h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I like collard greens. I like buttermilk. I've never had southern style grits however. Sounds like thye are different than the polenta I am used to.

I thought grits had beef in them along with oats or something. But here in the UK our only connection with grits is westerns.

Polenta we know of course, also bulghar wheat, cracked wheat, cous cous, tabbouleh etc. All much of a muchness: carbohydrate packing.

The best carb packing I know of is Yorkshire pudding, you were supposed to eat that before you got served beef so that you where too full to eat much of the expensive joint.

I had only seen buttermilk on sale here in specialist shops, until recently when the demand by the high proportion of US employees living round here got the local supermarket to stock it. Also the Japanese residents got braised tofu stocked, for which H is grateful.

I like grits. You need to make sure they have lots of butter stirred into them though for them to taste good. As to hominy, the only way I like it is in pozole. Can't stand it just as a side dish.

*saves backlog for uncertain future*

I just popped in before I go on with my holidays. Tomorrow I'll leave home again and this time I am going to visit three fellow researchers. None of them is salonista though. But then again, I don't have much h2g2ers around here anyway.

So, have a nice time, here it is only raining.

My father used to drink tall glasses of ice-cold buttermilk that he added a bit of salt to.

Speaking of tofu--back on that subject again--I've found I've become quite addicted to adding it in all my stir fry dishes. The trick to making sure it keeps its shape is buying a block (or two, if you're a glutton like me ) cubing it, then putting the cubed bits o'fu into a stockpot and cover them with water. Bring the water to a boil and then simmer for at least 10 minutes. Drain, and then add to any dish you're making. The tofu will not get mushy at all. It's best if you really saute the tofu on high and lightly brown all sides until crispy. Add your favorite stir-fried veggies, sauce and rice and you have a great and healthy meal.

Me and tofu have gotten along better lately, but not that well.

I'm a huge fan of hominy, but it's hard to describe. It comes in cans, and looks like corn on steroids.

B4, I know you wanted any sci-fi song postings to be in the sci-fi thread... but this isn't exactly a song. Somebody called Tony Carey had a band called the Planet P Project... Sort of a sci-fi new age music sort of thing...

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=60010502&loc=109&sp=1
http://club.mp3search.ru/album.html?id=4653

> I also mentally collect versions of "Summertime" - Janis Joplin, natch, and the Fun Boy Three, and the original version from the opera 'Porgy and Bess'.

Ben, I think Will Smith also did an excellent cover of Summertime.

As for grits... yum! I love them with a bunch of butter, salt and pepper. I also love hominy - the preparation is a little disgusting, but if you can eat sauerkraut, you can eat hominy.

[GDZ]

[Sol]

I hope you enjoy your trip, Hati, and that a change of scenery takes your mind off your dental problems for a while

H is not fond of tofu, he doesn't like the texture much, but the smoked stuff and the cans of braised stuff he does quite like in stir fries. Paneer and halloumi he likes too and neither break up or melt in the way that cheese normally does when cooked.

I shall be doing battle with ntl today. Our broadband connection keeps getting dropped, as often as every 15 minutes. Which is incredibly frustrating when playing online games as the only way to get back in is to exit completely and relog and reload.

I don't think we are any closer to getting a UK equivalent to hominy for your recipe MR, can you think of anything else we could put in instead. Would mashed up sweetcorn do it?

k - sipping a decaf coffee (it just isn't the same ) and eating some yoghurt and seeds.

Last day @ work today...

B

I almost read that as you were eating yoghurt seeds Kelli. I was wondering what the yoghurt plant would look like if you put the seeds in a pot.

to Egon on the Jim Moray thing. I listened to that show online the other day. Thank goodness for a nice fast broadband connection at work

It depends on the type of yoghurt, mine is 'natural' flavour so the plant is fine and strong, medium sized with reddish-brown bark and dark green smallish oval leaves, when it flowers they are restrained, white and elegant. Now, your fruit corner type of yoghurt is much showier, big flashy varigated leaves the size of dinner plates and huge blooms in bright pinks and purples.

Oh Ben, I hope something comes along quickly, am sure you are spending a lot of time on jobserve anyway...

k

Kelli

Ben smilies never seem enough in situations like this.

hmm, give me a minute...

pozole. samp. nixtamal.

i could look it up at sainsbury's, but my old post code (the only one I could ever remember!) is in devon, and it doesn't recognize it.

i suppose you could substitute sweetcorn, but it won't taste the same. chickpeas might work, as well.

Last day of w*rk before 4 weeks of vacation - and I'm absolutely swamped with tasks! I *really* don't want to w*rk late on a Friday...

I've been busy designing a new name badge for the London meet-up ready - no colour printer at home, so today was my last chance to print it out at w*rk - and I made it!

http://hem.fyristorg.com/Titania/card.gif

I picked that specific elf picture because it reminded me about this description from Tolkien's Silmarillion:

"...the Elves remain (in the world) until the end of days, and their love of the earth and all the world is more single and more poignant therefore, and as the years lengthen ever more sorrowful."

*returns to the task of trying to deal with enough many piles of paper to at least be able to see her w*rk desk*

I like that, T

I shall be dusting off the one Amy designed for me.

Just been on the phone to ntl, pah! There is nothing they can do unless the connection drops whilst they are testing the modem. So I told the tech chappie that H will phone them tomorrow and keep them talking until the log shows the connection has dropped. Trouble is it only goes for 30/60 seconds, but it is enough to cause us to relog into msn, games, whatever and is getting sooooo annoying! I said that it is pretty bad to be paying for a permanet connection when it obviously isn't permanent at all, but in the nicest possible way, of course.

You know, I've just finsihed reading a fnatastic book, by a guy I've never heard of, that I won as a prize on Collective.

Anyone else ehard of, or read "the Man in My BAsement" by Walter Mosley? It's a fascinating novel, an examination of race and power, with a central premise of a white man renting a black man's basement, and requesting to be held prisoner, and the power is initaially all with the white man, who has a dodgy past and is involved in some vicious businesses, while the black guy is something of a deadbeat, but due to the incaraceration he gains the power, and the power he holds over his "prisoner", one which he at times abuses, ultimately allows him to gain control and power over his own life for the first time, annd his parallell lives, as the jailer, and as a changing member of society, are both followed.

The transference of power is interesting,, and a concept I wasd elighted to see, if only because the change in the nature of the jailer and the abuse of his gradually more powerful status reminds me of the Stanford Prisaon experiment.

Sorry, I'm waffling, ignore me.

[GDZ]