House of Roses

April Meat Haul

Just a little under ten pounds this month (and a rumor that next month there will be chicken parts!):

• 3.25 lb chuck roast
• 1.5 lb ground lamb
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb pork spare ribs
• 1 lb country-style pork spare ribs
• 1 lb pork chops x 2

The chuck roast may become (untraditional) bao filling and the lamb gyros. Weet!

Grub | Comment (0)

Restaurant Review: Martsa on Elm

Whoa. When there are a total of 2 couples in the restaurant, it just seems wrong to seat them right next to each other if you have, say, more than two tables.

The food, surprisingly, was good. It was also expensive. And I had to ask for and be charged extra for rice. Hello?

The service was just what I expected from an Indian restaurant, although I realize this wasn’t an Indian place: slow, inattentive.

In conclusion, I’d say this is a good take-out place, if you’re feeling flush. As for me, I’m going to try to recreate the lamb and bok choy recipe at home, where I can guarantee it will cost less and come with rice (that costs less than $2.00/cup).

Grub | Comment (0)

Bikeabout

I took Friday off from work, so I went on a big bike ride. First I made my way from Powderhouse Circle to Harvard Square, then made my way through some Harvard buildings down to Mem Drive and the bikeway. From there I went all the way around Cambridge past Cambridgeport to MIT and Kendall, then up to Lechmere station and a little park near the Museum of Science, where I had a little lunch and watched the duck boats enter the Charles. 7.5 miles before lunch!

I started taking McGrath Highway back, but on a whim took Washington Street up into Somerville, though I had no idea where it went. It ended up taking me to Sullivan Station. From there I got back over to Broadway and followed that up and over Winter Hill and back down to Powderhouse and home. Plotting it out on the GMaps pedometer afterwards it looks like I went a little over 12 miles total. Whee!

Gallivanting | Comment (1)

Black-metal logo for puzzle person

On an NPL mailing list, we were discussing “black-metal” band logos, such as those seen here: Ten most Incomprehensible Black Metal Logos. Rubrick asked, “who’s going to be the first to do a Black Metal logo for Ucaoimhu?” (Ucaoimhu is the nom-de-puzzle of a prolific puzzle-writer.) I couldn’t resist a challenge like that.
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Graphics | Comment (0)

Hardy Souls

I’ve failed at writing up each meal in which we’ve used stuff from the meat share; I aim for improvement over the next few weeks.

However, today I’m managing to combine gardening talk and grub talk: I used fresh chives in today’s bao. The chives wintered over in their containers on the porch and popped out of the dirt a few weeks ago. Here’s what I hauled in today:

To make the bao, we took the 4 lb of ham/pork from the meat share and made it into char siu and then chopped it up to become filling for the bao:

Bao are yeast buns; here is the dough after its first rise:

Here’s the filling (char siu, grated carrot, chives, sauteed mushrooms, 3 good-sized dollops of hoisin sauce) filling up a proto-bun:

After they’re filled, they rise:

and when they’ve steamed for 20 minutes, you get incredible yummies:

Gardening, Grub | Comment (0)

Yes, we really talk like this

marymary: I’ve got a big pile of dust-bunnies here.

dmm: And I’ve got the cure!

gabbing | Comment (0)