mychai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I could tell you everything I did over the weekend, but that would be improper. I hate it when food projects go awry. I spent a good 2-3 hours on Saturday -- as a measure to escape from the repetitive news reports reporting no new news at all -- cooking a big pot of split pea and ham soup, one of my favorite soup dishes ever. Dip in some fresh wheat yeast rolls and you have a little bit of heaven going into your mouth. When I tasted it on Saturday night before storing it for later, it tasted perfect -- the best combination of pea and pig imaginable. As those Campbell's people best put it, "Mmm-mmm good." But when I took a bowl of it to work, the pea soup had magically transferred to a dish I would like to call "Le Salt Lick." Seems the country ham I used had a tad more salt than I had anticipated. And the canned stock I used (Yech. I know, I know. I ran out of the homemade stuff and was really craving some soup...) was regular sodium. Shame on me, shame on me. But all is fine and good in JP-Land. I know how to rectify this situation. Pay attention, because I would say this mistake happns more often than not in home kitchens. If it happens to you, you can learn how to solve it. It's simple: potatoes. Remember that old trick where you scoop out a hole in a potato, fill the hole with salt, and in 24 hours the salt turns into water? The same thing can happen for your overly salty soups. Get a few potatoes, cut them in quarters, and let them soak in the warm soup overnight. How much it reduces the salt content depends on the viscosity and salinity of the soup, but generally it works wonders. The word for the weekend: amoral hedonism. And boy do my legs hurt. One thing I got to do over the weekend was to go out and meet the folks over at More Than Enough. Most notably, the star of the blog herself, Jessica, a biology student over at the university. She couldn't stay out long because she is doing a study on the mold that led to the crazy party also known as "The Salem Witch Trials." In three hours, though, we both were able to talk about everything from pets to our ideal weddings to -- and I am not joking here -- extensive thoughts about soda. Usually, when I go out to meet people and we spend a good fifteen minutes talking about soda, I consider it a wasted night. But no! It was actually quite interesting. I also learned that, besides water and only some forms of bread, she doesn't like the taste of much other food. I suspect that this picture was faked, like those cardboard cut-outs they have of the president so it looks like you got your picture made with the Chief. Anyway, she's an amazingly gorgeous girl. And it was a pleasure meeting someone new. Especially a fellow Columbia blogger. I now know two other Columbia blogger/diary people, the other one being a girl who also loves to cook and gets me great deals at a local restaurant. For all of my postcard people... I'm sorry I've been slacking. For a while, I didn't even have enough money to buy postcards and stamps. I was one broke mofo, lemme tell ya. Now that I've done my taxes -- and realized that I will get a hefty refund for the first time in years ("tax breaks only for the rich" my ass!) -- I can now afford the "Five for a Buck" postcards. I will be sending out your postcard contacts very soon. Thanks for your patience. Have a good Monday. Say a prayer or two for the families of the astronauts. Remember to take a deep breath, look at the clouds, and smile to a stranger. They can't do that any more. 11:17 p.m. - Sun., Feb. 2, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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