Ever since May of 2005 I've had the habit of designating a local coffeeshop as my "Coffeeshop of Record" — it's the place I always hang out at, and my favorite local caffeine establishment. Or, as I sometimes put it, "my drug dealers". Because I'm also that kind of person, I keep statistics of how much I spend there. Shortly after moving to Ypsilanti I designated the Ugly Mug Cafe as my CsoR.
For several years my zine collection has lived in a couple of cardboard document boxes. Initially just piled in, I took some effort a while back to sort everything alphabetically by title, stacked haphazardly in a couple of the boxes set on end. This was unwieldy, and also made it hard for me to easily sort new stuff in. I finally got aggrivated enough by this process to buy a few plastic file bins and a box of two inch expanding file jackets, and today I got enough gumption to sort things out.
Continuing on the theme of Glorious Kale, I was in a cooking frenzy last night and made a variation on this Lentil Escarole Soup from The Postpunk Kitchen. It's the first time I've cooked with escarole, and I'm pretty happy with it. Like all green leafy vegetables, you'll want to wash it completely — there's a lot of dirt and grit in a head of escarole. Ingredients for my variation (I doubled the recipe, roughly): 2 tbsp olive oil 1 medium onion, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 4 small carrots, chopped 1-1/2 c.
The past couple of weeks I haven't been eating well — a combination of being really busy, getting sick and work being a pain left me eating rather unhealthy. After I do this a while I can really tell it, and I get a strong urge to build up my vitamins, so to speak. Tonight I felt this way, and when I need to stock up on nutrients, especially in the winter, I think of kale.
Winner of the 2009 ITS Chili Cookoff "Luke Skywalker Award". This is less a recipe and more a general guideline for what to dump together to get this chili, because that's exactly what I did. Take 3 cups of bulgar wheat and soak it in cold water --- it doesn't take long. Drain any remaining water off and put the bulgar in a 6 quart crock pot. Make or buy 1-1/2 cups of sofrito and dump that in.
...my bicycle, and the dude who stole my bicycle. As I discussed back here my bike got stolen back in August, and the guy was caught up the hill from my apartment by the Ypsilanti Police. A bit over a month ago I got a letter in the mail from the District Attorney's office, telling me that there was a final settlement conference in the case, and that I had to appear in court for it.
This evening I was meandering about Ypsilanti, and walking through downtown I noticed that the facade above Puffer Reds has been removed — looks like it's going to be repaired or something like that. I snapped a few photos of what's below, since I'd never seen it before and have no idea how long it's been since this has been exposed. My favorite photo is this one. Looks like the west half of Reds at least used to be an old Hallmark Cards store.
Problem Statement: on the pair of shoes I conventionally wear for day-to-day activities, my right shoe has a tendancy to become unknotted frequently, while the left shoe has not, in my memory, ever became unknotted. Both shoes are tied with the same knot. Hypothesis: the lace on my right shoe is responsible for this unknotting. Experiment: swap the laces between my right and left shoes.
Earlier this week I had wanted to try making a rice and lentil dish another bike polo player had described, but summer weather had finally turned hot and I didn't feel like heating up the kitchen (or, really, do anything I couldn't do in the little air-conditioned cage I have in my apartment). I turned to the greatest invention of all times, the crockpot, and this is what came out.
Yesterday I was over in Ann Arbor, helping out with the Pedal Poker Run. I drove to and from the event, and as I pulled into my driveway this morning, I though "I'll just leave the bike strapped to the rack...." So, around 4:30 this morning I was woken up by someone pounding mightily upon my front door. I stumbled awake, grabbed my robe, and as I was aproaching the door I heard "Ypsi Police" On the stairs outside of my door were an Ypsi police officer and Freddie, one of my downstairs neighbors.