Joie’s Late Week Recipes: Caramelised Bacon and Tomatoes with Boccocini, Spaghetti and Love

I know, this recipe is so late that it’s early, but bear with me. My exams have ended and I’ve been too busy doing nothing. Strangely enough, all this while my life was filled to brimming with novels I was reading, projects I was knitting, long walks I was taking, guitar skills I was honing and the myriad of little errands you have to run to keep things running smoothly. Now that I am truly able to do anything I want without having to consider other things I should be doing instead (things like studying or working on assignments) I don’t want to do anything. I spent most of yesterday staring at my toes as I sat on the couch and it looks as though today won’t be any different. I couldn’t even cobble together an elaborate meal (did I tell you about that Spaghetti Marinara I made the day before an exam that involved slow roasted veggies and 6 different kinds of seafood each with their own individual cooking times?) with any enthusiasm. Lately I’ve been favouring lightning-fast meals that take the same amount of time to prepare as it does to buy from a take-out, but that are much, much better. With this in mind, may I present for your consideration:

Read These Books: An Honest Review of Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass (Northern Lights), Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass

This trilogy is collectively referred to as His Dark Materials and has been in the news of late because the movie based on the first book is to be released on December 7^th of this year. As I have previously mentioned, the fundies are up in arms about books with such potent ideas and have launched a spam-paign (yes, that’s an email spam campaign) against His Dark Materials alleging that castration and female circumcision appear in the books (they don’t, read my last post for more details) and that the protagonists “kill God” (they don’t, at least not really. When will these illiterate, facile people learn to read?!). With this in mind, I present to you a spoiler-free, honest review of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Buy the books, read them, then buy copies for everyone you know. These books could start thought revolutions, and that is what has gotten those forwarding flocks of sheep shit scared.

OH MY GOD! They Killed God! Those Bastards!

Well, that’s it then. We should all gather in the town square to burn the books as we dance naked around the flames. Information is dangerous! If people have information, then they might start to think, and to question and then HOLY SHIT PEOPLE! Are you even remotely aware of what would happen if everyone were an independent thinker? If everyone was given all the information they needed to make decisions FOR THEMSELVES (and not as part of some collective hive-mind)? It’s getting harder and harder to oppress the unwashed masses as it is!

You know what’s worse than a book with information that endangers the world as we know it? A MOVIE BASED ON THAT BOOK. You know what’s even worse? If the people who made the movie TONED DOWN some of the book’s heretical messages so that people will be TRICKED INTO BUYING AND POSSIBLY READING THE BOOK. The world as we know it could end on or around December 7^th 2007 (depending on how long it will take the unwashed masses to read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Personally, it took me 4 days, but I’m a pretty fast reader. I wouldn’t seriously worry until at least a week later).

Christians like feeling persecuted. Trust me, we do. It makes us feel better that there are a great many forces out there that disadvantage us. Plus, there is a certain romantic passion that comes with facing down our enemies as a united mass. That universal yearn to be martyred (without the attendant inconvenience of death) is fuelling an email campaign against Nicole Kidman’s latest outing to the silver screen. The two emails (sourced from snopes.com[1]) currently making the rounds are below the cut.

Joie’s Late Week Recipes: SAD-Prevention Beef Stew with Spicy Sweet Potato Mash

Winter is descending fast in the Northern Hemisphere and, for reasons that I do not care enough about to enumerate here, I am forsaking the sun-bathed beaches of Australia for the drizzle-soaked grey of British Columbia, Canada for the next two months. A tragedy like this calls for stew; some serious, blood-warming, soul-fortifying liquid life in a bowl. The issue of what to serve with stew is a serious one. There is the stew=centre stage crew who believe that you should have a side of mashed potatoes (plain) or broad flat noodles, a real canvas and paint situation. Then there is the camp I belong to (and there are very few of us around, as I understand it) that believe that whatever you serve your stew with should be able to stand-alone. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not talking about two competing flavours here. What I am talking about is two separate dishes that are excellent, singly, but explode into an orgy of amazing-ness when paired. With this in mind, may I present for your consideration:

On Emotion and Getting People To Stay Long Enough To Listen To What You Are Trying To Say

I’ve been meaning to write something like this for a while now, but have not been able to properly organize my thoughts. It started with the responses I garnered from my post about Feminism and Choice. I was told that it was potentially alienating, and that it was one of the worst things I could do if my intention was to recruit people to the movement. Don’t scare people and make them feel uncomfortable, I was told, don’t be so confronting. Once you make your point, you don’t have to make it for three more paragraphs, just slide into the night. Make your points in an objective and rational manner, otherwise you seem biased, and will push away people who “border on disagreeing with you”.

Isn’t Feminism All About Choice Anyway?

It’s not a choice if it’s your only good option. Now repeat that as often as you need to in order to take that on board.

Too often we see discussions of how if feminism is all about choice, then why can’t women choose to wear makeup (full disclosure: I’m wearing make up RIGHT NOW), or choose to stay at home and rely on their husband for full financial support, or choose to diet and lose weight or choose, choose, choose, choose, choose to perform actions that validate the patriarchy.

Joie’s Late Week Recipes: 1 Pan Meditteranean-ish Chicken With Built In Side Dish

I love cooking. I hate cleaning up. Judging from the state of the kitchen in my share house, this is a pretty common configuration. The solution to this of course is to cook something completely fantastic in one pan. That way even if you don’t clean it up it doesn’t add significantly to the growing pile starting to resemble the primordial ooze that brought forth life. Come to think of it, I did see something move in there yesterday. Whatever, it’s not my turn. Getting back to the point, here’s an impressive one-pan meal that you can feed 4 guests with. It would round out nicely with a side salad, but you don’t need a recipe for that now, do you? (Ok, maybe later though…)

Meanwhile, I present for your convenience:

Joie’s Late Week Recipes: 10 Minute Smoked Salmon Alfredo

This week’s dish addresses the age-old dilemma of ordering pasta in a restaurant. Restaurants make a killing off selling pasta. It costs them next to nothing, they can cook up the sauce in under 5 minutes and the noodles can be pre-cooked. For this reason, I just cannot justify paying more than ten dollars (or more than $5, really) for a pasta dish. Most home cooks have their signature red sauce. Afterall, it’s nothing more than seasoned canned tomatoes. Plus, most commercial, bottled tomato-based pasta sauces are really decent (and can easily be augmented for that personal touch). White sauces, however are much more elusive, or so they will have you believe. May I present, for your consideration:

Joie’s Late Week Recipes: Frugal Gourmet’s Tuna Cakes

This is the first in a series of Joie’s late week recipes. You wouldn’t know it from the rest of the posts on this site, but lisiepeasie and I meant for this blog to have a crafts and cooking slant (in addition to all the ranting and railing we do against all the world’s injustices – hope you’ve been enjoying so far). The first recipe I will be presenting for your consideration is borne out of a need for this student to eat cheaply. Quite apart from the price of the foods used when cooking at home, one of the key tenants of eating cheaply is being able to resist the urge to eat out. I wanted something fancier than instant noodles with leafy greens and egg. I wanted something more complex than fried rice. I also couldn’t bear to look at another can of soup. So I looked at what I had – a can of tuna (but I had had tuna salad so often over the last two weeks, besides, I was out of flatbread – or indeed, any bread), baby potatoes (roasting potatoes would take too long though, it was late and I was hungry), various condiments and past date yoghurt that was still good, but couldn’t be trusted to keep for much longer. Oh and eggs of course. You have to have eggs if one of your food groups is instant noodles.

No Malicious Intent

You know those people who are “all for equality” but refuse to be called “feminists”? The ones who proudly paste that god-awful “I’m not a feminist but” image on their webspace? (I honestly hate that tract. It manages to claim all the triumphs of the feminist movement while denigrating the people who, in identifying as feminists, managed to bring about those crucial changes. I digress.) At this point, I should probably fully disclose the fact that in my youth I was one of those people, but way back then I was also a fundie right-winger. I don’t think people should be held accountable for youthful indiscretions – I mean, that’s why most juvenile records are sealed right?

Then again, the I’m-not a-feminist-but people aren’t half as bad as the people who just plain don’t see the need for feminism and instead see it as a divisive movement that (and this is an actual quote[1], I kid you not) “spreads hate”. Call me naïve but I honestly believe that the only reason people like this exist is because of a fundamental misunderstanding not of feminism but of the patriarchy.