It's October! Welcome to CHAOS BAKING!

I know a couple of people who are afraid to bake. They're good cooks, but something always seems to go wrong when they slide cookies or bread or some kind of baked good into the oven. And I can see why they're nervous about baking. We've been practically brainwashed to believe that baking requires precision measurements, careful treatment of every ingredient, and an oven calibrated to the perfect temperature if we're going to get a quality result.

Nonetheless, every now and then it's worth attempting some chaos baking -- just making stuff up to see what happens.

It's easy to forget that people have been making baked goods for a long time, and for most of that time baking was much more a seat-of-the-pants process than it is now. Medieval baking required working with rustic, unsifted flour and a sourdough starter, using no standard measurements to bring a dough together, heating an earthen oven with a wood fire for many hours, then raking everything out so there would be no ash on the bread, then carefully sliding the loaves in, sealing the entry shut with a wooden door that had been soaking in cold water for hours so it wouldn't burn, and leaving the loaves in long enough to bake them through but not long enough to dry them out or scorch them. One way to check oven temperature back then was to toss in a little raw flour; if it turned brown the oven was ready, but if it turned black the oven was too hot.

If medieval peasants could successfully make bread with no measuring cups, no electricity, not even a set recipe -- then we can go a little off script with our baking and still turn out something worth eating.

You want proof? Here ya go!

Right now I have a whole lot of milk that's just gone sour (about 4 cups total), and I'm wanting to do something with it before it actually spoils. Thing is, milk that's just barely soured may not be great on your breakfast cereal, but it's still fine for baking and can be used, cup for cup, as a substitute for buttermilk in most baked goods. I'd just settled on making a homemade sour milk spice cake when I went to the store for supplies.

Well, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a pile of Betty Crocker cake mixes for 98 cents apiece. In this economy, that's hard to beat; I haven't done the math but I'm not sure I could make a cake from scratch at that price. There was no spice cake mix on sale (or even available for purchase), but that wasn't going to stop me. So I changed my mind and grabbed a yellow cake mix. (Also impulsively picked up a six-count of pumpkin spice flavored old-fashioned donuts, which will be important later.)

In the car on the way back from the store, I ate too many of those donuts. Yeah, sometimes I'm not very smart. Captain Midnight doesn't care for old-fashioned donuts and is neutral about pumpkin spice stuff, so I knew he wouldn't want any of the remaining donuts. He doesn't even like frosting on his cake. This spice cake is probably going to be pretty plain --

Oh hey. No it isn't. I have a potentially brilliant idea.

I mixed up the cake mix mostly according to directions, swapping in a cup of sour milk instead of a cup of water, and adding 1/2 t. allspice, 1/4 t. cinnamon and 1/8 t. nutmeg to the mix. (Now it's a spice cake! There ya go.) Poured it into a greased 9x13" glass pan, then did the brilliant thing: I dropped the remaining pumpkin spice donuts into a bag, mashed them into crumbs and used them as a streusel topping to scatter over the top of the cake batter. Baked about 25 minutes in a moderate oven.

Here's the result.

I didn't even wait for the cake to cool down, I just cut myself a corner piece.

NOM.

This is good, but if anything, this doctored spice cake needs even MORE spice. (My English ancestors didn't do insane things to find better spice routes just for their descendants to be terrified of "1/4 t. black pepper" in a recipe, dangit!) I'd at least double the amount of spices if I were to make this again. As it is, though, it's delicious all on its own and would also be great covered with whipped cream or served a la mode. There's no indication in look or taste that this cake was made with sour milk. And the streusel topping was a genius idea -- soft, light cake covered by a crunchy, sugary, spicy topping.

In fact, it was so tasty that the minute I left the kitchen, Charlie-cat jumped up on the counter and helped himself to a big mouthful of cooling cake. BAD CHARLIE. NOT FOR YOU. So now the cake is safely cooling in the oven with the door cracked open because our cats are mad jonesing for our chaos baking experiments.

GROW, my pretties!

Got a minute? I gotta share with you this thing I've got going on my back porch.

(No, nothing like that, don't make it weird.)

I can hear some of you now saying, "Okaaaay, Sooz, you have a veggie and two herbs growing in cut-down gallon milk jugs. Yippee. Whaddyawant, a gold star?"

Listen, I can't properly explain how nuts this is. Ordinarily, I'm Plant Medusa. All I need to do is glance their way and plants shrivel and die. I haven't had real house plants in my place for ages because I forget to care for them and they perish and then I feel guilty about it.

And yet. Chard and coriander and basil are starting to FLOURISH on my back porch. (Not to mention the mysterious air plant at the upper right.) I mean, the chard's getting to a point where I'll need to chop it into quarters soon and give each quarter its own, more spacious pot.

Which leads me to ask: What in tarnation's goin' on hyar?

All I can figure is that the fairy who moved in here around the same time we did has a green thumb and a fondness for culinary herbs.

She also has a thing for Tolkien

Thanks, good neighbor! Take as much as you want!

Blam This Piece of Crap Day: Let's blam some Spam! (Plus bonus blamming)

Well, it's the day you've all been waiting for!

I'll admit, I didn't think up a good idea to celebrate BTPoC Day until it was upon us. But then I realized I had not one, but two different examples of BLAMming ready to go.

Let's cover the tastiest one first: Spam fried rice. This recipe was slightly modified from one made by Seonkyoung Longest and it is YUM.

Yeah, yeah, Spam is a registered trademark, yadda yadda, bite me, Hormel. Anyway, this can be made with any kind of "canned luncheon meat" you have on hand, as long as the flavor isn't too exotic. I recommend using lower-sodium generic spam if you can find it, because the sauce we're gonna make for this has a fair amount of sodium already.

I have long held a pink-meat prejudice that dates from my teenhood, when my working mom would occasionally make jazzed-up ramen for dinner. If I came in late for dinner, which I occasionally did, I'd get ramen noodles so soft they were falling apart, garnished with shriveled peas and cold chunks of spam. Bluergh. So for a long time I wouldn't eat spam. This recipe brought me around to liking it again. Maybe you'll feel the same way.

Anyhoo, get that spam out of the can and cut it into 1/4" thick slices, then into dice.

And if you have cats, better put them somewhere else. Charlie and Millie became very interested in our kitchen-related doings the minute they heard that can open. But spam of any kind has too much fat and salt and mystery amendments to be good for them. (Sorry, kittens)

Four eggs. There go our next four mortgage payments. Scramble 'em up.

A medium-sized white/yellow/brown onion, chopped or diced. This is optional, but Captain Midnight likes it.

A few cloves of garlic, finely chopped, minced or pressed. You can add as much or as little as you like, but at least three good-sized cloves, I think. 

A whole lotta rice ("6 cups," says Captain Midnight). It doesn't have to be fresh from the rice cooker, like this. In fact, fried rice benefits from using rice that's a day old and starting to dry out. (Yes, another piece of crap to BLAM!)

Also a whole lotta green onions. Use these even if you don't use the white onion; they taste different and a little bit set aside makes a very pretty garnish for the finished bowl.
 

Homemade teriyaki sauce. Refer to the Seonkyoung Longest recipe for full details because I'm lazy.

Oh, okaaaaay. Briefly: 2 parts soy sauce, 2 parts sake, 2 parts mirin, 1 part sugar. For this batch of fried rice, we did "tablespoons" for parts. You can scale it up or down depending on your tastes and how large a batch you're making.

And, of course, a wok. No, it doesn't have to be 35 years old like this one. You don't even need a wok, but you do need a pan that can handle high heat and a lot of fast sauteing, and has enough volume to hold a lot of rice.

Not shown, but used: vegetable oil, a little sesame oil, some cut-up slivers of nori if you like it, and some sesame seeds. And maybe some sriracha.

Now, what happened next went fast enough that I didn't take pictures, but:

Captain Midnight prepped all the ingredients beforehand. He got the wok screaming hot (yay gas stove!) and put in a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil. When it was hot, he threw in the egg. It immediately puffed around the edges. He tossed the egg around until it was about three-quarters cooked, then fished it all out into a bowl. Then he added a tiny bit of oil and the chunks of spam. These he cooked, gently moving them constantly, until they started to get crispy (the first rule of improving spam: improve the texture). Once they were nice and crisped up, he fished them out so he could cook the yellow onion. (If you're not using this, don't take out the spam; just move right on to the garlic.)

Onion in. He cooked it just until it softened and started to brown. Then in went the garlic, and he tossed it around just until it started to smell good. Back in with the spam; added the rice. He stirred it about until things were well incorporated, then drizzled the teriyaki sauce around the edges of the wok. That was thoroughly mixed in. As the rice absorbed the sauce and started to get dry again, he threw the egg back in and chopped it up a bit (you want fairly large chunks of egg in this -- I mean, if you're going to pay for eggs, you might as well be able to taste them!). Off the heat, he added just a touch of sesame oil for flavor, three-quarters of the green onions, some sesame seeds, gave it all a good toss and it was ready.

This was promptly plated up and sprinkled with additional green onions.

I prefer my fried rice without nori on top.

Captain Midnight prefers his with LOTS of nori on top. And some sriracha for good measure.

Remember what I said about the cats? Yup.

No, Millie, you cannot have some.

Both the cats did get some strips of nori, aka Tasty Green Fish Paper. And great was the omming and nomming thereof. So a good time was had by all.

And now for the Bonus Blam: a thrift store special!

About two weeks ago I ventured into the local Goodwill looking for sundries. What I found was a very large ball of red yarn with three sets of knitting needles shanked into the middle of it. Whoever had owned it before had started knitting a scarf with it, but had gotten bored with the project and ended up donating it to Goodwill.

Well, I ripped it back to the beginning, and after two or three tries with different patterns, I finally settled on this one.

This is variously called a basketweave or checkerboard pattern, it's fully reversible and it works up fast enough that even though I'm a slow knitter, it's nearly done. I will either give it to the Red Scarf Project or pass it on to someone else in the community who needs or wants it.

So that was our Blam This Piece of Crap Day. How was yours?

Great googly moogly!

You know what happens when Sooz a) is kinda bored and b) has craft items in her possession?

Yep. You get a random case of the googlies.

Googly Daruma!

Googly Dalahäst!

Googly washing machine!

Even googly sister collage portrait! Because that's how we roll around here.

(Great, now her googly eyes follow me everywhere. Creeeeeepy.)

Blam This Piece of Crap Day 2022: fridge velcro quiche!

So I took my own sweet time figuring out how to turn something from meh to marvelous for Blam This Piece of Crap Day this year. As a result, when the day finally arrived I had to hustle something up pronto. And the most obvious decision was to make some kind of fridge velcro.

I'm not absolutely certain about the origins of the phrase "fridge velcro" -- it might be an Alton Brown thing -- but in this household it refers to certain foods (quiche, casseroles, soup, etc.) where most of the odds and ends of things you have lurking in your fridge will "stick" to the recipe. Make something tasty and clean out a major appliance at the same time!

Considering the number of marked-down supermarket specials, various containers of leftovers, and the quantity of eggs we had in the chiller, I decided to make a fridge velcro quiche.

Now behold its slung-together glory!

Crust: leftover rice.

Filling: sautéed red onion, marked-down mushrooms, one sad Roma tomato cut to bits and sautéed with slightly wilted green onions (both came back to life in the pan), a marked-down turkey kielbasa cut into bits and sautéed until piping hot, marked-down chêvre blended with four eggs and a splash of milk, various grated ends and pieces of cheese, all slooshed together and poured into the crust. Deeeeelicious (if a little goaty, but I happen to like that quality).

I didn't set a timer and forgot about the quiche in the oven (so, ADD Brain, we meet again.), so it got a little more brown on top than is normal for a quiche, but it's still delicious. I had a test piece to make sure. And since quiche is good served either hot or cold, we'll have meals for a couple of days off this baby.

I also had a little bit of leftover Nutella, so I made some Nutella hot chocolate (heat some milk until it's hot but not boiling, add Nutella -- I'd say about a tablespoon of Nutella per cup of milk, but you do you -- and whisk until it dissolves. Add a touch of vanilla extract if you want, or just drink your deliciously rich hazelnut hot chocolate as is).

ALL HAIL BTPOC DAY! *slurp* aaaah, chocolate.

The Grammar Pedant: Nauseous vs. nauseated

Greetings, pedants! I didn't think I would do another Grammar Pedant post for a while, but I heard something today that made me twitch, so here we are.

Today we're going to talk about a useful, but widely misused word:

NAUSEOUS.

This misuse isn't limited to the Illiterati. I've heard far too many otherwise word-savvy people say things like, "I ate cold leftover pizza for breakfast and it's not sitting right; I'm super nauseous," or "I think I might be coming down with something; I've felt nauseous for the last hour." I always feel slightly embarrassed when I hear comments like this, because the primary definition for "nauseous" is "sickening, disgusting, or causing others to feel sickness." Barf on the sidewalk is nauseous. Dogs consuming their own poop are nauseous. People with furry green teeth and paint-peeling bad breath are nauseous. I sincerely hope that you are never nauseous to anyone.

So what's the word to use if you feel sick or disgusted by something? That word, my dear friends and fellow pedants, is

NAUSEATED.

The definition for this word is "feeling a sickness in the stomach associated with the urge to vomit," and it's the one you need if you are feeling ill. (Not if you're making other people retch and spew due to your funky oral hygiene and whatnot.)

So. "Nauseated" = "I feel sick." "Nauseous" = "I make other people feel sick."

One potential way to remember the difference between the two words is that "nauseated" contains the full root word "nausea" within it, while "nauseous" does not.

That's all for now, and remember -- the English language is a terrible thing to waste.

How to blam a piece of crap

So, since February 3rd is Blam This Piece of Crap Day in our household (it can be in yours, too! Try it, it's fun!), I thought it might be worthwhile to show y'all an example of how a piece of crap can be BLAMmed up into something better.

Exhibit A: canned beef chunks in water.

I've had these canned beef chunks in our food storage for quite some time. While they are not horrible by any means, they tend to look rather off-putting when they first come out of the can, like something you might feed to a dog.

(Foties from here on out by Captain Midnight. Thanks, honey!)

Here, Fido

Appearance, however, isn't as important as taste. See, this canned beef was designed to be part of a long-term food storage solution. I want to use it up before it loses significant nutritive value. Canned meat works fine in any application that might use leftover cooked meat; it makes decent chili, for instance. But at this point in its shelf life, canned beef often tastes more like can than beef. If you make beef enchiladas out of this, you will taste the canned flavor. If you make deviled meat for sandwiches, you will taste the canned flavor.

I do not want to taste that can. I do not like it, Sam-I-Am.

So whatever I make with this will have to be flavorful enough to defeat the taste of the can.

Fortunately, I know just the thing, because I watch the Future Neighbor channel on YouTube. I'm gonna BLAM this can into a spicy red-pepper-based stew over rice!

Ingredients assemble!

For those of you who are Korean or who cook Korean on the regular, yes, this is an adaptation of gochujang-jjigae. Yes, OF COURSE it tastes better with fresh beef/pork/chicken and otherwise more authentic ingredients. But it was surprisingly delicious just using up what I had. (In fact, to complete this dish, I had to buy exactly one item from the store: a jalapeño pepper. I thought I had one, but it had been sitting in the fridge too long and had started growing its own little civilization, and eating volunteer mold is never a good idea.)

Not shown: the pepper I had to buy and some soy sauce, because, um, I forgot this recipe had soy sauce. I did add it later.

In addition to the beef chunks, there was a handful of mushrooms of questionable provenance which I wanted to use up, as well as some leftover rice and a rather sad-looking old potato.

Let's do this.

Mise-en-place

In the center: gochujang, a traditional Korean fermented red pepper paste with tons of fabulous flavor. Around it: half a white onion, the aforementioned jalapeño, mushroom soaking water, mushrooms, green onions, the peeled and thinly sliced potato, and about 2 tablespoons minced garlic. Oh yeah.

Let's drain and rinse those beef chunks. They look better already.

Time to put a wok or other large saucepan over low to medium-low heat, and add some neutral cooking oil and some sesame oil. It immediately starts to smell good.

When the oil is hot, you slide in the gochujang paste and cook until it starts bubbling and changing the color of the oil. Mmmm. Then you throw in about a tablespoon of gochugaru (red pepper flakes)...

Mmm, gochujang broth.

...and immediately follow that with a few cups of water (we added the mushroom soaking liquid to this), bringing the whole thing up to a boil.

Bubbling broth!

Here you add the potato, garlic, some soy sauce and some fish sauce. If we'd been using fresh beef, this is where we would have added that -- but since canned beef is so soft it will fall apart if you look at it too long, we decided to wait until later in the cooking process to fling it in.

This bubbles away for about 5 minutes, letting all the flavors get to know each other and giving the fish sauce some time to settle down.

Getting chunkier

At this point you add the white onion, mushrooms and jalapeño. Bring it back to a boil...

And into the drink they go!

...add the beef chunks, gently stir to break them apart, and let the stew bubble for another 7 to 10 minutes, or until the potato pieces are soft enough to eat.

Is it stew yet?

When the potatoes are soft, sprinkle over some of the green onions, turn off the heat and let the stew sit for 10 minutes to allow the flavors to relax. Check for seasoning -- if it's too salty, add a splash of water.

Done!

The stew is now complete. Heat up your rice and plate that thing up.

All ready to eat

Put rice in bowl. Put stew on rice. Put green onions on stew.
Put spoon in bowl. Put spoon in face. Repeat until gone.

Nom.

And that, my friends, is how you BLAM a piece of crap.

The Grammar Pedant: jealousy vs. envy

(Ye Olde Plague of 2020 is still going on, but I'm tired of writing about it -- especially since hearing an envoy from the WHO say that COVID-19 is likely to be a "constant threat" until such time as a vaccine is found, which is not likely to happen within a year. So to avoid gorily detailed thoughts of wrist slitting in the face of interminable social distancing measures, let's turn to lighter fare, shall we?)

REETINGS, PEDANTS. Let's talk for a minute about the important differences between two words that are often, but incorrectly, used as synonyms:

JEALOUSY and ENVY.

What do these two words really mean? How are they similar, and how are they different?

Well, first of all, both words have to do with an imbalance, real or perceived, in states of being between two or more people. Because of this, both words are sometimes (wrongly) used as synonymous with the rare-outside-Bible-study word "covetousness" (or the even older Latin word "cupidity"). Both these words indicate a strong desire for something, to the point of doing terrible things to achieve or possess it (which is probably why one of the Ten Commandments specifies covetousness as a thou-shalt-not activity). And both words have to do with enmity -- the act of declaring someone your enemy, or feeling a bitter hatred directed at another person or group.

But there are some subtle yet important differences between the two words. Jealousy (a word which began its life describing a kind of sexual possessiveness and the associated distrust that often comes with it) is fear that one will lose a treasured thing in one's possession -- youth, beauty, popularity, wealth, love. For instance, the wicked Queen in Snow White is jealous of the young princess's innocent beauty, fearing that she will soon lose the title of "fairest in the land." Envy, on the other hand, means hatred or malice toward another -- specifically because that other has something we intensely desire. You could say (and I will, because this is my blog) that some people look at "the 1%," the wealthiest people in the world, with a sharp sense of envy -- either they want the money and power that this group enjoys, or they simply want to destroy that money and power so no one has it.

While the two words are similar, there are also overtones of polar opposition in their definitions; one could say that jealousy is a feeling inspired by fear (of loss), while envy is a feeling inspired by desire (to possess or destroy).

Put simply: if someone else has something and you want it, you're envious. If you have something and you don't want anyone to take it away, you're jealous.

So the next time you're tempted to call someone jealous when that person is really envious, take a minute to reconsider your word choice. Words mean things!

That's all for now, and remember: the English language is a terrible thing to waste.

A quick announcement

I've been sitting on this juicy tidbit for weeks, but since there was an official announcement today:

Remember a creepy little short story called "Alma Mater" that I first published here?

Well, now it's going to be published again, this time in a light horror anthology called Twilight Tales. Woot woot!

OK, that's it, moment of vainglorious authorial squeeing over. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Internet surfing.

What does Soozcat do all day, you ask? Here we go.

Making semi-homemade baked beans today. (This involves rough chopping a small onion and cutting up some pork product -- some days it's bacon, others it's kielbasa, depending on what needs using up -- sautéeing them in a medium-hot pan until the onions start to get soft, then opening up a couple cans of pork and beans, adding them to the pan along with a good squirt of ketchup, some spicy brown mustard, a shot or two of Worcestershire, a bit of liquid smoke and some kind of sweetener -- this time it was apricot preserves instead of brown sugar because I'm all fancy-pants like that -- putting everything into a casserole dish and cooking at 200 degrees for a couple hours, or until it's thick and bubbly and delectable. Nom.) I'll whang together a green salad later, and that'll be dinner done.

No, I didn't use these. Though they are pretty tasty.

Also running a hot bleach load fulla whites and some fabric yardage Miss V wanted preshrunk before it was sent to her. I'm hoping I cut enough of it to account for shrinkage, but we'll see. And later I need to unload the dishwasher.

Meanwhile, in errands, my Doomed Quest for Packing Peanuts continues. You'd think packing peanuts would be available for sale everywhere. Nope. I've been to four different businesses today, with no joy. The only glimmer of hope so far was at Staples, where they had a tiny bag for inflated prices. I AM DISAPPOINT, but I'm also tenacious. I'm certain U-Haul or the UPS Store will have what I need, at a price I'm willing to pay.

Also on the list today: 120 grit sandpaper, Mountain Dew, kitty litter, replacement shovel (ours did a bunk a while back when someone borrowed it for a Boy Scout Eagle project) and ice cream sandwiches. Hmm. I'm pretty sure I know who added that last entry.

I'd be off to Git Stuff Dun, only Roxy-cat jumped up onto the desk while I was typing and has settled down between my arms to take a nap. AAAAH PINIONED TO THE SPOT BY FUZZY CUTENESS. I must gnaw off a limb and flee!

Complete! Yay!

In the interest of full disclosure (and shameless bragging rights), I have finished another scarf. And it is a non-Red-Scarf-Project scarf, even.

Nope. This one is, selfishly, for me.

This is a multidirectional diagonal scarf, knitted in one piece from variegated self-striping yarn, using short row shaping. I've been working on this thing on and off (mostly off) for the last five years without finishing it, mostly because the last triangle to be completed has a fiddly bit of knitting that I was worried about screwing up. (I actually did screw it up on the first try and had to rip it back and give it another shot, whereupon it worked correctly.)

Let the record state that this puppy wraps around my neck TWICE and still has plenty of dangle left over. It is eleven feet long and soft and full of rainbow colors, and it is glorious, my friends. I am SO pleased with it.

AND SEE? I GET STUFF DONE!

woot

You complete me. Please.

OK, as part of my "do the hard things" resolution, I'm looking to finish a lot of stuff this year. Like most people on the ADD spectrum, I'm really, really good at starting projects, but somewhere along the way my interest peters out, I get distracted by something new and shiny, or I get concerned that I'm going to screw it up somehow, and I abandon them. As a result, I don't need to start any new projects right now, as I already have kajillions of projects around the house in various states of incompletion.

This shall not stand. Most of these were good to great projects before I let them down. And I'm finding that once I go back to work on them, especially after a long breather, I have renewed motivation to see them through to completion. So far I've got three red scarves ready to put in the Red Scarf Box for next year, a fourth scarf so close to done that I can see the finish line from here, and... well, at least three others that will have to wait while I finish a cross-stitch project that's about 60% complete. After a multiple-month hiatus, I've also started writing the next chunk of Moving House. I may even get some forward movement on Unseen (though I'm loath to promise anything concrete on that project, as it's given me a fierce case of writer's block).

It's hard, but I can get things done. I WILL get things done.

SO LET'S GIT STUFF DUN!

And look good while doing it!

The Grammar Pedant: unique

Greetings, pedants!

About five years ago I posted a Grammar Pedant video on YouTube, and almost immediately regretted it -- mostly because I didn't like putting my goofy mug on YouTube. And frankly, even though I'm still putting my mug on YouTube these days (warning: these videos will not be at all interesting unless you're considering duodenal switch surgery), I'm still not comfortable doing it. So, rather than shooting another Grammar Pedant video, we're just going to cover it here. Right? Right.

Today we need to talk about the flagrant abuse of a marvelous word:

UNIQUE.

The Illiterati keep slapping needless modifiers on this adjective, because they don't understand what it means. "Unique" is not, and was never meant to be, a synonym for "unusual." NO, people. Let's look at the etymology:

Unique is a French loan word, derived from the Latin word unicus, from unus or "one." Other words with roots in unicus include unicycle (one wheel), unicorn (one horn), unify (to make one), etc. Notice all those "one" words? I imagine the more perspicacious among us can see where I'm going with this.

When a person, place, thing or concept is unique, there is only one of it in the known world. It is one of a kind. Thus "unique" is a binary adjective; either something is unique, or it is not. There's no "quite unique," no "very unique," no "somewhat unique" or "rather unique" or any other qualifiers to prop up the word. "Unique" prefers to stand on its own. Use it only to describe something that has no peer.

If you're looking for an adjective to describe a rare or unusual item, try "uncommon," "unexpected," "atypical," "different," "creative" or "surprising." All these words yearn to be dusted off and used correctly. SO DO IT!

That's all for now, and remember: the English language is a terrible thing to waste.

On the mend. Slowly. (Plus bonus video)

It embarrasses me to admit this, but I haven't left the house since I came home from the hospital on Saturday. I've been too weak and in too much pain to do anything outside.

BUT! Friends have been so kind and thoughtful since I've been home, asking what they could do to help. Friends brought dinner for CM and V, they brought flowers to brighten the kitchen, they brought puzzle books and copies of Scientific American and snack packs of sugar-free Jello. (I have had SO. MUCH. JELLO in the past week. If you are what you eat, I am now a quivering blob of red Jello. But when your surgeon has decreed no solid food for four weeks post surgery, you get that sense of "eating" any way you can.) Their kindness kept me going on days when I questioned whether I'd made the right choice. I'm very fortunate to have family and friends who are a solid support group.

Perversely enough, since I've been home the thing I've wanted to do most is cook. I've made dinner for the fam almost every day this week. I've also been going through our overstuffed freezer, unearthing various objects of mystery and defrosting them to determine their identity. So far I've made a big cauldron of turkey broth, a small batch of ham broth (broths are on the list of items I can ingest for the next four weeks, so I'm making the most of it), and a meatball meal from the depths of the freezer. Tonight's mystery freezer package turned out to be halibut. Hope the fam enjoys it!

I've also been using my copious free time to watch first-person accounts of people who had DS surgery on YouTube. And one of the things I've noticed is that my experience was, well, not entirely similar to theirs. So at risk of boring you all to tears, CM and I made a video!

1) Yes, I know I look like very hell. I'm not wearing any makeup, I'm still in a fair amount of pain and I'm recovering from major surgery conducted just over a week ago. Cut me some slack.

2) Since this was recorded completely off the cuff with no notes, I meandered a bit. Next time I'll try to tighten it up.

I hope this will be useful to someone who a) is thinking about having DS surgery, b) just had DS surgery and is not feeling at all chipper about it. Not everyone who has bariatric surgery experiences ideal outcomes, especially in the first week, and I think that's worth knowing -- especially if, like me, you're questioning your decision the first few days after surgery, when you're swollen and bruised and miserable and the only time it doesn't hurt is when you're flat on your back in bed. People need to know that it does get better.

Sooz Makes Stuff: altered greeting cards

(This idea seems so self-evident that although I came up with it on my own, I'm certain I wasn't the first to do so. However, when I searched for "altered greeting cards," most of the hits described ways to modify the chip in an audio greeting card. This is not that kind of alteration.)

I have a slightly quixotic love for snailmail. There's nothing wrong with email -- it's both faster and (usually) more likely to reach its destination -- but as we march inexorably toward all-electronic communications, the odd snailmail letter or postcard becomes more cherished by those who receive one. There's something both vital and elegant about a real piece of physical mail, one that isn't advertising anything, that someone took the time to write, address and send just to you.

So although I send emails and texts every day, I also send out snailmail birthday cards, anniversary cards and thank-you notes. Occasionally I make my own cards, but I usually find nifty cards made by someone else. This isn't obscenely expensive, since I know where to shop; I buy birthday cards for great prices at Half Price Books, and low-priced anniversary cards and thank-you notes at Dollar Tree and Trader Joe's (the latter has a wide range of attractive cards for the bargain price of 99 cents). I don't often bother with secondhand cards, but it's possible to find cheap gems at Goodwill, Value Village or creative reuse centers.

There is, however, a potential problem with picking up greeting cards at a discount: substandard sentiment inside. Let's say you've found a frugal anniversary card with an attractive cover, but the inner content is a little blah or too syrupy for your liking. Could you write better content? Of course you could. SO LET'S FIX THAT GLURGE.

Outside = purty!

You will need:

• a nice-looking greeting card with meh inner content
• a glue stick
• heavy white paper or light cardstock, and/or a scrap of colored cardstock that matches the colors of the card
• a computer, printer and word processing program (or mad calligraphy skills)
• a rotary cutter and mat (or a straightedge, a pair of scissors and surgeon-steady hands)

Well, it's not bad... but we can make it better.

Write some content to replace the sentimental glurge inside your greeting card. You may choose to make it funnier, or to personalize it for the recipient. (Mine is going to a couple that really loves good chocolate.) It may take more than one draft. Take your time.

Once you have your replacement content just right, put your printer to work. If you're me (and I am), you have a basic black laser-jet printer. But that's OK, because most inner content of inexpensive greeting cards is in black and white anyway. Crank up the word processing program of your choice (yay WordPerfect!) and find a font that matches or closely resembles the one on the outside of the card. Type up your new content, working until you get the font size and line breaks just right, then print a test run. Check to make sure it fits inside the greeting card and covers the existing sentiment. Once you've got it the way you want it, pull out your heavy white paper and print up your new content. (Alternatively, you can bust out your mad calligraphy skills to write the new content just so.)

What, you were expecting Shakespeare?

Cut your content down to size with your rotary cutter and mat. Chances are good that, unless you used really heavy paper, you'll still be able to see traces of the old sentiment behind it. Never fear! Paste your content onto a scrap of colored cardstock that matches the outside colors of the card, then cut it down to size with your trusty rotary cutter (this is way easier than cutting the cardstock first, then trying to center and paste down your content by sheer eyeballing. Learn from my MANY fails).

Turn over the cardstock-mounted content and slather the back of that thang with glue stick. Make sure you get it all the way out to the corners. Now flip it over, carefully take it by the edges and position it lightly over the original glurge. Center it very carefully. When you're sure you've got it just right, gently press your new content down onto the card, starting at the center and working out to the edges.

Ta-daa.

If it doesn't lie flat, stick it between two heavy books to dry and smooth down overnight.

All done! Now all I have to do is add our signatures, slip in a little gift card from a local chocolate company and we're ready to roll.

When life gives you Peeps...

It's been nearly three weeks since Easter, and if you can find leftover Easter candy on sale at this point you may notice that it is SUPER CHEAP. At least that's what I noticed today.

This is just a small part of today's trove of cheap sugary goodness.
Only 15 cents aPeeps, erm, apiece. Not too shabby.

And, as often occurs to me when chocolate and other goodies start getting marked down to 90%+ off their original retail price, my marshmallow fudge recipe doesn't care whether the necessary 16 oz. of chocolate comes in chocolate chip form or cut-up solid chocolate Easter bunny form. Likewise, a cup of marshmallow creme equals a cup of mini-marshmallows equals a cup of cut-up Easter Peeps. (That's really all Peeps are -- specialty-shaped marshmallows dusted with food coloring -- so you can use them in almost any recipe that calls for marshmallows. Peep S'mores are especially satisfying to make, because you first roast and then squish that Peep. Muahahaha.)

So when life gives you cheap Peeps, make marshmallow fudge. It's what I'd do.

In fact, I think I'll go do it right now. TTFN!

May you be in heaven a full half-hour before the devil knows you're dead.

In the United States, there are a few regulation ways to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. But since we're not drinkers, we settled for delicious food.

Most years, we make corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots in the slow cooker, and dose all with lashings of horseradish sauce.

This year, though, we mixed things up a bit and made colcannon instead. That's the lovely green stuff at upper left -- a savory blend of mashed potatoes, leeks, kale, green onions and LOTS of butter. (And don't tell, because it's not traditional, but I might have slipped a clove or two of garlic into the greens. sssh.)

Corned beef, colcannon and carrots. This plate was brought to you by the letter C.

Captain Midnight (also brought to you by the letter C) added some soft boiled garlic cloves and horseradish sauce to his plate, because reasons.

And he pronounced it NOM.

Alas, Roxy-cat will not get any corned beef leftovers. Because we NEVER have corned beef leftovers in this house.