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High Fat, High Yum Shepherd’s Pie
This weekend, Tod made an incredible shepherd’s pie. It’s an adaptation of one from Alton Brown and it makes the best I’ve ever eaten. The reason it was so good is the large quantity of lamb fat and cream in it. If you are afraid of fat, this is not the dish for you. Otherwise, it is truly…
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Summertime
You are expecting a rant about summer, aren’t you? You know it’s not my favorite season. But I am talking about Summertime by George Gershwin from Porgy and Bess. Tod & I are learning to play it in our music lessons. Our lessons with Huw that started out as ukulele instruction for me and piano…
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Right in Front of Me
I am closing out July by organising the rest of my summer. I’ve got a lot of projects going on from now until the end of the year and they have gotten scattered. So I wrote them all down on little cards and put them up on the wall above my desk. Now I can…
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Pigs in a Futon
Remember “pigs in a blanket” from your childhood campfire days? I present Tod’s newest fusion invention, Pigs in a Futon, a Japanese variation where toasted mochi replaces bread dough around the grilled sausages. We had a random set of ingredients that needed to be used last night and puzzled a while over how to combine…
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Pesto Eggplant Bake
This is a variation of a favorite recipe, Baked Eggplant Parm, that I blogged about in 2010. The original has been a staple of our dinners ever since but I think this variation is just as delicious. It came about while I was visiting Heather in Utsunomiya. Her garden harvest while I visited was a…
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Updating and Fixing the Blog
So many months of neglect while I Facebooked my life has left poor old Mediatinker creaky and broken. Commenting only seems to work for the spammers. The server is sloooooow; the version of Movable Type is ancient. There are no social media hooks. The design is unavoidably retro. It is time to upgrade and fix…
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Ice Cream Fruit Pie
Summer is full of fresh fruits at the peak of their juiciness. Peaches, plums, melons, and berries of all kinds fill the produce section. Irresistible and so delicious. But after a few weeks, fruit salads and smoothies wear thin. It’s too hot to bake. What to do? Make an ice cream pie with fresh fruit! You’ll create…
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Stagaki, the Status Update Postcard Project
Though I limited my Facebook use a few days ago, I still find myself wanting to update my status when I am doing something vaguely noteworthy or see beauty in the world. I’ve been trained to share little moments of my day but I decided not to post personal status updates and I want to…
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Sayonara, Facebook
Facebook is troublesome. It is the Jekyll and Hyde of online life. Some days I find it a delightful inspiration. Other days, I want to poke myself in the eyes after scrolling through my timeline. I know I am not alone in experiencing FB as a source of jealousy, anger and frustration. When I see…
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Doing Without Report #2
I missed writing the June report on my ongoing experiment in non-consumption, so this one will do double duty. I feel I failed overall. I bought a few things and I haven’t gotten rid of nearly as much stuff as I wished to, but I have been mostly mindful. I will work harder at it this…
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