Sunday Sandwich

As I am in Wisconsin this weekend, I thought these two sandwiches seemed appropriate. I'm not sure why they gained the names they have, or why they are appropriate. In fact, the only things "appropriate" for this occasion is that they have travel-related names.

Outing Sandwich

Chop hard-boiled eggs fine, season with salt and pepper; moisten with mayonnaise dressing. Spread on buttered whole wheat bread. Garnish with a pickle.

Traveller's (sic) Sandwich

Chop hard-boiled eggs fine, add a few minced olives, season with lemon juice; mix with butter, creamed. Spread on thin slices of white bread.

Writing

As you may have noticed, I'm not doing a real good job of regular posting on this blog. Well, I do my "weekly" posts, but I'm not putting a whole lot of time into writing other, more interesting posts. Not that this is a grave matter - in fact, it is probably healthy. It means that I'm busy living my life and doing other things (read: work, wedding planning, etc...) rather than sitting around attached to the computer 24/7.

In reality, I am attached to the computer a lot of the time, but at work I am doing work, not blogging. In fact, I spend a lot of time at work doing technical writing in the form of newsletter articles, emails, and powerpoint presentations. I may not be the best technical writer in the world, but I am at least competent. Luckily, technical writing comes easily for me. I rarely have writers' bloc doing technical writing. All that I really have to do is find a logical way to organize and communicate information in a clear, coherent way. This, of course, comes easily to my very logical and analytical brain.

Unfortunately, focusing on technical writing so much seems to result in a lesser ability to writing interesting narrative prose in other venues, such as this blog. I sometimes have interesting stories to relate, but everything combined seems to result in few of them ever getting published. That being said, I also edit rather strongly, which takes the fun out of some of the stories. I'm not exactly making a huge effort to keep this blog highly anonymous, so I can't tell stories about work that could potentially be considered indiscreet in some way.

I also sometimes have other interesting topics I'd like to write about, but I don't usually have the time (or prioritize the time) to write something coherent. I have also been considering writing fiction again, but I'm afraid that whatever skill I may have had at some point is now gone in a sea of technical writing. Also, I know that I'd probably get one short story or chapter of a longer story done and never again post something related to that story.

So maybe someday in the far future, there will be more interesting things to read on this blog. For the time being, we will all have to be satisfied with regular topic posts and irregular boring diary-esque posts.

Sunday...er...Tuesday! Sandwich

Two rather unique sandwiches for your perusal this week:

Easter Sandwich

Between thin slices of lightly buttered white bread, place a crisp lettuce leaf that has been dipped in mayonnaise dressing. On this place round slices of cold hard-boiled egg. Dust with pepper and salt. Cut sandwiches in squares and tie with lavender baby ribbon.

(This sandwich isn't making big waves until the last line. When's the last time you tied any food item, let alone a sandwich with a lavender ribbon? Have you ever? Has anyone?!?)

Chevy Chase Sandwich

Put six hard-boiled eggs through a potato ricer. To these add six sweet pickles, chopped fine, a dash of salt and white pepper, and two teaspoonfuls of melted butter; mix and place between thin slices of lightly buttered white bread.

(Does anyone have a clue why this is called a Chevy Chase Sandwich? I was wondering if there was some obscure movie reference I was missing...until I remembered that the copyright of this book is 1909...so nope, not a movie reference!)

Plant of the Week

Name: Pummelo

I'm really, really lazy this week (and last week too!) so I'm just going to direct you to this link to read all about pummelo.

For What it's Worth

From the Kruse Kronicle, Prosperity and the Mission of God.

The mission of God is not to get people saved. Now that I likely have your attention, let me also acknowledge that getting people saved is an essential piece of God’s present work in the world. However, we need to view God’s mission from God’s vantage point rather than from ours. Failure to do so has the inevitable result of making it all us.

The mission of God in the world is to establish and sustain a shalom-filled world that is overflowing in relationship with him. It is a world where his image is reflected through his eikons to the rest of the created order, to each other, and back to God. It is a world where his eikons exercise co-creative dominion over the created order and bring all things to their fullest state of existence.

Uh...for those of you that may no know, shalom means peace and eikon roughly means image...in this instance how people are images of God.

Sunday Sandwich

I finally remembered to bring the lovely sandwich book over to Steven's apartment, so you will finally get some "new" sandwiches to peruse and enjoy. For those of you that never read my previous blog, or have forgotten, the book to which I refer is The Up-to-Date Sandwich Book: 400 Ways to make a Sandwich compiled by Eva Greene Fuller, copyright 1909. I originally decided to post sandwiches from this book for two reasons: the recipes are really quite bizarre, and the manner in which they are written is sometimes comical or interesting in and of itself. For instance, in the first sentence of the following sandwich, the clauses are in a different order than we would commonly find now.

French Sandwich
To one pint of cold cooked fish, add two hard-boiled eggs chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of capers, and a little mayonnaise to moisten. Mix and spread on thin slices of lightly buttered white bread, cover with another slice, and cut in strips. Add a sprinkling of finely chopped cress to the top of each sandwich; rub the yolk of a hard-boiled egg through a sieve and chop the white very fine. Add a sprinkling of the yolk to the cress on half the number of sandwiches, adding the white to the other half. Then arrange them in groups of twos, one of each color on the serving plate. Any cold meat may be used instead of the fish.

Hot Creamed Codfish Sandwich

Between toasted and lightly buttered slices of white bread place hot creamed codfish. Put a tablespoonful of the codfish on top and sprinkle finely chopped hard-boiled egg over the codfish and garnish with a sprig of parsley and a pickle. Serve as soon as made.

Plant of the Week: Fennel

Name: Fennel
Latin Name: Foeniculum vulgare
Origin: Indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean

Is it an herb? Is it a vegetable? Is it a flower? It's not a tree, that's for sure. (Although it is in the Magnolia Class...not that that makes it a Magnolia tree...) Fennel is probably most commonly known as an herb, where you use the seed as a flavoring or spice in dishes. Somewhat less common is using the "bulb" - er...well...swollen crown just above the soil level (think kohlrabi, if you know what that is). The type of fennel with the swollen bulbs is called "Florence" fennel. (Think Florence, Italy.) The bulbs are probably most commonly found in Italian cuisine, although not in spaghetti. The seeds are particularly important in some types of Indian and Middle Easter cuisine.

The fennel fronds (think leaves) and flowers are also quite tasty. I actually prefer eating little pieces of the flowers. (Well, it would actually be a small bunch of flowers from part of the raceme of flowers...or maybe it's an umbel. I forget. I think it is an umbel. Yup...Umbel family. That makes it an umbel.) (This post has a lot of parentheses. I must be feeling parenthetical today.) Anyway, back to the point. Fennel pollen is considered a delicacy...an expensive delicacy, for sure. Think about it. When is the last time you tried harvesting a reasonable amount of pollen from anything, let alone an itty bitty tiny flower like fennel?

Fennel can be grown from seed, and will grow year round - in Mediterranean-like climates. There are also bronze fennels, which have reddish fronds, but do not form bulbs. The bulbs take pretty much the whole growing seasone to form, although the fronds and flowers show up sooner.

Sunday Sandwich

Roast Beef and Jam Sandwich

Between thin slices of lightly buttered white bread, place thin slices of cold roast beef; on top of this spread plum jam.

Rice Sandwich

Creole rice may be shaped to a circle, in which make a cavity; leave this to stand in a cool place until firm; when so, cut in half, horizontally. Spread peach preserves neatly on lower ring, mask well with syrup. Put on the upper ring and mask well with syrup. Put in a cool place until ready to serve; cut V-shape and serve with unflavored cream.

I have to say that I find the sandwiches out of the sandwich book much more interesting, if less edible, than the ones I find randomly surfing the Internet. It's surprisingly hard to find sandwiches on the Internet that involve congealed creole rice slathered with peach preserves. Seriously.

Some Pics from the Trip

Here are a few pictures from our trip. The Sunday we arrived, we went to Seaside, OR, which is on the Pacific Ocean and is also the "End of the Trail" for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The middle weekend we went to Mt. St. Helens. (Eric and Liz came down from Seattle!)


Okay, well either Steven's computer or Blogger have taken a dislike to the other two pictures I was going to post, so you'll have to wait to see them.

Plant of the Week: Variegated Maple

Name: Variegated Maple (Click for picture, as per usual)
Latin Name: Acer platanoides 'Variegatum'
Origin: A selection of a Norway Maple...It would seem logical that the Norway Maple originated in Norway, but according to Wikipedia, it actually is native to eastern and central Europe and southwest Asia, from France east to Russia, north to southern Scandinavia and southeast to northern Iran. So I guess it might have originally come from Norway.

This particular maple tree is hardy to zone 4 and prefers full sun. Well...most trees do, really. At full size, it will be 50-60 feet tall and 40-50 feet wide. It is an upright tree with really cool white and green variegated leaves. Really, if you haven't looked at the pictures yet, please do.

Back Home!

The second week of the Spanish course went well, although honestly, I found it a bit slow and boring. Probably less boring than slow. (I spent parts of several different days trying to see how many words I could remember and write in Russian - not very many!) We didn't get to any tenses or moods of Spanish that I remember struggling to figure out before. Languages have always been pretty easy for me, but I think what made the difference this time is that I've been reading and speaking it more in the last 6 months or so. Therefore, I'm much more comfortable with some of the easier tenses and parts of speech (pronouns, direct and indirect objects, future tense) than I used to be. I still need some work on the more complex tenses/moods that are usually used with compound sentences and all the different clauses that can occur in them. Luckily, I'm pretty good with my English grammar, so the Spanish grammar is easier. But still...some things are a challenge to figure out. However, it was a great opportunity to practice speaking and brush up on things in general. Overall, I really enjoyed the class.

We flew back to Kansas on Saturday. We left Portland, OR at 10:30 a.m., then landed in Houston at 5 p.m. (I got to watch KungFu Panda in Spanish though, so that was kinda fun!) We boarded the flight for Kansas City at 6:30 p.m., but we had to wait for some people from a connecting flight (and their luggage), so we didn't actually leave until 7:30 p.m. So, by the time we landed, got our luggage, etc, it was 9:45 p.m. Steven and I got back to Wichita about 1 a.m.

It is definitely warmer here. It was barely 70 degrees in Washington on Friday. It's about 100 degrees here today. Eek! Yes, it's hot, but overall, I'm not minding it terribly much. Our classroom was so cold all the time that it's actually quite lovely to be warm.

It was a bit of a culture shock when I went to the grocery store though. The peaches were half the size of the ones in Washington. The produce was all quite sad looking, really. I also stopped by the Demo Garden at the office. The tomatoes were all really sad looking, and the squash, eggplant, and cucumbers are in poor shape - not because of the weather, but because the crew didn't HARVEST ANYTHING! Argh! Squash, eggplant, cucumbers all tend to stop producing if they aren't regularly harvested. Ah well...it shall be a "teachable moment" on Tuesday.

I am feeling slightly justified in my defense of heirloom tomatoes though, because my favorite variety is looking beautiful and healthy, even compared to the "best" hybrids of Kansas. Granted, it is much later producing than the hybrids, but if it tastes better and is more vigorous, I sure don't care!

I have meetings at least 2 evenings this week, but other than that, I think my August is pretty quiet - in general. I'm sure my desk will be covered with things to deal with when I go it tomorrow. Good luck to me!

Tomato-Corn Salad

Today I decided that a nice cool, summery salad would hit the spot for this week. (Since it is over 100 degrees F here.) I thought corn and tomatoes sounded good, but not with cream or anything too heavy. I found a couple recipes and meshed them together. Here's the final product:

Tomato-Corn Salad

16 oz. frozen corn (you can also use fresh, but for reasons I won't discuss here I chose not to)
16 oz. (or so) of fresh tomatoes, chopped (I used some Yellow Pear, Red Cherry, and half of a red beefsteak that I rescued from the demo garden.)
1 or 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely chopped (or whatever pepper you want to use for spice)
1/2 of a small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
Fresh basil (or cilantro), minced, to taste
Splash of olive oil
Splash of lime juice

Chop all the vegetables (minus the corn) and mix together. Microwave the corn on high for 5 minutes, or until hot. Mix the corn with the other vegetables. Add the herbs, olive oil, lime juice, salt, and pepper to taste. Serve warm or chill before serving.

Sunday Sandwich

The Sunday sandwich saga continues with a Tuna Sandwich Plus...

Twist on a Tuna Sandwich

• 2 slices bread
• Mayonnaise
  
• 1 (6 ounce) can tuna(oil preferred, but water works)
• 1/2 (3 ounce) can sliced ripe olives
• 1/4 (3 ounce) can canned jalapeño slices

Directions

1. Mix everything together (except the bread). Don't use too much mayo.
2. Don't use too many jalapeños, because the juice will spice things up a lot.
3. Spread the mixture on the bread.
4. For an additional twist, try grilling it. (I think adding some grated cheese or a slice of cheese would make this even better. And maybe some onion too.)

1. Try grilling!