Randomness
Sep. 7th, 2019 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marmota_bA while back I noticed @rthstewart had granted me access and I never granted access to her, which reminded me that what with my very irregular Dramwidth posting, I had completely forgotten how you do that. I've found it now, and granted access to the several fanfiction friends / acquaintances I keep in irregular touch with here. I'm not a very lively Dreamwidth user, but seeing as keeping in touch with those people is one of my reasons for having a Dreamwidth journal in the first place, that needed rectifying.
Big cleaning and room organising is underway. Kind of slowly, but underway. My room is a mess. One of the biggest reasons my room is a mess (aside from my general messiness) is that I have so many categories of things, which makes putting them away neatly a problem.
Also, loads and loads of books to read. That's what happens when the absolute majority of people in your town use the "free exchange library bookcase" in the town square primarily to dump old books.
Several years ago, I looked at pictures of Neil Gaiman's library and thought "How does he have so many books?!" and then looked around myself and thought "Well, he's older than me."
That was before the bookcase in the town square.
I'm definitely getting there.
It's kind of amazing and often puzzling to see what sort of book treasures people are getting rid of; there are a lot of old Communist-era books no one will ever be tempted to read again, but also a lot of stuff that was published around the same time but will always hold up. And new books, too. I even saw a copy of American Gods in English there once (but I already have that one; why couldn't it have been, say, Neverwhere?). Lots of books I used to borrow from the library as a child, and now I'm finally getting my own copies. So many copies of Emil and the Detectives / Emil and the Three Twins by Erich Kästner we've already given it to all the children in the family who are the right age.
Possibly the biggest treasure thus gained, though, is a cookbook - a 1940s cookbook (it already was an xth edition then, not sure when it was first published) that's kind of a touchstone of Czech cuisine and I don't know anyone who'd willingly part with theirs (which can make obtaining your own copy a bit of a problem). I can only assume that whoever had put it there had inherited it from someone and already had their own copy. Or didn't cook and had no idea what they had on their hands.
* * *
Speaking of food, in August I decided the tastiest thing in the world was a quark frgál.
Frgál is a Moravian Wallachian take on koláč. Large thin pastry - large and thin like pizza, but much richer than pizza pastry. And then something tasty and sweet on top.
I was at the folklore festival in Liptál, and bought a whole one, both for myself and to bring back home to my sister. And I have no idea how they do it, aside from definitely not skimping on ingredients, but it's delicious. Quark can get a bit dry in baking, even though it's always mixed with other things; but they must put even more other tasty things in the filling because words fail me for how delicious that frgál was.
So, as I said, in August I decided it was the tastiest thing in the world.
I had forgotten how much I love blueberries, and how delicious blueberries with sugar and cream are. Which is what I had today.
* * *
But I have a general fondness for Wallachian cooking. The sauerkraut soup, kyselica, is another thing I never want to miss when visiting Wallachia. And while I am definitely not a hard licquor kind of girl and don't go to Wallachia to drink slivovice... I have to admit that from among the hard licquors, a good plummy slivovice isn't the most unpalatable thing in the world. Just, you know, I'm really not a hard licquor person... I'm also not a beer person (so when it comes to writing Methos and all the boundaries it pushes for me as a writer, that's definitely one thing I'll never write from first-hand experience). I live in South Moravia now; as far as alcohol goes, that's the best place for me to be.
* * *
Seriously, though. If you want to make me happy, food-wise, give me blueberries / bilberries. I can never tire of those. I can tire of the things you mix them with, but not the berries.
My Narnian forests are definitely full of them.
* * *
Big cleaning and room organising is underway. Kind of slowly, but underway. My room is a mess. One of the biggest reasons my room is a mess (aside from my general messiness) is that I have so many categories of things, which makes putting them away neatly a problem.
Also, loads and loads of books to read. That's what happens when the absolute majority of people in your town use the "free exchange library bookcase" in the town square primarily to dump old books.
Several years ago, I looked at pictures of Neil Gaiman's library and thought "How does he have so many books?!" and then looked around myself and thought "Well, he's older than me."
That was before the bookcase in the town square.
I'm definitely getting there.
It's kind of amazing and often puzzling to see what sort of book treasures people are getting rid of; there are a lot of old Communist-era books no one will ever be tempted to read again, but also a lot of stuff that was published around the same time but will always hold up. And new books, too. I even saw a copy of American Gods in English there once (but I already have that one; why couldn't it have been, say, Neverwhere?). Lots of books I used to borrow from the library as a child, and now I'm finally getting my own copies. So many copies of Emil and the Detectives / Emil and the Three Twins by Erich Kästner we've already given it to all the children in the family who are the right age.
Possibly the biggest treasure thus gained, though, is a cookbook - a 1940s cookbook (it already was an xth edition then, not sure when it was first published) that's kind of a touchstone of Czech cuisine and I don't know anyone who'd willingly part with theirs (which can make obtaining your own copy a bit of a problem). I can only assume that whoever had put it there had inherited it from someone and already had their own copy. Or didn't cook and had no idea what they had on their hands.
* * *
Speaking of food, in August I decided the tastiest thing in the world was a quark frgál.
Frgál is a Moravian Wallachian take on koláč. Large thin pastry - large and thin like pizza, but much richer than pizza pastry. And then something tasty and sweet on top.
I was at the folklore festival in Liptál, and bought a whole one, both for myself and to bring back home to my sister. And I have no idea how they do it, aside from definitely not skimping on ingredients, but it's delicious. Quark can get a bit dry in baking, even though it's always mixed with other things; but they must put even more other tasty things in the filling because words fail me for how delicious that frgál was.
So, as I said, in August I decided it was the tastiest thing in the world.
I had forgotten how much I love blueberries, and how delicious blueberries with sugar and cream are. Which is what I had today.
* * *
But I have a general fondness for Wallachian cooking. The sauerkraut soup, kyselica, is another thing I never want to miss when visiting Wallachia. And while I am definitely not a hard licquor kind of girl and don't go to Wallachia to drink slivovice... I have to admit that from among the hard licquors, a good plummy slivovice isn't the most unpalatable thing in the world. Just, you know, I'm really not a hard licquor person... I'm also not a beer person (so when it comes to writing Methos and all the boundaries it pushes for me as a writer, that's definitely one thing I'll never write from first-hand experience). I live in South Moravia now; as far as alcohol goes, that's the best place for me to be.
* * *
Seriously, though. If you want to make me happy, food-wise, give me blueberries / bilberries. I can never tire of those. I can tire of the things you mix them with, but not the berries.
My Narnian forests are definitely full of them.