Heh heh heh

I'm feeling good this morning after hearing that McCain has given up on Michigan. And my sister sent me this link to a hysterical Sarah Silverman video about the election called The Great Schlep. My favorite moment in it? When she compares "Yo!" and "Oy!" because Jews read from right to left.

And lowering my political anxiety means that I'm not expending a nutso amount of energy worrying and can instead focus on writing and food and some knitting. So here's an update:

WRITING
The writing is still going really well. It's pretty cool to sit down each day and be able to see and feel the shape of the whole book--it's like the book is a crossword puzzle I know I can complete, and I just have to keep plugging away and filling in the little boxes. Except that makes it sound tedious and it is actually really fun. I'm also fleshing out some of the supporting characters and liking them more and more as they develop.

FOOD
On the cooking front, I have a few plans. I have to try this recipe for Deconstructed Turkish Dumplings that was in the NYTimes food section recently. And there is another NYTimes recipe for Zucchini Egg Lemon Soup that I want to make before zucchini season is over. If I make it with yellow summer squash I might even be able to trick the small critter (who loves basic Avgolemeno soup) into eating it.

I'm also going through a little Korean food phase right now. This was triggered by a visit to the improbably named JC Rich restaurant. JC Rich is where Steve's Lunch used to be, but unlike Steve's, where you could get diner food like eggs and hash browns in addition to Korean food, JC Rich is all Korean. It is a happy discovery in the cheap/campus Korean category; far better than the (also deceptively named) Coffee Break Korean restaurant a few doors down on South University.

(I just did a little Googling and apparently the JC in the name stands for Jesus Christ. And someone noted that there are Korean translated bibles next to the salt shakers. Frankly, I was too busy woofing down the food to notice or care.)

Next time I go, I'll bring my camera. Brian and I went there on our gym/date night and I got my favorite, Dolsot Bi Bim Bop (Brian had spicy squid) and I thought it was really good--there was a wider variety of vegetables than you usually get at the cheap places (shitake mushrooms, spinach, cabbage, carrots, bean sprouts) to mix with the egg and beef. It came with little banchan portions of bean sprouts, pickled daikon and turnip kim chi that they refilled often. The portions were insane and if I had got regular Bi Bim Bop I might have eaten less (that is to say, a reasonable amount), but I love the crunchy rice crust that forms on the bottom of the stone bowl and so I ate my way to get to it. That's my excuse for gluttony and I'm sticking with it.

You'd think that eating so much would satiate my appetite for Korean but you'd be wrong! This week I made a trip to Manna International Foods/Korean grocery (on Broadway) and bought some supplies for home treats--a quantity of fresh kim chi (I love seeing the gallon sized jars in their coolers), mung bean pancake mix, some thin sliced beef for bulgogi and lovely vermicelli noodles for Chap Chae, which I haven't made in way too long. I have a quantity of scallions that are finally ready from my garden so I've been making kim chi scallion pancakes at every opportunity--I even had them for breakfast this morning and they go well with black coffee.

KNITTING
And knitting wise, I'm working my way up the sleeves for my Urban Aran. I've added a half-hour of knitting time to my week by signing the smaller critter up for a Little Ninja's Karate class. And the smartest thing I have done with this sweater is knitting the two cardigan fronts and the two sleeves at the same time. It is totally worth the hassle of untangling the double balls of yarn not to have to remember the changes I inevitably end up making to the pattern when working on the second sleeve or front. This may be the first really symmetrical sweater I knit...