(I originally included this in Paragraph Girl #0, so you may remember it from there¹.)

hot fudge sauce that isn’t really “fudgey”

1 12-oz. can evaporated milk
2 cups sugar
3 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate

* Note:  This recipe can be halved.  I’ve been lucky to find 5-ounce cans of evaporated milk in my local grocery store, which means i don’t have to save or waste 1/2 a can of evaporated milk if i want to make a smaller batch.

1. Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan.
2. Warm over medium heat until chocolate has melted and sugar has dissolved, stirring regularly.
3. Continue warming (and stirring) sauce for 5-10 minutes to thicken.

1. LORD, how did that zine come out 9 years ago???

me:  “Andy, does math really work that way?  Maybe i shouldn’t have flunked all those math classes in high school.  I guess they don’t get to this until you get to the really advanced stuff.”

Andy:  “If only Timothy Dalton could be the villain in a future ‘Fast & Furious’ movie.”

me:  [dies]

In conclusion, if Sparkymonster tells you to watch a movie, you watch that movie.

sake

Sake Nomi [Pioneer Square]  The place to go for sake in Seattle.  Johnnie doesn’t serve food (“nomi” means “only”), but he’s really cool about people bringing in food from outside (because who wants to drink on an empty stomach?).  There are daily tastings, which cost $5 — the cost is then waived if you make another purchase.  Bottles for sale.  Johnnie is happy to guide you thru’ the sake to help you find one that suits your tastes.

Umi Sake House [Belltown]  For when you want a good sake selection with a nice meal.  I had a nice birthday dinner here the other year.  Sushi was good (tho’ i won’t again get the shrimp wrapped in ramen noodles and fried, ’cause that’s just weird) and the sake list is extensive.

Japanese

Maneki [Chinatown/ID]  Maneki is a Seattle institution — serving “traditional family-style Japanese food” for more than 100 years.  Reservations recommended.

Maekawa [Chinatown/ID]  Maekawa is an izakaya — what some call a Japanese “pub”.  Food is served small-plate style.  Order a few things, take your time enjoying them, maybe order something else, have another sake, get one last skewer of bacon-wrapped tomatoes.  If you want the incredible cheese-filled pork football (“Pork Cutlet Served w/ Cheese and Garlic”), order that 1st because it takes 20 minutes to prepare.

sammich

Delicatus [Pioneer Square]  If you need a sandwich to take to Sake Nomi, go here.

fancy drinks

Bathtub Gin & Co. [Belltown]  I’m taking Andy’s word on this one.  He had a great time here ordering fancy drinks.  Technically not a speakeasy, but it is down an alley!

Ohhhhhh, naive Past Wrdnrd.

One of our favorite places was Le Potager du Marais, a vegetarian restaurant in the 3^me arrondissement.  We went there for dinner one of our 1st nights Paris, then we went back again once littlebutfierce joined us on our second weekend.

Our other favorite place, which, alas!, we were not able to return to, was this little cafe just across from the station Rambuteau — called, conveniently enough, Le Station Rambuteau.  This is where we both fell head over heels for French cuisine.  We enjoyed escargots — a 1st for both of us — and some boeuf bourgogne.

This past autumn, i was craving boeuf bourgogne so we decided to pick up Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and make some boeuf bourgogne for Christmas dinner.  This was not a mistake.  We’ve since made a couple of recipes out of it, and basically i just want to keep track of them which, of course, makes me turn again to my blog — my external hard drive for my personal memories.

Me:  “I’m really interested in the tensions of how societies and cultures contact and conflict, and i think looking at how language responds to that is very interesting.”

Instructor:  “Yes, yes, that’s exactly what draws me to studying pidgins and creoles, too!”

Me:  [bursts into a million sunshine sparkles]

Some genmaicha, fruit & cheese, crappy (but strangely delicious) ramen, Basho’s Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Then i switched jobs to an office that was closer to the Quad, which is where the much-heard-about cherry blossoms are.  The 1st spring that i worked there i decided to randomly walk thru’ the Quad on my way home, just because it was one of the 1st nice days that year — a sunny day, warm enough to not need a coat.

I walked across Red Square.  Past Suzzallo Library, past Kane Hall.  Toward the steps up to the Quad….

And BAM!!

I came to a dead standstill for a few seconds.  Then i started walking around, near-breathless.  Getting giddier and giddier.  Getting practically tipsy.

These pictures are crap — tho’ today was sunny the lighting in the Quad was horrible, and i was just using my phone anyway.  But, y’know?  I really don’t know how to convey to you just what an amazing experience it is to stand there in the middle of the Quad surrounded by trees that are just bursting all over with light-pink flowers.  It’s like you’re walking amongst clouds.  You’re practically floating.  And the scent!  It takes you a moment at 1st to realize that the air is different, and then you slowly realize you’re smelling millions of tiny blossoms.

It is sublime.  It’s transcendent.  It leaves me buoyant.

If you are ever in Seattle in early spring, you must — MUST — visit the UW campus to see the cherry blossoms in the Quad.  Bring a blanket and a picnic (but no sake — it’s a state school, so campus is dry).  Make an afternoon of it.

Yes, i must start by admitting that i haven’t read all of Dumas’s Le Comte de Monte Cristo — how can Andy live with me??  Some day i’ll attempt to read it in French.

But i still couldn’t stand this miniseries.  What a mess!  For one thing, Depardieu is really not at all right for the role of Monte Cristo.  From all the impressions i’ve gotten of the character from pop culture and from living with Andy, i would expect the Count to have been mysterious and dark, refined and subtle.  But Depardieu’s Count is a blunt instrument.  No subtlety at all.  His revenge was more a sharp, crushing blow to your face than a clever knife in your back.

I also felt that, overall, the miniseries was just far too short.  Have you seen how thick this novel is??  The story needs room to expand.  It needs room for small events to be set in motion in one episode and not come to fruition until about 15 episodes later.  Someone get HBO on this shit, STAT!

I did feel pretty smug that whenever i’d howl about something on screen just feeling off and wrong, Andy would confirm that the miniseries was taking a wide detour from the novel at that point.

The one awesome thing about this miniseries was Bertuccio.  Watch episodes 1 and 2 for awesome Bertuccio+food=OTP action, and then ditch the rest.

After that, go watch “Gankutsuo”, which Andy says is a pretty decent adaptation of Dumas — up until the giant robot battle.  And i say is a pretty decent anime overall so long as you stop after episode 23 — 24 is flimsy and 25 is outright crap.

Guess it’s true that wasabi is amenable to the Pacific Northwest climate: mine sure hit a growth spurt in the past month and has been going like gangbusters.  Some of the leaves are downright massive!

I also didn’t realize they flowered — UNTIL IT DID!

This is what my neighborhood looks like when the sun is out.  I-5 bridge over the Ship Canal.

“Tuna-rita” (margarita with juice from the nopal cactus fruit) at Agua Verde.

So i may have fallen a little behind in cataloging my incoming zines.  What pushed me over the edge into organizing everything so that the cataloger (aka the_andy) can get to cataloging was finding my stack of zines from Portland Zine Symposium … 2011.  [facepalm]  OOPS.  Most of which i’d already read because i’ve usually read all my new zines by the time the train gets back into Seattle post-Symposium.  BUT STILL.  These things need to be cataloged so that (a) they can be neatly shelved instead of floating around the apartment, and (b) i don’t keep buying duplicates, which i tend to do if my zine database isn’t updated.

Also!  Once my zines are cataloged and duplicates (inevitably) pruned, then i can send a stack up to ZAPP and contribute to their cataloging backlog.  Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh.