Bad Compliments

Part of maintaining a long term relationship is compliments: letting your partner know how and what you appreciate about him or her. This is particularly true with cooking. When someone has taken time out of her/his busy day to make you food, you should be thankful and complimentary.

That being said, not all compliments are created equally. This is my bottom three list of compliments to give your spouse/partner on his/her cooking.

3. Buttery Rolls
Well, insert any adjective in front of rolls and it's still bad. Yes, a roll is another way of saying bun, but NO ONE wants to hear anything about their rolls regardless of how delicious/amazing/etc. they are.

2. This tastes great with ketchup!
I love ketchup, so this was a hard one for me to learn. Most people make food to be eaten on its own. If they want a sauce on it, it's usually cooked in or served with said sauce. Destroying an original, from-the-heart creation by drowning it in sweet, vinegary, pulverized tomatoes and then complimenting it, is a faux pas of the worst sort.

1. "This is the best X you've ever made!"
This might be a very good compliment, but you need to do some detective work beforehand. If the meal is take out, heat and serve from the grocery store, or--worst--thawed leftovers of something you, yourself, made, you are in big trouble!

Know any other bad compliments? Leave a comment and let me know.

Orange-ku VIII

I imagine my oranges in sun.
They don't dance, don't frolic, don't move in any way.
They just soak up light, making glorious fruit.

I imagine my oranges at sea.
In crates, in darkness they bob and drift and slide.
Afraid, alone, suddenly homesick.

I imagine my oranges in store.
Unsure, hopeful, watching every passerby.
Then I come, say, "You won't be consumed in vain."

20 Orange Round Up!

Can you believe I've already eaten 20 oranges? It's only been 2 weeks!

Here are the results thus far:

The average/mean is 10.1 segments per orange.

The mode is 10, as is the median.

The standard deviation of this sample is 1.209610638

I only have one orange left from our first box, so I'll have to replenish the stock over the weekend.

Check out the blog page for a look at the distribution chart. It's got the makings of a nice bell curve, if you ask me.

I'll leave you with Orange-ku VII:

There is just one orange left to eat
It's skin is getting dry and hard,
but it feels extra mushy inside. Yum?

Orange-ku VI

There was no orange in the Grey Cup this year.

Orange-ku V

An orange is better than passion fruit.
Better than plums, blue berries, watermelon.
Bananas are right out! Yuck, yuck, yuck!

Orange-ku IV

This is two days' worth of oranges in one verse.
It's not many mandarins; I'm tired.

Orange-ku III

Today I ate one after stringing the lights.
Now, I'll deck all our halls with Christmasy sights.

Orange-ku II

Oh, the shapes peels can make; my favourite is the 'S'.

Orange-ku I

With this round of orange-servations, I have decided to go back to the daily reports I used to do for my dog-servations. I wanted to keep them interesting as well, so I've invented a poetic way of sharing the results: Orange-ku! The structure of the poem will share the results of the day's observation. The number of lines will be the number of oranges I've eaten and the number of syllables per line will be the number of segments for each orange!

So, without further ado, it's time for the first Orange-ku.

I love to eat oranges in the winter
The peel is easy to remove
Sometimes they have seeds, but that is rare now
That sour taste, that citrus smell—Christmas is here

Orange-servations are back!

Last year I kept track of the segments of the oranges I ate during the Christmas season. With a purchase of a 4kg box of mandarin oranges last night, it's again time to get my yearly dose of vitamin C and satisfy my need to analyze trivial data.

After two days with oranges in our house, my results are 10, 12, 10, and 9 segments.

10 Books: That Have Stayed with Me

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
The best exploration of what living in a truly alien society would mean that I have read. The unique relationship that forms between two individuals with no common ground is what has stuck with me.

Dragon on a Pedestal - Piers Anthony
This is the book that got me hooked on reading. An innocent girl lost in the wild meets the land's most feared dragon and then things really get going. Filled with puns, wit and charm I was hooked on the land of Xanth and reading after this.

The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkein
The history of Middle-Earth from it's creation to the events immediately preceding The Hobbit. It's a masterwork of myth and epic in scope. Every time I read it it impresses me more.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Filled with wit, unforgettable characters and a strong female lead, the rocky love story of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy (sigh) is my favourite example of why we shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Psalms
Equal parts praise and lament. These lyrical outcries to The Lord regularly inspire me and remind me that it's not about having it all together, it's about reaching out whatever my situation.

Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The descent from order to chaos, civil to wild of a group of boys stranded on an island. A haunting exploration of the human condition.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
The last of the Harry Potter series, but the first to break the formula. No journey to the school, no trying to since a mystery while still passing all your classes, just a mission to defeat the ultimate evil.

Perelandra - C.S. Lewis
The second of his space trilogy, Perelandra a world newborn world. Will the main character be able to combat the Tempter and prevent this world's Fall? This book helped me better understand the story of Eden and the possibility of life beyond Earth.

The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
An American novel of society and scandal. An engaged high society man tries to shake off his obligations and follow his heart.

The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russel
Jesuits in space! A modern day Job. The Sparrow explores colonization, conversion, exploration and is the reason I am an English teacher and not a rocket scientist or astrophysicist. The heartbreaking climax is matched by an oh-so-subtle glimpse of hope.

What doesn't go with peas?

Kristin asked what she thought was a rhetorical question tonight at supper: what doesn't go with peas? They have a mild flavour and are sweet. When I started thinking about it, it was hard, but I kept thinking. Here are my top three things that do not go with peas (I guess, this is a bottom three list?):

3. Peas & Squid - the squishiness, the elasticity, the horror!

2. Pea Cookies - Take a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Keep everything the same except substitute peas in for chocolate chips. A sure fire catastrophe!

1. Lucky Peas! - Another substitute method. Take Lucky Charms and swap the marshmallows out for peas. Then add milk. I can feel it curdling in my stomach already!

Can you think of anything worse?

From the Archives

Here is a log of some new food experiences I found lost in draft status. Enjoy taking a trip back five years.

11/21/09 Chocolate Covered PEI Potato Chip - It was a ripple chip covered in chocolate and it tasted exactly like that. The oiliness of the chocolate-chip combination robbed it from the crunchiness I was  expecting. If it had retained its crunch it would have been very good.

11/21/09 Blackberry - It was pretty big. The berry bits were a lot larger than I was expecting and the mini berry seed crunch wasn't very mini, but still enjoyable.

11/16/09 Bruschetta - Kristin really likes bruschetta and when we went out to eat after our English movie on her birthday we got a sampling of apps. I tried the bruschetta. I like everything that goes along with it, like the fancy toast and the cheese, but the bruschetta itself I'm just not a fan. Kristin took heaping forkfuls to top her toast. I took small fork tips.
VERDICT: Owen List

11/15/09 Feta - Like the hard-boiled egg, feta was a topping at the Bergers. It was a salad topping (along with corn if you can believe it) and again it tasted a lot like cheese. I can confidently say my fear of feta has been vanquished.

11/08/09 Chestnut Cream - This was one topping for the crepe party at the Bergers. It is made with chestnut paste and real whipped creamed stirred together. It is sweet and very nutty. Okay, but couldn't compete with the nutella and dark chocolate spread.

11/03/09 Cranberry - This was the next day. Nicole bought all the fruits I tried this day just so I could try them. I liked cranberries the most of the bunch. They were fresh and therefore very tart. I love tartness!

11/02/09 Plum - Tried it during the same tasting session as the kiwi. Though I ate the skin I still don't think I'd like it skinless. Just not a taste that agrees with me.
VERDICT: Owen List

11/02/09 Kiwi - Tried it on the day my teachers found out I was a relatively inexperienced fruit eater. A kiwi tastes kind of like the child of a generic citrus fruit and a grape. Way better than a plum.

09/29/09 Chinese Fondue - When we went out for our anniversary to La Maison de la Fondue. We had an entirely fondue meal. I'd never had fondue with oil before, nor with chinese broth. It was excellent!

Streamlining

Today I'm taking a step towards streamlining my online identity. I've got so many accounts and blogs on the go it's hard to figure out where to post. I have imported Tried It! to this blog and from now on all aspects of my personal blogging will be hosted here, whether it's food related, book related, nerd related, or what not.

If you subscribe to Tried It! or have it bookmarked, please continue tuning/reading in. You can bookmark 1who.blogspot.com (it's shorter!) or follow this blog via RSS, Google+, etc.

All future food related posts will have the TriedIt! label. (It's on the side somewhere over here. ---------> )

Duodecimal

I've been fascinated with the idea of a base 12 number system for a long time. This is what I would call the numbers up to 100 (144 in decimal).

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, dozen

Onzen, twezen, thirzen, fourzen, fifzen, sixzen, sevezen, eightzen, ninezen, tenzen, elezen, twenzy

Thirzy, forzy, fifzy, sixzy, sevenzy, eightzy, ninezy, tenzy, elevenzy, dodozen

Bits & Bites 2

OH CANADA EDITION

This week has been pretty monumental.

- On Canada Day itself I tried rhubarb pie. There are many reasons I've never tried rhubarb pie, but they boil down to two main hangups: my pie aversion and rhubarb is just plain scary. It looks like celery, but is treated like a fruit.(Isn't part of the plant poisonous?) However, I was at a friend's house celebrating and his mom had just made it. It was still warm. This is apparently a good thing for pies, rhubarb especially. I couldn't refuse. The first bite through me for a loop: sweet, yet quite tart. I kept eating and it started to grow on me. I'm a sucker for sour it seems. Halfway through my slice someone tried to make sure finishing was a challenge by asking if tapioca was in the pie, like usual. My brain heard the comment, but by sheer force of will my taste buds never received the message.
VERDICT: Polite. If offered, I'd gladly eat rhubarb pie again. Who knows, maybe after a few times I'll even upgrade it to Order status.

- Today we had garden salad with supper. I decided I'd just eat the cucumbers and peppers, if I got any. Normally, the "if I got any" would mean I'd be using the hyper-picky tongs when filling my plate; however, I only used the slightly picky tongs and crunched down on some non-leafy vegetables with supper.

- When cutting up vegetables for make-your-own pizzas tonight, I had an unnatural urge to pop a fresh mushroom in my mouth. I resisted. (Hopefully Kristin eats them all before she reads this.)

My Cover XV: The Cover's the Thing

For the finale of Shakespeare week the great tragedy of the Prince of Denmark.

I tried to merge a crown, skull and Hamlet all into one image. Madness or brilliance? You decide ;)

My Cover XIV: Star Cross'd Lovers

In honour of one of the most famous almost-fourteen-year-olds in the history of literature.

I tried to capture the feud in the colours used for the cover. Romeo and Juliet on opposite sides, yet with bloodshed touching all. The lovers are connected with both a heart and a dagger.

My Cover XIII: Unlucky Thirteen

What better play to present in the thirteenth My Cover post, than the unluckiest of plays: The Scottish Play!

I used the main character's family tartan and slowly faded it into red to show the character's descent into evil and murder.

My Cover XII: Twelfth Night

Could the twelfth post be any other play?

I tried to capture the duality of Viola/Cesario by merging a man and woman Janus-style.

My Cover XI: Othello

Othello involves some sea travel, so what better way to show Othello's descent into jealousy that with his name being swallowed by a green wave?

My Cover X: Friends, Romans, Countrymen

What better way to celebrate reaching roman numeral x than with some Roman plays?

For the plays set in the Roman Empire, I'm bordering the covers with columns and trying to capture key details in text. Julius Caesar has a dagger and laurel wreath replacing letters and a bloody font reveals Caesar's fate. For Antony and Cleopatra I used fonts representative of each of the characters' regions and turned an ampersand into an asp.

My Cover IX: Shakespeare Week!

Now that summer break is here I can start working on one of my summer goals: to read at least one new Shakespeare play! (Can you tell I'm an English teacher?) To tie in with that, I've devoted a week to some Shakespeare covers.

To begin, though it isn't midsummer yet, it is summer, so here is A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I wanted to keep it simple with a night sky above a forest to capture the setting, plus changing fonts for the title to capture the transformation that so permeates the play.

My Cover VIII: Jekyll and Hyde

Here are two versions of my cover for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I wanted to capture the duality of the character and thought that a reflection and yin-yang would show off how they are opposites, yet united. I like the second one, with Jekyll in the light and Hyde reflected in the dark the best.

My Cover VII: The Diary of a Young Girl

This is another book my students could read as part of an independent novel study. I wanted to capture the diary aspect of the book so used a pencil sketch of Anne and a lined paper background.

My Cover VI: Flowers for Algernon

I love this book and love the recurring motif of the maze. How well Charlie and Algernon can navigate the maze shows not only their intelligence, but how well they can navigate life itself. After working the title letters in I was stumped with how to include the author's name. I'm not fully pleased with what I came up with, but it was better than anything else I tried.

My Cover V: The Grinch!

In making this cover I relearned the actual title for the book. I had "The Grinch who Stole Christmas" in my head. Was that the movie? I don't remember and don't feel like looking it up. I tried to keep it whimsical and focus more on the stealing of Christmas than the Grinch.

My Cover IV: The Hound of the Baskervilles

I wanted to capture the bleak landscape of the book, so I went minimal. A flat plane with just the Baskerville estate, formed by the 'the' and the murdered Baskerville who starts the whole case. I tried to capture the elusive nature of the hound in only representing it with a foot print in the blood, hopefully tying it to the murder, but being mysterious in its absence.

Sushi Lesson

Always ask what's in a roll before you order it, especially if you're late into an all you can eat session. Ordered the DF roll from Sushi Hut. Was stuffed to the eyeballs when it came. Kudos to KBL for knowing it'd be deep fried, but neither of us predicted there would be four kinds--FOUR KINDS--of fish inside!
On the plus side, I was too full to eat all of it. On the double plus side, it wasn't real bad.
VERDICT: Polite. The sort of polite where if you accidentally order it at an all you can eat restaurant you eat it because you have to.

My Cover III: Middle-Earth Spectacular!

I've tried to capture the two trees in this stylized Silmaril, as Fëanor captured their light in the Silmarils.

Here's an entire jacket. The Hobbit is a journey, so I put the beginning and the destination on the front, as well as the Ring, because, well, you can't not have the Ring. I took an existing blurb from the book and shaped it into the likeness of Smaug for the back.

A simplified cover emphasizing Minas Tirith's position between the two towers.

Milky Way!

Playing with white balance while watching the Camelopardalids!

My Cover II

Here is my cover of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. This is another book my grade students could pick as a part of their independent reading project this year. It is a collection of short stories chronicling (oddly enough) Earth's colonization of Mars.

My Cover: War of the Worlds

Welcome to the first edition of My Cover. This'll most likely become a semi-regular feature on this site. I love to draw and design things and after a year of teaching high school English I have had a lot of literary inspiration. I've come up with a bunch of covers for books my students have read or that I'm reading. Here's the first: H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds

This Is Madness 2014

I'm not into basketball whatsoever, but I did make a bracket for a tournament this month: the Star Wars: This Is Madness character tournament! My bracket broke down in the first round. I'm partial to the Skywalkers and for some reason thought Night-sisters would be able to defeat a multi-appendaged cyborg and homicidal Mandalorian. However, I do still have an outside shot of getting the champion right!

Check out my bracket. To vote and see the progress of the tournament thus far, check out the This Is Madness page.

Green Smoothie

I tried the smoothie Kristin made tonight. It was a melon & spinach smoothie and it probably had some yoghurt in it. I can't sugar coat it, especially since the smoothie wasn't sugar coated, it was terrible!
VERDICT: Gross. I think Kristin would even agree with me on this one.

Bits & Bites 1

This term the room I share during my prep has changed and I've enjoyed getting to know another one of the English teachers at the school. Unfortunately, for my picky self that is, he is both a gourmet and a gourmand. He puts me to shame. While in Japan, he even taught himself to eat natto! So, I've been braver than usual lately.

• Last week I ate a cookie with raisins in it. I didn't squirm. I didn't flinch. I didn't even squinch! In fact, I barely noticed them. How many cookies have I turned down needlessly? No more!

• I declined guacamole on a hamburger when out for lunch and found I couldn't justify why I didn't like it. So, a few weeks later I picked up some sushi for supper. I had a vegetarian roll that just so happened to have some avocado in it. I was brave. I removed it from the roll and ate it on its own. It tasted like nothing I've ever, well, actually it tasted like nothing. It was soft, mushy nothingness squishing terribly in my mouth. I remember why I don't like avocados.

Tomorrow, we're going out for lunch again. Wish me luck.

Coyotes Patch

Not only am I a hockey enthusiast, but I am hockey design enthusiast as well. I like to make jerseys, logos, and what not.

I was inspired by a post from icethetics. Part of the new deal to keep the Coyotes in Glendale is a change of name from Phoenix to Arizona. They are going to make that change for next season. The post shows the new word mark for the team and a changed shoulder patch. I thought the new shoulder patch didn't use the state abbreviation very well. I felt there was a lot of empty space, so I thought I'd try my hand at remaking the patch myself.

Here it is:

I decided to simplify the palette and do something a bit different with the letters.

Just A Thought #1

I know that a second is a fixed unit; however, since I first heard about how some dinosaurs were so large it took seconds for nerve signals to travel to the brain, I've separated the idea of absolute time and experienced time.
Experienced time is the rate at which our nervous system can process stimuli and act. In absolute time, this time is unique to each species, since each species has a unique anatomy. It is with this time that we measure our days and our lifespans. We view mice and insects as preternaturally fast. Spider-Man's precognitive spider sense is one example that comes to mind. We view the behemoths of ages past as plodding imbeciles and wonder how they could possibly have survived at such a slow pace. However, our opinions are based on our experiential time.
If I was to somehow become a diplodocus, mamenchisaurus, or even a amphicoelias, in absolute time my experienced time would have lengthened, but I wouldn't notice the difference. Experienced time is constant. What I would notice is that I lived in a world of incredibly fast little creatures that somehow seemed to know in advance if I was trying to squish them.
If I were to become a fly, I still I wouldn't notice a difference in the passing of time, but I'd live in a world of incredibly slow giants. I'd laugh at them as they try to squish me and wonder how beings could possibly exist if they move and react that slowly.
I think it boils down to relativity and perspective. We say a worker bee has a lifespan of a year, but if it can process its environment 40 times faster than we can, has it not lived 40 years in that span?

Double Processed Grilled Cheese (with Bacon)

Yesterday I went out for lunch and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon. Five minutes later, much to my chagrin, I realized I had not inquired as to the type of cheese the restaurant used in their grilled cheese sandwiches. When it arrived I was not surprised to find melted processed cheese-food oozing out of the sandwich. I was surprised, though, to find there were two types of cheese-food used in the sandwich: the regular light, school-bus orange-yellow plus white! It didn't make for much of an improvement, but I swallowed my dismay and persisted in swallowing the sandwich.
VERDICT: Polite. Bacon makes everything better and liberal amounts of ketchup doesn't hurt either.

Smooth Palpatine

I came up with this idea a long time ago. "Smooth Criminal" by Michael Jackson just screams to be Star-Wars-ized to me. However, I lack what many people call "musical ability", so this idea has lain dormant for a long time. I would like to see if I can harness the power of the internet to perhaps get this idea to become a reality.

So, without further ado:

Smooth Palpatine

As you first came to the temple

Yoda saw your fear was parental

But they trained you, you were chosen

And then the bloodstains on your master

While you're flying, a saviour

Somehow he runs the Republic

He can see you are unstable

He is your friend, it was your doom

Ani are you okay

So, Ani are you okay

Are you okay, Ani

Ani are you okay

So, Ani are you okay

Are you okay, Ani

Ani are you okay

So, Ani are you okay

Are you okay, Ani

Ani are you okay

So, Ani are you okay

Are you okay, Ani

Ani are you okay

Will you tell us that you're okay

Assassin out the window

You guard me, but dream of your mom, Ani

Tusken's take her, you can't save her

So you killed them, men, women, children

Go save Obi-wan, lose your hand

We were married

It was your doom

Ani are you okay

So, Ani are you okay

Are you okay, Ani

Ani are you okay

So, Ani are you okay

Are you okay, Ani

Ani are you okay

So, Ani are you okay

Are you okay, Ani

You've been tricked by

You've been struck by

A smooth Palpatine

So you crossed the whole galaxy

With Ahsoka, where did she go?

Clones, our soldiers, dying for him

Swinging sabers, Negotiations?

Annie are you okay

So, Annie are you okay

Are you okay, Annie

Annie are you okay

So, Annie are you okay

Are you okay, Annie

Annie are you okay

So, Annie are you okay

Are you okay, Annie

Annie are you okay

So, Annie are you okay

Are you okay, Annie

Annie are you okay

Will you tell us that you're okay

You saved him and killed Dooku

But can you save me from your dreams, Ani

On the council, not a master

Says he'll save me, you bow down, Vader

Then you ran into the temple

And you struck down

It was your doom

Annie are you okay

So, Annie are you okay

Are you okay, Annie

You've been tricked by

You've been struck by

A smooth Palpatine

Okay, I want every Jedi to be killed right now!

Aaow!

Annie are you okay

I Don't Know!

Will you tell us, that you're okay

I Don't Know!

Assassin out the window

I Don't Know!

He tricked you, a Sith Lord, Annie

I Don't Know!

You killed them, men, women, children

I Don't Know!

The bloodstains on your master

I Don't Know, Why Padme!

Then you ran into the temple

I Don't Know!

And you struck down

It was your doom, Annie

Annie are you okay

Where are you, Padme

Will you tell us, that you're okay

Where are you, Padme

Assassin out the window

Where are you, Padme

He tricked you, a Sith Lord, Annie

No! No!

You killed them, men, women, children

Where are you

The bloodstains on your master

No! No! No!

Then you ran into the temple

Where are you

And you struck down

Oh, you killed me, Ani

Nooooo!

---

Can someone help me create this song?