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Toby asked for broccoli cheese soup last night. It’s so unusual for him to voluntarily eat anything green that I went home via the vege shop for two heads of broccoli.

I winged the recipe, but it was something like this.

Chop & fry a couple hundred grams of bacon (six-eight middle rashers). In the bacon fat, fry a chopped red onion. When you get to the point where you need more grease so you can sweat the onions properly, add 75g butter.

Let that simmer for a bit, until the onion is translucent. Stir in a 1/4 cup of flour (you’re making a weird bacony roux here). Once that’s mixed, quickly pour in a bottle of beer or cider (we had cider on hand so I used that).

While this is going on, chop your broccoli heads (I had two), and nuke them to speed up cooking time.

Once you have your alcoholic roux going on, add in about 100g of grated cheddar, stir. Add three cups of milk, and the broccoli.

Add cracked pepper, 1/2tsp of paprika, some sage, celery seeds. Simmer gently for half an hour until the broccoli is squishy.

Makes five or six bowls, depending on hunger of consumers.

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.

Last night took me from “I have no idea what dinner’s going to be” to “pasta with bacon and gouda / blue brie sauce” inside of about 40 minutes.

Here’s how it went down:

Remove bacon from freezer, nuke enough it can be chopped.

Pasta spirals + water + cast iron pan + stove.

Cast iron frypan + butter + olive oil + stove.

Chop bacon, apply to pan.

Rummage fridge for further ideas. Apply onion to pan.

Decide on cheese sauce, realise no milk, add white wine to pan. Add red wine to self, from last night’s open bottle. Add parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, celery seeds. Add 50g butter and potato flakes to thicken. Add large dollop of sour cream (see: no milk). Add water to thin sauce somewhat.

Rummage cheese drawer, find end of gouda and half a blue brie wheel. Chop both (after removing white rind from brie), add to pan. Add heaping tablespoon of tomato paste.

Rummage fridge further, find tupperware with leftover misc veges. Chop finely, add to sauce as pretence that we are civilised adults that eat our veges.

Discover that by some miracle, you have cooked four servings of dinner on an evening when you are feeding four adults.

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been trying to post this for awhile and every version wavers between stupid or ridiculously pretentious. I am giving up and sharing it anyway.

Mum used to wonder, when I was a kid, where I got my love for the sad music from. We’re very different, me and Mum – she’s a cheerful soul, through and through. Not that she’s never unhappy – her life’s had its share of grief – but she’s fundamentally an upbeat person.

I’m not unhappy, but I experience the world a different way.

I gravitated to the music in the minor keys, with the haunting refrains; the passionate, the angry, the sad, the quiet mourning. I remember discovering Bela Bartok and Debussy and being thrilled by them. And later, my piano teacher giving me Michael Nyman’s sheet music to The Piano.

Neither she nor my mother had seen the film; I suspect they’d have considered it deeply inappropriate for teenage Emma.

Music was always an outlet for me. A mental exercise, something I could work at and get right. Something that makes me happy. Something that reaches right into my heart and lets me express what I’m feeling.

When I got access to the ‘net, I started acquiring my own sheet music. I remember finding Michael Hsiao (who no longer seems to exist online), and revelling in a series of three songs – Insanity, Rage, and After. My mother always knew when I’d had a bad day at uni – I’d come home and throw myself at the piano, and she’d leave me in peace to work the angry out.

The same applies to the music I listen to. Sometimes I like the sad songs. The ones about heartbreak and loss and grieving, anger and fear and doubt and trouble. In some way, they make me happy.

We’re not encouraged to talk about the hard things. If someone asks “How are you?” they expect “Great!” as a response. Even among friends, it’s hard to say “I’m struggling”. We can’t say we’re sad, we’re upset, we’re depressed, we don’t know what to do. Or even if we do know what to do, and we just need to be allowed to be sad for awhile while we work through it.

I think I like the sad songs because, in order to write them, someone had to live them. They had to experience sadness. They had to say goodbye to a lover, to a friend, to a parent or child. They had to live with fear and stress and depression. And they chose to take that experience, to voice the sadness and make something from it.

So when I gravitate to these songs, it’s not because I want to wallow in sadness. I don’t want to remain upset, hurt, worried, stressed, sad. I gravitate to them because in times of trouble, I’m reminded that it’s possible to take the pain and build something beautiful.

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.

I experimented with cheesecake last night. I’ve never enjoyed doing the painful crush-biscuits-with-butter exercise for a cheesecake base, especially as we don’t /buy/ biscuits so I have to make them and THEN crush them and ugh.

So, experiment.
200g butter, melted
1c flour
1c sugar
three or four? cups of fine dessicated coconut.
Mixed all of the above with a little cinnamon spice mix until it was the appropriate melted-butter-squashable texture that a cheesecake base should be. Squished into a springform tin, then baked for 20 mins in a 180c oven to brown and crisp it up some. (With less butter, this is my apple crumble topping mixture.)

While that was baking, beat together 1kg of cream cheese, 2 tins of sweetened condensed milk, about 1/4 c lemon juice, a slosh of brandy. When the base came out the oven, I added gelatine to the cheesecake mix (it’ll firm up without it, but I like the risk being removed). Poured the cheesecake over the base, allowed to set.

Once that layer set, I threw mixed berries, water, mixed berry sauce from the fridge, and more gelatine in a saucepan, turned it into sauce, and poured over the top. Obviously this layer could be anything (I considered banana nut jam as an option too, and didn’t have enough passionfruit).

Yum yum yum. (Image recycled, as I broke into the cheesecake to eat it before taking pictures.)

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.

There’s a few people in my friend’s circle doing the 101-things-in-1001-days. It’s our fifth wedding anniversary today, so I’m starting mine now, and I’m going to fudge the 1001 days bit to “my 35th birthday”, as I’m more likely to actually remember when that end date is!

My list is in Dropbox, and has 60 things on it so far. I figure I’ll work out more life goals as I go. It’s a stupidly organised Excel spreadsheet, which at least makes me feel like I’ll pretend some accountability to myself!

Some of them are small – make gnocchi that doesn’t suck, for example. Some are large – achieve a new roof on the house (oh god, that will be expensive).

Here’s to documented achievements.

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.

Three more trash bags of clothing culled from the wardrobe with Dee​’s help. She even offered to be a love & take it away with her (for offering to friends in similar size ranges & eventual deposit into clothing recycling location of her choice).

Now I just need to be Thoughtful about all future incoming clothing purchases.

Plus, I have about ten things to list on Trademe.

Also sold on Trademe in the last week:

• A lovely wooden breadbin that successfully attracted clutter and was never successfully used for the storage of bread
• 14 unused (and a brand I really disliked) gel polishes
• two bras with matching underwear – underwear brand new, bras worn once or twice
• Two sets of fake nails that I’d acquired as freebies

Running total: 300/365

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.

The study has been problematic for a long time. A year or so back, we evicted all the cardboard boxes that used to house parts we no longer own (as my beloved is a member of the school “don’t throw ANYTHING away in case it’s useful”.

Yesterday, he woke up with the LET’S CLEAN THE STUDY bug.

Three trash bags of misc.stuff later…

• The desks have been emptied, sorted, misc cables rolled up & put away
• The cable drawers were emptied, misc crap thrown out – why did we still have serial cables? Eight USB/PS-2 adapters? A Playstation->USB adapter for a dance mat I haven’t owned in five years?
• Cardboard boxes were labelled (ie: headsets/mice, optical media, cable ties & velcro)
• Old books were thrown away – Windows 2000 / Fedora 4, my old Uni textbooks, etc
• A new printer was installed, the one with a dead network jack was removed, and the horrible HP that Tobes bought without doing enough research has been disposed of violently
• Why does the study contain eight laptop bags, none of which we use?

Basically, YOU CAN GET INTO THE CLOSET NOW and access the filing cabinet and cable drawers and ALL THE THINGS and it’s TIDY.

Running total: 200/365

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.

It’s well established that my mother doesn’t cook. It’s not that she can’t – she’s a functional adult and perfectly capable of putting meals together. Just that where possible, she avoids it.

As such, my cooking instruction as a child extended to the basics of “how not to hurt yourself in a kitchen”, being pointed at the recipe books, given stern instructions to clean up after myself, and left to go nuts and learn.

So on the one hand, I LOVE cooking. I really do. On the other, a child’s approach to recipes is very “right, I’ve read it, now I’ll do my own thing”, which occasionally doesn’t work.

It especially doesn’t work for baking, which is a science. Cooking is art, so I can get away with it.

As an adult, my approach is also instinct + occasional recipe glances + “I wonder what happens if?” Mostly this results in food, because my instincts are good.

We’ll use today’s chicken, corn, and noodle soup as a prime example of how this process works.
Yesterday: two chicken carcasses + crockpot + water + long, slow cooking = several litres of chicken stock. Two liters got frozen, I was left with two-odd litres of stock, in delicious delicious refrigerated gel form.

Today: “Hmmm, I feel like soup.”

Picked the chicken carcasses for bones. Chopped up two small onions, sweated them in 50g of butter (yes, lots), with the picked off chicken (a bowlful before I gave up and threw the rest of the carcasses away). Added salt and pepper. Added celery seeds. Prodded it a bit. Added parsley. Prodded more, added italian herb mix.

Added half the stock, raided the freezer for veges, could not find mixed veges was looking for, found corn, decided corn was good enough. Added 2c of corn (very, very approx).

Returned to stove, prodded soup with spoon some more.

Pondered addition of noodles. Didn’t really want to use instant noodles. Looked at spaghetti thoughtfully. Took serving of spaghetti, broke into small (~1 inch pieces), dumped in pan.

Prodded soup with spoon some more.

Made cornflour slurry, added that. Added dried potato flakes.

Wandered away from stove while stock reduced and spaghetti cooked.

Wandered back, ran out of patience, served soup to self.

Three cups of soup later, I have determined that a) this is delicious soup and b) I really should put the rest in the fridge now before I explode.

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.

Michele Collier – found here.

I want to give nothing
of myself today
and make a holy day
out of my sadness
and say no
to all requests
and wrap my heart
in warmth and comfort
and layered in blankets
I want to give nothing
of myself today
I want to be safe
alone and away
from the world
and all that it asks
and demands of me
I want to give nothing
of myself today
and tell all the beggars
at my door
to please go away
that my well is empty
that I have no more
and tell them
that they should know
that today is holy
and it is not a day
for giving alms
but a day for honoring
what we already have
hoarded and stored
and long forgotten
in our own hearts
I want to give nothing
of myself today
I want to stop and let
my tears fall
and feel them run
down my face
and drop
from my cheeks
and imagine
they are diamonds
that were created
by my own pain
and born
of my own heartache
and I want to love them
each and every one
and call them mine
I want to give nothing
of myself today
and if someone asks me
which way they should go
I will turn to them
and tell them
that I do not know
and that the blind
should never
lead the blind
and that today
I cannot see
I want to give nothing
of myself today
I want to love this day
and honor it
and all its emptiness
and call it mine
I want to give nothing
of myself today
no words or looks
and no touches
of my hem
until tomorrow
maybe then
I can give of love again.

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.

Because it needs to be captured off Facebook and available for posterity.

We’re dealing with a complex issue at work. It turns out probably not to be our ISP’s fault, but I started there as it appeared to be a bizarre network issue.

I am colossally unimpressed with the ‘technician’ that it was my ill fortune to get on the phone some hour+ ago – sufficiently so that I am actually complaining to our rep at Vendor about the fact that they are a colossal waste of space.
I am rather pleased with the last paragraph in my complaint email.
“I’d appreciate it if you could pull the call logs (or arrange for a supervisor to do the same, etc), so that this ‘engineer’ can perhaps have some training in active listening and customer service skills.”

Seriously, two days later I’m still proud of that line. I maintained my calm (verbally while ON the phone) about this muppet, and my complaint only requested some training, not any disciplinary action. I am SO PROUD of myself.
Comments, liveblogged from the call:

HE JUST CALLED ME MISS
I AM FUCKING 31 YEARS OLD
ohh, he’s working with a /colleague/
to make sure he sets up the packet trace correctly
I mean, I only know how to do them with Wireshark, and it’s a bit different inside other networking equipment but OMFG IT’S HIS ACTUAL JOB LIKE HIS ACTUAL. JOB.

He doesn’t know what srv DNS records are!! Hooray!!
THEY ARE BASIC INTERNET KNOWLEDGE AS A TECH
I just heard a Skype noise or possibly viber noise in the background.

AFTER EXPLAINING IN STUPIDLY CRUCIAL DETAIL OF HOW LYNC NEGOTIATES CONVERSATIONS OVER WHICH PORTS HE GETS IT. “But I don’t see that traffic in the trace?” YES EXACTLY THAT IS WHY I AM ON THE TELEPHONE WITH YOU

I’ve dealt with amazing engineers here before. It’s not their fault they work at Vendor, after all, and I try not to hassle them about it. They know their shit, they talk to me as though I am a fellow professional, and they get it done.
This guy though. This guy. Oh my god this guy. And come to think of it I couldn’t do this guy’s job – which is, you know, why we pay Vendor to do it for us. GUUUHHHH

AHAHHAAAAA I texted my mother to whinge.
“You may not love gardening but you sure know how to shovel ….!!! You make me proud. Mum.” N’awwww Mum.

He just apologised for taking too long & asking moderately stupid questions. MODERATELY STUPID WHAT THE FUCK

Around this time I apparently became overtired and thus somewhat silly.

(8:13pm) still not king.
2:39:15 on call, 8:28pm. Still not king.
3:00:00 on call. 8:50pm. Call automatically hung up.
My hair is the prettiest.
I kind of need to pee.
3:17 on phone. Still not king.

So that was Monday.
Across Tuesday, I basically failed to get any third parties to provide external assistance, logged calls with Microsoft Premier support, etc.

Anyway, after a LOT OF WORK with Vendor and Microsoft and some beating of my head against my desk, we’ve narrowed down the issue, and it’s horrific and snarly and DNS related and I can’t even HOW DID THIS BREAK IN THE FIRST PLACE WHAT IS GOING ON.

The email I sent my coworkers about it this evening was long & complex enough that I gave up & wrote an executive summary at the top.

I love my job, I really mostly do, and problems like this are amazing to deal with – you learn SO MUCH. In fact I had that conversation with a colleague who’s had some 50-odd years at Employer – he was very nicely correcting me on a technical point, and I cheerfully responded with a “great, thank you for pointing that out, please correct it when you escalate to OtherVendor!” He went quiet for a moment, so I pointed out that I don’t mind being told I’m wrong, because that means I LEARN A NEW THING, and new things are GREAT, more new things please! That also means less wrong things next time!! Win!!!!

I was overall correct, it was a technicality that needed to be corrected. Important, but not so important as to break my overall points of where the overall gnarly problem is happening. So, you know, my ego wasn’t bruised while I was being corrected, which probably helped.

I have returned home, eaten ALL OF THE PIZZA and drunken ALL OF THE CIDER, seen my bosses’ email where he asks for a dumbed down explanation in the morning, realised I’ve drowned myself in so much technical detail of things I only JUUUST grasp that I haven’t actually managed to swim to the surface yet, failed somewhat in acronyms while wishing the lovely housemate a happy birthday, and it is probably bedtime. Yes? Yes.

Originally published at kiwi geek. You can comment here or there.