The Waste Book | Stories & Soliloquies

Category: The Waste Book
- A Fairy Tale Feast, Part 1: Apple, Cheddar, Beer and Potato Soup
  
  Posted at 12:00 pm by michellejoelle, on October 3, 2016
  In any given fairy tale, myth, epic, or story, I am always drawn to descriptions of feasts. Often they come after a long journey or a period of deprivation, and so the welcoming of home and hearth and most importantly, dinner, offer warmth and comfort as well as food. I linger over the descriptions of the offerings on the table, and how good they must seem to the weary travelers in the story. While I do not as yet have my own fairy tale cottage (I dream!), I can make my very own fairy tale feast. Now that Fall is upon us, I’ve decided to share some of my favorite attempts to recreate that cozy feeling.
  
  So welcome, weary traveler, to the first course in my Fairy Tale Feast: Apple, Cheddar, Ale, and Potato Soup.
  
  The first recipe I want to share is one I’ve modified from an existing recipe for a Slow Cooker Cheesy Beer and Potato Soup from the food blog Baked by Rachel. It looks like a great recipe as is, but I really wanted to include apples, and then I had to rebalance the ingredient quantities to accommodate the change. I also don’t use a slow-cooker, and I don’t imagine a fairy sprite would either, so I had to experiment a little with the execution of the recipe. All quantities are rough measurements based on what I had available, and can be rounded up or down based on what you have on hand.
  
  Time
  
  Prep should take about 10 minutes, and cooking time clocks in at a little over an hour, but may vary depending on your heat settings. It requires fairly close attention throughout, however.
  
  Tools
  - Large pot, stainless steel or cast iron
  - Stick blender, potato masher, or other blending apparatus
  - Cutting board
  - Chefs knife
  Ingredients
  - 4 cups of Butter Potatoes, chopped
  - 1 small-medium apple, small diced
  - 1 medium sweet onion, diced
  - 2 cloves garlic, minced
  - 1 bottle of Honey Brown Ale
  - 2 cups of vegetable or mushroom stock
  - 1.5 tablespoons of a butter
  - 1 cup heavy cream
  - 7 ounces medium cheddar cheese, shredded
  - salt and pepper
  Directions
  
  1. First, mise en place. Wash and chop the potatoes, apple, onion, and garlic, and shred the cheese. Cheese en place. I don’t pay too much attention to chopping my ingredients too neatly or with too much precision. When in the land of faerie, embrace the rustico treatment.
  
  2. Next, in a large pot, heat butter on medium heat until melted, then add onions and apples. Cook until the onions are translucent. Then add the garlic, a dash of salt, a dash of pepper, and stir.
  
  3. Add beer, and bring to a boil.
  
  4. Then add potatoes, and another dash of salt and pepper. Stir, and then bring to a boil again.
  
  5. Once boiling, add in your vegetable stock. Bring to back to a boil one more time, and then lower the heat. Cover, and let simmer for 40 minutes.
  
  6. While waiting, clean up the kitchen as much as possible, prep rolls for baking, make a salad to go with your meal, or mingle with weary travelers who have come to you for help on their journey.
  
  7. When 40 minutes is up, test the potatoes with a fork. They should pierce easily. If they feel hard, let them simmer for a bit more until they’re ready for mashing, then remove from heat for blending.
  
  8. Blend all ingredients in the pot. I use a stick blender for this purpose, but you could also use a potato masher for a more rustic, handmade feel, or pour the mixture into a regular blender and blend in batches, and then return to the pot when the mixture is mashed/blended into desired texture.
  
  9. Stir in cheese and heavy cream, and another round of salt and pepper. Cover and let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, so that the cheese melts in evenly.
  
  10. Check the texture. Mine looked a little thin at this stage, so I let it simmer for another 5 minutes uncovered to steam off some excess moisture. Also, my rolls needed a few more minutes, so it worked out nicely.
  
  And that’s it! Serve hot and enjoy with a roll, some leafy greens, or a bottle of Honey Brown.
  
  Check back in a few weeks for the second course in my fairy tale feast, a recipe created in detail by my husband and I: Forager’s Pie.
  Posted in The Waste Book | 9 Comments | Tagged beer, fairy-tale, feast, food, hygge, potato soup, recipe, soup, vegetarian
- In My Pensieve: A Link Round Up
  
  Posted at 2:00 pm by michellejoelle, on July 18, 2016
  
  As I browse the internet, I collect up interesting videos, articles, and things to think about. Some of them become blog posts of their own, but mostly my thoughts are too brief for that, so once in a while I round up the excess and remove it to my pensieve. Here’s a little look at what’s been swirling around my mind over the past few weeks. There’s a loose theme here around art, expression, joy, authenticity, and nostalgia.
  
  1) This inspiring celebration of slow art and authenticity:
  
  2) This send up of that very celebration that made me laugh forever:
  
  3) This next video is over a year old, but recently I’ve been relistening to J. Walker McSpadden’s Robin Hood on Librivox on walks and it has inspired me to revisit Lars Anderson’s incredible archery techniques, learned from studying the past:
  
  4) Speaking of the past, Nintendo is releasing a miniature version of its classic console, preloaded with its most popular games – Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and the like. I probably shouldn’t be sharing this because it’ll just make it harder for me to buy one before it completely sells out, but it is too awesome to keep to myself. Even though these aren’t the first video games, they’re definitely nostalgic classics.
  
  5) One of the greatest joys in my life is social dancing. This Vimeo mini-documentary captures perfectly the quality of wordless expression and joy found in Lindy Hop (my particular favorite), and likely all social dance:
  
  6) And speaking of Swing, if that previous video captured you at all, check out this tribute to Frankie Manning, the creator and legendary ambassador of Lindy Hop:
  
  7) Speaking of Swing, part two, check out this effort to honor the legendary Chick Webb by transcribing a large portion of his catalog for modern big band live performance. You should always do your own due diligence before contributing money, of course – though it looks like they’ve reached their goal (and then some!) already. To hear Frankie Manning and Norma Miller talk about the brilliance and prowess of Chick Webb, look no further than this short video:
  
  I wish I had something poignant and interesting to say about authenticity, origin, nostalgia, and joy, but for now these thoughts will have to remain unformed. There’s nothing I can’t say that isn’t already said much better in the videos and links above.
  
  Posted in The Waste Book | 5 Comments | Tagged archery, authenticity, Chick Webb, Frankie Manning, jazz, Lindy Hop, links, list, Nintendo, nostalgia, pensieve, photography
- Beyond Idioms
  
  Posted at 10:00 am by michellejoelle, on December 10, 2013
  
  I’ve sometimes wondered why I didn’t take more English or Comparative Literature classes in college. I love words, I love writing, I love reading, I love thinking about narrative and pacing and stories – it seems an easy fit. I think it’s because I never much cared for the “official” version of how writing ought to be judged. I don’t understand what gets some books labeled as “literature” and others as “genre”, and I’ve never been able to see writing rules as anything more than situationally pragmatic. I took a journalistic writing course, and it served me well for very specific situations.
  
  But in general, I find words to be so much more fun when you look at them as living things, ever changing and growing and diminishing with common usage and uncommon plays on words. I have no need to concretize a particular linguistic paradigm as the “correct way”. I’ve spent some time learning ancient languages, and its clear that the “correct way” is really just “the way that was deemed correct for this particular context and thus will be required for you to understand this particular group of writers.” The Latin you learn to read Aquinas follows a clear set of easy-to-follow rules, and the Latin you learn to read Augustine is one poetic beast.
  
  Guess which one I chose for my translation exam, and which one I’ve chosen to study for my career?
  
  I think I chose philosophy over comp or English lit because it’s a field where I get to make up words in the name of clarity and accuracy. People laugh at academia for its wild jargon, but sometimes, in the moment of writing through an idea, having the ability to mold words to your will is liberating. Most philosophers and academics pepper their work with words from foreign languages when translation means a reduction of meaning and, when causal relationships in an argument demand a specific ordering of elements, they go far beyond the gerund in terms of anthimeria.
  
  “‘Because’ has become a preposition, because grammar” tackles this issue head on, and I must admit – like Stephen Fry, I’m battling my vices. I like the use of “because” as a preposition insofar as it functions as an idiom, but the idea that it’s actually evolving into standard usage chafes a bit.
  
  Usage that is obviously cutesy, like “because grammar!” works for me because it’s short and sweet and clearly done on purpose. But something like “because ingrained grammatical expectations” makes me feel like I’ve tripped on something. Because ingrained grammatical expectations do what?
  
  So, in a completely irrational way, I feel like there are usages that work because they break the rules in the right way. In general, I tend to limit my grammatical criticisms to situations where I genuinely can’t follow the author’s train of thought, as when a passively constructed sentence neglects to name a subject. Pro-tip: if you can add the words “by zombies” to the end of a sentence and not contradict anything internally, you’ve left out the subject of the sentence. Is this still my vice crying out, or can I claim clarity on this one?
  
  My overly specific personal pet peeves aside, I love the malleability of language. While linguistic paradigms are somewhat necessary as guidelines to what people currently understand, they’re really just fluid guidelines. Language is like myth – it is alive, not canonized. Idioms aren’t just cute little oddities that are granted exception to the rules of language, they show the growth and decay and change of language.
  
  For more on this issue – and for the delightful revelation that using “ax” in place of “ask” dates back to Chaucer – check out this NPR article by Shereen Marisol Meraji and “15 Funny English Idioms You May Not Know” from lifehack.org.
  
  Posted in The Waste Book | 0 Comments | Tagged idioms, language, Stephen Fry, words
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