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

*laughs hysterically at Hypatia's Mum's grapes*

Oh, I'm so sorry, laughing like that. But really, oh boy. Sorry.

Hello dw2.

Oh, it's actually COOL tonight. Oh bliss. Oh heaven. Oh joy. I might even sleep.

ooh, simulpost with Z and Teuchter there.

They can watch a film and knit? Blimey. I knit in front of the telly and invariably miss crucial plot points because I am staring worriedly at my hands and trying to work out if I've got a stitch, half a stitch or the stitch below the stitch I wanted on my needle.

I have enough trouble watching a film and eating.

Mol - I can at least be fairly certain of not getting held up in a coach station if I attend a meet; I'll take the train.

The base of my neck is sunburnt.

I did the brain thing a while ago. I was slightly (25) male.

[Hati]

Oh! I forgot.

::waves at Hati::

A long while back there was a discussion about goulash. I was rechecking my spelling when I discovered that goulash is "a rich Hungarian stew of meats and vegetables."

Anyhow, I was talking to the CFO of my company and some how we got into the discussion of gardens which evolved to what comes out of gardens and further into favorite foods while growing up.

Anyway, following are ingredients in my mother's Hungarian Goulash. I ask that anyone familiar with proportions could aid me I would like to try and see if it could possibly taste as good as my memory of it.

One medium to large eggplant, cubed

One box of elbo macaroni

One or is it two large cans of quarter cut (stewed?) tomatoes. This may have been suplemented with garden fresh tomatoes cut in quarters.

Quarter pound of bacon - hope that is not too much, just enough to tantalize not overwhelm the other tastes.

One pound of hamburger. Or is it ground beef? I helped once and it seemed I had to take a frozen package of ground beef and as it heated in the skillet I would scrape off the cooked portion until the whole thing was a mass of meat clumps.


Any way I think I got all the ingredients now. I am just a whole lot unsure how much tomato and bacon. Actually I am unsure of all of it. Best I can remember it cooked about an hour or so on low to medium heat and it filled a stewpot about half full.

Any suggestions on the mix, the method, or time of cooking would be appreciated,


Thank you,

MoFoLo, what sort of seasonings did your mother use? Besides salt, of course. Garlic? Paprika? Bay leaves? And you don't list onions. There are probably as many goulash recipes as there are cooks. You need to experiment until you come up with the taste you remember.

I use bell peppers in mine. And wide egg noodles instead of elbo macaroni. And sour cream.

If you leave out the eggplant and add some chili powder, your recipe sounds like one my other used to fix that she called chili mac.

I think goulash was one of those things *no one* in the Salon could agree upon. There seems to be as many goulash recipes as mothers.

Hey all, Marv is great. Sea came down to have Morroccan with MR, Marv, and myself. Pixel almost starting letting Marv pet her. I'm off to a BBQ at MRs right now. Just wanted to pop in and give a quick update.

Also, saw C&TCF on Sat. .... excellent movie, great soundtrack.

Hey bro, glad to see you are looking in. In case people don't remember dw2 is my brother.

Courtesy

*Mol trails in disconsolately*



Finished HP6.

Two years to wait.



Hello dw2.

Bagpuss, I used the train last time, and had to leave the meet at about 8pm in order to catch the last train home again. Plus it's twice the cost of the coach. I've almost forgiven the coach company now - the traffic jams weren't their fault. And an invisible coach is almost - at least, it would have been if I'd managed to travel on it.

Mol

> I think for some people, guilt is a form of self-deprecation. I've known people who often apologizes for needless things. It's like the brain says, "I'm not good enough" and that gets translated into "I don't do anything right". They end up apologizing but it's not really for what they did or didn't do. Instead they are apologizing for an underlying sense of inadequacy.

Guilt. Pah. Who needs it? I certainly have an excess of it, and I grow more overnight the instant I get rid of some. I think guilt is a powerful motivator for many tasks, like calling moms and washing dishes. It's possible I would never clean the house if I didn't have guilt. But I hate it... And I've noticed something most recently - I tend to have attacks of guilt that go along with my PMS

> with the medical visit - hope your Ma doesn't speak out of turn today. I was nearly slapping mine last week over some rather too pointed public remarks.*sigh

Ack... Speaking of Moms. I had to wonder on this last vacation with my parents if my mom has gone slightly mental. She's always been tangential, but this last week was really bizarre - no matter what topic we were discussing, she'd have something completely off topic to say. It's as if she was trying really hard to derail the conversation, whatever it happened to be about. And when she wasn't doing that, she was telling me about new mask ideas I should be working on, and when I told her that leather wouldn't do that, she'd respond with 'Oh, fine, do it your way.' Or 'You're so stubborn.' I started replying with criticism of her own artworks, as a sort of desperate defense.

I'm pretty sure she wasn't like this when I was a kid. Then again, it's been several years since I lived with my parents. Maybe I edited a lot of that out. Or maybe she's on anti-depressants. I know that she's been trying different ones... Maybe this one isn't working for her.

Ack. Again, guilt! Shoo! Shoo!

> Snap! I've often considered getting a long black leather coat but have resisted partly because of cost but mostly because I can't honestly say it wouldn't end up with LIVE FATS DIE YO GNU on the back.

And a 'do that smelled suspiciously of bacon fat.

*soothes Mol gentley*

I've just E mailed my brother with a link to h2g2 and he seemed quite intriged.

I've just had a rather odd encounter . I was in bed. Not asleep becuase an alarm was going off.

It's at this point I should explain that I live above a shop, as the shop is bigger than my flat I have an area of flat roof I go outside onto.

I then heard a voices on the roof, and assuming it was Girl Upstair's boyfriend. I wondered what was going on. They seemed to be showing an unatural interest in my bedroom window. As soon as I heard a voice outside I said 'excuse me do you live here?'

Turns out it was a police officer! He'd come to investigate the shop's alarm going off, and found the gate to the yard at the back open (not sure why) and my bedroom window open. I

Obviously I got dressed and he took my details, name and address and date of birth.

At what age and level of respectiablity does one stop feeling accused when dealing with the police?

You can take the boy out of Skelmersdale...

*Lil comes through, looking for Hedlites, one of the black cats that moved in with her recently and is only six months old and has been missing for 36 hours*

*She finds no cat and heads down the stairs to search the area*

Visitors all gonne! The last of them shot off yesterday.

Backlog truly backlogged.

-0.8 years.

*Checks contents of longjohns* Definitely male (my brain is usually in my bottom)

Concern for Hedlites, what a great name for a cat, Lil.

Still think "shelf of librarians" is the best description.

Aren't pictures cool? I'd forgotton. I've been using a set of postcards from the National Gallery for so long for lessons that it was quite a shock to see that they are really so much better in real life. And the sunflowers are so touchable: I now quite see what the fuss is about. I even liked the Haywain - I think it's the size. It's still a bit brown though.

The Purcell was really interesting. Comic. What I particularly liked about it was that the singy musicy bits (the bits we saw) had almost nothing to do with the plot of the opera - which would apparently have been speaky bits. Grandad and I were most disappointed that we didn't get to see all the Devices and Machines which were littering the commentary notes: you can just imagine all these restoration actors being hauled around creaking and swaying by a system of complicated pulleys. Very Neal Stevenson.

The Elgar's on Tues 9th August at 7.30. You were intended to take it seriously! And be delighted if your could come Teuchter. And anyone else, of course. I warn you, though, I'm not promming it... Shall we take this into the conservatory?

I'm sure your daughter's fine Teuchter.

Six months younger than my age, would be less if I wasn't still sort of following the South Beach diet that has me eating more than one portion of red meat a week. H says I'm still 16 inside though. Haven't completed the other one yet.

The lovely thing about Buddhism as that they pray for everyone and everthing and think everyone is nice. That is about all I know about Buddhism, I really should know more.

Slept last night than I have done for a while, much cooler and the humidty has dropped. Even had a few drops of rain yesterday. It will be cooler today too, might get out and do some gardening.

Bad news travels fast, Teuchter, I tell myself that when waiting to hear from someone. I expect No2 daughter's phone battery is flat and she is unable to recharge it, out of signal range and no internet connection is available.

Welcome back Hati and dw2.

Forgot to say before: we did a costume trial on Sunday of the stuff Mrs. D will be wearing to August's LARP, she looked really good... now I've just got to spend the next month being nervous in case the soldier's coats don't arrive on time.

I really hope they do because having the soldier's coats will mean we'll be able to get the 15th Regiment of the ground and if we manage that I'll be presiding over a court martial on the Monday!

[] - still hiding from the warring librarians

One building - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4693409.stm

I want one!