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Today stuff
+ I made sufganyot today. I've never had them before, so I don't know what they're supposed to be like, but the things I made were pretty good. See, Internet + Cooking + Me is kind of bad -- I look up a recipe, find six or twelve, look at them, notice the commonalities, and then make up my own version. I know that you're supposed to follow a recipe the first time you make something, especially if you've never even seen the item you're making, but I had descriptions of them, and they sounded good, and the things I made kind of fit the description, and were good.
- I failed to make some sort of baked good or something for Lis's work potluck tomorrow. Because I was making sufganyot instead.
+ The oil lamp we made works. And it's stable enough that Lis said I could leave it unattended for fifteen minutes at a time. And it was fine.
+ I relatively competently dealt with a financial issue (paperwork stuff, phoning someone, getting copies of forms kind of thing)
- I forgot to make an appointment to get the car's oil changed.
+ I bought some of the stuff that Lis needed at the store.
- I forgot some of the stuff that Lis wanted at the store.
{} Anna's funeral is tomorrow.
Sufganyot are a jelly-filled fried thingy. They're a traditional Hannukah dish, where "traditional" is defined as "made up and popularized within the last century or so by people who wanted to make a statement that they were TOTALLY DIFFERENT from their parents and grandparents."
And they're yummy. See, "things fried in oil" are a traditional thing to eat on Hannukah, because a) miracle of the oil thingy b) baby, it's cold outside, and so we should eat lots of calories c) our arteries are failing to clog fast enough. And the main "thing fried in oil" tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews was, and is, latkes. And so, when the Zionists were settling Israel, one of the messages they wanted to send is that "we're totally different from the kinds of Jews from whom we're descended, so we won't speak Yiddish, we'll pronounce Hebrew differently, and we'll have different holiday traditions." But you can't dump latkes without replacing them with something else, and preferably something better.
I'm not going to say that sufganyot are better than latkes, but they're certainly good. Or at least, the things I made that are sufganyot-like are good.
- I failed to make some sort of baked good or something for Lis's work potluck tomorrow. Because I was making sufganyot instead.
+ The oil lamp we made works. And it's stable enough that Lis said I could leave it unattended for fifteen minutes at a time. And it was fine.
+ I relatively competently dealt with a financial issue (paperwork stuff, phoning someone, getting copies of forms kind of thing)
- I forgot to make an appointment to get the car's oil changed.
+ I bought some of the stuff that Lis needed at the store.
- I forgot some of the stuff that Lis wanted at the store.
{} Anna's funeral is tomorrow.
Sufganyot are a jelly-filled fried thingy. They're a traditional Hannukah dish, where "traditional" is defined as "made up and popularized within the last century or so by people who wanted to make a statement that they were TOTALLY DIFFERENT from their parents and grandparents."
And they're yummy. See, "things fried in oil" are a traditional thing to eat on Hannukah, because a) miracle of the oil thingy b) baby, it's cold outside, and so we should eat lots of calories c) our arteries are failing to clog fast enough. And the main "thing fried in oil" tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews was, and is, latkes. And so, when the Zionists were settling Israel, one of the messages they wanted to send is that "we're totally different from the kinds of Jews from whom we're descended, so we won't speak Yiddish, we'll pronounce Hebrew differently, and we'll have different holiday traditions." But you can't dump latkes without replacing them with something else, and preferably something better.
I'm not going to say that sufganyot are better than latkes, but they're certainly good. Or at least, the things I made that are sufganyot-like are good.
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2) the oil lamp *is* in a roasting pan, so it's relatively unlikely to tip or spill onto something flamable...
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Also, Israeli's do have latkes...but call them livivot. :-)
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That's exactly what I do! Unless I'm using a recipe written by an actual person I know and trust. I have one vegan cookbook that I've used for about 10 different things, all of which have come out much better when I've used her version (vinegar in chocolate cakes an' all), so now I trust that author to know what she's talking about. Other cookbooks I own are terrible - I've followed the quantities and times to the letter and the food's been inedible.
On the internet recipe sites, I find that American volume measurements to metric conversion accounts for an awful lot of oddity, and if it's not an explicitly vegan recipe so I'm changing half the ingredients anyway, I might as well change the rest of it.
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(Anonymous) 2006-12-22 07:36 am (UTC)(link)no subject
Who taught you to cook? Oh, it must have been... Me!
I love reading cookbooks, but I rarely use the recipes as written. There are so many ingredients that have to be replaced because of allergies, sensitivities, not wanting to use processed sugar or white flour, making something kosher, wanting to experiment a little, or just because it will taste better with this instead of that. Besides, it's more fun to cook this way - making it up as you go.
Hmmm - now, let's see... what do I have in the pantry?