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

I guess many of you might have seen on the news about the recent stroms and snow and whatnot that we had in Israel (and the whole area - I've seen pictures of snow in Cairo!). Here in Jerusalem we had a whole lot of snow - well, a whole lot for us, anyway. I'm sure those of you in northern areas will make fun of our paltry three days of snow and half-a-metre, but we are really not used to that. There i much excitement.
I came over to my parents' earlier that week; actually, not so much because I was expecting snow (I really wasn't, lowering my expectations or something), but because my mum went to hospital for a minor operation and I came to hang out with my dad because it's no fun waiting alone in a hospital.
Actually, Thursday morning was the first time ever that I was _upset_ about waking up to snow - since mum was released in the morning, and we were worried it'll be hard to get her back. But dad braved the roads and eventually they both made it back safely, and all is well. We had electricity throughout the storm (unlike people in some other neighbourhoods), the house was nice and warm, we made braised shortribs which were absolutely wonderful (first time I ever tried making shortribs, and while it's pretty heavy food, and a bit of a hassle to make, it was totally worth it), and of course, we went outside for a walk in the snow, and I took some pictures, which are here:
http://public.fotki.com/LadyPennywhistle/the-return-of-snow-2013
(Unfortunately, I also lost a pair of glasses, during the walk; I have a slightly older and weaker pair that I wear when I'm inside, working on the computer etc., because my optometrists said it's better to do so. When we were going out, I switched glasses and for some reason put the box with the inside-pair in my coat pocket, without thinking, and it must have just fallen out somewhere. When I noticed we tried to retrace our steps, but couldn't find it. So, they're gone now, which is too bad.)


(But SNOW!!!)



Things were still closed today all over town, but it's slowly going back to normal. I'll need to head back to my apartment, sometime soon, and get my own matters back to routine too.

half a meter! that is* a lot of snow; The UK grinds to a hault, when we get anything approaching half an inch! I like the snow, when we get it... unless it hangs about forever and makes the pavements and road dangerously slippary and icey I hope to make a snowman, again, if we get snow this year; on my balcony

Wow. I just showed Eelektra your picture of the Old City, without telling her what it was.She said, ''Oh, Valley Forge?'

Stay warm, enjoy the snow, now your folks are home safely.

Yes, that is an impressive amount of snow! The pictures are excellent - the view towards the desert was particularly amazing...

Glad you were ok getting home

I like snow if I can mostly stay indoors in the warmth and only need to venture as far as my patio to play with the snow.

One year the snow was not very deep but was really soft and powdery, so it was difficult to move through, and didn't make good snowballs, either. Mostly the snow is a bit sticky and not too deep, so I can wheel over it if I absolutely have to. It was quite bad last winter, though, when it was about 30cm deep, so I couldn't really move any further than my patio anyway, for a couple of days... I enjoyed building myself a little snowbaby though!

2legs, we grind to a halt over _any_ snow here, too. This much is almost unprecedented - it's been decades since there's been such a snowstorm around here (I heard one news report that said the last time was in 1893 - of course, back then people didn't need to worry about electricity being cut off...) so really, it's quite amazing the damage is as low as it is.

Also... Valley Forge looks like the Old City?

Well, the lookout point looks like a bluff with a big city in the distance. Actually, it's the massive King of Prussia Shopping Mall.

I'm jealous. Here in Chicago, a half meter of snow isn't a "lot", but we've only had six inches so far this winter and that just isn't right. So I envy you your snow!!

It's still fairly early in winter - I'm sure you'll get more.


The Seattle area really got some unfair weather lately, though. For about a week or more it's been bitterly cold there (well below 0C), but clear and dry. Then temperatures rose, and it got rainy. So they got no snow, and Nuke's been kinda jealous, too.

Well, got back to my apartment. Made garlic soup (pretty good, but will probably taste better tomorrow when the flavours settle), and now I'm sitting next to the radiator (my room can get very cold, so it's a good thing this building has central heating) and mucking about online.

Lovely pics, but I do feel sorry for the trees!

That really bitter cold is unusual for Seattle, no? Well, I hope you both manage to keep warm and dry.

I'm going to make mushroom soup for dinner!

Sending you warm thoughts.

Mala - Thanks! I feel sorry for the trees, too. Part of the problem is that the snowstorm was pretty unexpected (especially this early in the year), so trees weren't trimmed properly beforehand.
Also, the municipal tree-trimming department is generally not so great at its job. At the community garden I go to there's one or two people who know about that stuff, and once explained just what's being done wrong.

PC - Yeah, very unusual. The PNW, being pacific, tends to have more moderate weather (very wet, of course, but relatively warm, for how up north it is). Strange weatehr all around, I guess...

It's still about 12° here, after a very warm November Even for Ireland, that's unusual.

please build a and name it then I'll be there in spirit
a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year to you Lady P

You must have got all our snow. Usually we have a lot of snow by this time, but not this year. It's still raining here.

If it makes you feel any better, we're getting more now! An inch or so since I left work. I don't think we should get any major accumulation tonight. But I don't mind if we do.

The photos of broken trees remind me of a storm we had in late summer which had 75mph winds and knocked down a few trees in my immediate neighborhood. One tree fell on a car stopped at a stop sign at the opposite corner (I'm not really on a corner, I'm actually right on the edge of the river) of our street.

Anyway, hope you are keeping warm. While it's a balmy -6C here, so I'm not so cold, I can imagine how inconvenient (at best!) it is for you now. Is cold common there?

Oh, and I am also making soup.

Soup is great, when it's cold, isn't it? That galic soup I made is pretty neat, and while mine used chicken stock and cream, it can probably be quite easily veganised. Basic idea is just plenty of garlic roasted (unpeeled, with olive oil, salt and pepper) then cooled and peeled - then you sautee some onions with time, add the roasted garlic and a bunch of raw garlic too, then after a while add some stock (I had some leftover white wine from another recipe, so threw that in, too). Cook about 20min, then blend it all, and add cream (or vegan substitute, or even omit it completely, I suspect it'll still be good).

You said you made mushroom soup, right? That sounds great, too.

As the Dead Kennedies wisely said, Soup Is Good Food.

(Spicy things are good for keeping warm, too... I might want to make some sort of curry-ish dish later, with some leftover veg.)



It's a bit funny talking about it being cold here, then seeing you talk of a 'balmy -6°C'... this would be insanely cold, for us! Reminds me of how not long ago my dad and I read a Swedish book, where at one point the protagonist looks at a thermostat in a shop window and thinks '-6°C, it will be winter soon'. Our minds boggled.
But of course, it's all relative. I once had quite an enjoyably pointless argument with a Canadian friend (who's originally from northern BC) about whether 0°C is cold or not. Over here, it quite definitely is!
But things are going back to normal, and the weather's slowly warming. It's still colder than usual for the season, mostly under 10°C, but over the next few days it should get slowly warmer. A lot od the snow hasn't melted yet, but it's not really snow now, just crunchy ice. Pretty to look at from a distance, but not snow to play in, anymore (so I'm sorry Prof, but your snowman will have to wait for another time. I actually didn't make a snowman at all, come to thing of it).

In the meanwhile, I have a space heater I can use, I have gloves (which I can use on the computer because they have those special patches on the finger and thumb for touchpads), I have soup, and I make pots upon pots of tea. All's well.

I didn't think it was normal for it to be so very cold (relatively speaking).

I try not to make it sound like one-upmanship when I inquire of non-US friends as to whether snow, sub-zero temperatures, etc, are normal. It's more from concern and curiosity about the logistics of coping with it - it does occur to me that in places where cold and snow is not the norm, heaters might not warm things as much as they do here, there may be no snow removal equipment, etc. On the other hand, sometimes it's harder to sympathize as much as I feel I should - I have one friend in the UK who invited me to visit over the December holidays, emphasizing that it was bitterly cold and they had tons of snow. During the entire visit, I think I needed to wear a jacket exactly once, and there was only an inch or two of snow. Back home we'd gotten about 16 inches of snow and it was around -20C the whole time I was gone. It was as if I'd gone to visit someplace subtropical.

I'm sure I could manage garlic soup using my usual mushroom stock and a non-dairy "cream" if so desired. I do like a lot of garlic. The mushroom soup was just made with mirepoix, shiitake and button mushrooms, dry sherry, garlic, salt and pepper, and dry thyme and sweet paprika. Oh, and barley. It warmed us right up!!