.

Via Coudal.

Chick Lit

Interesting discussion via Bookslut about Male authors vs. Female authors. My thoughts are pretty much in line with Jessa's, that so many female writers are composing material that is tiresome, whiny, ingratiating and (worst of all) apologetic. Not to say that there aren't female authors that I do enjoy, it just seems like the signal to noise ratio is pretty low, with mountains of these so-called "women's books" with their simpering, weak female characters. Aldous Huxley wrote stronger women than most female writers do. Not to say that there aren't a million crappy male writers out there that I have no interest in. Oh, there are those. And I hate apologetic male writers most of all. (Not just the writers, all apologetic males. Get over it!)

I guess what it comes down to is a little bit of guilt I feel when I look over my bookshelf and find two or three female writers, and about forty male ones. And some of the male writers that I like are generally considered to be pretty misogynistic, a fact that some of my male lit geek friends never cease to point out. J.G. Ballard for example. I've been a fan of his for ages, his speculative fiction is at once subtle and visceral, and it never fails to intrigue me.

In a way I think it is the intruige that steers me to male writers. They are writing from a generally different perspective than I'm coming from, so the material is outside of my personal worldview, and therefore more interesting to me as a reader. What's so interesting about reading someone else's version of your own general situation? There's no surprise, everyone acts pretty much the way you expect them to, and the book is totally boring. That's probably also why I find myself reading mostly foreign fiction.

Anyway, a long rant that basically just a plug for Bookslut. Go read it now!

More ice

OK, can't resist some more picture of the ice storm. It's cool.

Plants by mail

Stuck inside in this terrible ice storm, worried about what plants will survive and which ones won't. Time to start thinking about spring! Luckily I have a pile of plant catalogs to browse and plan.

There are a number of reasons I started ordering plants through the mail. Although the nurseries around Portland are pretty good, most of them are aways out of town, and since I don't drive, pretty hard to get to. I used to take plants on the bus, but it can be pretty awkward if the bus is full, or if it's raining. I can usually talk A. into going to the one good nursery in town (Portland Nursery) every few months, but they don't always have what I want, and on weekends it's a total zoo there. So I started ordering plants by mail, to mixed results. Most of the time everything arrives just fine, but on a couple occasions I have had packages and plants get crushed or break in shipping. That's why I generally only order bareroot and bulbs, plants only if I know they're pretty tough.

If you're looking for total garden inspiration, look no further than White Flower Farm. I highly recommend getting the print version of the catalog, the photography is fantastic, the gardens lovely, and it's always a high quality print job. These guys know their shit. Although a bit on the spendy side, they often carry plants that would otherwise be very hard to find. I will often see something in this catalog that catches my eye, then try to find it at a nursery where the prices are a little lower. What I most look forward to is the bulbs catalog in the fall. Everything from your florist's shop big yellow daffodils and the latest showy tulips, to species tulips and those weird fall-blooming colchicum. If you want a spring garden that looks a little different, this is a great place to start.

I've been trying to garden with native plants as much as possible, and while there are a lot of native nurseries around, I've only found one that has a good on-line catalog, Plant Oregon. There are a few problems with their web site, and orders take a little while, but you just can't beat their selection. They don't have pictures of most items, or much info on each cultivar's needs, so you'll need a companion book, there are several good encyclopedias of NW native plants. The nursery seems to grow a lot for land reclamation, and have lots of recommendations for plants to use on hills, wetlands, and in urban environments. Their prices are very good, but watch out for shipping charges, especially if you're ordering trees.

If you're planting vegetables, or want to try some flowers from seed, the Nichols Garden Nursery has a large selection of both, plus herb plants and gardening accessories. They carry a lot of unusual herbs and vegetables, ornamental gourds, and lawn alternatives. A lot of their seed is also certified organic and they will send a free packet of basic vegetable seeds with your order as part of the "Plant a Row for the Hungry" project.

Still the catalog for midwestern grandma gardeners, Gurney's carries all your basic flowers and vegetables. They also sell a wide variety of trees and shrubs, but many of them are so common, you'd certainly be better off getting one at a local nursery and avoiding the shipping charge. (Better yet, have Friends of Trees deliver and plant your tree). Very occasionally they will have something I can't find elsewhere, some old-fashioned plant, but most of what you see will be commonly available at your local gardening center or hardware store.

While we're thinking about our gardens, check out my favorite gardening forum: You Grow Girl. They don't obssess on knowing every single cultivar name in your garden, and they don't care if you use pop bottles for cloches instead of hand-blown glass. Real people discuss their real gardens.

Hot Toddies

When it's cold, and you want to drink, don't make the mistake of trying to make spanish coffee and setting your hair on fire. There are many less combustible hot beverages for those cold winter nights. My preference is for toddies. I'm not sure what the strict definition of a toddy is, but my interpretation is a cocktail mixed with hot water. Put your teapot on and mix a drink:

BARENJAGER TODDY
Barenjager is a German honey liqueur, pretty widely available in a bottle with a beehive cap, basketweave case, and a little honeybee pin. The bottle will tell you that it is best served cold. Do not trust them.
1 tsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 part Barenjager
3 parts hot water
Stir and enjoy.

KENTUCKY TODDY
The most traditional toddy.
1 tsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp. honey
1 part Kentucky Bourbon
3 parts hot water
Stir and enjoy some more.

ORANGE SPICE TODDY
Some will say that it is blasphemy to serve vodka hot. But A. doesn't consider flavored vodkas to be vodka at all, so where's the danger? I admit this one only came about because I had all of these ingredients, and was bored.
1 part Cointreau
2 parts Skyy Spiced Vodka (cinnamon and clove flavored, also makes great screwdrivers)
3 parts hot water
Stir, and don't blame me if you hate it.

Snow... becoming freezing rain

Uh, can I take back that statement about wishing it snowed here more often? It's like when I was growing up in Denver and NEVER ONCE IN THREE YEARS having a snow day off from school. Sure it snowed, but always on the weekends, or over X-mas break. Now it's the second, going into the third snow day here, schools out, businesses closed, no one's going anywhere. Sadly, I telecommute every day, as does my client, so we're still pulling in almost full days of work at home.

Oh well, I was getting bored anyway.

Sesame decided he really liked the snow today. Previously he hated it and kept attacking it. Since his memory goes only as far back about 5 minutes, it's not surprising that he changed his mind. I think the conditions were better. The inch or so of ice on top of the snow is sufficient to support his 16 lb. bulk, so it's just like solid ground to him. Weird, but solid. Night for night.

Freak Showers

If you've seen Repo Man a hundred times or so, you know that the radios in the cars have some of the funniest lines. Such as: "Scientists are at a loss to explain the freak showers of tiny cubes of ice." We started out with a few inches of snow, and just as they promised, now we have freezing rain. Oh, yea! And if we're really lucky it will turn into that stuff that freezes on impact and downs all the power lines. Whoopee!

I'm sure by tonight they'll have some sort of buzz phrase for this storm. I admit, it is extremely nasty out there. A. and Billy actually went to work in this, even though it took Billy almost 2 hours to get here from Mollalla. Weirdos.

It's doing terrible things to the garden, even some of the hardier evergreen shrubs are shrivelling up. I'm a little worried about the new shrubs I planted bareroot earlier this winter. They're native species, though, so I imagine they can cope. The critters are all weathering it too. All my regulars have been by the feeders this morning. English and Song Sparrows, European Starling, Scrub Jay, Bushtits (flock of about 20), American Goldfinch, and of course the Chickadees. And the hummingbird. She's been hiding in the bamboo, she'll get a little nervous when I go to pick up the frozen feeder, but she's been coming out to drink as soon as I put the thawed feeder out. OK, she's hard to see in this photo, but it's the green spotch in the center of the red splotch. The white splotches are snow. It's about 20°F. I'm going to get some cocoa now.

Cold Hummer

To show what a nut I've become about my feathered backyard buddies...

'Round these parts we have Anna's Hummingbirds. Smallest bird in N. America. They don't migrate to Mexico with the other hummingbirds. They stick around, depending on winter bloomers (they love my rosemary), tree sap, and kindly persons who keep their hummingbird feeders full in the winter, knowing that there will a few Anna's around to partake.

It's very, very cold today, and my hummingbird feeder keeps freezing solid. And there is one cold little female Anna's hovering around the area. I'm such a sucker I keep bringing the feeder in to defrost it with a hot water bottle, then taking it out so she can get some sugary energy, every couple of hours or so. She's so cold she practically lets me walk right up to where she's perched by the feeder. Awwwww....

Unwelcoming

The idea of international travel is getting scarier and scarier to me. Not the "terrorist threat" but the overreaction of our government to false leads and misinformation resulting in bully-boy behavior to all travellers.

From the AP Newswire:

"Brazil's Foreign Ministry has requested that Brazilians be removed from the U.S. list, and police started fingerprinting and photographing Americans arriving at Sao Paulo's airport last week in response to the new U.S. regulations.

" 'At first, most of the Americans were angered at having to go through all this, but they were usually more understanding once they learned that Brazilians are subjected to the same treatment in the U.S.,' Brazilian police spokesman Wagner Castilho said last week."

Actions like this are making Americans more and more unwelcome around the globe. I've always been slightly ashamed to admit I'm American when I'm travelling abroad. On this upcoming trip I think I'm going to do a lot of pretending to be Canadian.

Martian Soil

In light of the new Mars Landings... It always bugs me what poor science journalism there is in the mainstream media. There's always a lot of excitement around the time of a big news event, then everyone forgets that there's still science going on, some of it important, even though we may not be hearing about it. I guess that's as good a reason as any to read a Blog about Mars.

www.martiansoil.com

The Shat

Several things have brought William Shatner to the attention of my cultural radar lately. It seems I can't turn around without seeing or hearing about him. But that's OK, he is still the man.

1. Friday of last week I had the horrible chore of trying to watch a Star Trek:TOS and Star Trek:TNG marathons at the same time. Damn you Sci-Fi and Spike! I mostly gave up and watched movies instead.

2. Free Enterprise was on IFC the other day. I watched a bit of it, but it was late, and I own it on DVD anyway, so why am I watching it on TV. My dad calls me the next morning to ask if I'd seen it, and tell me how much he enjoyed it. Said it reminded him of me. That's why I like it too, it reminds me of me. Perhaps a little too much at times.

3. Some friends are still trying to find a time to hijack my TV and make me watch Incubus (the 100% Esperanto Shatner film), but it hasn't happened yet. I'm afraid.

4. Great interview in the Onion AV Club this week.

5. Can't forget one of my favorite headlines ever! This was a while ago, but I still keep thinking about it: "Shatner ex sues over horse semen." Wha-ha?

Two Towers DVD

Finally watched "The Two Towers" (extended version) with the cast commentary. Word to all Brad Dourif fans out there, if you have not already, run to get the DVD 'cus there is so much Brad on the commentary track. He clearly had a good time making the film, and has quite a few insightful comments about the characters and the development. He's so awesome. *squeal*

There is much to endure on the commentary track, though. Sean Astin must have been drinking Mountain Dew through the whole session and just cannot shut up. He and Elija Wood and Andy Serkis are together for their session, and Sean keeps interrupting with his innane comments, drowning out the much more interesting things that Andy has to say. Elija has problems with the work "literally," which also tends to grate on my grammar nazi nerves. Oh well, I'll sit through that track again just for Brad, Christopher Lee, Bernard Hill, Andy Serkis, Karl Urban, etc., etc.

'04 resolved

1. Didn't have anything to do, so we kept calling our friend Kell to try to get him to have a party. He finally conceeded, and called a party at about 7. Having it on short notice was actually a good thing, so there were only about 20 people there instead of the usual 100 or so who generally appear for his parties.

Jessica is making Michael think twice.
Our gracious host played some fabulous '80s tunes.
"New Wave Boy" (right) engaged me, Bill and Micheal in a conversation about "Warm Leatherette." Yeah.

2. We had quite a bit of snow that night, but we are lucky that it didn't start coming down until well after most people were safe at home. I think we've had more snow this year than any other year I've lived here, and we supposed to be getting more tonight. Maybe I'll actually get to use my new snowshoes one of these days!

3. Quit cigarrettes for the new year. It's day four... Still hanging in there, but very, very fidgity.