starlady: Raven on a MacBook (Default)
I went to get my bivalent booster today, at the same CVS where I got my third jab, as they gutted it and redid it with more health-space a few years back and thus it has sufficient chairs. Which came in handy today because they were running behind and the pharmacist took her lunch at 4pm so lots of people were milling around. I left to go get coffee, drank it outside, and then came back--I only waited about ten minutes before I got the jab once I checked in. Moderna this time, like the third shot. I forgot my vax card, so I suppose that's the end of updating it, although the info got sent to the state database so I shall have to remember to pull my QR code again in a few days. (Not that anyone, ever, has ever taken the QR code as proof of anything.) So far I have some mild arm pain, but it's definitely not as bad as the third jab. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

I didn't get the flu shot with it, only because the flu shot has started to give me arm pain in the past few years and I wanted to minimize the chance of side effects as much as I can. Next week is my monthly allergy shot, so today I made an appointment for the flu shot in two weeks at the same pharmacy. I was going to wait until October, but I'm hearing the flu season is early and rough so far and I'm seeing MCR in Oakland on October 5, so I definitely want to have all the vaccines possible before then.
starlady: Raven on a MacBook (Default)
I got a booster shot yesterday afternoon--Moderna, when I'd gotten Pfizer for my first two jabs. I was expecting the side effects to be worse even though the Moderna booster is a half dose (50mcg as opposed to 100), and I was right, but thankfully though they aren't fun they aren't too bad so far. Arm pain at the site, woke me up at 6am when my ibuprofen wore off, but I took some more and was able to go back to sleep. Muscle/joint aches from when I woke up and a very mild fever, which I think broke around dinnertime and has perhaps ticked up again slightly. I planned to take it easy and spent chunks of time horizontal in bed and that seemed to make it possible to get up and do a few things in the between times. Hopefully tomorrow this will be over with; I'm going to bed very shortly to try to facilitate that. Thanks daylight savings!

In all seriousness, I was practically dancing my way out of the pharmacy after my 15 minutes' observation were up, and I couldn't help but do a fist pump as well. Not sure when I'll have this kind of uncomplicated yay feeling again; I wasn't really expecting it. But it was nice.

Anyway, I am not a doctor but if you're over 16 I do recommend getting a booster--looking at data from other countries and listening to Fauci's comments (to say nothing of the plateau in cases that may presage a fifth wave) it seems clear that the U.S. vaccine regimen will be upped to three shots eventually. Personally I wasn't willing to wait for the FDA's weirdly conservative vaccine committee to decide that decreasing breakthrough infections is worth the risk of "increased uncertainty" when their inaction constitutes a direct risk to my health (and when California is discarding more than half a million vaccine doses unused). It's a pandemic! We're all used to uncertainty at this point. But now, about this, I have a lot less.
starlady: a barcode with my DW username & user ID (barcode)
I got my first dose of Pfizer vaccine this morning, fifty-four weeks after quarantine began. My second appointment is scheduled for May Day. 

The process was pretty smooth--my county opened eligibility for people 16+ on Tuesday and by Wednesday at 1am I had an account on the health service and an appointment. I arrived early, which turned out to be unnecessary; the longest part of the process was waiting twenty minutes until my appointment at 11:30. I was vaccinated by 11:37 and left by 11:54 with no adverse reaction. So far I have some extremely mild muscle pain, but nothing worth mentioning--the flu shots have been way worse for me for the past several years.

For a part of history, this was pretty low-key, but very satisfying. I didn't cry, and wasn't particularly expecting to, but I was grinning like a loon under my mask afterwards and when the nurse asked me how I was doing when I sat down my response of "Great!" was 100% accurate. (This was in a community college, and we were in the converted lobby of the dining hall? I turned my head and had a view of the cold, dark french fry station.) I honestly don't know when I'll feel safe not wearing a mask constantly in public, but it's good to be on the path to being at much lower risk. And I hope everyone can get there as soon as possible.
starlady: (a sad tale's best)
As the year draws to a close (and not a moment too soon) I've been thinking a bit about all the ways things have changed since the pandemic. Many of these changes are terrible, and I hope most of them don't stick around, but there's definitely changes I've made in my life that are here to stay. I'm interested to hear what other people think will become permanent too.

Things I started doing that I didn't anticipate
  • Getting toilet paper and tissues on subscription – I signed up for Who Gives a Crap because I was over the toilet paper hunt and because I appreciated that their products are made from bamboo, not from actual trees. Bonus: not having to haul huge quantities of paper goods around, something I hadn't realized was a drag until it freed me to make shorter trips to the closer Target on my bike. (Also: if you want a referral code for a subscription, let me know.)
  • Grocery shopping by bike – It's more feasible in summer than in winter, but hoo boy, it's some good exercise to haul self and twenty pounds of groceries up the hills.
  • Ordering coffee in ten pound quantities – For years now I've found buying coffee in the grocery store deeply tedious, and in the pandemic I just said fuck it and started ordering ten pounds at a time from the roastery in Utah that makes Condor Coffee for Tracy Aviary. It's women owned, fairly traded, and certified bird friendly. And I don't have to constantly buy expensive coffee that I maybe don't even like very much in the grocery store.
  • Dried beans – They are better than canned and they're more efficient to transport. Win-win.
Things I haven't done since March
  • Worn makeup – I enjoy it, to be clear, but it seems silly to bother between Zoom and the masks. I have worn lipstick a few times, and I think I did put on makeup for a webinar I did. Maybe.
  • Starbucks – I wasn't a huge consumer since I started working from home in 2017, but I was a pretty reliable customer on my travels. I had one pumpkin spice latte in August, and that was it.
  • Haircut – I was just starting to consider getting one in October when the cases started to turn and it quickly became something that seemed like a foolish potential risk. In the meantime, my hair is as long as it's ever been, which is about shoulder-length because it's curly and it won't grow any longer. It appeared longer when I was in high school and I was torturing it to be straight; it only got to wavy, because it's curly.
Things I'll never do again
  • Blow-drying my hair – I'm kind of surprised I thought that frying my hair with an electric appliance was a good idea for as long as I did, but no more.
starlady: Remy from the movie Ratatouille sniffing herbs for a stew (cooking)
I called my father the other day and we spent a solid ten minutes kvetching about how much the process of making decisions/cooking/washing dishes has been wearing us down lately. I normally cook most of my meals at home, but as a friend recently said, that difference between "most" and "all" gets pretty killer after a while. I really miss spontaneous lunch while out running errands. I have temporarily solved this problem by ordering a box from La Cocina which should feed me for a good four days this week. 

Recipes
  • Wookie cookies – It was Star Wars Day last week and these cookies are very good. I used light brown sugar, but you will get more of a Wookie aesthetic by using dark brown sugar, by upping the cinnamon to 1.5 or even 2tsp (depending on the strength of your cinnamon), and most importantly by replacing some or all of the chocolate chips with chopped bar chocolate. Chocolate chips contain stabilizers which mean they retain their shape after baking; chopped bar chocolate melds into the dough in a really wonderful way. I personally would use a dark milk and a bittersweet chocolate in these cookies in happier times of not buying whatever is on the shelf. Additional baking notes: you will get much better results for every cookie, especially chocolate chip cookies, if you age the dough for 2-24 hours in the fridge (or the freezer). Aging the dough helps it absorb some of the moisture and meld the flavors, and cookies will also spread less when you bake them, a nice side bonus. Finally, once you take the cookies out, cool them on the tray for two minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
  • Savory Oatmeal – So I didn't fully realize that steel cut oats is not just rolled oats chopped up. I adapted this recipe for rolled oats and it was good, particularly since I didn't want to make decisions that night. I have now purchased actual steel cut oats and I look forward to repeating the recipe with them in the future.
  • Charred Eggplant and Walnut Pesto Salad – I basically live on this recipe in the summer, and it's starting to be summer-ish here. This time I made it with penne, and I am pleased to report that penne also works just fine. I also finally shelled the random whole walnuts I had in my cabinet, and they were very good. 
starlady: animated uhura: set phasers to fabulous (set phasers to fabulously awesome)
Still here. It's week seven now? Word is that restrictions are going to start loosening soon but we are not out of the woods yet. I plan to stick pretty close to home for the time being.

I made one new thing this week, the Smitten Kitchen blueberry muffins, in honor of my quarantine drama club tackling The Importance of Being Earnest, and they are delicious.

Perhaps it's because the new Dune movie is being talked about on Twitter etc, but since quarantine started I've been thinking of that scene at the end of one of those Dan Simmons novels--Wikipedia tells me it's The Fall of Hyperion--where President lady Abraham Lincoln (actually named Meina Gladstone?) severs the instantaneous teleportation network because of the evil AIs (???) and the super rich people who had each room in their houses on different worlds are suddenly cut off from one another. Simmons is fucking weird, I read those books in high school and they are deeply 80s and deeply weird, to say nothing of their extremely deep problems. But, yeah. It feels a little like that.
starlady: Remy from the movie Ratatouille sniffing herbs for a stew (cooking)
Recipes
  • Rigatoni with Eggplant Puree – This was very good and pretty easy. I keep thinking I might chuck a couple of cloves of garlic in with the roasted veggies when I make it next time.
  • Orange and Almond Biscotti – I found a sizable stash of candied orange peel in my pantry census and didn't want to make fruitcake. These are…fine. I didn't blanch the almonds because life is too short, but the finished biscotti don't have a very strong orange flavor. (My cointreau ran out just before I got to 3Tbsp, but it shouldn't have made that much of a difference. I would up the almonds to 1 cup and up the candied orange peel to 2/3 cup if I made these again.)
  • Thai Peanut Chicken with Pomegranate Rice – The year I lived in Tokyo I made a variation on this recipe at least 2x a week. Specifically I made it with tofu then, which is how I make it now; last week I used this as a base recipe to make curry from a kit. It wasn't the biggest success in the world, for which I blame the kit as this recipe has never failed me. Maybe next time I'll actually make the pomegranate rice, which I have never actually done.
  • Asparagus, goat cheese, and lemon pasta – The asparagusing continues. I use 6-8oz goat cheese now and I don't regret it.
  • Chili crisp tofu with green beans – I got my FlyByJing chili crisp (see below) and then the NYT Magazine published this recipe. I made it with snap peas and it's extremely good.
Drinks
  • The Boulevardier – A whiskey variant on the negroni, which I have been drinking quite regularly. The whiskey concept is fine, but I would decrease it back to 1oz.
  • The Negroni – Does what it says on the tin.

Fancy condiments
  • FlyByJing chili crisp – I saw Soleil Ho talking about this chili crisp on Twitter and I got my order in right before they sold out until June. I'm reordering for then, I expect, since the chili crisp is literally eat out of the jar good. I tried it on my Van Leeuwen honeycomb ice cream (it's not actual honeycomb; it's the German candy known as fairy food in Wisconsin) and yup, it's even good on ice cream.
  • Wood's Vermont Syrup, ghost pepper maple syrup – Those of you who shop at Trader Joe's may remember their ghost pepper infused maple syrup, which has been replaced by ginger infused maple syrup, etc. This is almost certainly the company that supplied TJ's with that syrup. I also bought their maple bacon coffee to meet the shipping minimum and that was an excellent choice.
starlady: Remy from the movie Ratatouille sniffing herbs for a stew (cooking)
 It has, indeed, been nearly a month. Cripes.
  • Spring Salad with New Potatoes – I make this with a tofu and it's pretty good, though given how cavalier I am about the quantities of veggies I should probably 1.5x the dressing. 
  • Red Bean and Green Grain Taco Bowl – I had azuki beans, so I used a can of kidney beans instead; I used farro instead of wheat berries. The red bean half of the recipe in particular is pretty tasty.
  • Asparagus & Jammy Eggs with Pounded Pistachio Kumquat Sauce – I don't doubt that finding pistachios and kumquats in a pandemic will be a PITA; it was for me and I live in Berkeley. But it was so worth it; the sauce is so good. That said I simplified the recipe quite a lot: instead of pounding the ingredients in a mortar and pestle I just pulsed everything in the food processor. (Life is too short, even in quarantine.) I cut the asparagus before blanching them and I blanched them in the same water as the potatoes, and I never bother with the ice water baths for those ingredients either; I save it for the eggs, which actually need it. Again, life's too short. But the sauce is delicious and it was 200% worth all the rigamarole.
  • Asparagus with Chorizo and Croutons – I got a large package of chorizo at the store and I've made this twice. Yes it is the time of year when I eat my body weight in asparagus and I regret nothing.
Other than that, more repeats and leftovers. What have you been cooking?

starlady: Remy from the movie Ratatouille sniffing herbs for a stew (cooking)
  • Avocado Toast – I'm kind of proud that I made it to week three before breaking this out. I don't think you actually need tips on how to make it, but back in the day I did find reading this over helpful. 
  • Brussels Sprouts Mac & Cheese (Kimchi Variation) – I make this with kimchi about half the time now and it's very good: just use 6-8oz kimchi in place of the brussels sprouts and proceed as directed. 
  • Cannellini Aglio e Oglio – A good way to use up some of those white beans; I just made a double batch to avoid having the half a can of artichoke hearts linger. It really is best on toast.
  • Confetti Cookies – I ate so much of the dough before I even baked the cookies and I regret nothing.
  • Congee – I followed Samin Nosrat's recipe from her Instagram stories and it was good. I used half chicken stock and half water and I might go 2/3-1/3 next time but it's not a dealbreaker.
My copy of the pie cookbook finally arrived and I'm excited to make a pie in the next week or two--given that I ate all of the cookies in about three days, I'm going to try to hold off on the dessert this week.
starlady: Remy from the movie Ratatouille sniffing herbs for a stew (cooking)
  • Linguine with Cauliflower Pesto – A Smitten Kitchen cookbook recipe that I hadn't made yet and that was really rather all right. I didn't get the pesto flavors quite to my liking--more sherry vinegar?--but the concept is definitely solid.
  • Crackly Banana Bread – My brother prefers the SK banana bread with the bourbon and butter, but this one is tasty too. I had a sad lingering amount of whole wheat flour to use up and I made up the small difference with white; using all or mostly whole wheat flour definitely gives it a bit of a stronger crumb. (Important consideration if you're giving tiny pieces to your parrot, who will hold it in his foot.) I used to make this with millet when I had it, but I haven't for years and it's just as good without. I would definitely recommend the full 1/3 cup of maple syrup, as it isn't very sweet even with that amount.
  • Banana Oat Weekday Pancakes – I made these on the weekend and they were still excellent, and an excellent way to use up some slightly gone-off bananas.
  • Cranberry Crunch – This dessert is an old holiday tradition in my family, but it's been more than seven years since I've seen our actual recipe: five years ago when my brother and dad were packing up our old house to sell I was living in Japan, and I don't know whether the very old cookbook it was in made it into the storage unit or not. After several times making the dish off this version of the recipe, which is the closest I've seen to what I remember, I think I've finally figured out the changes to make: use 3/4 cup dark brown sugar, and increase the oats to somewhere between 1.25 to 1.5 cups. I don't think that will require decreasing the flour but I'm not sure. (Did our recipe also call for more butter? I remember it being much less crumbly. It might have called for two sticks of butter.) Bake for 40 minutes so it doesn't overbake. (If more butter, try 40-45.) I also suspect that it would be possible to sub ground oats for the flour for a GF option. Anyway this is obviously all a work in progress and I do intend to write up the recipe once I get it right. But I'm definitely much closer than I was before. And it was very comforting, just as I wanted it to be.
starlady: Remy from the movie Ratatouille sniffing herbs for a stew (cooking)
  • Vegan Tarka Dal – I used lime zest + basil because I wasn't able to get to Berkeley Bowl for curry leaves. Maybe next week. And for some reason I thought "finger chilis" were jalapeños but apparently they aren't. Whatever, it was good with two jalapeños in the tarka too.
  • Spicy Creamy Chickpeas with Eggs and Prosciutto – Good concept, needs a LOT more tomato paste + spices. I omitted the prosciutto and I would use soy milk next time.
  • Sweet Potato Salad with Pepita Dressing – Not a bad way to use up the canned black beans that I got at the bodega which had been sitting on the shelf for who knows how long.
  • Lentil Soup with Sausage and Chard – I make this vegan now, and I use fire roasted tomatoes to boost the flavor. 
  • Cozy Cabbage Soup with Farro – I make this once a week normally; I switched it up with chicken stock last time, but it's delicious either way and it doesn't need the parmesan either if you want it to be fully vegan. Particularly delicious with the Penzeys Tsardust Memories spice blend.
  • Black Bottom Oatmeal Pie – This was delicious. I used up the half-can of golden syrup that I'd had lying around forever and the corn syrup, ditto. It was delicious. You can't skip the syrup if you want that custard-y filling. So good.
  • Weeknight Beans on Toast – A very good way to treat canned beans that have been on the shelf for, again, who knows how long. I used chicken sausage, because that was what my bodega had, but I think it would be delicious with vegan sausage too.
I bought the Four and Twenty Blackbirds cookbook (where the oatmeal pie recipe came from), so expect more pies in the future.

Profile

starlady: Raven on a MacBook (Default)
Electra

February 2025

S M T W T F S
       1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
232425262728 

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios