Jul. 8th, 2025 11:07 pm

I don't know what I expected

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I've been imagining an 'nduja and ricotta pasta, but my usual grocery store doesn't carry 'nduja. I happened to go to Fiesta Farms today (because I knew they'd have Ontario field-grown strawberries and raspberries), and on a hunch I scanned the shelves in front of their deli case, and I found exactly what I was looking for.

I put about half the little tube into a frying pan (~60g), waited for it to heat through and melt, then about a half cup of passata, and when that had reduced a little, 2-3 tablespoons of ricotta (really, just a goodly thwack of it), a little cream, and a couple of twists of black pepper. The whole sauce was done in the 10 minutes it took to get the noods al dente, which I then finished in the sauce with a little pasta water.

Except I was not prepared for the level of spice I have signed up for. Holy crow. The good news is that the flavour is excellent (smokey and rich) and the heat was actually well-balanced. It was just a lot.

I have enough to do this once more. I might try upping the cream/ricotta even further.

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Jul. 7th, 2025 11:28 pm

Weird ideas

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When I have an electrician in to do work in my kitchen, should I ask for a NEMA 6-15 receptacle borrowed off the oven outlet? The reason to do this is to get a UK kettle and then replace the BS 1363 plug (even though the UK plug, with its built-in fuse, is superior).

I drink tea every day, could very well be nicer to have a 3000W kettle that boils in seconds.

To really reach, there's even the Leviton BSRDP which will allow you to install a UK plug in a NEMA junction box with a Decora faceplate, but that's probably asking for trouble (not least of all because it's not CSA certified).

Jul. 6th, 2025 10:58 pm

Reunited

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My Saturday plans cancelled on me, so instead I took an Uber up to the parents' place, had dinner with them, and then after retrieved my road bike Chief Brodie from the basement. A pump-up of the tires was all it needed, and then I rode the 16km home.

In the good:

  • Clipless pedals are still fabulous for getting good power out of mediocre legs
    • Clipped in the whole way and I didn't fall over on stops!
  • Rides smooth and silent
  • The lowest gears will get me up the worst hills still
  • I found the lock/lights/panniers!

In the bad:

  • I bought the Chief in 2013 and it's starting to show: the plastic over the shift indexes is noticeably yellow, for example.
  • The right interrupter is starting to stick
  • The bar tape needs redoing
  • The setup is really aggressive, with a lot of weight on the arms whether I'm on the horns or the flats, to the point I find myself wondering if the Chief has always been the wrong size
  • The lights were all dead

My enjoyment of the ride was also strongly coloured by desperately needing a shit for the last 5km. It seems Friday's tacos, er, came home to roost. So I spent the last 20 minutes or so convincing myself I was only 10 minutes from home. I did make it, but having a highly distracting podcast on the bone conduction headphones certainly helped.

I'm going to ride the Chief around the neighbourhood (5-6km at the most) a few times this week and see how I feel about things now that I have it back. But first impressions are that while the Mundo can be unwieldy...maybe I prefer it in all scenarios anyway? It does have a more upright riding position and the electric assist. The Chief is just easier to park.

Jul. 5th, 2025 09:58 am

Grocery Game, July 2025.

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Quantity Item 7/5/25 Price
12 oz Nestle Toll House Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips $4.99
17 fl oz Private Selection Avocado Oil $9.29
20 oz Seattle's Best 6th Ave Bistro Dark Roast Ground Coffee $12.49
1 qt Kroger 2% Reduced Fat Milk $2.29
12 ct Kroger Medium White Eggs $1.99
18 ct Vital Farms Pasture-Raised Large Eggs $8.99
32 oz Kroger Wild Caught Pacific Cod Fillets Frozen BIG DEAL! $14.99
1 lb Perdue Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts $9.46
1 lb Black Seedless Grapes $6.58
1 ea Fresh Banana $1.24
1 pt Fresh Blueberries $3.99
1 lb Fresh Strawberries $2.79
1 ea Medium Avocado $1.25
Total: $80.34


The total cost of this grocery list decreased from $80.44 on June 2nd to $80.34. This is a decrease of $0.10 or 0.124%. These costs are 5.02% higher than they were on April 1st.
Jul. 3rd, 2025 10:11 pm

Food volume

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I always buy my deli meats by weight, but I make sandwiches by volume. Does this mean that I should take the density of the sausage into account? Should I make my sandwiches with the aid of a scale? Well, maybe if I cared more about how caloric they are.


Trying a new thing where I make a single serving of pasta at a time. 75g was too much orecchiette, 60g was maybe the right amount, but a sauce made from two strips of bacon reduced to lardons, half an onion, and then a about a third cup each of ricotta and passata was probably too much sauce. Was tasty, though.


I still have some Italian-style meatballs (about 100g each) so I took one, put it into a ripping hot cast iron, then squished it with my pressy-downy thingum. When a nice crust had developed, I painted the uncooked side with a little dijon, flipped it, pressed it again, and then when it seemed safe, put a slice of mozzarella on it, covered briefly, and then served it on an Ace Bakery roll with more dijon and some jarred roasted red peppers.

My theory was that by treating it like a burger should have been good, and it was, mostly. While mustard-grilling beef patties works well, I don't think I would do that to ground pork again. Also, I'm using cheese pre-sliced for sandwiches, and I might double up if I do that again.

Which I probably will, since I still have one sausage ball left, and those don't keep. Maybe a little passata on the bun? I've got that, too.

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Jun. 30th, 2025 05:31 pm

Extremely short movie reviews

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Equilibrium edition.

Whoever came up with their "gun kata" has no idea how guns (or, indeed, fighting) actually works. The plot is largely pastiche of grimdark fascist dystopias that came before (1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, The Giver), from the brutalism to the "underground resistance that has colours" to the "bad guys have British accents" trope.

I will complement the tailoring, however, because it's not easy to get jackets with mandarin collars to fit like that, plus they actually had an excellent execution of frogmouth lapels (on the miniboss), which is pretty rare.

2/4. The whole aesthetic is still very heavily 90s, which I guess makes sense because principal photography was done in late 2000 (despite the film coming out in late 2002).

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Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pm

Rebuilding journal search again

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We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.
Jun. 26th, 2025 11:25 pm

In lieu of actual content

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Milk'n Blues — Is There Anybody There

I think I got into this because ~the algorithm~ suggested to me their Smooth Operator+Secret mashup (which is also great), probably because I had been watching a bunch of Pomplamoose videos. I'll take blues-rock with a killer harmonica (doubling on vocals!), sure.

While the bulk of their material is pre-pandemic, this band is still going...based in Curitiba, Brazil. So I don't think I'll be hitting one of their gigs any time soon.

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