Month: January 2023

What’s your recipe’s secret ingredient?

One of the fun things about cooking is learning a recipe and then adding just a touch of something to make it uniquely your own. Your secret ingredient, per se. It’s the crunch of celery in the family potato salad recipe and swapping homegrown chives in for the green onions.

Why am I thinking of secret ingredients? I made guacamole the other day. The traditional guacamole recipe is mashed avocado with lime juice (both for flavor and to slow down the browning), salt and perhaps cilantro, often including onion and tomato. I may have included cilantro when it’s in season (it’s snowing at the moment, so definitely not in season), though I’m more likely to put the cilantro into a homemade salsa. I also tend to skip the tomato. What I do include without fail – my secret ingredient – is curry powder.

Similarly, I add Italian seasoning to my pizza dough. It’s a minor addition to the recipe, so it doesn’t change the consistency of the dough, just adds a little spike of flavor that can be smelled as the dough starts rising and even more when it bakes.

What “secret” ingredient have you added to a recipe?

A busy week brings cat photos

Despite being a short work, it’s been crazily busy, so I’m sharing some cat photos.

Zuko, our youngest cat, perched on the fridge with his paws solidly resting on the door, with a look that says "Don't you dare open it, peasant."

Don’t you just love Zuko’s look, like he’ll be outraged if I open the fridge door? (Why no, he’s not supposed to sit on the fridge, but the new fridge is taller and I’d have to grab a step stool if he sits anywhere other than the very front.)

Zuko and Diane on an unmade bed with a combination of Doctor Who sheets, comforter, and a snow leopard blanket. Zuko has his front paws stretched out to the edge of the bed.

You can’t tell in most of the photos of him, but Zuko is super long and he likes stretching out… though not usually on the sofa. (He also likes chewing on the leopard print blanket in this photo while pawing at it and purring.)

From left to right: Diane, a black and white cat, curled up on a Princess Bridge blanket, leaning against a crocheted Totoro pillow with a crocheted Settlers of Catan pillow above it; June, a tortoiseshell cat and Arwen, a white and black cat, curled up together on one side of a crocheted Captain America shield blank with a TARDIS pillow behind them; Zuko curled up on the other side of the same blanket and partially resting on a fluffy whitish blanket.

In the mornings, the cats tend to spread out across the house to different napping spots. In the afternoons though, they gradually make their way to the sofa with careful placement. Diane will growl at Arwen if she’s not fully settled yet, and Arwen is careful not to curl up by Zuko unless that’s the only remaining spot.

Inventing Spanglish terminology

We have a strangely multilingual household, since Cassandra and I both speak English (obviously) and Spanish (at different levels) and are both using Duolingo to pick up at least tidbits of other languages. When she tells a cat to get off the counter, she usually says it in Hawaiian; I frequently say it in Spanish. If I’m trying to say something in German (which is not the language I’m currently focused on) and don’t know a word, I’m more likely to fill in with the Spanish equivalent instead of the English.

It’s probably not surprising that sometimes we invent words to fill in some of the gaps. Having spent a decent amount of time in fandom, I’ve been familiar with the term “glomp” for well over a decade, but Dictionary.com and Google Translate don’t recognize the word. Since cats are frequently glomped (carefully) in this house, knowing the Spanish equivalent seemed useful. So Cassandra invented one when she said “estoy glompeando a Zuko.” Or was it “estoy glompando a Zuko“?

After some consideration, I believe the root verb should be glompear, and it’s treated as a regular verb for conjugation: yo glompeo, tu glompeas, nosotros glompeamos, etc. But it could also be a root verb of glompar, conjugated to yo glompo, tu glompas, nosotros glompamos, etc. Which do you think is the most appropriate translation?

If you don’t like it, que-ever, don’t use it. For my part, necesito glompear un gato antes de trabajar.

Normalize discussing health with your family

Earlier this year, I reached out to my mother asking her to document any health issues she or my father had experienced over the years. I probably should have asked for that information half a lifetime ago, when I moved out on my own, but as I age, it seems more relevant to know what I might be dealing with in the future. We already knew that my maternal grandmother had Alzheimer’s and my father had multiple strokes near the end of his life, but I wanted to know if there were other things we should watch out for (or should have, in some cases).

For example, my parents both developed different shellfish allergies as they aged, with different effects; I knew that already when I reacted badly to crayfish a couple years ago. I didn’t realize that my mother has high cholesterol, though I’m sure my doctor would have liked to know that. (Those medical office intake questionnaires need to add “not that anybody’s told me” as an answer on the family history questions.)

I didn’t learn until this year that my mother had “very heavy long periods” before having a hysterectomy when I was rather young. I did point out that it would have been useful to know that before we hit puberty, or before our girls did. Then I found out she defined “long” as a week, which prompted a discussion with some female friends as to what is considered normal, since before perimenopause, when I wasn’t on birth control, my periods ran a full seven days like clockwork.

Of greater concern is the question of whether my father had memory issues as he aged, or whether he was just not listening. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to have been documented or addressed with a doctor, so I’m not sure whether it’s something I have to watch out for. Or have somebody else watch out for, since I’d likely forget in that case.