Cornbread

With the aid of some Cruz Farms buttermilk and fried hog jowl and turnips, I've produced the greatest pan of cornbread in my entire life. Dude, with with a little butter, this is orgasmic stuff. I've even et a bowlful soaked in buttermilk. Something, I haven't done in, gods above, around 30 years. Papaw loved to eat cornbread crumbled in milk, though he used sweet milk.

Cooking tonight

So, for $1.35 I bought a pack of 'stipped back portions' of chicken. Right now, they're browning (theoretically, since they turned out to be frozen) in my Dutch oven with some slices of smoked hog jowl, a bay leaf, some dried oregano, four smashed cloves of garlic, and some freshly ground black pepper.

When the chicken browns, I plan to add some roughly diced potatoes and turnips. After that cooks a bit longer, I'll add some water and throw the lot in the oven for an hour.

Eventually, I'll make a cover for the whole mess, either via biscuit dough or pie pastry.

[Pre-post edit] I've actually thrown the chicken in a pan of water, figuring it'll make it easier to strip any remaining meat from the mess. The potatoes and turnips, bathed in yummy oregano, garlic and pork-flavored grease, have been placed in a 350 Fahrenheit oven, without additional water.

Status

I feel pretty good today in both mind and body. Just saying.

ya gotta break some eggs

ya gotta break some eggs, originally uploaded by Thirteen Letters Photography.

T-Minus Nothing

Today, I'm thankful.

Thankful for being alive. Thankful for love and hot coffee, for rapier fighting and desire. Thankful for being able to groove to electronic music whilst four chess pies bake in my oven.

For me, the implicit philosophy of Thanksgiving is Epicurean rather than Puritan. Be thankful today for the pleasures of life. Eat some good food. Enjoy some good company. And, as Omar Khayyam probably wouldn't have put it: groove thy ass off, if you have the chance. For only the quick dance. The dead have other concerns.

Counting

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I'm a little tired in spirit at the moment to enumerate my blessings, but there is light in my life, and I am thankful for it.

Creeds

There is one creed: 'neath no world-terror's wing
Apples forget to grow on apple-trees.

--From "Ecclesiastes," G.K. Chesterson

Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the burden of original sin, not under the doom of salvation. Go out and be born among gypsies or thieves or among happy workaday people who live in the sun and do not think about their souls.

--From "Advice to Unborn Novelists," Pearl S. Buck

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

--From "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rules

I wonder what a class with a Nomic-based syllabus would be like?

amen corner

amen corner, originally uploaded by Thirteen Letters Photography.

Hmmm ...

Google "The Panic of 1907". Makes interesting reading in light of our current troubles.

The Angel of History

"A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."

—Walter Benjamin.

Stuff

... brought home beer last night (yay) ... it fell out when I opened the door and two bottles broke (boo) ... went for a run this morning with Anja from work (yay), as I arrived at Fountain City Park, discovered the car had run out of gas 70 miles earlier than usual (wtf?), got gas with help of Anja (yay) and added some oil while I was at it (meh), departed, had a coffee and a gingerbread bagel at Panera (mmm, bagels), went to Home Depot to buy auger to finally clear drains (meh), discovered car was leaking when parked at Walmart (sigh), engine was smoking when I got home (ack), opened hood to find that the oil cap wasn't on (bugger! I remember putting it back on ... I think) ... finally unclogged three drains (yay) ... although, I was liberally coated with vile black sludge in the process (ick) ... well, apparently, two of the drains are still partially clogged (boo) ... hit my head on the door to a cabinet (boo) ... went back to Walmart for Draino ... discovered road in front of Halls Walmart was down to one lane bridge construction (oy) ... traffic piled up before I even got out of the parking lot (grrrr) ... took shortcut (am brilliant) ... shortcut took far longer than if I had just waited (dumbass) ... confronted with timid driver, who appeared to be scared of traversing road next to brush and leaf truck (grrrrr) ... went around both of them, snarling ... made it home ... used Draino ... didn't help ... ran out of time ... headed to work (sigh) ....

"Do it like the undead."

I'm strangely aroused now. O.o

O.o

Oh my.

Goodness

That was an interesting evening.

I'm content for the moment.

Good night.

Election Day: Soundtrack II

Election Day: Soundtrack

Election morning: Die Walküre and coffee

I love the smell of voting in the morning. It smells like victory.

Dia de los Muertos

It's a balmy 54 degrees Fahrenheit in my house on this day of the dead. I'm drinking coffee and a dunkel weisse, taking a break from kitchen chores. Am taking a cue from the latest geek-productivity zeitgeist, that multitasking is bad. So, instead of following my standard ("five minutes of this, five minutes of that, never get anything finished") pattern, I'm trying out a "wash dishes until I'm bored, then play on the computer until I'm ready to wash more" approach.

I can understand what they're talking about in the article about multitasking --taking a laptop to cover a county commission meeting is schizophrenia-inducing. It's hard to write the story on the go as I'm still trying to record what's going on in the meeting.

Am going to fix some breakfast once the damn kitchen is finished and this time I mean finished. Am finally going to get one bloody room done.

Jax didn't go trick or treating last night. He wasn't feeling good. Left me a bit sad, honestly, but what can be done?