Maebius Musing

Two friends and I are engaged in a fun Iron Chef challenge, using Artichokes as our secret ingredient.

See my blogroll (Kwitchery, andalso Nettle’s Blog) for details and updates.

My own entries, are all cold dishes, making a subtle nod the Northern regions we live in (relatively speaking). Simple picnic fare mostly, representing the humble joy of country life, and it’s casual connection to nature, yet still holding within it’s myriad ingredients a mirroring of the complex web of life. Each dish is topped with a fresh violet, symbolizing the spring season, and offering a token of friendship towards this chef’s lovely challengers. (Sound sufficiently Asian/esoteric?!?!)

-=- Appetizer -=-

First, we have a Artichoke Pâté, served on a bed of fresh Romaine leaves, surrounded by various multi-grain crackers and pita slivers. Garnished with a fresh violet leaf and flower. Recipe was mostly followed, with some minor adjustments in terms of slightly less olives, slightly more garlic, and a touch of cilantro-sprout to bulk out a slightly insufficient quantity of Parsley.

* 15oz artichoke-hearts, drained
* 4oz low-fat cream cheese
* 1/3 cup grated parm cheese
* around 3 Tbls fat-free mayo
* 1.5 tsp minced garlic
* 1-2 tsp lemon juice
* 2 Tbls finely chopped parsley
* 2 Tbls finely chopped black olives
* 2 Tbls chopped, roasted red peppers
* Salt and Cayenne pepper, to taste
Process the heck out of all ingredients, then leave in fridge for a while to let flavors blend. (will it blend? Yes!) Serve with starchy/firm accoutrements like crackers, breads, or melba toasts.
The taste was pleasingly subtle, with the initial tartness of the peppers, lemon, garlic, and artichokes offset by the cooling firmness of the cream cheese.

-=- Main course -=-

Artichoke pasta salad with grilled chicken. Grilled chicken tenders, marinated in artichoke juice & minced garlic, rubbed prior to grilling with a mix of paprika, oregano, salt and pepper. Served on a nest of linguine pasta tossed with more artichokes, black olives, peppers, olive oil, and cider vinegar, plus the seasoning mix used on the chicken, atop a plate of fresh romaine lettuce leaves. Served cold, except for the chicken, which was added at the last moment steaming hot off the grill.

While using similar ingredients to the appetizer, this meal was quite tasty. More tangy and very full of marinated artichoke flavor. The kid loved this a lot, especially due to “slurpy noodle” potential.

-=- Dessert -=-

I had planned to make an artichoke-based ice-cream (since EVERY japanese recipe seems to involve some sort of frozen treat using almost any ingredient you can imagine), but ran out of time to prepare it again, as the initial attempt did not work right. More of a sorbet, I rinsed marinated artichoke hearts to remove most traces of the vinegar and oil, and pureed them until smooth. Then I added about a quarter cup of table-sugar and some more water (less sweetness than traditional European Sorbets, more like Asian “green tea ice-cream” in palate).

Unfortunately, the making of good sorbet requires a constant freeze/mix cycle that I was unable to work into our schedule properly, and am not submitting without a proper consistency and last-minute tweaks of recipe to ensure a quality entry. My initial result either froze solid and needed quite a lot of blending/refreezing, or started to separate a bit and freeze mostly sugar-water on the top of a denser artichoke-dust.

While this entry may sound rather off-putting, it was not too bad by my initial test. The artichokes, once rinsed, became more of a binding agent than a flavor, and added merely a slight subtle ‘greenish-bitter’ taste to the otherwise sweet frozen sensation. I think removal of a bit more vinegar, or using fresh artichokes blanched/boiled, then powdered, might work better. Still nothing earth-shatteringly well received, but a unique dessert which does compliment the other two dishes in flavor.

Summary, the initial sweeter appetizer, with crunchy crackers, followed by a more hearty and savory-salad made for a fairly well-rounded meal. While the desert course was initially unsuccessful, it was mostly due to time and technique rather than a failure of ingredients, and got a head-shaking (semi-sarcastic) bonus point for creativity and risk-taking.

Bon Appétit!

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I found this little quiz through a new blog I’m reading, and thought I’d post the results.

As always, I encourage readers to view these statistics with a rather large bowl of salt (ie: a bunch of grains!) since many questions are phrased in a somewhat both/and way yet still require an Either/Or answer, so I had to pick one. A better more accurate representation of my thoughts would require essay-type questions and a real-life moderator picking through my results….even then it might be slanted due to moderator bias. *grin*

Here you go.

My Pagan Practice

Pagan Faith Practices Survey created by Otherworld Apothecary

I was actually somewhat surprised that the “New Age” correspondences scored slightly lower than my “Ceremonial” practices. I tend to think of myself as fairly distanced from Ceremonial types, which may have been due to some bad experiences in the past while still forming my proto-pagan spirituality. (Today, I could meet those types on much better footing.)

Still, the quiz was fun and gave me a chance to pause and reflect on a few things. I also got to look up and research my own musings on this topic.
(see here, or here.)

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This is generally a short musing for now, since I am recovering from a fun and guest-filled Easter weekend, and my co-worker is expecting his third child in about….now. (Actually, his wife has not given birth yet, but the due date is here and she’s starting feel initial contractions, so this week is expected to see me here alone at work)

However, my musing for the day is one I’d like to see comments and engage in a hearty discussion with someone on. Mostly for the somewhat belittling humor I initially felt when reading the linked article, and how it reflects my own archaeological paradigm.

Question: Given a set of data-points and artifacts which appear to deviate from the local norm, construct a reasoned hypothesis to explain their existence in relation to historically localized phenomena.

http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/104631-tunguska_meteorite-0

Putting aside my own “rational” thoughts on the Tunguska incident, the article linked above is quite interesting.

Not just because it seems highly implausible to my worldview and my own understanding of the reported ‘facts’, but in terms of the potential propaganda-slant this takes, and it’s ability to be read in terms of being myth.

On one hand, the article may be taking some unusual objects and applying a non-mainstream scientific viewpoint to explain it. If that is the case, it is simply a misguided attempt to delude the local population in the area.

However, what’s the harm in the story, if it is at least superficially plausable? Will the locals there sleep any worse thinking that instead of some random rock almost destroying their landscape, a sentient being helped save their landscape? Isn’t that the root of what religions do? Unite a culture with common mythology, in order to better the community? (controlling-the-community trends of organized religion aside).

Interesting thought….and one I’m going to ponder over the next day or so.

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Not much to muse about lately….so here’s a brief update on random life.
It’s the grind of tax season for Mrs Maebius, so my evenings are filled with the joy of playing with the sprogling while she does the hermit-thing in the computer room.

My World of Warcraft playing has gone down slightly, though I am currently at a nice lvl 64 with Kanandi the Holy-troll priestess. Lots of fun with playing healer, moreso than any other class I’ve played, which is reflected in the fact that while Kanandi is the second-youngest character I created, she is my highest level now…. and my guild is awesome. (also have a lvl 12 rogue just to have an unused bank-mule who can craft me some minor potions for everyday use).

Otherwise, the official spring-time holiday is fast approaching. Birthdays coming up for Varulv and Mrs Maebius…Easter just around the corner, so last night we coloured a few eggs (more this weekend when company visits).

I’m sure I’ll have more time in the evenings to wax muse-ical [sic] and include a slighty more thought-provoked posting here. Until then, we are just sitting around, enjoying the slightly warming weather, seeing the light at the end of winter’s tunnel just ahead, and getting ready to head back outdoors to play before it gets dark too early.

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Sorry for lack of updates… I have a few good topics I’d like to spend a proper writeup on, but lately, I’ve had a wicked cold, and it’s tax-season which means the spouse is at least elbow-deep in paperwork and limits my computer time in the evenings.

Don’t want to sound negative and just wine about things, because generally, life is pretty good other than the plague I am harboring in my head…but for now, I’m alive. No updates to the blog expected for a good week or two.

Topics in-draft form (meaning basically two lines so I remember the topic to write about):

1) New potential job opportunity makes Maebius a-feared?!

2) The fun & challenges of being a Guild Leader in World of Warcraft.

3) Closing arguments for This New Moon Musing (sacred food awareness experiment)

4) Thoughts on vacationing at a pagan-friendly festival with folks who have never been there, the non-attendance of friends who took you the first time, and thus sharing a bit of more intimate details of my personal spirituality with those new folks who may not completely relate or agree with said Path/preference.

Fun stuff, eh?!

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