An epistle to an unexpected visitor

Cilantro, you are not my friend. You show up uninvited in my Vietnamese-esque salad from Trader Joe's, and even though I think I've done a thorough job picking all your parsley-impersonating fringed leaves out of the bowl, there you are on my tastebuds when least expected. And do you stay in the back, all meek and subdued because you know you're not wanted? No. Of course not. YOU MAKE EVERYTHING ELSE TASTE LIKE CILANTRO IS WHAT YOU DO.

Cilantro, you need to go to the other side of the playground and, I don't know, challenge jalapeno pepper to a game of jacks or chutes and ladders or some other game I don't like to play.

Seriously. See this line? You stay on THAT side of the line. This? This is MY side of the line. And MY side of the line is a cilantro-free zone. No one likes you anyway, you know. They say they do because you're all ethnic and special and stuff, but I'm pretty sure they're just saying that so they don't hurt your feelings.

I know all this is hard to hear, but it's for your own good. Someday you'll thank me.

I'm one of the horde

Guess what we did tonight?



Yup, it's true. I have my very own copy of the new Harry Potter book right here in front of me. I figured hey, it's my last chance to join in the midnight madness, so Mr. Elinoire and I went to a favorite local bookstore and did just that.

My friend Tyee came this close to winning the trivia contest (she was stumped by JK Rowling's middle name (Kathleen) and one of the two significant ways Bartemis Crouch Jr. was similar to Lord Voldemort (she got that they both killed their fathers but missed that they were both named for their fathers), neither of which I could come up with) and I got to tell her the story of the first time my sister Sarache and I tried Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.*



Plus? Now I have the book! Don't expect me to answer the phone or anything in the next couple days.

(There's no fun story about the Harry Potter box. I just brought it home to put jam in, but like all of its ilk, it had to be throroughly inspected once it was in the house.)

* She bought some the first time we saw them and then we went to her car and drove somewhere while we ate them. The candy came with a cheat sheet but we thought it would be more fun to try the flavors one by one.

First, we each bit down on a blue one.
Elinoire: "I think this is just blueberry..."
Sarache: "Yeah, I think so too. Check the sheet."
Elinoire, after checking: "Blueberry. Okay let's try gray."
We each bite down on our gray jelly beans.
Sarache: "Ew, is that pepper?"
Elinoire: "Ugh, I think it must be. It doesn't taste awful but it doesn't taste like anything I want in a jelly bean."
Elinoire checks and confirms that gray = pepper, and then gives Sarache a white jelly bean to match her own. They bite down.
Elinoire: "Huh, that's just coco-"
Sarache: "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WHAT IS THAT?! That is the most VILE THING EVER."
Elinoire: "Uh, it's coconut."
Sarache, spitting her jelly bean out into a kleenex and taking a swig of water: "That is NOT coconut. That is EVIL, is what that is."
Elinoire, consulting chart: "Ohhh... I think I got coconut, but the other flavor for white can be sardine.

Jamming

My small maple cutting board is pink right now. It's been seeing a lot of plum action.



Ever since a kind coworker brought me some fragrant, ripe Santa Rosa plums from her tree, I've been making jam. I gave her a jar from each ofmy first two batches -- a basic fruit/sugar/lemon juice recipe, and one with orange juice and zest to give it a little bit of depth -- and she rewarded me by bringing in another fifteen pounds or so of fruit.

That is a lot of plums.

If you put them all in one paper grocery bag they would fill it. (You would not do that, of course, because the fruit in the bottom half of the bag would become mush and that would be very, very sad. And purple.)



I keep jam batches fairly small so I had enough fruit to make at least four more types of plum jam. (I would've had more than that but I couldn't start for a couple days, and sadly many of the very ripest plums had Moved On.) I'm moving into wacky Christine Ferber recipe territory and using mint, Alsatian wine,* vanilla, honey, and lemon slices (but not all at the same time because that would be overkill).



I am pleased with the output, but I am also relieved my coworker has left for a three week vacation. I think that by the time she comes back, she will find that her tree is Done For The Season. And I? Will be off the hook.**



(I also hope she has someone picking things up at her house while she's gone because otherwise, when she comes back, she may discover that her yard is full of stumbling, confused wasps, drunk on fermented plums.)

* No that does not mean it's German Shepherd flavor. Ew.

** I am an admitted canning dilettante and am glad I am not a farm wife*** who has to preserve (or lose) the harvest. I would have been the most horribly complainy pioneer ever.

*** My friend Anno, who actually is a farmer, sent me a postcard today telling me that last month she put up TWENTY jars of strawberry jam. What a show off.

**** This footnote is not attached to anything but I thought I'd add that I left the peels on for all but the last batch of jam I made... and of course now I wish I'd done that with most of the others. Hmph.

Proud as a . . . flamingo?

San Diego celebrates gay pride this Sunday and the restaurant across the street from my car is wearing its party dress. I can't tell if it's apparent in the picture - I'm blogging directly from my phone because hey, I can - but that's several strings of inflated flamingos. I'll bet there was some serious hyperventilating over there last night. I feel festive already!

Yeearrrgh...

I'm sure this is a handy tool, but I can hardly stand to look at it.

In other news, I have a mere 28% chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse. I wish I could say this comes as a surprise, but I've always had lousy reflexes. Here's hoping my neighborhood stays zombie-free. Actually, I'd just as soon it stayed wholly undead-free. I doubt I'd have better luck against vampires.

Now if elves moved in next door I'd be fine. Elves are benign, right? Pointy-eared and lithe and good at hiding under daisies and shooting orcs? In France, elves have even been domesticated and are used to fuel cars. Talk about green energy. (Yeeg, that was really, really bad. Don't worry, I'm kicking myself so you don't have to.)



(No, not the cat, check out the rear window.)

Why I am glad my parents saved us a space in their garage

Though a cocktail would've been nice. It's hard to imagine the one worth $50, however. Maybe the parking space was paved in gold? Or came with a free puppy?

How to tell if you've nuked the chocolate sauce long enough

Ah, the perils of using someone else's (stronger) microwave. . . The over-melty sauce was served with my homemade malted milk ice cream on the 4th of July. Mmmm. Happy belated Independence Day and Happy Summer!