How not to be a freak...

First, let me say I have NO idea how to do this. I either recognize people that are various levels of celebrity or I completely space who they are. When I recognize them, I go through the mental "oh my god, holy shit, they're a real person and they're close enough for me to talk to, am I cool enough to even address them, fuck me I'm in high school all over again" panic response. I wish I could be one of those people who just have that innate "fuck you, I'm awesome!" persona.

I don't. I am forever that geek that learned how to code before computers were "cool" and have the social awareness of a gecko. I can do small talk (yay for being in a social business setting for ages) but I absolutely fail at the graceful exit from small talk.

Here's where it all started for me this weekend. I attended TAMLondon and met people that I follow on Twitter/have only seen on stage with their stage personas in full form. Cue my brain going into overdrive. The conversation went something like this...

Ryn's Id: Look, it's someone you appreciate. Because you appreciate them and "get" them, you have something in common with them. Go up. say hi!
Ego: Is that really wise? They're people just going about their day.
Id: Oh, c'mon. They have to expect this on some level...
Ego: They are not going to magically become your friend. They will not remember you in 24 hours. Or even six.
Id: C'mon, it's all in good fun. Roll with it!

Eventually, the id wins out and then the nerves kick in. So far I've been fortunate enough that upon opening my mouth I have not said "You cool. Like. Wow. Shiiiiiiny." But it usually is something along the lines of "please allow me to tell you something about a way in which you have impacted my life that you may not have known about and likely will see as being somewhat creepy when I mean for it to be complimentary and oh god please something make me shut up and run away any time now I can't stop talking and if I don't breathe soon I will pass out I wish I could disappear where is the nearest black hole?"

I know, in my heart of hearts, every single one of us has done this at one point in time or another.

Here's the flip side.

After Saturday at TAM, I was stuck at Charing Cross waiting desperately for a taxi to take me home since the trains had decided that running as late as normal was just not on that day. I am quite (85-95%) certain that the nice man behind me in the queue for the taxis was Damian Lewis. A clot of us chatted while in queue and it wasn't until the next morning that I realized who it was in the nice overcoat. Had I known at the time, I would have been a stammering fool because I have used Band of Brothers as a teaching tool.

If my brain doesn't twig on some manner of fame (I do it in more niche areas of my life as well), I am fine and chatty and do the polite "stranger chat" thing with a willingness to let it taper off.

Back to TAM...

I'm fine if I can just go up to the person, say my little "you're brilliant!" or "thank you for [insert thankable offense here]" and run away. Much like going up to someone in elementary school and saying "I like you!" and running away (a la Eddie Izzard). And for the most part, people were willing to do that. But then you get people like Iszi Lawrence... Lovely woman. And tall. I rushed up to her outside and said "I follow you on Twitter, I think you're brilliant!" or something similar and was ready to walk away again and she Started Talking To Me.

In fairness, it was quite pleasant. Definitely one of those people that I felt like "yes, I'd like to buy you a pint and do things with your brain" but I also know that I am not the only person out there that feels that way. In fact, I bet if you follow people on Twitter, there are a lot of them that make you think that you have a "connection" with them.

That's because they are very good at interacting with people. As Stephen Fry wrote in the foreword to The Salmon of Doubt, "[t]he stranger might laugh and seem to enjoy the writing, but you hug to yourself the thought that they just didn't quite understand its force and quality the way you do..."

I have my list of people that I think "I would love to be friends with that person" - it's not written down because that would be a little obsessive and creepy. But I also try to maintain the grounding in reality (hard to do at a convention where things are a bit heightened by the "I've found my people" sensation) that I/they don't have to be friends with everyone and that again I am not the only person out there that feels that way. And I just don't have enough of the narcissistic tendencies to think that I am just that awesome.

But what I'd really like to know is what the celebrity-types think about it when they are approached by the hoi polloi (of which I am an imaginary-card carrying member) and aurally accosted with praise and gushing admiration.

London Food Update!

Attention, all Americans living in the UK and wondering where to get garlic powder... Asian markets. There's two that I went into in Chinatown (London:Soho) that had big bags of it for sale.

Chicken Taquitos... Of a sort

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to make the Baked Chicken Taquitos posted in Foodgawker.

I had to make some alterations in the recipe as London is not generally known for being the bastion of Mexican food ingredients.

Green salsa (salsa verde) is not easily obtainable at supermarkets so I used standard salsa. When tomatillos come in season and are accessible via Borough Market, I'll grab some of those and some Anaheim chiles and make a damned fine roasted salsa verde for future use. The good news is that salsas generally freeze well.

For all Americans living in the UK (or UKers using American recipes), be aware that when cilantro is called for in a US recipe, it can be found in grocery stores as coriander in the UK.

Instead of shredding the chicken, I poached 6 chicken thighs (approximately 1 pound/450 grams/2 cups) in chicken stock with some onion powder and garlic powder. When I make this again, I'll probably put some taco or fajita seasoning in the stock. After the thighs were poached, I pulled the additional fat from the meat, put it in the food processor and pulsed until the chicken was akin to mince. Not the same as shredded, but with the mix of cream cheese and spices, I figured it would give more even distribution of meat protein through the filling.

Mexican cheese was another one that isn't exactly ubiquitous over here. I used shredded Monterey Jack (available at Waitrose/Ocado and Sainsbury's), but another substitution would be half cheddar and half a mild, soft cheese like Edam or Mozzerella. I would avoid Gouda. In a pinch (and if I didn't care about plastic cheese), I might use jarred nacho cheese. But only if I were desperate.

Topped with sour cream and store-bought guacamole, these were quite nice. I have four in the freezer for leftover eating this week. They should be quite good.

I wouldn't call them taquitos or burritos. More like sauceless enchiladas.

Urban Fox Mating Rituals

...apparently take place under my living room window.

I was happily watching some event of the Winter Olympics a few nights ago when I heard what sounded like a cat fight out my window. Okay, no biggie, even though it was past midnight, until it started sounding like a child being flayed. Then I grabbed the phone, ready to call 999 and possibly go outside and beat someone with a lead pipe. (Just call me Miss Scarlet.)

I look out the window and I see a shadow scurry off in one direction and notice a fox looking up at me. Yeah, we live near Greenwich Park and Blackheath, both extensive green spaces, but I'm not sure I expected so much attitude from a fox.

As I looked down at the fox, he looked up at me and might as well have said "what, Bitch, I was gettin' my groove on and you have to be all human and ruin it."

I actually felt bad for interrupting the fox fucking, and then realized that I was getting a tough guy attitude from a fox.

I guess I'm glad that there will continue to be kits around, but as the fox sauntered off, I came to the sudden realization that we have chav foxes engaged in car-less dogging. Go Greenwich!

25 - 28 Feb 2010

Planned dinner menus:

Thai-style scallops with rice and vegetables

Venison lasagne with salad and garlic bread

Erwtesoep with fresh baked bread and salad

Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos with refried beans and Spanish rice.

That is, of course, the plan.

The Thai-style scallops with rice are going to be simple; I have a sambal sauce that's pre-prepared, so I'll caramalize the scallops and then toss them with some of the sauce, serve it over rice with broccolini and green beans.

Venison lasagne is just a lasagne with venison mince cooked into the red sauce.

Erwtesoep is a split pea and sausage stew that B fell in love with when he was working in Amsterdam for three years. I have a recipe that's supposed to be wonderful, and we'll give it a shot. It makes about 17 million gallons. Somewhere around there, it serves 8 people or some such. I figure I'll be able to portion the remainder out and tuck it in the freezer for emergency eating. It's a good winter food, and given that it's barely cleared 40°F here in London in the last month, it seems to be a well timed meal. The only issue is that I can't find split green peas here, so it will be yellow. I admit to debating on getting green food coloring in order to get it more to the color B (and I) expect... But I think the yellow split peas will be slightly sweeter than green would be.

The chicken taquitos I came across when I sent a plaintive Gchat message to Ritsuka, saying "HELP! I have three mains, I need a fourth for when B comes home!" I explained what I had planned, and she said, "This sounds like a time to use foodgawker."

"Uh, bwuh, what is foo...oooooooh."

"Yeah."

"POOD FORN! You gave me pood forn!" (Yes, I was so excited I transposed letters. Leave me be.)

I've started digging 'round in there and I've decided that one meal a week will be from foodgawker.

To explain, I only have to plan out four meals a week because B works out of town and I generally eat leftovers or quick food during the week.

I can't wait for Spring to hit so I can go mental at Borough Market. I already have plans and I can't wait to see my fishmonger again. And I'm sure that B would love to get some new and exciting cheese.

"Are you two going to have 'normal' pets?"

I've had people ask me that ever since TheBrit and I started discussing pets. I love animals. I feel towards animals the way that every other woman feels about children. They are a requirement in my life.

Out of respect to TheBrit's lack of pet-ownership status ever in his life (Seriously? I wasn't aware that there were people out there that never had pets. Between pets, sure, but never?), we have decided to start small.

First it was ferrets, and then TheBrit found out about African Pygmy Hedgehogs...

Now, I've wanted a hedgie for a while. They're small, they're cute, and they're pocket pets. Not high-load interaction, so they really are a good starter animal for TheBrit. Nevermind that I'm going to be the one doing most of the day-to-day care (because TheBrit comes home just on the weekend) so he won't be doing the daily or weekly cage cleaning.

Given that, I figured TheBrit wouldn't be too curious about what it entailed. Was I ever wrong. I love being the know-it-all, and I'm having to rush to keep ahead of him. He's been devouring information and I suspect that within a year of having one hedgie, we'll be getting a second, as well as the cadre of ferrets (which would be the next step up from hedgehogs, I suppose).

Eventually, I will have my cats and Great Dane. But the pet list is currently looking like this...

Hedgehogs
Ferrets
Ball Python
Cats
Giant-breed Dogs

Probably not all at once, but the hedgehogs and ferrets are looking as though they'll be within the next year. We're looking at getting the hedgie after we get back from our antipodean jaunt and the ferret will probably come a half-year later.

All I have to say to that is, YAY PETS! I miss having animals around. They make my life full.

[Edit: Apparently TheBrit kept a goldfish once. It wasn't well cared for (his admission) and didn't live all that long. Do we think this counts?]

But that doesn't go in sushi!

I'm probably a little more fascinated with Guy Fieri than a woman has a right to be, but I have to say, as bizarre as 'gringo sushi' sounds, I really want to make some.

It seems that it would be less food than a sandwich, keep better/longer than regular sushi, and have the bonus of not completely grossing people out on the train. Yeah, TheBrit and I do a fair bit of train travel. It's because I'm equally fascinated by trains. I love taking the train.

Anyway, my ideas for take-along 'gringo sushi'...

BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato) topped with a fresh garlic aioli.
Avocado, asparagus and shrimp
Turkey, stuffing, and a bit of cranberry chutney
Chicken tikka
Soft boiled egg and lean bacon with hollandaise dipping sauce (yes, I'm talking about an eggs Benedict sushi roll)

...And pretty much give anything listed on the menu linked above a go.

TheBrit and I keep picking up kinda crap to-go food in the train stations and I'd really quite like to make use of my bento boxes for when we travel, and really, what better to put in bento boxes than some form of sushi? I'm trying to think of other ideas. We generally travel between breakfast and lunch, so those and brunch ideas would be quite welcome.

Spring Awakening (Novello Theatre, West End)

Spring Awakening... It is to late 19th century Germany what Heathers was to 1980s America.

Random? Yeah.

Accurate? Sort of.

I wish I had the program in front of me, because it had an excellent blurb about the original author and the reinterpretation as a rock musical. The long and short of it is this - dude who originally wrote it was writing a commentary on the stress of German education among the upper echelon and how it led to a potential spate of problems, especially when dealing with arbitrary measures to determine who can proceed and who cannot. When it was published and originally performed, it was so censored that the entire point that was trying to be made was lost on the censor's floor.

100 years later... Some one else comes across it and goes "hey, let's turn this into a musical" and so current day Spring Awakening was born.

A few things that made my American brain go "bwuh" was the vowel sounds from British mouths. The difference between "Gowd" and "Gahd" was making me go "oh, almost!" from having listened to the soundtrack so many times. Changing the name of one of the characters from "Fanny" to "Laura" or some such also mildly irritated me, but I realized that it was a serious enough part of the play that the invariable titters from the audience would break the tension. (Fanny, in BritSlangSpeak is roughly equivalent to pussy in American - a euphamism for the external female genitalia without the insulting quality of cooze, twat, or cunt.)

I also fell completely in love with the actor who played Georg. I think he out of all of the cast embraced their character without overacting. Melchior was good, but a little shy at times, which was not in character. Hanschen hammed it up a bit, but I think his character leans that way. Otto was grand. Moritz had a HUGE problem with controlling his volume, particularly when miked, and blasted out the audience's collective eardrums when he was supposed to be intense or enthused. His energy was good, but his control was lacking. The girls were generally unremarkable, but they were designed to have a role that progressed the boys' plot. Though, the girl who played Anna (I think) looked remarkably like a young Emma Watson with the way she was styled.

My favorite part, and the part that it seemed took the audience the longest time to catch onto was the manner in which the adult roles were treated. All of the adult characters in the play were performed by one actor and one actress. The commentary on the essential interchangability of adults in a teenager's life is a wonderful insight into the size and scope of an adolescent universe.

I wish that I'd been able to get a photo of the set. It was a combination of controlled chaos, but it incorporated everything that was needed for each scene without being cluttered. The use of vertical space is what kept it from being too insane.

A big thank you to Kevin Spacey and the other producers (both executive and assistant) for having the faith and the vision to bring this to London. Yeah, it'd done well in New York, but American audiences are different from European audiences, especially when it comes to how they view their children and schools.

Avenue Q (in London)

First, let me say that the only way this could have been more awesome is if it were "Avenue Z" because then the Brits would be calling it "Avenue Zed" and that would have sent me into a titter every time.

TheBrit and I went to see Avenue Q the weekend after I arrived back in London. I'd been wanting to see it for a while, but the main impetus was that it was CLOSING. (What?!) So we got tickets to see it the last week it was in town. (Much like when we went to see Spamalot... last week of showing.)

Since we saw it, it apparently became so much in demand that it's now on hiatus and will be re-showing in a new location starting June 1.

I don't know if TheBrit grew up on Sesame Street like I did (I suspect not), but the Muppet Movies were ubiquitous throughout the Western World. At least there was a bit of commonality there.

I seem to recall finding out when I was younger that Sesame Street was supposed to take place Small Town, New York. Stony Brook, or something like that. Someplace where there was still a small town feed, but a need for the brownstone type buildings. So, this was a bit like going to see Sesame Street's big city cousins (being located in Brooklyn).

The composition of the set was fantastic. I was half-expecting a bodego to stand in for Mr. Hooper's store (I'm dating myself here), but it was just an apartment block and the people (and muppets) that resided there. Kate Monster, Trekkie Monster, Princeton, Rod and Nicky, and Christmas Eve, Gary, and Brian. Two things struck me during the watching - the use of screens that gave the little PSA-type cartoons ... I don't remember that from my tenure of Sesame Street, though it may be happening now, and that when addressing the muppets the puppeteers and the human characters looked at the Muppet they were talking to, not to the actor.

The music was fantastic, and translated well to a London audience, most of who had limited exposure to Sesame Street. There were a few jokes or callbacks that were Ameri-centric and may have been slightly lost on the average Brit: Gary is Gary Coleman (whatchoo talkin' 'bout Willis?) and the development of a Monstersorri School...

Music, muppets having sex, the Bad Idea Bears (more booze, more fun, yay!), and the energy was just suck you off your seat awesome. The most amazing thing to me, though, was when the puppeteer for Kate Monster also had to do the voice for Lucy The Slut, the muppets were on two different people, but the voice actress ran the entire conversation. It took me a bit to realize it was the same person because I'd been sucked into the entire "the muppets, they're real!" world they created.

I think, though, that my favorite part was unintentional. The woman hired to play the role of Christmas was Chinese. The character of Christmas is supposed to be Japanese and limited to working in a Korean restaurant. (Though, they did change that line to something else because Korean restaurants aren't as prevalant in London as in New York.) [Edit: looked at the cast info for the London crew - either they've changed actors or I mis-read the blurb - she's Filipino, but has studied in China. Playing a Japanese woman. Who's mistaken for Korean. Awesome.]

It's strange. It's twisted. It's a great story that hits home if you're a muppet, a monster, or a human. Trekkie Monster's porn fixation is phenomonal. A song just for me ("Schadenfreude") was great. TheBrit and I went and found the Broadway soundtrack a day or so after seeing it. My singing Trekkie Monster's part during "The Internet is for Porn" caused him to almost fall off his chair with laughter (though that may have been me pelvic thrusting against him with such ferocity) and we now have a number of inside-joke-slash-catchphrases from seeing that show.

Go see it. If you don't, my only response can be... Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?

Delays, delays, delays

Sorry for the non-posting. Two things happened over the last week. The Brit found a plane that was heading in my general direction and got on it, and found his way eventually to my little plot of the US. So, there was some distraction with the "but, you're supposed to be in Coventry... WHO ELSE KNEW?!"

And the rediscovery of my love of cricket with the England v. WIndes test match highlights.

Oh yeah. And the arrival of my PSP and the ability to play Patapon and look like a defect on a sugar high. "pon pon PATA pon! Attack my pretties! BWAHAHAHA."

Yeah, it's good.

In preparation for my move across the pond in May, I've discovered places in London that will happily deliver exotic meats such as springbok, reindeer/caribou, alligator, kangaroo, ostrich, and bison to my door if I spend a mere £65. I've already informed the Brit that there will be consumption of meat that he's never thought of before. The venison sausage with pasta went over like gangbusters during the winter trip, so I figure kangaroo helper would be good.

Apparently, in a counterpart in the US, you can get lion ribeye steaks.

I've had bear. It's okay. Nothing to go "omg, this is the bestest meat EVAR!" over, that's for certain. I have to say, I'm not a big fan of eating omnivore (bear) and the carnivore I've had (crocodile and alligator) wasn't that delicious. If I knew that the lions were being fed high quality aurochs, then I might give it a go. But carnivore doesn't equate with really tasty to me.

Now giraffe... I would eat that in an instant. Zebra, too. (I bet it tastes like horse but spicier.)

So basically, I spent the last week torturing the Brit with my cooking, torturing myself with the near-availability of exotic meats, and torturing my roommate with the sounds of *pata pata pata pon*.

Somewhere in there I did coursework and other grad-school related things. I'm really mentally over it. Can I just write my thesis and be done?

I've been wondering this for a while

A look into human population and its interaction with the environment.

Given how radically we alter the world around us, and we have no natural predators, no plagues, nothing that is truly virulent and unsolvable (like the Black Death) I think it is something to look at.

Oh, England... How we love thee...

Even though you confuse the hell out of us...

"She warned that children might get the message that 'when things get difficult you should just stay at home and have fun.'"

From this article about the snow closures.

We had snow days when I was a kid. Granted, not often because my state actually knows what to do when white stuff falls from the sky, but we did. It wasn't a "stay at home and have fun" situation for us. It was usually "do work, shovel the deck, help around the house, THEN have fun."

I want to know what kind of household she's raising her kids in.