Scavenger Hunt 101

I finally bought my DSLR. I went with a Nikon D90 I found on Craigslist. I love it. It is so much fun. It does so much and I am really enjoying exploring the features of this camera.  I joined the Scavenger Hunt 101 group on flickr.

I tackled some of the easy topics first.

66. A dog

Talus & I were outside grilling up some dinner.  She is a good dog (when she isn't trying to destroy my house). This is the photo I selected for my first entry.  Here are some more of her.

67. Barbequed or grilled food

They were delicious.
 

Update

Oh and this blog needs an update. I am not working in the nonprofit sector now. Although I do sit on two nonprofit boards. And I have abandoned my 101 Goals project. Sadly, I barely have time to post so I am sure getting a general about me section updated will take a bit of time.

What is for dinner?

We have decided to start a year long food project where we eat only food which has not been genetically modified, only meat & dairy that has been ethically raised & produced. Actually, all of our food needs to have been ethically produced at every stage. When we first started talking about this project, I thought we'd have to generate our own list of rules.  I was very happy to find Michael Pollan's Food Rules. 

Tonight over dinner, we talked about what it would mean to follow these rules for one year.  Pollan describes them as guidelines, but we are going to try to treat them more like rules.  Kate is not happy about the "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk." rule.  I pointed out that she likes oatmeal and pancakes.  She agreed but she also likes cereal that changes the color of the milk.  Berl is not excited about the "mostly plants" theme of the what do I eat section.  The three of us are difficult, picky eaters who, I hope, will learn to like foods we have previously overlooked/ignored/avoided and foods we've never tried before.   We are all thankful for the "Eat all the junk food you want as long as you make it yourself" rule.  The hardest part will be getting us going on the project.  With my work schedule and their lack of enthusiasm, it will be a slow start.  These changes are long coming in our family, there can't be any downside to trying to eat in a more sustainable way. 

An easy & good homemade gluten free pizza

Pizza & Nacho Cheese Doritos are the foods I miss the most.  I mean fresh, hot pizza with crispy pepperoni pieces.  I loved both thin & deep dish crusts.  I love a good pizza sauce.  I haven't found a good homemade one or a good store bought one (but I have some leads on some good bottled sauces).  I haven't worked with rice flour enough to make my own good crust.  Guido's Pizza over in Okemos has great gluten free pizza, but that is quite the drive and they aren't cheap.  Godfather's Pizza has a decent gluten pizza in Battle Creek and they do take and bake. But again, I'm not often out that way and it is quite a drive.  I have tried two different frozen gf pizzas and a frozen pre-made gf pizza crust.  All three were terrible.  I have been picking up the Chebe bag of crust mix for at the grocery store for a while now. What if I paid $5 for it and put all the effort into it and it sucked?  That would make me sad. (I think it was $3 and change at Meijer.)

Last night, I gave in and tried it.  I was happily surprised.  My complaint with the frozen crusts (and many other gluten free products) is the texture.  It is dry and sandy with little to no flavor.  When I opened this bag, I could smell the seasonings.  It was a pleasant surprise.  The directions were easy to follow and the dough came together as promised by the bag.  The flour had a pretty smooth feeling to it.  Take note GF producers, if the flour feels grainy and hard, the end product will probably not be that tastey. 

 

The crust rolled out niceley and did not fall apart and break up easily.  Places where I pushed too hard came back together easily.  As you can see, I am an easy and simple pizza topper.  Pepperoni and good cheese. 

This picture doesn't give you much perspective.  The cookie sheet is a smaller cookie sheet.  I think I ended up cutting 16 squares from the end product.  I ate the first 2 or 3 and then set about doing dishes and what not.  The family had eaten before I got home but by the end of the night only about a quarter of the pizza was left.  The crust could have been crispier but I wonder if that was due to my technique. I will definitely be buying and making this again. 

I don't recall the packaging speaking to whether it was organic or whether they use any genetically modified ingrediants.  I am planning to check more into those issues (so hopefully, I can keep eating it!)  Chebe's website can be found at http://www.chebe.com/.

I will be posting a review of Guido's gluten free pizza as well as a review of Godfather's gluten free pizza in the future.  For now, I would say that I would eat again at either restaurant!

Why I'll be writing about food

If you know me, you know I love food. So it really can't be much of a surprise that I am going to be writing about food.

A few months ago, I learned that I couldn't eat gluten anymore. Gluten was the source of years of digestive chaos. During the first few weeks of being gluten free, I had been doing a lot of reading and talking about being GF.  A few people had mentioned the idea that genetically modified foods were contributing to the increase food allergies.  The day the third person said this to me I came across this video in either my facebook or twitter feed. After watching the video, I started following Robyn on twitter.  I have learned so much about genetically modified foods and other food issues from her tweets.  Her book is in my To Be Read pile (TBR).  Her foundation - Allergy Kids - has a great section called "Do One Thing" with simple ideas for reducing genetically modified or chemical foods in your life.  Check it out.

We are starting to eliminate genetically modified food from our house and our lives.  The first step is to switch to as much organic as we can find and afford. As part of that effort, I am looking for local food.  One of the first things I want to find is a potato crop I can buy a share of.  I suspect it is too late in the year to get one this year.  I am hoping to at least get a good supply of potatoes.  My second goal is to buy a portion of a grass fed well cared for cow.  I am thinking about buying a cow through our local county fair.  I'll need at least 2 if not 3 families to go in on the cow with me. To be honest, I don't know anything about buying a cow.

 Local Harvest is a great web site for finding local food.  I have found a few farms that offer potatoes in the region. I am pretty close to picking a CSA to participate in (and to finding one that will let us join this late).  

Food

I haven't been blogging because I have been working too much. I don't want to blog from my work computer and I am drained when I get home. Word Press crashes when I launch it on iPhone. I finally found an app I can use with blogger.

I have been thinking quite a bit about what I will be writing about here. I want to spend some time writing and learning about how to avoid genetically modified foods. I want to look at that list of 101 goals and accomplish the goals I still care about.

Now I have to get to a meeting.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Moving

Update: wordpress hates my iPhone so I am back where I began.

I am moving over to wordpress -- my craziness can be found here.

The Witchling - My Conclusion

Please note the title says "My Conclusion" not the conclusion, my conclusion. My conclusion is I can't finish the book, it is too awful. It has been so long since I abandoned it that I can't remember why I abandoned it. I have vague memories. I didn't like the heroine, any of the heros, or the heroine's sisters. I was only mildly interested in the plot.  I just couldn't get on her team. It was well written with a number of beautiful details and great language.

The Witchling - Disk 2

Turns out the FBH is not our hero. Our hero is probably a Svartan named Trillian.  This is a book on cd so I am guessing at the spelling.  Svartans are intense beings - perhaps a race of the fairies, that isn't really clear to me.  Apparently, after you've "had" a Svartan you can't go back.  Svartans are so intense that they can't be monogamous.  And neither are the fairies. Our herione spends much print time worrying about whether or not he'll dump her.  It is okay if he sleeps around he just can't leave her.  Trillian is dark skinned with long silver hair.  I don't know if all Svartans are dark or if just he is. I am uncomfortable with the way this dark skinned individual has been set up as an "other".  We'll see where that goes.

Oh yeah, the gentle giants name was Jacko, not Jack.

On with our plot, so the FBH Johnson had a message for the trio from this Trillian.  Word on the street was that some big bad demon had taken over the demon world and was looking to wipe out Otherworld and Earth to rule all three dimensions.  They shouldn't expect much help from HQ - either because they couldn't or wouldn't give it.

Camille gets Menolly to agree to go somewhere with her but won't tell her where.  Turns out to be a VA - that's right, Vamps Anonymous, meeting.  Here we learn she has been a vamp for 12 earth-side years.  12 years and they are still tiptoeing around her.  Seems a bit over the top to me, I get that they have longer lives, but after 12 years, I'd expect her to be a little more adjusted. Menolly has the name of Jacko's earthside GF who Delilah is going to track down.  Menolly is going to go exploring dark alleys for information while she also feeds off of the dregs of society.  Sometimes she decides who needs to die.  It is unclear what her criteria are for deciding who dies and who is just a snack. The guy she takes out tonight was about to slice up a prostitute so he had to die. I guess that seems fair enough.

While Menolly is off snacking and gathering information, Camille goes off to talk to Grandmother Coyote aka one of the hags of fortune about everything that is going down. Grandmother Coyote sometimes gives advice to those who seek it. Here we learn that the big bad demon Shadow Wing has sent three other demons Earth-side in hunt of the spirit seals or some such thing.  With these seals, all three worlds can either be brought together forcefully or brought in peace.  We need to find some guy named Tom Hale who lives near Mt. Rainer.

The intrepid trio reassembles to share their information. At which time, we meet Trillion who appears in their house without warning.  We find all three ready to fight the intruder (until he identifies himself). Menolly readies herself by flying up to the ceiling, Delilah draws a knife and a gun, and Camille gets some magic ready.  They discover it is this Trillion and relax. Menolly gets catty with Trillion and so Delilah has another fit. Which means she has to be calmed down before she turns into a cat again. And once again, she is getting worked up because Menolly is upset with someone else (this time Trillian). Moments ago, she was going to face an unknown intruder, now her sister is upset and she freaks.

We end the disk with everyone turning in for the night after they have shared information. Camille and Trillian head upstairs to her room. . . 

The Witchling - A Progressive Review

A progressive review is the best phrase I could come up with to explain my intent for this review. I will be writing a mini synopsis and review at the end of each disk.  The book I'm working on first, The Witchling by Yasmine Galenorn.

We first meet our heroine and narrator, Camille, at her bookstore in Seattle.  We are front-loaded with a good deal of world building.  Camille is half-Faerie, half-human, and a witch whose powers often go awry.  She is the oldest of three sisters who are half-Faerie and half human.  Mellony, the vampire whose name grates on my ears and Delilah, the were-cat.  And by were-cat, I mean were-house-cat.  Apparently, Delilah is a hard-edged clever PI who is good with electronics from our world (the three are from the Other World). But whenever her sisters get into an argument, she freaks and turns into a house cat.  A lovely, but scared house cat.  So far, when she changes, she doesn't seem to retain any of her human intelligence or knowledge.  She also seems to spook easily.


Mellony is also pretty annoying.  She is too emotionally scarred to tell our hero how she became a vampire, but is all bad-ass and tries to pick fights with him for what appears to be no reason. 

Our presumed hero, whose name I can't remember, is a full-blooded human or an FBH.  He has the hots for Camille which irritates all three for no discernible reason.  Apparently, Camille has never had sex with an FBH and isn't about to start now.  She gives us no reason for disliking him except that he is an FBH which means they are going to have sex. So far, he is the only character I like.

At this point, we have learned that someone with demonic ancestry has killed a gently giant whose name I think might have been Jack. He was garroted by the demon with a leather strap. We are told a couple of times that this killer must have been very strong to have killed a giant.  The Other World Intelligence Agency (whose name I have already forgotten) has assigned the intrepid sisters to the case. 

That brings us to the close of disk 1.  I will start disk 2 on my drive to work tomorrow and probably finish it on my way home!