16 January 2001
I am perched upon the horns of a dilemma. As I told the notify list Sunday evening, I managed to ruin a pot of lovely Reuben soup (and about $20 worth of ingredients) because I'm turning into my mother.
(Actually, the comparison to my mother only occurred to me just now, which is a little frightening in and of itself. Mom is famous in my house for leaving things on the stove and forgetting about them, but it took me two days to draw that parallel to my own disaster.)
Anyway, so now I'm trying to decide if I want to get the "fixin's" for another batch (I promise to remember to set the timer this time!) or if I should just make do with what I've got, and save it for another time. I don't think another batch would be quite so expensive, because I'd get the ingredients from my regular grocery store, which is much cheaper than the one K.T. insisted on for the first batch.
(I did believe K.T. when she told me that better ingredients made a difference. However, it's been noted on more than one occasion, by more than one of my friends, that I'm a freak because I can't tell the difference between the meat my grocery store sells and the stuff sold by the much more expensive store down the road a ways. I just can't. So I'm willing to at least try to make this soup with regular deli meat. Though if it will keep K.T. from cringing too much, I'll promise to get bagged rather than canned sauerkraut, even if I can't see what difference it makes.)
But I'm still not sure I should even try again right away. After all, my initial craving for the soup has subsided. (The pot I ruined was actually a second batch, meant for the freezer. The first batch was just fine, and we ate it for dinner during the 7th Sea game.) On the other hand, it would be nice to have some in the freezer, and to prove that I really can do this.
Ah, well. I guess I'll decide when I get to the grocery store tonight. Opinions?
(This recipe is On Display)
Cream of Reuben Soup
1 pound thinly sliced and shredded corned beef
1 pound thinly sliced and shredded alpine lace swiss cheese
1 1/2 pounds sauerkraut, drained
1/2 cup Russian or Thousand Island dressing
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1 pint half-and-half
8 ounces sour cream
Put it all in a large pot and bring it to a rolling boil over medium heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 20 - 30 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and combined with the liquid. Be warned that some brands of dressing will turn the soup orange. This looks odd, but doesn't affect the taste. Serve hot with toasted rye bread (or if you're like me and the smell of rye bread makes you gag, sourdough is lovely.) Freezes well.
So anyway, this weekend was MarsCon. Matt and I only got one-day badges, for Saturday. By the time we got there, it was almost three in the afternoon. We stayed for about an hour and a half, then went home for a while, then went back over around seven for dinner and the evening entertainment. So, all told, we were at the con for about six and a half or seven hours. I bought some dice, lingered over a few things in the dealer's room (froggybug!), and chatted with people.
In order to have decent seats for Caprizzio's show, we sat through an interminable half-hour of filking (though that was almost worth it for the new filk, based on the song "White Rabbit" and the movie The Matrix) and an hour or so of the charity auction, which is always entertaining. We almost bid on a couple of things, but the stuff that we'd actually want went for way more than we were willing to pay, of course.
The Caprizzio was a lot of fun, of course. I think they got through maybe two songs without interrupting themselves or breaking into the giggles. And they were supposed to be taping for an upcoming live CD! Ha! But it was very enjoyable.
I'm still not sure it was worth the entrance fee. I'll probably still be debating it next year, and I'll probably still go. That's the way these things are.
Yesterday was a holiday for Matt and I. We slept in quite late, then headed over to meet Braz at his house. The two boys planned to play Ultimate Frisbee, while I wanted to take Kris' bike for a sort of test ride, to see how I liked it.
The path I took was (as we measured later) just shy of a mile, each way - about a mile and three-quarters, round trip. It doesn't sound like much, but you have to remember that I'm a fat chick who hasn't actually been on a bicycle for more than two minutes in over ten years.
By the time I'd reached the far end of the path, I'd remembered what drove me absolutely crazy about leaning forward for the handlebars: I wasn't sitting on my butt, or even my tailbone. I was sitting on my... Well, we'll just say pelvis, and you'll understand what I mean if I say that by the time I got turned around for the trip back to the Brandt's, every bump in the road felt like the beginnings of some extremely bad sex. (When Matt and Braz asked me how it had been, that's the analogy I gave them. I think I embarassed them a little. But that's really exactly what it felt like. I'm sorry if I've just embarrassed you, too.)
And that's on top of the fact that I'm a fat chick who hasn't done any actual exercise for months (and I wasn't exactly in shape then, either), so pushing the pedals to get up the little hills on the path were killing my thighs, and I was pretty winded by the time I was turning around. (Though I'd expected the thighs and the shortness of breath. I'd forgotten entirely about the leaning/seat thing. Maybe I should re-learn how to ride without holding the handlebars. Maybe that's why I learned that in the first place.)
And then, my crowning achievement: Standing in the parking lot in front of the Brandt's (my feet can just barely touch the ground while I'm straddling Kris' bike), I tried to throw my leg over the seat to get off... And my shorts got caught on the seat, and before I could get disentangled, I'd lost my balance and fallen over, taking the bike with me.
All told, I'd been on the bike for about fifteen minutes.
I went into the Brandt's, where I chugged a couple of glasses of water and worked on Kris' afghan for about an hour while I waited for my breath to come back. (It didn't take the whole hour for me to catch my breath. Just about half an hour or so. But then I wanted to finish the bit I was working on.)
And then. Because it was such a beautiful day outside. I went back outside and rode the bike for another ten minutes, though I only went about half as far.
I'm still undecided about biking. When Kris and I talked about it, she suggested several things that might help, especially if I had my own bike: I'm shorter than Kris by an inch or two, so I'd have a somewhat smaller bike frame. The handlebars are adjustable, so on my own bike, they could be closer to the seat, allowing me to sit a little further back. She also suggested sticking to short, ten-minute rides until my body got used to the unusual pressure, and padded bicycle shorts in the meantime.
So we'll see. I don't know when another good opportunity to ride will arise, though maybe until my foot is healed enough for tennis, I'll borrow Kris' bike whenever Matt and Braz are both going to play frisbee.
But before the next trip, I need to find me some of those padded shorts. Anyone know where I can get some padded bike shorts for fat chicks?
Word of the Day:
sub rosa - in confidence; secretly
Currently Reading:
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Current Projects:
- Kris' afghan