I love crepes, and there's quite a variety of them out there.
I still remember making the French version during my high school French class. Can't remember if it was before a break, or at the end of the semester. But, it was fun. Surprisingly, easier than it looks. The sweet ones are awesome! I've had some with bananas, whipped cream, and Nutella. Some with just cherries as a filling with powdered sugar on top. Good stuff.
Blintzes are similar, and they have interesting flavors as well. Many people like the cream cheese filled ones (I'm not very into those), some have cherries, some have like an apple pie filling, and more. (There are some savory ones as well.) Now I kind of have a hankering for blintzes...
It's also Groundhog Day. I've always felt odd about it. What's the point in it? 
My Paris calendar features the Sainte-Genevieve Library. It has around 2 million documents. The reading room is mostly of iron and glass. Some of the design was inspired by the Pantheon. There's also a pic of a Chinese New Year celebration. And, another pic of the Paris skyline during winter.
My Jewish calendar's main pic's of a Tanakh cover, made by 7 people (the names are really long...), out of silver (clasps) and gold leaf, from Amsterdam, Netherlands; 1667. A Tanakh is the Torah, the Prophets or Naviim, and the Writings or Ketuvim in one book. (Basically, our Bible. I feel odd about that word, though...
) Some have commentary in it, as well. The name is really an acronym based on those 3 sections. (T-Torah, N-Naviim, and K-Ketuvim.) The Writings include Psalms, Lamentations, Proverbs, story of Esther, story of Ruth, and several others. It's a rather thick book, and usually has thin pages. Anyways, this one has a nice design on the front. There's a stylized lion in the middle, flowers throughout, and more. The clasps are cool looking, too. Very interesting to see one that's so old. The pages from the outside look like they've really aged. But, it also looks like it's in good condition as a whole. The 2nd pic's of a kiddush cup, has an anonymous maker, made out of silver; 1880. I'm guessing since they didn't mention where it was from, it might be the same place as the Tanakh.
Kiddush cups are used for the wine or grape juice as we say the blessing over them. Usually, during Shabbat and other holidays. An interesting design for this one, too. Lots of leaves encompassing an oval that has some Hebrew letters etched in the middle. The words don't look like what's said during the blessing. Makes me more curious...
The last pic's of a mezuzah, it has an anonymous maker, made out of silver and glass, Venice, Italy; 1750. A mezuzah is a piece of parchment that's been rolled up inside a special case that's put up on the doorposts of someone's home. Many have them on every doorpost, except for the bathrooms, small closets, and laundry room. The parchment has some specific verses of the Torah written in Hebrew on it. There's a specific way that it's put up, too. It's kind of telling visitors that it's a Jewish home. (Some have them in offices, dorm rooms, cars, and other places they might feel at home in.) I also had one leading into my dorm room while I was in college. It was and is a small and simple car one. I'm not using it at the moment. I already have another one up for my room, and doorposts in other areas, too. In general, mezuzah's can have really fancy cases. The one in the pic looks cool. Although, a lot of the design seems to have rubbed off over time. There's a little window that displays the parchment itself. Kind of cute. Interesting to see an Italian one. And, always cool to see the really old stuff.
Oh, Tu B'Shevat starts tomorrow night, and goes until sundown the next day. It's the New Year for the Trees. It's a minor holiday, but a nice one. Tu B'Shevat means the 15th of the month of Shevat. Many celebrate it by planting a tree, attending a special seder, or just enjoying some fruit and nuts. Basically something to appreciate them. Seder literally means 'order', but it usually refers to the specific order of a ritual dinner/meal. Each food has some sort of symbolism. It's a rather new concept to have one centered around Tu B'Shevat. Normally, it's around Passover, which is coming up in a couple of months. For this one you get to eat/drink a variety of fruit, nuts, and wines (or in my case, grape juice). The wines/grape juices range in color from a dark red to a white. The wines signify the seasons. The fruit and nuts have their own categories and meanings, too. It's actually a lot of fun.
My mom led Tu B'Shevat seders for a while. Can't remember how many years she did it for...We had the first few at home, and invited a bunch of people. The others were at the closest synagogue. Everyone loved it. The month-long holidays are: Canned Food Month, Celebration of Chocolate Month, National Cherry Month, National Hot Breakfast Month, Potato Lover's Month, Barley Month, National African American History Month, National Women Inventors Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. It's interesting what types of food can be canned now. Yay, for chocolate! That does indeed call for a celebration!
One of my fave fruit/desserts are cherries. They're so versatile. A hot breakfast can be nice when it's in the middle of winter. I love potatoes! African American history is very important. I'm surprised there's a Women Inventor month, but that's pretty cool. They rarely get any recognition.
The weather's still warmer than it should be. Even for this area. It's like a cool spring weather, not what you'd see at the beginning of February. At least we're not like other parts of the country where they're being hammered with snow.
I still don't feel well yet.
Saturday was really horrible. And, even though I was drinking a lot, I ended up being dehydrated again. At least it wasn't nearly as bad as it was before I went to Urgent Care a week ago. I decided to try Imodium Multi-Symptom Relief and Gatorade. The Imodium has weird directions, but I followed what to do for the first dose. Didn't need to use the bathroom for an entire day. Made me kind of worried.
I think I feel a bit better today than I have been for a while, though. The Gatorade is to help replace the electrolytes I lost, and/or losing. I'm not used to Gatorade. It's an interesting taste.
I got their orange flavor. I'm glad they have the option of getting a bunch of single serving bottles. Hopefully with both the Imodium and Gatorade I'll get back to feeling normal faster. I still feel really weak and occasionally I'll get very dizzy. Nausea is still there, although it's much better than it was. Ran out of the anti-nausea meds pretty quickly.
I followed the doc's instructions, but I was out of it in just a few days. He only ordered 9 small pills for me. On Saturday, we ended up shopping most of the day. We were out of so many things. For brunch, we went to Red Robin, and I got their Bleu Ribbon Burger with fries. It basically represented 3 of my meals (considering it was so late). It was my breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack. So, I let myself eat the whole thing. I was extremely hungry, and it was very satisfying.
Seemed like there was a good amount/mix of everything in the burger, but for some reason they gave me a sizable mound of blue cheese off to the side of it. I don't like when there's too much of it, or it's by itself. So, I tried to steer clear of it. It had just the right amount of sauce, too. For dinner, we went to Olive Garden. I wanted to take advantage of their new 4-course meal deal. I think it was a better one than Red Lobster's. I got the regular house salad, hummus as an appetizer, spaghetti with 5-cheese marinara as an entree, and a little limoncello mousse for dessert. The salad always comes in a big bowl and is so big it probably could be enough for 4 or 5 people easily. For one person, it feels a little excessive.
I forgot to tell our waitress that I don't want onions nor the pepperoncini, and to put the dressing off to the side. She took it from me, but left it and a bunch of wine glasses (some of them filled a bit) on a ledge a few feet away from us. A waiter bumped into it, and everything went flying. It didn't hit Dad or I, though. It was quite the spectacle.
When things were being cleaned up, and I was still waiting for my salad, I got my hummus. It was loaded with garlic cloves. Tasted a bit different than what I'm used to. I liked it, but later through having its leftovers found out it really was mostly garlic cloves and hardly any actual hummus.
(They said they were roasted garlic cloves, but I think half were barely cooked.) Also, the hummus seemed to be lacking lemon juice and/or olive oil. It was interesting to try though. I was either going to try this or the fried risotto bites. Maybe if they still have this thing in the future sometime, I'll try those instead. The salad came a few minutes after the hummus. And, I promptly dropped a tomato slice...
Something was up with the salads or something. It tasted fresh and was crisp, though.The spaghetti with 5-cheese marinara was amazing!
Ended up making it 6-cheese with them adding romano cheese to it. It wasn't overpowering, though. The tomato chunks and sauce made it taste fresh and bold. Dessert was really good too.
It was really chilled, and seemed like the mousse part had almost turned into gelato or ice cream. It had a graham cracker-like flaky crust on the bottom. They had it in a small glass. I like their 'dolcinis' or mini desserts. They're small enough to satisfy, and not feel like you had too much.
The limoncello mousse had a lemon fruit jelly on top, too. It was kind of a cute one. When I told our waitress that I wanted the salad to go, she gave me a large container that had a small tub of their dressing, a few packs of their romano cheese, and a pack of their croutons. That was pretty cool!
I don't remember them doing that before. Took a while for me to finish the salad itself. I've had it with almost every meal since. I had to toss the leftover hummus at some point, because it started to taste weird.
The leftover spaghetti with 6-cheese marinara lasted a while, and still tasted amazing when I finished it. Still have a couple of breadsticks left. Yay! More awesome to go around!
Tried to finish watching the rest of Pandemic, but for some reason the last 20 minutes weren't online. It was a really long movie, so I'm not too upset. They may have found a way to make a vaccine for the virus just before those last 20 minutes, so I could probably assume it really did work. It was a pretty good movie. At times it seemed to drag, though. Occasionally, the music seemed to try and make it more dramatic than it actually was. That was slightly annoying. Funny watching a movie about a virus while you might have some sort of virus, too. One where the doc you saw couldn't clarify. Kind of spooks me a bit. At least things are getting better, and I'm not bleeding from every orifice. In the movie the 'blame' virus was pretty brutal. Up to the 20 minutes left mark, I think they said that about 8 million people in Japan had died from it. The streets were deserted, and it looked like a wasteland. I read a little bit of someone's summary for the ending and supposedly it killed 11 million in the end. That's a lot of people. Most of the time the movie felt more 'real' than most other virus outbreak/pandemic movies. So, that was good, and made it even more creepy.
Everything Becomes F has been interesting. I thought the whole series would be based on that first case. But, apparently they go off to solve more. Just finished watching their 2nd case about a family's secret behind a gourd and a special box. 50 years ago the head of the household was found dead in a storage room that was also used as his art studio. There was blood on a gourd, and an ornate looking box was next to it. The head had told people repeatedly to never open the box. They found out that there was a key inside the gourd, but it was too large to slip out of it. They thought the key from the gourd was the only way to open the box. Eventually, the next head was found stabbed horribly and about to die in that same room. He jumped off a bridge as his daughter was trying to take him to the hospital. Turns out both of them may have tried to commit suicide the same way. Only the younger one couldn't quite do it on his own. If you pour hot water into the gourd, it melts the key. There's an area on the box that you can unscrew, and to open it, you pour the contents of the gourd into the box. The melted metal takes the shape of the cutout in the box. It ends up looking like a very sharp dagger. In order to get rid of it, you just toss it back into the gourd and eventually as this certain type of metal goes back to room temp, it somehow goes back to the shape of the key. Pretty interesting idea. They were a little unsure about how it turns back into a key, since they didn't open it up. The next one seems to be centered around that inmate Nishinosono talks to at the beginning of the 1st episode. And, after looking briefly online at the manga version, seems to be that version's first case. So why didn't they start with that one? It's going to be on an island this time. We might actually find out what she meant by Everything Becomes F.
No comments:
Post a Comment