| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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i was doing nothing of any importance tonight when a friend asked me who agamemnon's son was, for a crossword puzzle she was doing. being as i was doing nothing, plus it was an interesting question to me, i looked it up. searching for greek mythology got me thinking. this stuff has always been really interesting to me. this is partly becuase i grew up on a lot of these stories, with perseus interwoven with your standard cinderella and gingerbread man. i love the history and the interplay between gods and mortals. i love the sprites and centaurs. i love the competitions of wit. i love the stories simply for their value as stories. so i got to thinking about how i much i could become a scholar in that kind of stuff. so i guess i'll take some classes in the classics department. maybe i'll even learn greek. i guess i already knew that, so my epiphany was not really that. it just seems much bigger at 4 am. by the way, agamemnon's son was orestes. |
I took a class in Roman culture -- best class ever. I learned about Roman history, politics, cooking, family life, slavery, literature, the theatre, religion, education, oratory, funereal rites, and more. It was a really fun class. I also had a very pleasant crush on my professor, a delicate young man with bright blue eyes. Sigh. Two years later, I took a class in what I called Greek history, but it was more about how the Greeks made sense of the world. The lessons were about medicine, astronomy, sociology, geology -- broader, more philosophical topics. I didn't like that class quite as much, but that may have been because it was taught by a snobby old woman. I did get to write a neat paper on Greek pirates, though. But anyway -- yeah, go take a class that will teach mythology! Anthropology might offer classes that would appeal to you, also. |
eat a lot of lamb and see the parthenon in athens and then go off to one of the remote islands and rent a hut on the sea and sunbathe nekkid. |
ooh, and Mycenae! Everyone should have an opportunity to walk through the Lion Gate and wonder just how the hell they managed to move those huge stones. (I remember it's called Cyclopean architecture because some later Greeks thought that Mycenae must have been built by Cyclopes, the stones are that massive.) |
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no worries heather. i would like to catch up with you though. we'll get the greece plans together when it becomes critical. |
it's okay, i suck too. i'm still working on mail art from over a year ago. i'm making progress, though. |
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1 2/3 cups unbleached all purpose flour 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon ground cloves ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon rice vinegar ½ cup granulated sugar ½ cup molasses ½ cup boiling water ½ cup vegetable oil Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9” square baking pan. Sift dry ingredients together into a mixing bowl. Add vinegar, sugar, and molasses. Mix well. Pour boiling water and the oil over mixture. Stir thoroughly until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared pan. Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until top springs back when touched and the edges pull away slightly from the sides of the pan. Not cookies, but hey. I just rediscovered this recipe for gingerbread that I loved when I was a kid. It needs the special apple syrup to go with it to be the ambrosial delight it was when I was wee, but it's still awfully damn good. |
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I'm bringing salad to my parent's house for Christmas... Spinach, red onion, oranges, toasted walnuts, possibly some marinated and fried tofu as well. O, I suggest you read a book called Conformity and Conflict. It has an excellent !Kung! retelling of Hamlet in it. Studying Anthropology is fun and happened to be the first thing I learned in college that I applied to real life. Sorabjifest 2003: Does anyone want to come visit Portland for my birthday? |
Grandma's Candy Cookies 2 c sugar 1 c milk 1 cube butter (1/4 lb) 3 tbsp cocoa mix together and bring to rolling boil for 1 full minute (any less and they wont set up right) then add 3/4 cup peanut butter 1 tsp vanilla extract 3 c oatmeal Mix together, spoon onto wax paper and let set for 1 to 1 1/2 hrs. Sorry, I guess it isn't really vegan with the milk and butter. I don't know about substituting anything. Hope you like them! |
thanks, eri! |
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pez, if you need recipes filled with vegan goodness, drop me a line. I decorated sugar cookies with an old friend yesterday. It was great fun. We have all these wacky cookie cutters, like a rhinocerous. I made a headless turkey (by accident). Hurrah for cookies. |
I'm gonna try out the gingerbread recipe this afternoon. |
banana brownies sounds good. hmm. |
Banana brownies are excellent, except the banana almost overpowers the chocolate and makes it taste _very_ rich. I remember making them with cashews. |
nate, i thought all fats that were solid at room temp (marg, butter, etc), were bad for you? Or at least the New York Times Magazine did. Maybe I've been smoking too much crack. At any rate, I try to stay away from marg in most of my recipes anyway. I am rather fond of that gingerbread. It's the molasses that really makes it. And it keeps forever in good tupperware. |
1/4 cup cocoa powder 1/3 cup butter 1/3 cup milk 1 large very ripe banana 1 cup granulated sugar 1 large egg 1 t. vanilla extract 1/4 t. salt 1/2 tea baking soda 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour Directions grease square cake pan or 9" brownie pan. place the cocoa, milk and butter in a saucepan and melt on low heat. allow to cool slight before placing in a mixing bowl. add the sugar, egg, vanilla extract and blend until the mixture is smooth. Add the flour, salt, and baking soda, stirring until just incorporated. pour the chocolate mixture into prepared pan. bake 20 - 25 minutes at 350 degrees. wait until the brownies have cooled to cut into squares. if you use electric beater, the brownies will be flaky and yummy and shiny on top. |
natural fats don't seem to be as bad for you. i don't fucking know. i read one study and i think i know everything. |
sometimes they have fresh vegetables. it does seem to be getting better out there. poor souls. today i made pakistani lentil pasty things. they're great. and i also have lots of lentils to eat, too. i also whipped up a couple of loaves of gingerbread to take to the christmas party i'm going to tommorrow, and i'm about to dash off to a vegan dining event at my friend c's (hence the pakistani pastys). i'm not really a very social person, but maybe people just get more social during the holiday season--i was invited to no less than six different holiday parties today. madness. i feel so...loved. last night i hung out with my friend m and we watched the nightmare before christmas and a charlie brown christmas. the first, as always, was great--the second was enough to make anyone suicidal. we also watched "you're not elected, charlie brown," because it was on the tape after christmas and we were too lazy to get up. |
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i forgot in the directions to mention that you should blend the banana in with the sugar/egg/chocolate mixture before adding the flour. oooops, sorry. |
for lunch today i had a 1.1lb vegan t-bone steak. well, i'm guessing the cow was vegan. who knows. |
i remember going to the video store once, and we were lazy, so we just went to the counter and asked for movies...the revenge of the counter person was to give us "Putting it Together" instead of somethingorother, I forget what. i've always hated barbara too. cows generally are vegan. funny how that works. they just murder innocent vegetables. poor grass. |
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how tender are you in a cold shower? nico made almond brittle and lollipops over the holidays. i made a broccoli casserole. was a bit soupy because i was impressing my brother with CA weed and subsequently added the whole can of cream/mush soup instead of half. i also used half of an onion as opposed to a teaspoon of onion that the recipe called for. |