butternut squash soup.

My Sunday didn't start out too well. First it was confirmed that all outlets are out of tickets for Girl Talk (all my fault, I was one day too late). Then I had to walk home from a totally mediocre breakfast in the snow and cold. By the time I got home my ears felt like they were going to fall off, and I was determined not to leave the house again.

Luckily I had one thing to look forward to - leftover butternut squash soup! I love this recipe because it's really simple and delicious. In fact, I'm going to post it for you.

Butternut Squash Soup (from the Joy of Cooking)

1 large butternut squash
2-3 leeks, white parts only, chopped
4 teaspoons fresh ginger, minced
3 tbs. butter (or olive oil)
6 cups stock (I use 2 cubes of bouillon with 6 cups water)

Cut that squash in half, scoop out the seeds and stuff, and bake on an oiled baking sheet (cut-side down) at 400 degrees, or until it's easy to poke through. Let cool (mostly or somewhat) and remove the skins.

In your soup pot, saute the leeks and ginger in the butter for about 5-10 minutes until they're nice and soft. Add 4 cups of the stock and the squash. Simmer for 20 minutes or so, breaking up the squash with a spoon.

Puree the soup in a blender (probably in batches), then return to pot and add 2 more cups of stock and salt to taste. (I honestly am not sure this is necessary, but whatever). Heat through and garnish with croutons, squash seeds, or cilantro, or nothing! So yummy. SEE?

weekend, footnoted.

I had a truly splendid weekend. It included happy hour, lots of book reading¹, a somewhat disappointing trip to the apple orchard/pumpkin patch² (yet it produced many lovely pictures of my niece devouring a caramel apple), getting songs by a fictional twee band stuck in my head, the farmer's market³, biking to dinkytown⁴, creme brulee at brunch⁵, having happily exhausted legs, and making a filling Sunday dinner all for myself⁶.


1. Night of the Gun, David Carr
2. Basically, it was too effing busy and you had to wait in line at least half an hour to buy any pumpkins or apples, and it didn't produce any of the fun or magical feelings of the pumpkin fields of years past.
3. I bought so much squash. A fall harvest^a, if you will.
4. Yes, biking! My dad managed to once again snag a bike for me the day before we were set to go shopping for a new bike. It's the least cute of my many bikes, but it works the best. It'll be good for the fall, and perhaps the winter. Not a fan of straight handlebars, though.
5. At Loring Pasta Bar with Andy, after realizing we were never going to make it into Al's Breakfast.
6. Boulangarie Beans from Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian

a. A Fall Harvest not to be confused with my new euphemism for the bounty of lads or ladies, whatever your preference, that should be available to all single folk. As in, "Don't worry about her, she is but one moldy pumpkin of the fall harvest."

Ah hell. Let's just be an annoying aunt and put the picture of the niece right in here, instead of begging you to click.



(sorry? not really, you love it.)

carpe diem.

I can't remember when exactly, but a while ago I was introduced to wardrobe remix via bits and bobbins (via google reader recommendations). I don't follow it all the time, but when I'm feeling uninspired I check things out. Just a few that caught my eye today:



Of course, I always feel a twinge of sadness looking at the outfits because my clothes aren't as cute and I don't have the guts to wear some of the things they do. (I also feel a bit vain taking pictures of myself - I still haven't worked up the courage to actually post a picture for judgment.) And yet when I find cute and unique things, I have trouble buying them for fear of never having a place to wear it. Right now, there is an adorable long-sleeved green on white print dress at Lula that I couldn't bring myself to justify yesterday. But gosh, it is cute and not ridiculously expensive. This is my eternal struggle with fashion - not being able to seize the day and wear fun things just for the sake of it, without worrying about what others think.

i have confidence in shopping.

Without getting into the details, it hasn't been the best week. I was at my sister's yesterday and she was giving tips on what I could do to cheer up, one of which was shopping. For instance, I could buy a new fancy winter coat! And we laughed about how it seems absurd to spend so much money what with the economy and all, but screw it! I have consumer confidence even if no one else does. Which of course, only made us think changing the lyrics to "I Have Confidence" from The Sound of Music:

I have confidence in dresses!
I have confidence in coats!

Moving on. (And please note, I don't actually condone the wanton spending of money just for the sake of buying things, but I do condone carefully selected purchases that can keep one happy for number of seasons.) I'm looking at coats once again. I've been looking mostly at the Soia Kyo site, a brand I fell in love with last year.



Eh? What do we think? Of course, I am still concerned that either will be fabulously cute but not at all warm, which makes it even more ridiculous to spend more than $300 on a coat.

(I also want new boots, but I'm having trouble finding the perfect version of those as well.)

four vegetable pile-up.

Once upon a time I went to the Wisconsin State Fair. I think I've already mentioned that it pales in comparison to the Minnesota State Fair, but there were still a few amazing things:

1. One food booth had a sign that read "ONION PILE."
2. Another food booth (or possibly the same one?) had signs around that advertised its wares, such as french fries, cotton candy, pickles, and then simply FOOD. Y'know, in case there was confusion.

But let's get pack to the onion pile. I did not eat it, but it sounded quiet awesome, as I love presumably fried onions, and I like my foods in a pile.

Tonight's pile: potatoes, onions, garlic, and black beans. With gooey pepper jack cheese and yogurt. All in a pile.

So in conclusion: pile is a really funny word when you type it so much, and food piles are damn tasty.

(I'm also enjoying sauteed spinach piles lately, though that's a bit of a stretch.)

on voting and privilege.

I'm having a bout of voter enlightenment. Somehow in the past day or so, I've been hearing much more about voter registration, with various groups making sure you are registered to vote. (I swear even google was urging me.) And in my head I think, what is the big effing deal?

You see, I was born and raised in Minnesota. I lived in Wisconsin while I was in college, and usually voted absentee. But of course, it's a lot more fun to vote in an actual polling place. And in Wisconsin and Minnesota, this is quite easy! I did it for the first time during the 2004 presidential primaries (which happened to be on my birthday). All I had to do was bring a utility bill with my address, sign my name, and I was set. Then when I moved back to Minnesota, I did the same thing. I never had to designate a party, hell, I never even registered as an independent.

Sadly, though, I am coming to realize that I am a privileged voter. Only six states allow election day registration (besides North Dakota, where one needn't register at all).

I know what you're thinking - how could you NOT know that other states have to register up to thirty days in advance? Again, it's this state of privilege - I am in my happy bubble where I can decide on election day that dammit! I want to vote! And I can do that. Oh sure, I knew in some states it maybe isn't this way, but I figured they would be the ones that also once required people to pass literacy tests and pay poll taxes in order to vote. Not the majority of the country.

(Is it really a big question why Minnesota had the highest voter turnout of any state in the country in 2004?)

So pardon me if I am frequently baffled by these strange requirements.

In semi-related news, I started a twitter account that I may abandon tomorrow.

Last weekend I saw WALL-E. (Cute.) Later that night I was at a bookstore without periodicals so I was forced to browse books instead of fashion magazines. The horror! And the movie had me in an apocalyptic mood, so I thumbed through The World Without Us for a bit. I learned two things in my short reading:

1. I have no desire to actually read that whole book.
2. My exfoliating bath products contain tiny tiny bits of plastic that are killing precious sea animals. (See here for more info.)

God, just imagine what I could have learned had I decided to read the whole thing? Probably all sorts of truly horribly stuff.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about this entry I had seen on Nylon about how to make your beauty type items more enviro-friendly. So I started looking at ingredient labels of cleansers and stuff...and yeah, it's bad. It's all really bad and full of oil and plastic and junk.

This should be bad news, right? Well, sort of. But the good news is I now have all the more reason to shop at LUSH! Right now I'm most interested in the shampoo bars, since I've gotten into the glorious habit of seeing how long I can go with washing my hair. (Right now I'm averaging 3-4 days). I don't believe in throwing out items upon the realization that they're not super earth friendly (hello, wasteful), but once these products run out I totally intend to spend tons of money on yummy smelling lush stuff. Mmmm.


Ah hell, here's one more link: Treehugger's Guide to Greening Your Health Care Items

this is the way we bike to work. (and then stop)

And now! The long story of how I started bike commuting but will not be doing so until further notice.

First, a long while ago, I switched out wheels on my Raleigh because they were super bent and crappy. This led to better wheels and less choppy braking, but horribly squeaky braking. As a result, I wasn't as inclined to bike because it was super embarrassing at times.

But I still stuck it out from time to time, avoiding stopping as much as possible, or at stopping very slowly when necessary. (How incredibly safe, I know!) I even made a long trek to Minneapolis! And not just west of the river but all the way past Bryn Mawr and back. I finally got to try out the Midtown Greenway and a few other trails, and it was a nice ride overall - but let's face it, squeaky brakes are NOT HIP. So on the way home, I stopped by the Freecycle shop on the Greenway and they switched the brake pads. For a while I was all, oh glorious brakes! I can stop without squeaking! But within a few miles they were still a bit squeaky (only when coming to a complete stop very quickly, though).

I also started biking to work. This was working pretty well, in part because I have my own bathroom in my room (!) and could bring outfits to change into on days that I drive. The route is mostly flat, with either bike lanes or bike paths for most of the way (except for the scary Pennsylvania/35E intersection).

What happened, you say? Well, on Wednesday night I biked downtown quick and was trying to race through a light but had to stop, and fast. And I'm pretty sure this is when the brakes tore through the tire. But since I was only a few blocks away from my destination, I didn't really notice anything. And even when I went home, in the dark, I knew something was wrong but decided I'd rather get home first (since it was less than a mile anyway) than stop on an abandoned street to figure out the problem. Sure enough, flat tire - thus ruining my goal to bike to work the next day.

And since then, I haven't found the time to fix the tire. Sure, I want to fix it, but will that help the squeaky brakes? Is this cold weather going to bring snow soon, rendering any repairs moot? Will this craigslist bike haunt me forever with problems? Should I just get a new bike already? (Probably). Sigh. Stay tuned.

quickly.

The truth is, I am far too tired to really write anything of substance but this box is egging me on. I am going to bike to work tomorrow, and I am typing this because you, the internet, will hold me accountable when I am even more tired at 6am tomorrow. Every day at around 3PM I start to wish my work had vending machines with salty snacks, and every day around 4PM I wish that I only had maybe three different classes to prep for instead of five. Fall is sort of here and I kind of like the cool breeze, but it feels too early to wear tights which means I have had to resort to pants. The RNC elephant stampede didn't cause nearly as much trouble as I thought it might, but I think I was also too busy to notice.


As usual, I will figure things out in the morning, when my brain is as sharp as a tack. Right.

rnc: the protest

I'm not a huge fan of participating in protests for a lot of reasons, the main one being that yelling and chanting gets tiring and also doesn't seem to get a lot done. (And that just makes me more depressed about government - how do ordinary people start actual change? But holy cow, that is not a topic I intend to broach right now.) Having said that, if there is a huge protest nearly in my front yard, I should probably at least stop by to gawk.

I headed out yesterday a little after noon to the capitol, where there were many people milling about. I soon realized I was way overdressed compared to all the punks and hippies. (Hello, it was Labor Day! Last Day to wear my pearly white skirt!) I wandered a bit, but I was by myself and so I just headed over to my friend's condo and waited outside.

I soon realized we would be very close to the parade route, so my friend and I hung around to take pictures. This one is my favorite.



There's more pictures, but that's pretty much how it was...lots of people walking, carrying signs, sometimes chanting things. After a while, when we realized there was no end in sight to the protesters, we thought we would head towards the actual convention center. (Okay, my real ulterior motive? I was super determined to return my library book.) But every street we went down, we ran into these guys!



Somehow we managed to snake our way around the riot police to get to Rice Park - I was able to return my library book while my friend got a coffee. The delegates were lined up for over a block to get into River Center (surrounded by cages). I happened to be holding an anti-war sign (given to me by a protester), which invited a young Texan delegate to start talking to us. (Whose name I recognized later in this column - man, that dude gets around!) We (my friend, the Texan, and myself) got into some circular arguments: we agreed that war is bad and that maybe we don't have a true democracy, but what to do with all those trillions of dollars going to war? Surely not put the money towards health care, says the Texan! We didn't really get anywhere in changing anyone's minds, but I must say I was somewhat pleased to even have that conversation in the middle of the street.

[During this time, a friend was also calling me with reports on CNN about people breaking windows and other bad stuff. Honestly? If she hadn't called, I wouldn't have had a clue. That's why news reports are funny - you can be really damn close to the action and still miss everything.]

We started heading back home, but of course ran into barricades of riot police every direction we went. (Which is why I found this tale of a stroll through St. Paul so funny.) Make it home we did, after a while.

So yeah, there's my story. In conclusion, I can't help but think about how silly and cyclical this whole convention-protest-arrest thing is. Republicans (or democrats) convene, police get fired up and ready (almost in a way that says "I dare you to start something"), people show up and cause trouble, people get arrested, some people that shouldn't also get arrested, people get outraged, and the people who cause trouble will continue with their goal, which is to stop the republicans (or democrats) from convening.

In other news, helicopters. Lots and lots of helicopters. But life goes on for the rest of us.