"Love between unequals is perverse." James Baldwin

This weekend I am working on summing up the end of the semester. Tuesday we have Confession night in history 110 and I will be wearing a nun's costume to class (yay! I have always wanted to dress as a nun to go somewhere... and then we will resume plain old boring lecture for the second class. I feel sorry for the teacher. His stress level becomes apparent the minute the clock hits 7. :(

I am feeling sorry for myself and I don't really like that feeling. I keep giving Barry big cow eyes and hoping he'll do the husbeastly thing and come in on his charger and make everything ok again. This, I know, is a wrong assumption on my part and only makes me feel worse about myself. It is, I think partly a piece of my condition and partly a condition of my own making, a corner I have painted myself into. So I may as well wait for the paint to dry and walk my ass out of here or something, you know?

Meanwhile... back at the ranch... there's knitting to be done. I toyed with the idea of the massive undertaking of knitting the Barbara Walker Teach Yourself To Knit Afghan. I think I actually will do this one day but not for now and certainly not for the passing fancy of the intended recipient. ::evil grin:: I have a much better idea in mind for that person.

Has anyone seen my secret pal of the wonderous tiara? I've not heard hide nor hair of her in forever and have grown ever-so-worried.

a gloomy and quite unrelentingly unforgiving of herself angela

In mine I have a spinach, mushroom, and potato tartlette that was much adapted from the recipe to be found here: Mashed Potato Tart Not surprisingly, I was on the wrong website, I wanted to be on epicurious.com, but whatever. It's an interesting recipe and despite the fact that I can't have pastry, the person I was looking for can't have cheese, and I don't tolerate eggs, oh and Barry shudders at the thought of mushrooms... I had to give the recipe a try. So. What happened? Well. I had fun.

It was my first "big cook" since the gastric bypass. Wow. I miss cooking. Alot. I miss the chopping and the rhythm you get into when you start to cook, the sizzle and the heat of a skillet, and the smells of the kitchen. I found that I was alot cleaner now that I am not able to meander and taste (lol) and that I had more fun. It was an enjoyable experience. Of course, my new iPod speakers might have had something to do with it. ;)

Here's all my ingredients laid out, but the bacon was an accident. So I have, starting with the milk, in clockwise order, milk, mushrooms, an egg, spinach, a shallot, 2 cloves of garlic, butter, and mashed potatoes. The bacon is for tomorrow's experiment, stuffed tomatoes.

I took buttered 2 chicken pot pie tins (the disposable ones, not recycled) and then using 1/4 of the mashed potatoes formed a shell for the tart. I baked these at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes until they were nice and browned. They are shiny because I dabbed a little butter on them. You could probably skip this part if you are health concious.

I sauteed thawed frozen spinach and then mixed with the remaining mashed. This is where I think I went wrong. The spinach tasted dirty. It didn't taste like fresh spinach or even canned or even normal frozen spinach does, it tasted like it hadn't been cleaned properly. It threw the flavor of the dish off. Which sucked royally. Also, I didn't use enough salt. But more on that later.

Yum. Nothing smells quite as good as sauteeing mushrooms and onions, or in this case, shallots. Ok, I have a confession. I've never used shallots at home, and now, I'm a convert. Onions+garlic all in one ? I was going crazy over the smell. As I sauteed the mushrooms I started breaking them down because they were waaaaaaay too big for me, but for people who are *normal* and haven't jacked around with their body, there shouldn't be a problem here. I could eat sauteed mushrooms for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

While the mushrooms sauteed, I mixed the mashed potatoes and the spinach together a little better in a bowl and chopped some garlic up. I think that the next time I do this, I will use a higher potato to spinach ratio, and although the original recipe calls for frozen spinach, I might use fresh, or chop the spinach more, because it was a workout to mix the mashed potatoes and spinach together. (It reminded me alot of bubble and squeak)

Do these pictures seem out of order to you? I took them in order... this is the remains of the mushrooms, garlic, and shallots once sauteed down. Gorgeous, aren't they? They smelled much better, let me tell you. Also, let me pause a moment to tell you that I LOVE my pans. We got them from COSTCO when my in-laws where visiting from England back in 2004. What a deal. The pans we had from the apartment had all died and burned up, but these pans are still going strong, the non stick is still there, and they are just a dream, no hot spots, no uneven cooking, and they are beautifully weighted. I love my pans. Thank you Tom and Rita. ::hugs:: (Even though I know they don't read my blog)

Ready to go! There's the mushrooms, egg mixture, and mashed potato/spinach stuff in the bowl, and then theres the beautiful tart shells in the foreground. In hindsight I think they could have been cooked a little longer, maybe at a lower heat, but they were tasty. Oh yeah, there is the salt that I didn't use enough of. I am thinking that I should have used some spices in the spinach mixture, I was considering nutmeg, but that would have given it a homier feeling than I wanted, what would have kicked it up more? What would have added the bite or contrast that cheese usually does?

Now they are filled and ready to go. They look pretty tasty, kind of remind me a little of green bean casserole. LOL. While these were baking at 375 for about 5 minutes, I was grilling chicken tenderloins that had been rubbed down with cracked pepper and soy sauce for Megan and Barry, and stirring up a pot of day-glo mac n'cheese.

Take a deep breath, the unmasking of my tart was a terrifying adventure. Mashedpotato pastry is a fragile thing, but viola! it worked, and isn't it beautiful!! And there it sits on my Wonder Woman plate (after the bypass I asked for my own melamine plate set like Megan's because they are smaller, and Barry got me a Wonder Woman set. However, it's dinner sized... but still, hello! it's WONDER WOMAN, so it's all good) The pot pie size is a little too big for me to eat in a single sitting, but I gave it my best shot.

Oh man, I would so get an F if I was getting graded on plating for this. so so so get an F. And the worst thing is, I actually chided someone the other day for their poor plating skills... Anyhow, this is Barry's dinner du jour. Chicken, Spinach Potato Tart, and day-glo Mac N' Cheese. He actually at about half of his spinach tart, I'm shocked. He ate more than me.

Next time, clean spinach, or canned spinach. More salt. Different spices; any suggestions?

Looks good though, huh? It tasted delicious, except for the dirty part.

TREASURE ISLAND? What the heck?

While Barry was off playing padawan to his friend's Jedi Knight (at least in terms of editing movies) last night, I stoppped in with a friend and watched a movie. It was going to be Pirates of The Caribbean, which we had seen part 2 of last weekend. LOL grabbed the wrong dvd @ Blockbuster and ended up with a flick by Asylum, which is apparently NOTORIUS for putting out dvds with extremely similar names and cashing in on the blockbusters and harried people in the video stores who are just there to grab and go and aren't going to notice they have the wrong dvd. This movie was no exception. It's an extremely loose retelling of Treasure Island, how loose? Jim Hawkins is all grown up and the sole proprietor of the Admiral Benbow Inn, (blah blah blah) his romantic interest, the barmaid is (unknown to him) the dread piratess Anne Bonney (lol) they whole story goes from there... I just wrote my review on IMDB.com and here it is:

Now that I know that the production was meant to be "tongue-in-cheek" I can enjoy the movie for what it was. If anyone is claiming they didn't laugh their asses off while watching this movie, then they have a major case of taking themselves way too seriously.
Having seen almost every version of Treasure Island Available, including Muppet Treasure Island, I can say that this doesn't stand up to it, and yes, I too was howling in rage as some points; but that was only when I wasn't howling in laughter.
If you can take a joke, and see a movie for what it is--- poking fun at a genre and being intentionally silly (and between you and me, sometimes it is harder than it looks to be deliberately BAD, especially as BAD as this movie appears at times) this movie was fun. Watch it with a crowd, with buckets of popcorn to throw at the screen, and every time someone says something remotely pirate like, shout, "Arrrrrrrrr matey!" at the top of your lungs, I'm sure you'll have a modicum of fun. (No rum required, however it may make the evening FAR *FAR* more enjoyable.)

It was ok. I laughed alot, so that was good. Then I drove back to the land of the Jedi... and let movie talk flow over me. It's not so bad kicking back and listening to talk of editing and blocking shots and lighting, cueing, keyframing. It's doing it for damn near 12 hours straight that is sad. It's doing it in heels and stockings because I have to look nice because these are people we've not seen in a long time and I want to look good for my husband, and I expected to be home by six not 2 am. Sigh. No knitting was done, yet again.

But soon, I promise, soon.

Today I learned how to back up dvds. That was fun.

Maybe I commited adultery. But, I am not sure I made myself clear on my marriage. I'm not sure I want to anymore. With every passing moment I think, why bother?

Does it matter that people know all this stuff? Does it matter that I know this stuff?

Would it change anybody's opinion of what happened if I admitted the harsh and painful truth that although my husband is a kind, loving man he has a wife who has gained a hundred and forty pounds in seven years of marriage, most of it in the first EIGHTEEN MONTHS and that he disclosed during dating that he had a hard time dealing with the fact that his girlfriend was heavy set?! Does it change anything that the extreme sexual side of our relationship began to decay with every pound that set on, and no matter how hard I struggled, exercised or dieted, nothing seemed to help? Dr's visits, diet pills, fad dieting, gym memberships... nothing. He has purchased for me numerous retarded things to help me lose weight, has become a cheerleader to the point of becoming annoying... and eventually although we had sex... it was a struggle. Early on in our relationship it was he who came to ME and told me that if I ever wanted to go out and find someone else, as he laughingly put it, to share the burden, so long as I used precaution, kept him out of our daughter's life, away from our home, was always safe, and to talk to him beforehand, to go ahead.

So why am I the villian?

click to enlarge.

This was taken at Barry's hotel from the third floor. The sign on the right points to a corridor leading to the elevator. The sign on the left points to the ledge and a 3 story jump. Which way to go? If it helps, the sign on the left was broken, swinging from a cord, it shoul have been facing so that it's arrow was pointing down the hallway I was standing on to another hallway. However, at the time the picture was taken, I thought it was a brilliant photo opportunity.

click to enlarge

This sign has been here for over a month. Sometimes they have a Hell's Angel Uncle Sam riding a Harley out front too. My guess is they were robbed and the city of Lancaster is doing absolutely nothing to help them. For some reason, the sign strikes me as both amusing and sad at the same time. Amusing because it is funny they need to go to such lengths and it's not something you'd see on a daily basis, and sad because it's obvious they are not getting what they need from our police department at all, and as a resident that really doesn't make me feel any safer. Of course, the fact that we are basically a relocation unit for LAPD's fuckups never made me feel safe anyways, so there you go.

Have I been reading too much chick lit? Has the "word crack" as my sister now puts it, gone to my brain? Because I have been finding myself buying shoes, clothing, makeup, and purses. OMG. What happened. I totally blame Sophie Kinsella and Julie Kenner.

Check out the shoes.

Those came from payless and I had to go out and buy a dress JUST TO MATCH THE SHOES!! I know, how insane is that? They are totally comfortable and I adore them. I just want to walk around the house in them, singing music and dancing. They are gorgeous. But... but but but but then... we went shopping @ Torrid, which USED to be like Hot Topic for fat chicks, ok Larger Figured Women, but now it's like every other girly girly chubby store and there's only a small section that has the stuff that I really like, the hardcore, Tripp and HotLips stuff. Like my goth ballerina skirt. Sigh. Not pink and pastel crap. Gross. But I must say, now that I am slimming down, I like going in and screwing around and purposefully trying on extremely fugly dresses. :)

These shoes I bought from JC Penny's specifically to go with an outfit I found (scored) at Torrid that is SO me it makes me want to weep for joy that I can finally fit into clothing that speaks of my personality once again. Thank you Dr. Fobi. Whenever I feel pukey I will remember I have this outfit in my closet and that it took me seven years from when I last was able to dress this way in London until now and I could almost worship Dr. Fobi for helping me do this. Maybe I speak to passionately but I swear to you when I saw the top and skirt I cried because I was like, come to mommy. And then I had to ask EVERY WOMAN IN THE FRIGGIN STORE what they thought. It was A MOMENT. Like in the song "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt where he says "And she could tell by the smile on my face that I was f--king high, but I don't mind..." that's how I was. In the words of a great friend, I was stoked about this outfit. Majorly. Totally. Epically. :)

My floor needs to be mopped. LoL.

What to do?

I'm more stupid than I have ever thought I could be.

and I mean this most sincerely. Every day I find that I can sink lower and lower...