Hamden Left
It’s that time of year again.
Mistletoe
What is mistletoe? I have no idea except that it is a plant that we use as an excuse to kiss a girl during Yule. I haven't had the excuse to use it. Yet. There should be plenty time for that.Baldur was having troubling dreams. He dreamt of his death. It worried him so that he consulted his mom about it. His mom had the same dream. Baldur's mom, the goddess Frigg, was disturbed by them for it was said that with the death of Baldur, Ragnarok, the end of the gods, would soon come. She vowed to do something to prevent it.So Frigg visit all nine realms under the tree Yggdrasill. She went to extract promises from all the creatures, plants, and living things to do no harm to Baldur. She scoured the realms from high to low and received the promises from all things.In Midgard, in the deepest forests of the north she came upon the mistletoe. As she looked upon the small plant, whose small leaves she figured it was too innocent and benign to harm anyone. Its immaturity garnered pity from Frigg. She figured that she can't subject such a young and innocent plant to the burden of the promise, so she did not extract a promise from it.Thus with oaths from creatures and plants big and small did the gods of Asgard believe that Baldur was safe from harm. Most of them tested this theory by attempting to hurt Baldur. They would hurl spears at him or swing at him with swords, but nothing would touch him. They believed Baldur to be safe and Ragnarok far from coming.Loki heard about the dreams that troubled Baldur. He talked to Baldur about it. He talked with Frigg about it. He learned of the mistletoe, the plant so small and harmless but without the oath of harm to Baldur. Loki went in search of it and found in the deep northern forests of Midgard the sprig of mistletoe. He hastened back to Asgard with it.Loki returned as the gods played at sport with the untouchable Baldur. They were arrayed around Baldur taking turns throwing things at the god trying to harm him. On the outskirts sat the blind Hodir. Loki crept up to him. "Why don't you take part in such sport, Hodir?""My blindness keeps me from joining in.""Then let me help you. Use this bow and arrow to try and hit Baldur."Loki points Hodir in the direction of Baldur, places the bow in his hands, and guides Hodir's aim with the mistletoe arrow. Hodir releases the bow.Gasps arise as the mistletoe arrow hits Baldur who succumbs to the injury. So came to pass the truth in his dreams. And soon Ragnarok.
What have I got in my pocket?
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Come on seed your slow the punch today!
Sent from my iPhone
Resolution
We are done. The album ends on my favorite tune. You should hear the remix. Thievery did release a remix of some of the songs on this album. Get it as well. Or maybe that will be the next album for a fusillade of music.
2B Jolly
Though I have lost my religion I am thinking about celebrating the twelve days of Christmas and/or the Epiphany. I’m thinking about a twelve day blogathon starting on Christmas day and ending on the fifth of January, Twelfth Night. Then having some fun on the following day to celebrate, as the Irish call, Little Christmas.
We’ll have fun. We’ll have a blogathon. We’ll write up a post a day about some movie or television show that relates to Christmas or has a holiday theme to it. I’m not sure what to focus on, but I want to write about how the holiday is found in the media. And perhaps a few things about how it affected me.
So join me, if at least for a day or a post, to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas Multimedia Blogathon.
Link of the Day [12.20.11]
Apple says, "Check and mate."I hate that I don't have one.And I hate that I am not writing applications for one.http://www.cultofmac.com/135844/why-the-ipad-is-the-most-hated-gadget-ever/
Until The Morning Comes
One thing about digital delivery of music: no liner notes. There’s nothing to read to figure out who the singer was, who wrote the song, or where they sampled the loop. Nothing. Like for this song, who’s singing? Is it the same girl from the opening tune? Or is it a whole different person? I would like to know and I am too lazy to check it out on the CD or duckduckgo it.
Link of the Day [12.19.11]
A day later and my ramen tasted better. I don't know if it was because it had a chance to sit overnight or if it was because it wasn't straight out hot from the stove, but it tasted better. More balance to the broth even though it still tasted of mostly of seaweed. Anyhow, I went and looked up some recipes for ramen broth and found an interesting one that was meat based. This is a most interesting concept. I don't have to stick to dashi as the main source of my broth. Perhaps, a mixture? A little bit of dashi, then a little bit of beef stock. Maybe, that is the way to the true ramen broth. I guess I'm gonna have to think about my ramen some more.http://www.mendoukusai.com/2009/06/adventures-in-cooking-tonkotsu-ramen.html
The State of the Union
We’re almost done. I hope you’ve been enjoying the morning music break. I like that you’ve shared in my favorite album. Thanks for listening. We just have a couple of songs to good. Stay tuned. We’re just getting to the good stuff.
Cooking up Ramen
On my ongoing quest to eat some decent ramen, I just had to go synthesize my own ramen recipe.
As the previous post showed, I made some dashi for the soup broth. It was quick and easy. I’m not sure if it turned out alright. Perhaps I should’ve used a smaller piece of the kombu because it tasted more like the seaweed and on occasion the fish that is the bonito flakes. Overall it was stronger than I expected. What can I do to cut this down?
Next up came the poached egg. I poached the recipe from the Momofuku book. Basically, you poach the eggs in shell by stewing them in a 145 degree water bath for 45 minutes. Easy-peasy.
Usually, in the restaurants around here, they serve chicken katsu with your bowl of ramen. I wanted originally to have tofu, but I changed my mind once I went grocery shopping this afternoon. I picked up some chicken cutlets, flour, and panko. My cupboards are now filled with junk. Need to cook more. With the chicken, it’s your usual frying. First, I flatted out three pieces of chicken. I don’t have a mallet, so I mashed it down with the heel of my hand. Next the chicken went into the pan. I need to put more oil in because after the second piece went in, there was hardly any oil for the last piece which didn’t get the beautiful golden brown fried color. Once done with the chicken, I set it aside and concentrated on the soup.
I took the dashi I had made in the morning and boiled it. Before the noodles go in I added a teaspoon of light soy sauce — I’m calling this shoyu ramen. I added the noodles, cheap store bought package noodles, into the boiling broth. I let it boil for a bit, but then took it off the flame and let sit for a couple minutes.
Sounds just like I was doing package ramen!
Of course, I then put it all together. The ramen soup gets scooped into a bowl. I crack a poached egg into it. Then to finish it off, a dash of more soy sauce, some wakame seaweed, and some pepper.
How’d it turn out? Okay. I guess I need to figure out the dashi. Next I have to find some good ramen noodles.