(no subject)

[which_chick]

Went to Sandra's, got piece of furniture. It's big. It needs some work. I think it'll be fun. Went to not_your_real's house for Halloween function and arrived more or less on time, so yay me. People ate the pies. I was not entirely thrilled with how the squash pie came out but partly this was because the cornstarch is only supposed to be 1 Tbsp and not three. There's still three of flour. Anyway, I was apparently thinking of the cheesecake recipe (that's three each) when I was making the pie. I will try harder to get it right in the future. Fortunately, the pie eaters were all reasonably okay with it OR too nice to say anything... but it was not one of my better efforts. It comes out better if I actually pay attention to the recipe. Oops. I didn't have a piece of the apple, but it also all got gone and nobody said it sucked. Probably the apple pie was also okay.

I stayed overnight and scarfed extremely good pancakes for breakfast, then drove down I-95 to Baltimore for the opera. I'd like to point out that most of I-95 through Philadelphia is about a thousand million feet off the ground. It's like driving on air. I was not amused. I got to Baltimore in not horrible time so we had ample opportunity to Akbar and go to the pre-opera lecture. The opera (La Traviata, a Verdi effort on the tragic side of things) was good but the tenor was weak in spots. (Really good tenors are frequently beyond the reach of the Baltimore Opera. Theirs aren't horrible, but sometimes they get hidden underneath the weight of the orchestration.)

When I got home, I removed my (dead, as per expectations) cat Tine from the middle of the living room floor and buried him in the yard underneath the snowball bush. As it was dark when I got home, this was a burying-by-flashlight experience, not that it mattered because I couldn't see for shit anyway because everything was too blurry. He was a good boy. (Important note for friends and relatives: I DO NOT want a replacement cat for Christmas. I realize that I am difficult to buy for, but cats last a long time and I don't want an ugly one. I do not trust anyone else's judgment on the relative attractiveness of the various and sundry cat models on the market. I will select my own replacement cat in the springtime so please do not be picking a cat and presenting it to me even if it DOES seem like the perfect gift idea.)

After that, I unloaded the furniture off my truck and schlepped it into my house (by myself, because I'm talented that way -- this information added to impress the people who saw the furniture in person at the Halloween function).

Comments

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry Tine died. Thanks for keeping us updated.

The pies were both really very good. What effect did the extra cornstarch have on the squash pie? It tasted fine, but I don't know what it was supposed to taste like.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a taste effect as much as a texture effect. The extra cornstarch made it more solid, heavier and slightly paste-like.