Serene of the Oakland Serenes

nanila did Friday Five today, and nanila is cool. Therefore, it's cool to do Friday Five today. So:

1. After your first language, what language would you most like to learn? (Say first language too)

My first language is English. If I had to pick one language to really know well, it would be ASL, Arabic, or Korean: ASL/Arabic for work (I work with a number of English Language Learners at work and we have lots of Spanish speakers to help them, but few Arabic speakers and no ASL users that I'm aware of) or Korean for food. I'm a huge Korean-food lover and cooking enthusiast, and I'd love to be able to read all the packages at the grocery store (and interact with my Korean relatives a little more closely, but that's secondary; we're not really close).

(I speak Spanish well enough to get along at work -- since I learned it as a child, my accent is very good, but it's much better than my vocabulary, so it often takes the students a little while to tell I'm a Spanish Language Learner. I know some ASL, Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Yiddish, and Esperanto (not proud of that one), and a teeny-tiny bit of some other languages (Japanese, Thai, Korean, Amharic).)

2. Does your country have a second language? What is it?

Not officially, no. Wikipedia says our second language in terms of users is Spanish. I can buy that.

3. How many languages can you count to 5 in? To 10 in? List them.

I can count to five from memory in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, ASL. To ten: English, Spanish, French, German, ASL. (And I can count as high as I want in English, Spanish, German, and ASL, because I've internalized the rules.)

4. What is the first overseas country you visited? And from where?

We flew from the US (probably from New York, but I don't remember) to Spain when I was eight. I was almost twelve when we came back. While we were there, I traveled with a family friend to Morocco, so that was overseas, as well. On the way back home from Spain, we stopped briefly in Newfoundland, Canada, but I don't really count that as a visit, since we never left the airport.

5. What country do you most want to visit? And why?

Honestly, I dislike travel, so I'd rather stay home, but I like having traveled, so if I had to go somewhere, I'd just pick someplace I haven't been before and try to eat the best of their indigenous cuisine / home cooking, because that's my jam. Might focus on someplace I know a little of linguistically/culinarily (like, say, Korea or Eritrea), but maybe not.

( Previous days )

Day Nineteen: There's no task today; just an essay about making your home into your own personal B&B: http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-19/

Today, I'm making gnocchi for a Facebook rec.food.cooking cookalong. But first, I'm going to do the few dishes in the sink and put out the Hot Spots, etc. No sense trying to cook if everything's not clean!

Yesterday was a super-low-energy day, so I did the very basics, but I didn't do a round of decluttering. I think I'll be up for it today, though. Pics later.

High pain day, but the kitchen is staying clean even with the messy gnocchi thing. I'm doing cleaning a few minutes at a time, because that's all I can do, and that's enough. It's such a great joy to look around my house and see it getting more comfortable, WITHOUT being all worn out. Anyway, have some gnocchi pics!

1) It's lunchtime at the Best Job Ever. I love it when my boss is here, but I love it in a different way when she's working at home (as she is today) because I can just put my head down and get caught up on things that I need to do.

2) The kid, apparently, would be allowed to stay on my (very cheap-to-me, very good and comprehensive) insurance until age 23 if she were my natural or adopted child. Since she's my legal ward, she appears to be ineligible when she turns 18, which she does in January. Eep!

3) Would any locals be willing to come Friday the 30th and/or Saturday the 31st and help me spruce up the kid's room? We never really finished cleaning and painting it, and I need to repair some holes in the wall that were there before she moved in, and so on. She doesn't really complain about it, but I'm tired of her living someplace that's not quite habitable. I'd also like to deep-clean the floor and put down the rug we bought. I could really use company/help, and I'll feed you really well.

4) The menu for the cookalong on the 1st is as follows: fried meatballs, brown gravy, parmesan-prosciutto mashed potatoes, a vegetable of some sort, and chocolate icebox cake. If you want to join us in San Leandro for some of that stuff, let me know.

So low-energy time starts in a week, and I'm going to try to get as much LID* cooking and cleaning done as I can comfortably do before that time. Not gonna knock myself out (because someotherguy is perfectly capable of cooking for me), but gonna try to put some stuff by.

Tonight's projects for the freezer:

1) Tomatoes were 49 cents a pound, so I bought LOTS and I'm gonna make tomato sauce and ketchup
2) Mashed potatoes with olive oil and roasted garlic
3) Cooked chickpeas
4) If I get the energy, some chickpea gravy and/or not-hummus (I'm curious to see how well not-hummus freezes)
5) Ditto cashew milk. I did buy some salt-free hemp milk, as well.


(Low-Iodine Diet -- link in my sidebar tells what I can eat)

I'm guessing my posting/commenting will be less prolific until I can type
with both hands. Takes so long this way.

Wonderful party yesterday. I will post pics tonight. I usually throw my
own parties, so it was such a fun luxury to have this. loracs
went all out, too -- decorations, party favors, a game, and a gourmet
feast replete with colorful veggies!

Menu (I may forget some bits)

appetizers (pizzelle cookies, peanut butter cups, fresh figs from their
tree, grapes, crackers w/tracytreefrog's dip)
sparkling juices -- pomegranate, cranberry, blueberry -- along w/other drinks
vegan potato-leek soup w/a touch of lemongrass
roasted cherry tomatoes
salad of baby plum tomatoes & baby mozzarella balls
sogwife's veggie-and-almond salad
roasted red peppers
huge tray of other roasted veggies: corn, portabellas, squash, beets,
parsnips, carrots, onions, eggplant
salmon -- I took a little taste, and it was the best I've ever had
dessert was homemade whole-wheat berry cobbler with choice of soy ice
cream, real ice cream, or cool whip
Oh, and my favorite gummy candies, because loracs wubs me