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I’ve been in a cooking mood recently, so I’ve been spending more time than usual in the kitchen. I’m a big fan of Chinese food, and I ended up making sweet and sour chicken twice last week. It turned out so well last time that I decided to up the ante and try something a little more difficult. Tonight I decided to prepare sesame chicken. I learned lots of things in the process.

First, I learned that sesame chicken is not very healthy. The sauce, which the recipe suggested was sufficient for four servings, contained 1 3/4 cups of sugar. That’s more sugar than I’ve had since… well, Easter. Bad example. But still, it’s a lot of sugar.

Then, I learned that boiling soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar together in a pan makes a horrendous stink. I made the mistake of inhaling directly over the pan only once; regardless, I don’t think I have nose hair anymore. Justin said it smelled like the biohazardous materials they stick in the autoclave at work.

Next, I learned that it’s not a good idea to bread chicken by hand and then toss it into the deep fat fryer. The oil is now a nice milky color. It’s actually a great color for coffee… just not so great for oil. I’m seeing if it will settle, but I’m not thinking it’s going to.

Then, I learned the difference between caramelized and over-caramelized. I also learned that one should pay attention to a sauce when it’s on the verge of caramelization, and not wander off for a few minutes to cut chicken into bite-sized chunks. When I came back, the sauce had tripled in size and changed color from a light brown to a deep, rich brown. It had also gone from slightly soupy to thick ‘n’ hearty.

Finally, I learned that one should learn from one’s mistakes. Instead of chalking the meal up to a loss, I dumped the chicken in a bowl, scraped the caramelized sauce on top, and stirred like mad. The sauce took approximately three seconds to go from quasi-elastic to hard enough to bend my spoon. I was left with a ball of chicken that tasted a bit like burnt rock candy. Yes, I tried it. I even sprinkled it with sesame seeds and put as much as I could get back out of the bowl in the middle of my plate of rice. :)

Now I’m in the process of learning just how hard it is to get rock-hard sugar off an assortment of cooking utensils. I’m hoping a prolonged soak will make my job easier. As such, there’s a bowl of caramel chicken soaking in the sink downstairs. I’m thinking I should stick to sweet and sour in the future.

I Heart Tornado Alley

As you can see from the image to the right (click to enlarge), I continue to spread my tentacles across this great nation of ours like a land-borne plague. I added Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas to my list of tainted states during spring break. I plan to add at least Louisiana sometime this summer. I wouldn’t mind hitting the west coast, either, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time and/or money for such a trip, especially seeing as how I seem devastatingly reliant on the ground as a mode of transportation As such, Hawaii and, to a lesser extent, Alaska, should be safe from my wiles for a while to come. I ~own~ the Midwest, though. And w00ts ensue.

Pulling Double Duty

I have to create a handout and plan a presentation for tomorrow (and if I get ambitious, start the 5-7 page paper I’ll have due on the same topic next week), which I think means I won’t be going to the bar tonight. I did come up with a useable idea during office hours, though, which should save me some time. Even better, I think I’ll be able to expand that idea into my 15-20 page New Media paper due at the end of the semester. I also have a 15-20 page paper due at the end of the semester in my Theory of Tech Comm class, but I might have an idea for that one, too. In traditional grad student style, the paper would be pulling double-duty as a conference presentation in Mankato in a few weeks. I’ll have to meet with my professor tomorrow to make sure he’s cool with the idea, but considering he’s letting two other people do the same thing, it ~should~ be okay.

Web Monkey for Sale

I still don’t know if I’m teaching or working this summer. I don’t know about you, but the suspense is killing me. I also plan to look for web design work this summer, so if you know of anyone looking to hire a web monkey in the coming months, send them to my portfolio and/or contact page and I’ll love you long time.

Home of the Slushie

We had a pretty good snow here last Thursday. Monday and Tuesday, it was sunny and in the 70s. Today we had a pretty decent thunderstorm replete with strong winds, ominous clouds, and hail. God, I love spring in Iowa. :) Plus it’s a lot of fun to watch the people from outside the state struggle with what to wear from day to day. Such silly persons… they check the weather channel on Sunday evening and assume they can plan their wardrobe for the week. I check the weather twice a day and as such am usually only mildly surprised.

Evening Agenda

Racquetball, shower, grocery store, dinner, homework. Bar if I get done with my homework before 10pm, but I highly doubt it.

I haven’t been updating lately because I haven’t felt cognizant enough to come up with several hundred words on the same topic at once. I’m still not over that feeling, though, so I’m going to dedicate this entry to random bits in an attempt to clear my head of its muddletude.

The urinal in the MWL Commons (okay, not ~in~ the commons, but you smell what I’m cooking) cracks me up every time I use it. “American Standard” is scripted in big letters across the front, followed by “3.8lpf.” 3.8 liters per flush. American Standard. Hee.

It snowed for several hours Thursday evening, and I loved it. I got to drive in it at its worst, too. It was great. Ames was asleep and I was sliding all over the place having a grand ol’ time. Today it was in the low 70s and sunny. I also loved it. I sat out on my roof for a couple of hours this afternoon, soaking in the sun and grading papers simultaneously. My laptop is useable in the sun if I get a good angle, which is good to know, as I’m hoping to do a lot of grading out-of-doors this summer.

I’m going to be extremely busy this next month. In fact, I’m going to be so busy that I don’t quite have a mental model worked out for how I’m going to handle my workload. Thus, I can’t really describe it to you. Suffice it to say that grading papers will probably be one of the more relaxing things I do for a while. Unless, of course, I decide to be stupid and go out to the bars a couple of nights. And I’m notoriously stupid.

I heard that the Pope was spotted giving a blessing on Easter Sunday, but that he couldn’t speak. I forget: does that mean it’s almost spring, or are we going to have six more weeks of winter?

I said something similar at the Easter dinner table at my grandma’s yesterday. My mom and dad then helped me degrade the conversation further into Popes popping out of groundhog holes and an elaborate Whack-a-Pope game in an all-Catholic theme park. I picture rides called things like “Our Lady of Perpetual Motion” and food stands serving communion (or as I like to call it, juice and Jeez-its). It was only afterwards that mom and dad realized that Lisa—who had come with me to dinner—was Catholic. Good times. :)

I still don’t know if I’m teaching this summer, which is very frustrating, considering I have to plan my entire summer around whether or not I have a job teaching or need to find employment elsewhere.

Why do they have the term “gainful employment”? Is there really a large section of the population simply working for the hell of it? Someday I hope to be rich enough to work for free…

I got five new t-shirts in the mail today, and I love ‘em. I bought them for myself as an I-love-me gift last week sometime. Actually, I bought them because I’d wanted to get a few shirts from threadless.com for quite some time, and they were having a 33% off sale, so I figured that was as good a time as any. I’m going to wear one tomorrow, since it’s supposed to be 70something again. I’m not going to wash it first, so I hope it doesn’t make me break out or anything. I know you’re supposed to wash new clothes before you wear them, but I’ve really got a thing for that New Clothes smell.

Enough! Go back to your lives. Wish me luck in mine. And comment, will ya? I’m beginning to worry the commenting system broke or something.

The rest of my time spent in Texas was a lot of fun. However, I’m pretty busy and also really tired, so I’ll just touch on the major highlights and leave it at that.

On Thursday we all (w’all?) headed into Dallas to see some art. We started out at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University. I got to see dozens of cool blueprints, sculptures, and paintings, but the highlight was definitely seeing Picasso’s Still Life in a Landscape. Well, seeing probably isn’t the right word. See, just as I approached the painting, the guards wandered off and the other patrons were elsewhere. And I couldn’t resist. :) I ran my hand (lightly! and also slowly) down the painting. Twice. How many people can honestly say they have literally felt Picasso’s brush strokes under their hands? It was awesome to the utmost.

After the museum, we headed to another part of Dallas known as Los Colinas to see a very cool statue-fountain thingie, which I think is also known as Los Colinas (pictured yonder, click it to enlarge). The horses were larger-than-life bronze statues running through a fountain. The fountain heads were underneath their hooves, creating a realistic illusion of motion. I also couldn’t resist touching them, but I’m pretty sure that one is allowed.

That evening, Alan, Lesia and I celebrated St. Patrick’s Day quietly in the garage (so as not to wake/annoy/incur the wrath of the grandfolks). I got to bed around 4am. Grandpa was sure to have me up by 8. :)

We left Texas that day and drove north through western Arkansas. Did you know there are mountains in Arkansas? I had absolutely no idea. We drove through two sets of mountains: the Ouachita and the Boston (Arkansas still seems like an unlikely place for Bostonian mountains). Grandma had us stop and buy a disposable camera after the first set of mountains, cause they were so beautiful. It was dark by the second set. :) I got maybe three shots off through the grimy windows of the van. Don’t expect much.

Time for other things!

Well, I’m down in Texas. It looks and feels a lot like Iowa. :p I traveled 1,000 miles south, and so did the crisp Canadian air. According to Alan, the temperature started dropping a few hours before we arrived. Weather.com says the temperature outside is 45 degrees, which I think was also the high in Iowa the day before I left. In fact, it’s currently 1 degree warmer (and a lot sunnier) in Ames. My only real consolation, meteorologically speaking, is that the weather looks equally crappy throughout the south this week. My friends in Atlanta and San Antonio aren’t faring much better than I.

We stayed in Kansas City Saturday night, which turned out to be quite a bit of fun. I spent the entire afternoon/evening learning how to dismantle and reassemble the brakes of a ‘93 Astro. Admittedly, that sort of thing isn’t entirely up my alley, but I had a good time regardless. Afterwards, Don took me around KC to see the sights (as if you could do anything else to them). The second-to-best part: I got to see (and smell, so I guess you can do more than view sights) the Boulevard Brewery, home of yummytabulous Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat. The best part was when Don and I went to the Skies restaurant at the top (40th floor) of the Regency hotel and had a couple of Boulevards. :) Skies rests atop a spinning platform, so I was able to sit in an overstuffed chair several hundred feet off the ground, sipping beer and listening to the grand piano ten feet behind me, looking out the window at the slowly changing scenery below. It was a fabulous experience, to say the least.

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