12.13.2005
sooo... yeah.
A couple of random thoughts.
I've been cooking a lot recently. I'm having the entire choir of the Queen's College up for dinner on Friday and have been testing recipes. What stinks really is that while I can whip up just about anything with meat in it, aside from roasted vegetables and salad, I have literally no idea what to make for vegetarians. Aside from, perhaps, a glass of water. Over the past two days, I've tried out five new dishes, and I think I've got a menu for Friday. Starters: chili prawns, curried ground beef in lettuce, poached chicken breasts with green onion, ginger, and soy sauce, roasted winter vegetables, rocket salad with goat cheese, and store-bought hummus and olives. Mains: roasted butternut squash with spinach, lemon, and almonds, soy-glazed pork loin roast with mushroom gravy. Sides: vegetable pan-fried noodles, vegetable fried rice (unless I can find some nice chinese bbq pork), wilted spinach with shallot, maybe one more. It's a large undertaking, but I'm psyched to be in the company of friends, and I think I can pull it off. The chili prawns and curried beef I've done before. I tried out a new recipe for poaching chicken (my father can poach a whole chicken and slice it up like they do in Chinatown amazingly. I'm lucky if I can poach chicken breasts on their own. This recipe is from the Gourmet cookbook, but the sauce is my Dad's). The rocket salad I tried last night with spinach, but that's just too much spinach in one meal. The roasted squash and the pork loin were both out of the Gourmet cookbook as well. Many thanks to my three tasters who gave me helpful suggestions on each of the dishes: Dave, Angela, and Justin.
While doing my Christmas shopping, I went down to the Westgate Centre Mall on Sunday afternoon, where there was a small brass band playing Christmas carols. When I came out of the supermarket, I walked by again, and there was a different ensemble: bagpipe, two sets of african drums, and rhythm guitar. There is no chance that a bagpiper would ever find himself issued a permit for indoor mall busking in America. Those things are LOUD.
Which reminds me of the band concert I went to at Eton with my parents. Matthew's in the band as well as the orchestra (more on the orchestra in a minute), and the band concert occurred while my Mom and I were in town, so we figured why not. The band was amusing enough, but the real killer was the bagpipe ensemble, which comprised, oh, nine bagpipers and a bass drum. I have never been anywhere that loud in my life. Granted, I don't go to heavy metal shows, but I have sat next to the percussion section for Verdi's Requiem.
The orchestra concert was on Saturday, and it was a real pleasure. The pianist for the Beethoven 3rd Piano Concerto was really quite good. The winds were on the pitchy side, but overall, very nice. Matthew played in a symphony by Vasily Kalinnikov, whom I had not heard of before. It was a playful and fun symphony, and I found myself laughing at times, much to the consternation of those around me. It was performed really well, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The train ride home was what almost did me in.
The gentleman at the ticket counter for National Rail at Oxford told me that the last train directly back from Slough would leave at 10:32. All later trains would go to Didcot Parkway and then we would catch a replacement bus service to Oxford. Evidently, there have been massive signalling problems just after Didcot, and National Rail was using the night hours to fix the problem, thus diverting as few trains as possible. No worries - I figured the concert (8:30) would be done in time to get to the station, but even if not, I don't mind catching a bus. Well, the concert ended at 10:45, and I had to stick around to take photos of Matt at the end for my parents, who weren't able to stick around for the concert. I caught a train out of Slough at 11:26, but it was delayed about 10 minutes. So when we get to Didcot Parkway, the replacement bus is nowhere to be found, as it was sent off on time, which also means empty. A rather forceful man with a heavy Scottish accent attempted to ascertain the whereabouts of this bus from the busdriver of an empty and idling bus which was not our bus. He managed to convince the driver to allow us to pass the time on his bus while we waited for the Oxford bus which, we were assured, would be coming some time in the next 20 minutes. Becoming more and more forceful, this Scotsman ended up hurling abuse at both the bus driver who was present (he'd been treating all of us with a rather short temper, despite his kindness in letting us sit and wait on the bus), and the railway manager, who had been having a really bad day, I guess. Profanities were exchanged and the rail manager came on board our interim bus to collect tickets after stating that Mr. Forceful would not be allowed on the bus at all. Unfortunately, he did so in the rudest and most unacceptable of manners, and even the well-dressed and posh-looking of my travel companions spoke up in protest. All protests were met with the same statement: "fine - you. Off the bus too!" We finally make it to our replacement bus, but it can't leave, because it has to wait until the appointed time (even though there are no trains due to arrive in the intervening space). And the Thames Valley Police had been called by the rail manager, and the two parties proceeded to haul of Mr. Forceful (by whose skilled negotiations we had been allowed on the interim bus to begin!), much to the dismay and disapproval of all of us. So a few of us (myself decidedly not included) went to his defense, and after several minutes of negotiation and what appeared to be browbeating of the rude and insensitive railway manager, the Scotsman got back on the bus with all of us and we were off. At this point, I dozed off, to awake in Oxford at about 1 in the morning.
By the way, went to Cambridge last week. Gorgeous! I suppose they've got to make up for being a lousy school somehow...
I've been cooking a lot recently. I'm having the entire choir of the Queen's College up for dinner on Friday and have been testing recipes. What stinks really is that while I can whip up just about anything with meat in it, aside from roasted vegetables and salad, I have literally no idea what to make for vegetarians. Aside from, perhaps, a glass of water. Over the past two days, I've tried out five new dishes, and I think I've got a menu for Friday. Starters: chili prawns, curried ground beef in lettuce, poached chicken breasts with green onion, ginger, and soy sauce, roasted winter vegetables, rocket salad with goat cheese, and store-bought hummus and olives. Mains: roasted butternut squash with spinach, lemon, and almonds, soy-glazed pork loin roast with mushroom gravy. Sides: vegetable pan-fried noodles, vegetable fried rice (unless I can find some nice chinese bbq pork), wilted spinach with shallot, maybe one more. It's a large undertaking, but I'm psyched to be in the company of friends, and I think I can pull it off. The chili prawns and curried beef I've done before. I tried out a new recipe for poaching chicken (my father can poach a whole chicken and slice it up like they do in Chinatown amazingly. I'm lucky if I can poach chicken breasts on their own. This recipe is from the Gourmet cookbook, but the sauce is my Dad's). The rocket salad I tried last night with spinach, but that's just too much spinach in one meal. The roasted squash and the pork loin were both out of the Gourmet cookbook as well. Many thanks to my three tasters who gave me helpful suggestions on each of the dishes: Dave, Angela, and Justin.
While doing my Christmas shopping, I went down to the Westgate Centre Mall on Sunday afternoon, where there was a small brass band playing Christmas carols. When I came out of the supermarket, I walked by again, and there was a different ensemble: bagpipe, two sets of african drums, and rhythm guitar. There is no chance that a bagpiper would ever find himself issued a permit for indoor mall busking in America. Those things are LOUD.
Which reminds me of the band concert I went to at Eton with my parents. Matthew's in the band as well as the orchestra (more on the orchestra in a minute), and the band concert occurred while my Mom and I were in town, so we figured why not. The band was amusing enough, but the real killer was the bagpipe ensemble, which comprised, oh, nine bagpipers and a bass drum. I have never been anywhere that loud in my life. Granted, I don't go to heavy metal shows, but I have sat next to the percussion section for Verdi's Requiem.
The orchestra concert was on Saturday, and it was a real pleasure. The pianist for the Beethoven 3rd Piano Concerto was really quite good. The winds were on the pitchy side, but overall, very nice. Matthew played in a symphony by Vasily Kalinnikov, whom I had not heard of before. It was a playful and fun symphony, and I found myself laughing at times, much to the consternation of those around me. It was performed really well, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The train ride home was what almost did me in.
The gentleman at the ticket counter for National Rail at Oxford told me that the last train directly back from Slough would leave at 10:32. All later trains would go to Didcot Parkway and then we would catch a replacement bus service to Oxford. Evidently, there have been massive signalling problems just after Didcot, and National Rail was using the night hours to fix the problem, thus diverting as few trains as possible. No worries - I figured the concert (8:30) would be done in time to get to the station, but even if not, I don't mind catching a bus. Well, the concert ended at 10:45, and I had to stick around to take photos of Matt at the end for my parents, who weren't able to stick around for the concert. I caught a train out of Slough at 11:26, but it was delayed about 10 minutes. So when we get to Didcot Parkway, the replacement bus is nowhere to be found, as it was sent off on time, which also means empty. A rather forceful man with a heavy Scottish accent attempted to ascertain the whereabouts of this bus from the busdriver of an empty and idling bus which was not our bus. He managed to convince the driver to allow us to pass the time on his bus while we waited for the Oxford bus which, we were assured, would be coming some time in the next 20 minutes. Becoming more and more forceful, this Scotsman ended up hurling abuse at both the bus driver who was present (he'd been treating all of us with a rather short temper, despite his kindness in letting us sit and wait on the bus), and the railway manager, who had been having a really bad day, I guess. Profanities were exchanged and the rail manager came on board our interim bus to collect tickets after stating that Mr. Forceful would not be allowed on the bus at all. Unfortunately, he did so in the rudest and most unacceptable of manners, and even the well-dressed and posh-looking of my travel companions spoke up in protest. All protests were met with the same statement: "fine - you. Off the bus too!" We finally make it to our replacement bus, but it can't leave, because it has to wait until the appointed time (even though there are no trains due to arrive in the intervening space). And the Thames Valley Police had been called by the rail manager, and the two parties proceeded to haul of Mr. Forceful (by whose skilled negotiations we had been allowed on the interim bus to begin!), much to the dismay and disapproval of all of us. So a few of us (myself decidedly not included) went to his defense, and after several minutes of negotiation and what appeared to be browbeating of the rude and insensitive railway manager, the Scotsman got back on the bus with all of us and we were off. At this point, I dozed off, to awake in Oxford at about 1 in the morning.
By the way, went to Cambridge last week. Gorgeous! I suppose they've got to make up for being a lousy school somehow...
