Regular resolutions, a new twist, a new author and cookbooks!

Besides the annual themed resolutions, here at the SpSq household we make more pedestrian resolutions each year: lose weight, read books, eat whole grains and so forth.  For 2013 The Mister has resolved to cook more from our extensive cookbook collection.  We are going to hold him accountable, which I read every year is essential for successful resolutions, because he is going to publicly post the results here on Sparkling Squirrel
Welcome to The Mister (code name coderprof)!
The reading public anxiously awaits reports of your culinary adventures (and I like eating the food myself).

There must be acid in the air

I'm trying to wrap up acid year (you might recall these resolutions are on a lunar cycle, even though I have already started the new one) and acid ideas just keep popping up.
My brother and sister-in-law gave us more fermentation books for Christmas, I opened a (non-acid) new cookbook yesterday and the page fell to recipes for pickled carrots and kimchee and flipping through today's mail led me to a bon appetit article on making one's own vinegar with this conclusion:

Making vinegar reminds us of a love affair.  As in all great romances, you must pay attention to its needs, take care of it, and have patience as it ages and transforms into something beautiful.* 

Vinegar and love affairs: there is clearly still acid left for me to explore.
*Hamilton and Hirsheimer (2013) "Sour Grapes" bon appetit. February 2013.  p. 62.

Without any acid

Who is Santa's helper?

Another elf

Before sledding

Before sledding

Among some of their favorite people

I'm not adding any tart to these sweet photos.  Sorry if that screws up the balance of the blog.

"They'll be scary ghost stories"

I read two ghost stories last week (Author's note:  last week was Dec. 20 as of when I was first typing this).  Like most Americans, I don't think that Christmas is the season of ghost stories (see discussion in the comments of Wuthering Expectations here about cultural seasonality of ghost stories) so every time I sing along with Andy Williams  I wonder about the scary ghost stories I should expect along with "kids jingle belling" and "marshmallows for roasting" (at Christmastime?  Really?) during this most wonderful time of the year.  I also don't particularly like ghost stories, so I was surprised to find myself reading two of them in the week before Christmas.
A Christmas Carol, is, of course THE Christmas ghost story.  I had not read the original before and was pleased to find that it is fabulous.  Readers who find Victorian novelists in general, and Dickens in particular, to be cumbersome and intimidating, aren't thinking of the opening of A Christmas Carol:

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. . . .

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade.

Haven't you wondered what is dead about a door nail?

Dickens includes delectable (and unintimidating) descriptions of the produce and sweets.  The action moves at a good clip.  And while some readers might find it manipulative, I find it an indicator of good writing that tiny Tim's death made me cry because of the the way it changed his father's gait; even though I knew that Scrooge would reform and Tim would not die in the actual, rather than potential, future. 
If you've read A Christmas Carol recently, I'd love to discuss it with you, and it you haven't, you really should (although if I were you I'd wait another year because there is something special about reading it at the right time of the year).  Let me know.
As for the other ghost story: it was Jennifer Crusie's Maybe This Time, and it stunned me.  Crusie writes some of my favorite romantic comedies (I love lit professor Rohan Maitzen's explanation of why she enjoyed some of Crusie's novels despite not being a "romance reader").  All of them include quirky characters, who are rarely conventionally beautiful, living in Ohio.  Some of the more recent ones include some mystery or crime investigation, which is always secondary to the relationships.  None of the others have included ghosts.
Maybe This Time included hints of ghosts from the beginning, but I kept waiting for the big reveal.  As the action proceeded I became increasingly afraid that Crusie would totally Scoobie Do it: we'd suddenly realize it was just projectors, mirrors and an overuse of salvia, but equally worried with the alternative: that the ghosts in the story are really ghosts.  About ten pages from the end (despite the ghosts, it is a fun, fast read), I looked up and told The Mister, "There are ghosts in my book."  I couldn't quite believe it.  The Mister guessed I had to be talking about A Christmas Carol because the library romantic comedy I was holding in my hand clearly didn't have ghosts.  But it did.
As I look into it, I learn that Maybe This Time is based on The Turn of the Screw but, as I have never read any Henry James, I was completely unaware.  MTT would probably be a fun read for the person who is a fan of Henry James the way I am a fan of Jane Austen:  enjoying both the original and the sometimes silly derivatives.

Books, kids, flowers, recipes and vinegar all to come soon.  Stay tuned to Sparkling Squirrel!

Ceviche! Acidic Fish and Romantic Compatibility

Last night the Mister and I ate fish and mixed seafood ceviche at Ceviche House in Warr Acres (NW side of Oklahoma City).  Ceviche components can vary greatly, but it is typically a South American preparation of fish "cooked" in the acid of lime juice.  I use it as an example of denaturing proteins with changes in pH (rather than heat) every semester in my intro classes and I receive blank stares.  Last night the ceviche was very "bright", almost overwhelmingly so, and quite tasty.  The Mister's big dish of fish ended up being a bit too much of one thing; the soft texture of the fish calls for some contrast, which was provided by shrimp, mussels, calamari, corn nuts and some hominy on my plate.  A different use of acid than anything in my daily life.
We'd been talking about eating ceviche since I started acid year.  Last night seemed like a great opportunity because we had a babysitter and were heading into "the City" for a knife skills class, but as of 5:30, we thought we had been thwarted, again, and were happily eating Thai food next door to the closed Peruvian place.  The Mister inexplicably rushed us through the Thai meal and as we were pulling out of the strip mall, we simultaneously realized that he was under the impression that our class was starting a half hour earlier than it was and the ceviche restaurant was now open.  So we parked and had second dinner immediately after first.
That this is a fairly mundane story reflects how well-suited the Mister and I are for each other.  Most of my readers nodded through the previous paragraph and found nothing particularly unusual about us driving an hour and a half each way to take a knife skills class, eating highly-seasoned ethnic food, or calmly turning a miscommunication into a chance for bonus food. 
I'm aware that in the world at large, this combination might not be exactly normal.
Thanks to the Mister for sharing spicy brightness with me wherever we can find it.

Double Vinegar Could Choke A Man

Watching Top Chef last night, the Mister and I downed two shots of vinegar based on comments about acid and brightness from the judges.  I started with the very nice balsamic, which is smooth sweet and sipable.  The Mister started with the Spanish red wine vinegar.  He had hardly recovered when he had to take a shot of the sherry vinegar.  It's a good thing that we didn't need to drink every time balance (of which acid is a big component) was mentioned-- we would have ventured to the ume plum, black Chinese or coconut vinegar and the Mister might still look slapped and out of breath.
Next up on acid investigation: in cooking, differences between tart, acidic, citrus, sour and bitter.
When Gail suggests that I dish really needs acid, I don't think it's straight pH that she is talking about.  Pepsi is as acidic as most vinegar, but I don't think that's what she means when something needs a little acid.
How do you use these words when discussing food?

Next Week on Top Chef: The Vinegar Drinking Game

 Next week (or whenever we get around to watching it), the Mister and I will be watching "Top Chef" and doing a shot of vinegar every time Gail Simmons mentions acid; be it for brightness, for contrast, for balance, or just because a dish needed it.
Yep, that's what wild and crazy professor parents with a selection 18 vinegars do on a Thursday night.
Join us if you dare.