K-Rock of the pop rebellion

30 minute meal a la Julia Child

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:58:26 GMT

I decided sometime last week that I want to start delving into my cookbook collection a bit more. I have quite a few cookbooks, which I generally use for inspiration, but really a lot of times the meals come from magazines or TV shows (or my head). Recently, a friend gave me a bunch of old cookbooks that someone in her family was getting rid of. There were a couple of the expected Church recipe collections, which aren't bad, just ... well, they all start to seem the same after a while. They are fun to look at though! Overall, though, the collection was quite nice. I got some James Beard, Julia Child, Fannie Farmer -- the classics. This weekend, I tried something out of the French Chef Cookbook by Julia Child.

For some reason, I feel the need to break the flow of this to tell you that I actually already owned this book, and passed the copy found in my friend's collection on.

After quickly glancing through the book, I decided to go with "Veal or Pork Dinner for Four in Half an Hour", which consists of Vichyssoise a la Russe, Saute de Veau (ou de Porc) aux Champignons, Braised Rice, Green Salad, and Poires au Gratin. Julia also recommends a Bordeaux wine, and really, who am I to argue with her? My first thought was, "Ok, so we'll be going with pork" and my second thought was "How in the heck does she make this in 30 minutes?!?!" Well, when looking more closely, I realized that the Vichysoisse (The final s's are pronounced as a 'z', people, do you hear me?) recipe called for canned Vichysoisse. Also the champignons were in fact canned mushrooms. Well, there wasn't going to be any of this canned stuff in my Julia Child dinner, so I decided to skip the a la Russe (canned beets and sour cream) portion of the soup and make the Vichysoisse from scratch the night before, and of course, to use real honest-to-goodness mushrooms. Also, the pear gratin called for 3 stale macaroons. Not having stale macaroons on hand, and loathe to either buy or make macaroons with the intention of letting 3 go stale, I opted for some coconut sprinkled on top instead of the macaroons.

The "braised rice" was basically a risotto with less stirring, and using your average white rice, no arborio. This was very flavorful, which both Andy and I found to mean "quite filling", I think just because of the richness of the flavor.

The pork with mushrooms was really nice. Again, quite simple. A very short ingredient list and a minimal preparation. The sauce was what really brought this up to amazing. It was meant to be a Hollandaise kind of sauce complete with egg yolks, meat juices and 6-8 Tablespoons of butter, but I must admit to only putting in one T. of butter and adding some stock to enhance the amount. Despite the lowering of fat, this was still a very good sauce.

The Vichysoisse was lovely, but then I do like a good Vichysoisse. I sort of made up a recipe based on Julia (she has a recipe in the book, just not for the 30-minute meal) and on the Joy of Cooking. I thought that cooking off the leeks ahead of time would give some nice flavor, which is where I strayed from Julia for the most part.

I really liked the pear gratin for a nice, easy, light dessert. Next time I would probably actually follow the instructions and peel the pears, or I would not use the Ya Pears, or whatever they were, and would go for a Bartlett or something. The pears were glazed with an apricot and wine sauce with a sprinkling of the aforementioned coconut, and a few dots of butter. Excellent in the simplicity.

All in all, a tasty meal. I'm definitely going to keep trying to make some of these and other "classic" meals for a while, to help me sort of ground myself in the traditional methods and flavors. This particular meal was such a hit that Andy and I are planning on inviting a few wine friends over to show how nicely that 2003 La Chenade LaLande de Pomerol goes with this meal.

Breaking the silence

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:18:37 GMT

I don't want to make any promises or anything, but I really must start writing. Therefore, take two at food journal ...

Today we made Chiarello Chocolate Chili con Carne from Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello on Food Network. Often when we make recipes we make quite a few changes to the original to meet our various dietary restrictions. You see, A is on a low-salt diet and allergic to shellfish, and I am allergic to carrots. To deal with the salt issue, I tend to go heavy-handed with the spices and often add some low-sodium chicken or beef boullion to liven up favors. For the carrot issue, I usually replace carrots with celery. So instead of a mirepoix, I just have celery and onions.

In the case of this chili, I didn't really need to change much other than to not add salt, and just add a bit more of each of the spices. I also couldn't find masa harina at our local grocery store, which I found bizarre. This is Northern California, and I know that I used to be able to find it at my local grocery store in Chicago. I used cornstarch instead.

When the initial preparation was done and it was time for the hour and a half of simmering time, I'll admit I was a bit skeptical. I had to keep in mind, though, that I had just poured the beer in, so it was kind of overpowering at that point. Also, beans and chocolate were to be added at the end.

In the end, the whole thing came together quite nicely. The chocolate and the cumin were quite nice together, I thought. The beer had completely mellowed, and the beef was nice and tender. The chili went very well with a cabernet, probably because of the chocolate. A noted that this recipe tasted very similar to a Michael Chiarello recipe he made last year, which was a pork loin with a chocolate spice rub. We liked that a lot too, so it was no surprise that this chili met with our approval.

time for soup!

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 11 Nov 2003 01:08:30 GMT

I cooked, cooked, cooked all day on Friday, skewering lots of veggies and cutting up a lot of chicken breasts. All went well, except for a slight couscous mishap. Does anyone have a good tip for avoiding clumping in couscous? I myself just think clumps are natural, but H will not take that as an excuse and thus I ended up feeling up couscous for about an hour. We added some oil, which I hate to do and I just rubbed it around with my gloved hands and a large plastic fork forever. Perhaps making 7 ½ cups of dried couscous at a time is a bit too much to avoid lumpiness, as all I can find on the web is the detailed instruction of “fluff with a fork”. No kidding, I hadn’t thought of that.

Last night, I made a lovely fennel-spiced chicken salad at home based on Michael Chiarello’s recipe from his Casual Cooking. Love that cookbook; nothing in it has been bad yet, but maybe I’m good at skillfully avoiding the bad stuff. Anyway, so that required poaching a whole chicken, which means I have a nice vat of chicken stock. I think that I will make chicken wild rice soup with it, as I have been craving that for about a month but have been too lazy to do anything about that at all. But from chicken stock it's just a hop, skip, and a jump, I think. I'll have to look up that recipe when I get home.

Went to Maggiano's yesterday for lunch and tried out one of their sandwiches. It was pretty good, it had pesto chicken, arugula, and tomato. And some really good fresh-made potato chips.

Also, we went to P.F. Chang's today for lunch (what's with me and the chain restaurants recently?), and it was quite good. Our waitress was a bit of a mess, but the food was good enough to make up for it. I had the cashew and almond chicken, which was nice, had lots of nice veggies, and as always, their brown jasmine rice was excellent. Mr. K. had the chicken salad. Both were fairly low in salt and rather yummy.

We're contemplating driving up to Napa or Sonoma for Veteran's day, but someday we'll have to slow down on the money spending as we have none. But I'm a sucker for good food. It's my hobby! And according to Mr. K's fortune cookie today, anything in excess becomes a vice (not a fortune, but I'll deal), so I guess food is my vice. Woot to that!

Currently reading: Fast Food Nation. Almost done with it, too.

Warning! You may not want to read this if you're a vegetarian!

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 14 Oct 2003 05:42:42 GMT

Last night, I made ribs for the first time. This idea was spurred by our making ribs at the catering job on Saturday and then I wanted ribs so bad, I had to learn to make them. They turned out really well; I made a spice rub for them, cooked them for a good hour or so under low heat in the oven, and then put sauce on half of them (got to have the low-salt for Mr. K.) and let them cook for another hour. The only thing I would have done is kept the ribs wrapped in the foil for longer to keep them tender and cooked them for a bazillion hours longer so they would be falling off the bone. Sorry to vegetarians and vegans out there.

They were good. Mr. K. also liked them very much. I will be making ribs again. I served them with garlic glazed broccoli and mashed potatoes. Did I mention that the bbq sauce was made by my friend T? She did a wonderful job, it was quite good. Next time I will make the low-salt bbq sauce for which I have a recipe. Mr. K. is very excited about that prospect.

On a going out to eat note, we tried to go to Maggiano's on Friday, and the wait was OVER TWO HOURS. I mean, I love that place, and I wanted to spend my $50 gift certificate, but that was just absurd. We went to the family-owned Italian place much closer to home. We love that place too, and haven't been there in a while since discovering the best Mexican food ever. I had penne with eggplant, tomato sauce, and ricotta salata. Yummy. Mr. K. had the special linguine with shrimp and asparagus which I didn't like much. It tasted like weed smells to me. Blech. For dessert, of course, the "chocolate salami". I know, it sounds gross, but it is really very good. It is "a terrine" of slightly coconuty cookies and chocolate formed into a log and sliced like a salami, served on a bed of melted chocolate. It's very nice, and goes well with coffee. Yum.

Also, if you have a theme party, keep the food with the theme, it's a lot more fun. I worked a "luau" the other day. I was forced to wear a Hawaiian shirt while serving beef tenderloin and a potato gratin. Hello? That is just strange. And then the appetizers were all over the place and hard to eat, all at the same time. These people were there for a fundraiser. It was almost as bad as Bush serving hot dogs for a thousand bucks a piece.

I'll try to update more frequently so I don't have to get all crazy 3 stories at once and a lot more in my head on y'all.

non-food related entry

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 07:23:15 GMT

I dyed my hair fairly close to my natural color. I think. It's dark brown. Woot!

A visit to the CCA

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:11:36 GMT

I’ve been toying with becoming a cook full time for quite a while now, but given my prior commitments (just a small thing called a PhD program), I’ve sort of put the whole idea on hold. I do some catering on and off for a smallish company based in the town that I live in, and I couldn’t really ask for better bosses or a better company to work for, other than the limited number of hours that I/they have for me to work. If I did quit graduate school to cook, I would definitely have to find a more permanent place of employment, which is part of what has stopped me from quitting graduate school to pursue a cooking career.

But then I realized: I could quit graduate school and go to cooking school! This would be brilliant! I could still think of myself as a student and thus not out in the real world, I could continue to be content work-wise with my limited number of engagements with the catering company, and yet I would be working toward a goal that I actually want to achieve: a career in the culinary arts.

With this brilliant idea in mind, I went to various websites to look for information on cooking schools so I could figure out how feasible this plan was and what kind of timeline I’d be looking at. One school in particular that I looked at was the California Culinary Academy. For those of you who may be wondering, there are a variety of reasons that I am not particularly interested in the Culinary Institute of America (aka the best culinary school in the world). For instance, it’s in New York, and I’m not, nor would it be easy for me to move there given my husband’s current obligations. Also, they have a four year program, and that’s a lot of time, and in the end you get a bachelor’s degree, and I have one of those already (albeit not in culinary arts, of course). These two problems with the CIA are completely solved with the CCA: it’s in San Francisco, a mere 30 miles from my home, and their program lasts one year. Meanwhile, it’s still considered a top school for chefs.

So, I went to their website and after much looking for information like how much this whole thing was going to cost me, I filled out a little form saying that I wanted more information and when would be a good time to reach me. Within 24 hours, Ben Miller (not his real name) had called me, and set up an appointment for that same week to take a look at the place and see if the CCA would be a good match for my needs. Once more, I tried to ascertain how much culinary school would cost me and was told that I had to wait until I saw the place before I could be told that information as with "just a number, [I] wouldn’t see real value". In other words: damned expensive, but let’s see if we can talk you into this place first.

That Friday, my friend Kerry (yeah, not her real name either) and I drove on up to the school to have a look-see. Kerry is someone that also caters with me, and we have expressed mutual interest in opening a gourmet grocery store/deli together, so I thought it would be nice if she saw the school as well. She thought it would be cool to see as well, so off we went.

When we arrived, Ben took us back to his cubicle to ask me a few questions, as the tour is also a chance for an interview. Many of the questions like "Why do you think our school is right for you?" were sort of unanswerable given that their website has little to no information, but I gamely did the best I could to give him some answers, and then we got down to business and he showed us the place. Oh, I should also mention that it was 95 degrees outside, which is rather unusual for San Fran, so the school was quite warm during our tour, you know, what with all the cooking going on.

First stop: Foods of the Americas, wherein each day the class "visits" a different country in the Americas and cooks a full meal while listening to music from that country. The best part of this class for me was definitely the fact that we showed up right at the tail end and got to try all of the food. The country for the day was Peru, and darned if Peruvian potatoes aren’t just a lovely thing to eat. The food was really quite good, but the presentation lacked a little, considering the students are supposedly graded on presentation daily. How is serving your chicken in one big heap on a plate any sort of presentation? Even HoJos would put a sprig of parsley on the side or something. This was my first sign that my boss at the catering company might be right: I might actually know more about the food industry than your average cooking school student, something I wasn’t at all convinced of before we went and visited the school.

Let me stop for a second and explain how this school works. Every three weeks, a new group of incoming chefs-to-be starts their program. The first set of classes lasts 3 weeks and is completely lecture-based. The classes are about nutrition, kitchen and food safety, and sort of vocabulary of cooking. Each of the rest of the classes is either 3 or 6 weeks, and you generally take 3 at a time in a five hour block. There are three different 5 hour blocks per day, and each incoming group is about 32 students per time block. Remember all of this when I tell you how much this school costs. Other courses include things like butchery, baking and pastry, and running the school’s cafeteria. After you are done with your coursework, you go off to do an "externship" where you work in a professional kitchen and learn more from that experience.

Our next stop was a basic kitchen skills class, one of the first classes students take after finishing the initial lecture-based classes. We watched a girl peel a carrot and both Kerry and I wanted to rip the carrot out of her hands and show her how to do it properly. Then she started cutting it, and I just had to stop looking. I guess this is why these students need a basic kitchen skills class, but geez, shouldn’t you have learned how to peel a carrot somewhere else in life? Of course, the fact that this student was peeling a carrot led to a very important question for me: Will I be able to get by in culinary school given that I have a severe allergy to carrots. We talked to one of the teachers and he looked a bit surprised, and seemed to intimate that he had never had a student with a food allergy before, which I find hard to believe, but said that we could definitely work around it.

After a few more classrooms, like the Asian cooking room and the software skills lab, we stopped at the library. This school has the. Best. Library. Ever. It’s like how I view every other library – a place to find lots of magazines and books about foods, but without all the stupid other books getting in the way. Plus, they had so many different things! It’s like a mecca for someone like me, who loves to read cookbooks and food magazines and really anything food-related. Of course, I’m only allowed to go in there if I am affiliated with the school. But then, for how much the school costs, I could probably build my own library of food stuff. Don’t worry, I’ll get to how much it costs, but I have to keep you in suspense as well.

We stopped at every single classroom and took a look around, and I won’t bore you further with all the details except to say this: I really expected more exciting product from cooking school students. We stopped at some rooms, and I thought "Are they really going to serve this food on their buffet, which, by the way, they charge people $21 to come to?" Okay, maybe that wasn’t my exact thought, but that’s the gist. On the other hand, the classes looked like a lot more fun than any class I’ve taken, ever. It was like a normal school, but ten times more fun!

Finally, we got back to Ben’s cube and we sat down and he asked me some more interview questions and then we got to the point. The cost. For one year, including all materials and utensils (which you get to keep): $42,000. Wow. That’s a lot of money. Meanwhile, they want me to make a commitment by one week from now. A commitment to spend $42,000 in a week? Who do they think I am? Paris Hilton? Also, they won’t let me talk to a financial aid counselor until I’ve committed to coming to the school But how can I commit to the school when I don’t know if I can afford it? One more thing: it costs $315 to commit to the school. It’s like some sort of get-rich-quick scheme! While I really wish I could go to this school, because it looks a good time, even after seeing it, it’s hard to see the value. I could get a job in the industry and learn as much if not more than these students learn in a year and get paid to do it. That’s a more than $42,000 difference in expenditures. This of course, would leave me free to spend the $42,000 I don’t have on that library I was telling you about.

Postscript: After hearing that monumental price tag, Kerry and I went to Zuni Café for lunch. Yum. But that’s another story entirely.

Whoa

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Mon, 15 Sep 2003 19:26:05 GMT

Okay, first of all, I have to admit that it took me more than two clicks to figure out how to update my journal. This seems like a bad thing, but I'm not sure if it's due to a) the fact that I haven't updated in, like, months b) The fact that livejournal is all different or c) the fact that I am a moron. Perhaps it's like we often find in psychology, a combination of all of the different theories you can come up with. (Up with which you can come?)

I've been reading some really interesting stuff of late, and it is what has inspired me to actually write in my journal. That and the fact that I really want to work on improving my writing and since sitting down and writing about psychology daily sure as hell ain't gonna happen, I thought maybe writing in my LJ would help. As you can see, my writing needs a lot of work.

Back to the interesting stuff I've been reading, it's all been stuff about food and cooking and such-like. I read a really great book called "Becoming a Chef", and amongst many tips is the idea that one should keep a food journal (which I sort of already do) and also do a lot of reading from food-writers. So I think my LJ is going to become about me trying to write things that a food-writer would (not exclusively, but in part) as well as about food I have made/eaten recently in shorter than food-writer essay format. If you don't like to hear about food, you may want to delete me from your friends list (all 7 of you that have me on their friends list, that is); this is just a warning that this may be what I'm about to become.

My first full essay may be about visiting the California Culinary Academy and my thoughts on that, but we'll find out about that soon enough. I have to go eat lunch now, but that's just more for me to write about later!

As a small food-related tidbit: I have recently tried Peet's coffee's new sugar-free vanilla syrup in decaf nonfat lattes, and I highly recommend it.

Here goes ...

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 16:36:50 GMT

Ok, so it's about time to update my journal. Here's what's been going on in my life.

The most time-consuming thing (also, most painful, and most annoying): I sliced into my finger on Super Bowl Sunday, requiring 7 stitches after a 7 hour stint at the er. Let me tell you, there was no Noah Wyle there, though I felt that I was one of those patients on the show that accidentally gets forgotten repeatedly, because what the hell? it's just a few sutures! Ah, yes, but that's not all! So then, a week later, I went to the Stanford hand clinic and was told that I needed to have surgery to reconnect the nerve in my finger. So I went to some hand therapy and a week later had surgery on my finger. I had to be completely knocked out and everything! I wore a cast after that for two weeks and now I'm back in hand therapy ... the stitches are all out, I've got some (3) nasty scars on my finger (2 from the surgery, one from me). So there's that. I wsn't able to type much for awhile there, so at least I have some excuse for not having done any updating.

In other news, classes are over for the quarter, so it's just cleaning up all the mess -- have to get my students' grades in and whatnot. Blah. Already graded their test and everything.

Also! Going to Hawaii for Spring Break. Woot!

[Trying to pretend that there won't be a war this week, I'm sorry. I'm still in the denial stage]

Happy Halloween!

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 06:40:06 GMT

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Mon, 28 Oct 2002 06:18:01 GMT

So I watched Alias tonight. Thanks to PT's summary of the show, given to me about 8 months ago, I thankfully was not completely lost. I liked it! But I do have one question ... are there always so many needles?

In other news, I finally joined the gym tonight and I tried the newer elliptical trainers they had there. Woot. They have the tvs on, but being Sunday at 7, my options were, um, let's see ... World Series or Providence. Actually, A Bug's Life was on, but not on my side of the gym. Grr. Had I known that, I would have used the tried and true elliptical trainers. Well, there's always tomorrow. Tomorrow the plan is to go running in the morning and then maybe go to the gym again at night, so we'll see what happens with that -- I won't have much to do at the gym, I'm thinking. I don't want to go nuts, you see.

I think the host of the show I'm watching on Food Network has the host from the Discovery Channel show -- what is it? The one with the girl that was Miss America? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure this is the cohost.

That's the world of tv tonight. :)

Today is the greatest ...

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 20:56:51 GMT

Ok, not really true with my title, but when I tried to think of a good title, that's what came into my head.

Currently, the UCSC lecturers union and clerical union are on strike. While I am not a member of those unions, my union (I'm an auto worker! UAW-GSE) has asked that we not cross the picket line. Hm, let's see, you want me to NOT go to school? Hm. Ok, I guess I could do that. But don't ask me to NOT do any TA-related work! What's that you say? I shouldn't do any TA-related work? Fine.

I hate to sound all flippant about it, but really, it's pretty easy to honor a strike when you're me. I guess if my profs were a little less understanding I might actually have to fight for this, but no.

In other news ... well, there isn't much other news. I'm working on my qualifying paper and my paper for class and ... yeah.

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 08 Oct 2002 16:38:31 GMT

I'm really working on more frequent updates. I need to get back into writing so I can write my "qualifying paper" as they call it. I'm supposed to qualify in winter, so I need to get my butt working on that.

Things are going a little better at school. The class has quieted down -- we've gotten rid of most of the hangers on, so now it's just keeping track of all the grades, which is fine. We're getting rid of one last girl today, and there is the possibility of a lawsuit, so I'll keep you updated.

Currently I'm watching Live with Regis and Kelly (I love this show and I don't know why, must be Kelly), and it's Jennifer Love Hewitt, and she's singing. First of all, they're making this big deal out of her singing, like no one knew she sang, which really doesn't say much for her other album does it? And she's a good singer and all, but I can't get past her being ... um, yeah, I just can't deal. Let's just leave it at that.

But next up is Taye Diggs! er should get him on the show, as they seem to be trying to pull in attention-grabbing actors. Though I guess he didn't help out Ally McBeal any, but that show was losing it and it wasn't really his fault.

Yes.

we invented ...

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Wed, 02 Oct 2002 19:59:42 GMT

Ok, so I liked "I need a girl", I really did. I'm not even sure *why* I liked that song. It was sort of cute, and it made me feel bad for mr. p. diddy, so whatever.

But really, I know "they" invented the remix and all, but this THIRD one is just the next step in an ever crappier spiral of ... um, crap?

People, it sounds like Samantha Mumba's "Baby come on over", and really, the world doesn't need another one of those either, even though, once again, I bow down to p. diddy's superiority at the remix.

***

This was much more clearly thought out in my car, but really, I need to start writing something again, even if it's just a rant about a bad song, so I decided to start using my lj for a lot of rants. I'm really not this cranky of a person.

I keep meaning to update ...

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Fri, 13 Sep 2002 05:35:29 GMT

So as pinktyrant mentioned, we had a very good weekend, we went and saw Coldplay and just generally enjoyed seeing each other. I miss living in the same city (the same apartment even!), but this was the first time that she left (or I left), that after the leaving happened I didn't cry a lot. I guess I'm getting used to the leaving portion of the trip. It's just every time she's here, I realize that I don't have any close friends here, and that I'm lonely and being old and crotchedy as I am, I don't really see that changing, especially as it's been about 2 years now.

But enough about that, you can read PT's entry if you're at all interested in what we did this weekend. I purchased the Demeter Garden Tomato fragrance that I've been coveting for about 2 years finally, and I love it, and it smells really good, but it wears off really quickly. Or I just get used to it really quickly. Something. So that's my part of the story that corresponds to her eyeshadow shopping.

Anyway, yesterday was a weird day.

Mr. K and I had planned on starting our new exercise regimen (which is: run 6 days a week [or as often as our schedules allow] at 7:30 am). Well, we got to our running place at 8:30, but at least we got there. But then! About 1/4 mile into the jog, Mr. K said something in his back starting hurting. So after I ran for a while longer we went home and he basically couldn't really move.

So then I went to Santa Cruz and talked to my new labmate, which took way longer than expected, but was good ... we need to get to know eachother, after all.

Then! I called Andy on the way home, and he went to the doctor and they told him that he had probably "jarred a kidney" which sounds really painful, but they said was no big deal. Claimed he would be fine by today. He's not.

So then, after supper, he said he wanted to go see a movie, and we saw one hour photo. Normally, he's not that excited about movies, but he really liked this one, and I thought it was good, especially the parts with the cute little man (apparently he plays vaughn? on alias? he's cute, and not really that little in general, although there was a full frontal nudity brief shot, and it was really difficult to know what was going on, because it really appeared that he was a eunuch. Maybe that was to stay within MPAA guidelines, and they blurred it? I digress) -- on the whole, a good movie, but wait to see it on video.

That's about it for now.

FINE!!!

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 20 Aug 2002 05:35:07 GMT

here, click on the damn thing yourself.

It's Mr. K-Rock.

While we were in Vegas this weekend.

There.

http://psych.ucsc.edu/grads/kmwade/andyarcdetriomphe.jpg

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 20 Aug 2002 05:27:56 GMT

That last entry was supposed to contain this pic, and some words. No more words.

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 20 Aug 2002 04:32:49 GMT

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Thu, 15 Aug 2002 04:56:14 GMT

I forgot --

for all you speech perception lovers out there:

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20020814/D7LD9MU00.html

Interesting, eh?

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Thu, 15 Aug 2002 04:55:08 GMT

So today was an interesting day.

Mr. K-Rock this morning decided to play a little guessing game with me: How Much Money Did Stanford Housing Charge For the Cleaning Fee?

Answer?

$627.

That's right, that's a lot of money. Money I do not have.

I freaked out.

So, he called Stanford housing and asked them what those charges were for ... turns out they claim there was a stain on the carpet (which we never saw). So we're contesting some of that. Seeing as they claim they had to replace some of the carpet due to a stain that we did not cause ... but then they have pictures! Picture of the stain. And it is a stain. Huh.

Really, we did not do this.

In other news, went to the library and got 2 cookbooks, 1 quilting book and some fiction. Also picked up the Out Of Sight dvd they were holding for me.

Other than that, just errands for our trip. We're leaving tomorrow morning! Yay!

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 13 Aug 2002 22:58:45 GMT

I went to Ikea today! Whoopah!

I was good, I only bought $30 worth of stuff. I got the cutest napkin holder, you all need to get on of these napkin holders. Who knew that I could get this excited about napkin holders?

I went with one of my friends from the catering bidnay which was fun, because I've never really seen the catering folks outside of work. It's good to get to know new people, you see. This is what I'm told.

In other news, I'm finally done with my Java class, and now I'm starting to realize that perhaps it would be best if I had something I needed to program, so that I could keep up my Java skills. I actually kind of liked programming this time around, which may be because my brother helped me out, so I wasn't at a complete loss.

There's an apt. available in our building, and I want to call and see how much they charge normal folks ... I bet it's less than what we're paying with the subsidy from Stanford. Grrr.

That's all.

New Pop Cd's

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Mon, 20 May 2002 15:46:30 GMT

So on Saturday I went to Amoeba with delusionalfool and her friend from Ithaca. He was a nice guy, it was the first time either of us had met him face to face. He and DelusionalFool went to the same high school, but not at the same time, and they went to the kind of high school that everyone keeps in touch with each other, blah blah.

But that is hardly the point of this message. As new friend was purchasing cd's in Welsh by a band named the Super Furry Animals, amongst other things, I purchased! I'm so excited! Pink - Can't Take Me Home, Nelly - Country Grammar, And Destiny's Child - Survivor. All for under $20. So that was a very good deal. But then! We walked down to Rasputin music and there, for a mere $10 total I got the Bulworth Soundtrack, O-Town, Dream, the Nsync It's Gonna Be Me Remixes cd with 7 remixes, and Pras - Ghetto Supastar.

Now how's that for bolstering my pop cd collection all in one day? You have to understand that I finally branched out from nsync and Britney to purchase a Mandy Moore cd, but other than that, I don't really have that much pop music. Excepting if you count Ludacris, Blink-182 (wow, those two don't really go together), things like that.

In other news, I finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Pigs in Heaven, which was the second part to The Bean Trees, and both were wonderful. I recommend them. She has really good character development, I think. Anywho, there you go!

a couple of book reviews

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Tue, 07 May 2002 18:37:16 GMT

I thought I would share about some of the books I have read in the past month or so ...

Girl, by Blake Nelson
--so this book is all about stream of consciousness writing by an 14-18 year-old girl. But, as you can see by the author, you know, it's not really a girl at all. And I'm sorry if this is awful, but I find it a little disconcerting when men try to write a book in first person as a female. Some do a good job, I guess -- I thought Wally Lamb did a good job with She's Come Undone, but I dunno. There was something about this girl that just ... didn't ... resonate with me. Maybe it was her total detachment to everything she did. Which is not to say that girls can't be like that, I'm just not, so ... yeah. It just makes me want to blame it on him being a man I guess, when it could just be that this character takes a different perspective than me. Overall, this book was alright. I don't know that I would recommend it or read it again. But it was something to do.

Emma, by Jane Austen
-- I liked this book. Had a lot more little plot twists than Clueless, which was nice, and I really liked the father character. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it.

The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver
-- I've been holding off on that whole Poisonwood Bible thing because, well, too many people have recommended it to me, and of course I have to be contrary. But this book, her first one, is totally great. It's about this girl that leaves Kentucky when she's, you know, 22 or something (I don't really remember), and just sees where the road takes her. And her life completely changes but it completely changes into something fun and interesting and, just ... yeah. I really don't want to give away too much information. Trust me, it's good.

So that's that. There are more, but I don't want to have too long of an entry!

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 15:45:03 GMT

Here I am, updating my journal again. I keep thinking of things and thinking, oh, I should put that in my LJ! And then I even go through like thinking how I would say them. And then I go and tell 3 or 4 of my friends whatever it is, and then it's kind of pointless. I mean, I only have 11 friends, and only about 6 actually know or care about most of this stuff.

But oh well! You can all read my entries! I will post from now on! I mean it!

It's my tax-day resolution.

So the first thing to note is that I'm switching advisor's in grad school! Whoo! Crazy stuff ... so now I'll be working with this woman who does some very interesting work with sign language. And I've always wanted to work with sign language... and now I am. You see, dreams really can come true.

Other than that, I don't have much to tell you about. So there.

Zelda's Birthday!

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Fri, 15 Mar 2002 16:55:24 GMT

Happy Birthday to Zelda! And also to my mommy, but I hope that my mommy isn't reading this.

I hope y'all have fun in Vegas, I wish I could join you there!

update on the world

pop_rebel_k@hotmail.com — Sat, 02 Mar 2002 03:48:02 GMT

Yes, here I am again for my monthly update. I read all of yours, I swear I do! But anyway, yes. As for what's been going on with me.

I'm TAing a class right now and today and Wednesday I gave a lecture. That's over an hour and a half of me talking to the kiddies! I think they liked it. The prof definitely seemed happy with my work, so all is well on that front. TAing often gets crazy near the end of the quarter and that is definitely the case now. I mean, I have to be all available and everything, so that means actually hanging around in my office. Ew.

Other than that, lots of driving.

I enjoyed the grammys quite thoroughly perhaps due to having the lovely ms. childs to watch it with (while eating a feast of Trader Joe's food). That all certainly made it much more enjoyable than just sitting at home and watching them. Yay!

And hopefully this weekend I finally get to see Crossroads. I feel so behind. And I saw Mandy so much sooner. But I refuse to see the other movie that Time claims has a "Pop Princess" in it (Queen of the Damned, if you can believe that).

That is all for now. I'll try to be more regular.