Testaments to the Boom Times to Come

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[wellntruly]

S1 revisited

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Thank you for your support for this dadaist queue moment

I wish to thank:

Getting too excited about the arrival of my new-vintage lampshades (!) and forgetting what I had going this evening!

[wellntruly]

amelodie replied to your post

oh those lampshades look super cool

A while ago @knighthooded sent me a url to this cutie on Tiktok (I don’t know how Tiktok works, people have to send me stuff, like lampshades) posting time lapses of her making Victorian-esque shades, available for custom order, and I thought, commissioning a young artisan to make me a beautiful houseware is what I want to be doing with my adulthood. Millennial Medici. That’s the goal.

Anyway Ivy is LOVELY, and now I have THESE, ALSO LOVELY!!!!

They’re a pair on either side of my bed 💛

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Sorry for yet another beige-scale dish, but this lemony pasta with the fancy jarred tuna is so phenom. What I wasn’t expecting is the combination of fennel seeds and crumbled bay leaves with the lemon zest and garlic and red pepper. Why hello fennel!

I followed the Judy Rogers method as transcribed by Nicholas Day above, though I turned the heat off entirely under my little pan once the garlic and lemon zest had sizzled for just a couple minutes, letting the oil infuse more gently, then turned it back on low when adding the later ingredients, when there’s about 3-4 minutes left on the pasta. And for making just a single serving for a quick working-at-home lunch, these were my amounts: 2 tablespoons olive oil, probably like a teaspoon sliced lemon zest (from one swipe down a Meyer lemon), quarter of a Turkish bay leaf, ¼ teaspoon red chili flakes, ¼ teaspoon fennel seeds (lightly crushed), 10 grinds of black pepper, 1 thinly sliced garlic clove, 1 teaspoon chopped capers, 1 teaspoon minced preserved lemon, no pine nuts (who are we kidding), and about a quarter of a jar of Tonnino’s olive oil packed tuna my beloved. An optional trick is you can sub one tablespoon of the olive oil with olive oil poured off the tuna jar, then just replace it with a tablespoon of new olive oil back in to the jar, maintaining your supply of rich briny tuna oil for your next serving of pasta.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

He’s going full gnome

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Something that is so cozy and comforting in a February: roasted vegetables and buttermilk grits

I forget about polenta sometimes. I shouldn’t! Edits: I didn’t add any of the optional cheese to the polenta itself, but crumbled some sharp cloth-bound cheddar on top, ho ho. For the vegetables I did 1 small cauliflower, 1 medium delicata squash, 1 small red onion, a bit less salt, and then two bundles of oyster mushrooms (hmm maybe ½ a pound?) which I added to the roasting pan only for the last 15 minutes or so. I also think I doubled the oregano (and was using Rancho Gordo’s Mexican oregano; it’s so good!) 

I am also still thinking about radicchio Caesar with crispy chickpeas

Salty, zesty, bitter! I skipped the breadcrumbs as I’d been eating a breadcrumby pasta earlier that week, and I’d had a great time adding crispy chickpeas to the Caesars Rhae and I made in the midcentury desert (Samin Nosrat’s dressing, sumptuous). Eric Kim’s dressing hack is brill for when you’re like, I simply do not want to spend the whisking time, but I want something so savory. Crispy chickpeas are just one can rinsed and dried well, tossed with olive oil and salt & pepper and roasted in a small sheet pan in the oven at 425 degrees F for about 20 minutes, shaking once or twice.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

I don’t cook with chicken all that often, but this is one of my favorite things to make when I do: tea-poached drunken chicken with soy-mirin shiitakes. I only ever make it deepest winter it seems, when it suddenly comes to mind again. It feel very wholesome, despite being entirely sepia scale to look at and containing two different kinds of cooking wine.

It’s mostly this recipe by Kay Chun – I cut the chicken into long uniform sections, so it will poach more evenly, and keep the leftovers in their poaching broth in the fridge to deepen in flavor. I’ve never made her accompanying cilantro-scallion oil, always instead sautéing sliced shiitake mushrooms in some neutral oil until softened and browning, then braising them briefly with a few good splashes of shoyu and mirin, and making sure to get all that sauce in the pan onto the the sliced chicken and warm brown rice.

Pairs well with stepping out onto the balcony to turn on the globe lights and smelling a neighbor’s woodsmoke on the cold air.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Would you like to know one of my silly little resolutions? It’s actually blog more.

Because I think it’s a good way for me to access the gratitude and joy! I’ve been keeping a wee diary doc each year since 2020 (AUSpicious as all hell to have started on Jan 1, 2020), where it’s really just about putting a phrase to the notable and the delights (the most notable). Not every day, but like a handful of times a month. A huge amount of entries are just listing a food item and a film and a natural sensation, like a scent or a weather. Moments where I was happy. Not all of them! Sometimes it’s good to acknowledge the sorrow and strangeness (negative) too. But being attentive to the lovely things is really, really nice.

This morning I am back in my own home, the sunlight was coming through my kitchen balcony doors bright and January-ivory and making the English muffin with the guava jam Jody sent me glow so beautifully, and now I’m going to go run around in the cold woods in head to toe fleece while probably listening to some movie podcast, and then buy an onion and some dill. And the rest of this year I’m going to practice an open elegant posture and turn in to bed early to read and make sure the dinner parties are every month—and bother you all here with more dumb jokes. Happy January 2 ♥

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

It was snowing on Sunday, big damp light flakes. The ground wasn’t frozen so they weren’t sticking, but still the earliest I can ever remember seeing snow in the valleys I’ve lived in in the Pacific Northwest. The theater worker selling me my second ticket, a bowl of popcorn, and a chai confided I was not the only one that day just spending the whole cold wet afternoon double-featuring movies at one of the art houses downtown.

It’s oven season. Today isn’t even as cold as then or as it will be soon, but while my inefficient heater by the kitchen table kept kicking on again I made this guy for lunch, double cookin’ time at 400 degrees:

Roasted delicata squash galette, with a thick nutmeg bechamel, gruyere, mozzarella, lots of walnuts, and crispy sage. Reeeecommended.

Also:

Recommended. Let Marlo Thomas and Friends (& Friends !) teach you about gender equality and different forms of expression. God, 1970s morality was lit.. Thank Alex though truly for the tip of the moment.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

Painkiller diaries, cont’d

(Video: me)

In truth, actually alternating just half doses of The Good Stuff and ibuprofen today; still not remotely going to work or leaving my coziness couch, oho no, thank you. I did walk out to the mailbox this morning in some nice blustering pretty-colored dampness, but that was partly to enjoy coming back to my warm kitchen and cardamom bun cream of wheat mellowed to just the right stitches-friendly temperature.

To make cardamom bun cream of wheat, my new treat, it is simple: follow the box instructions, adding a couple dashes ground cardamom to your simmering milk of choice (unsweetened if non-dairy; I was actually using macadamia), then to serve top with a pat of salted butter and, to replicate more of the flavor of the cardamom buns at the Swedish bakery in Edinburgh where you first tasted them, a drizzle of Lyle’s Golden Syrup. Then look up Lyle’s Golden Syrup to find more information about the sort of heraldic mysticism of their lion & bees logo & “Out of the strong came forth sweetness,” and discover more than you could ever dream:

Ah, ~ for me! ~

Some more luxe convalescence suggestions I missed last time

• Aesthete Tea’s ’Golden Milk’ blend, just nicely (and smartly) balanced
• Bombas soft merino wool socks, in this pleasing shade they call ’Morning Joe’
• D.S. & Durga ’Amber Teutonic’ - peak cozy elegance (get it in a sample pack, and they’ll apply the sample set amount toward a full bottle if you decide to splurge, tips tips) (hm should I get a full bottle…)
• hazily finishing whatever volume of the Aubreyad you’re on; toasting Stephen’s laudanum habit
• Alan Alda in M*A*S*H (still recommended)

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

I had a gum surgery a few days ago, and so far in recovery period have really embraced what feels a sort of luxurious Redwall Abbey lifestyle, padding around in a complete vintage cashmere outfit and felted wool slippers while sipping my herbalist friend’s bee balm, yarrow, and wild mint tea for their natural wound-healing astringents. It came to pass actually, deeply pleasing for multiple reasons, that I was only finally able to get some bleeding to stop the first day with my post-op paperwork’s suggestion of applying pressure not just with gauze but gauze wrapped around a moistened tea bag. Sir, it’s the tannins! Oh Numi white rose, you’ve always been my girl.

The other thing I’ve been doing is being rather stoned on clinical grade opiates and marathoning M*A*S*H (1972-1983)

This sort of thing–

–has also actually been quite relatable to my luxe mole life this weekend. Again: dulled background pain, consciously pursuing luxury. You can’t cope if you ain’t cute, et cetera.

Recommendations:

• recycled cashmere lounge pants, ludicrous indulgence, have improved my life untold measures
• tea light candles every night
• infuse the melted butter and milk with 4-5 sage leaves when making mashed potatoes
• dark iron grey hair as a look (Alan, it’s lovely)
• and a holdover from Halloween: hot mulled apple cider (the soft American-Canadian kind), shot of whiskey, whipped cream, drizzle of maple syrup

Bon afternoon, more later maybe

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

platoapproved replied to your post “Boat horns in the fog just outside San Francisco Bay”

ah you are making me homesick!

:) Would you like some more snaps