Homestyle Cooking: Meatloaf!

Everybody has their own recipe for meatloaf, and each one is just the way you had it growing up, and no other recipe for meatloaf can compare. What good is meatloaf if it's not just the way that mom/dad/grandma used to make?  In college, my biggest almost-fights - recurrent arguments? Joking arguments that almost weren't jokes? - with my friend Abe were over our respective meatloaf recipes. His recipe involves lots of ketchup, with more ketchup served on top - meatloaf, to his family, is a mechanism for getting rid of ketchup in a tasty fashion. Whereas I would never let ketchup within a MILE of my meatloaf - who eats meatloaf with ketchup??? Meatloaf is nostalgia, personified (food-onified?). As such, visiting my folks last week over Spring break, and having my grandfather over, I happily use my mothers - or rather, her Aunt Grace's - meatloaf recipe for some good home cooking. I don't tend to make it for myself very often, as it's rather a lot of food for one person. On the other hand, it does freeze well. But when I make it for family, well, there is never enough left to freeze!

Meatloaf

1.5 lbs ground beef

1 c. seasoned bread crumbs

1 c. tomato sauce

2 eggs

1 medium onion, chopped (optional)

1/2 tsp salt

dash of pepper

Preheat oven 400F. Mix all ingredients thoroughly - I usually just do this by hand, as I find that gets the whole mixture a bit more homogenous. Now, this recipe is a bit flexible, and usually when I make it it's with a little more (or less) meat. As such, I usually give it a good mix, then add more tomato sauce or breadcrumbs as necessary. You want the meat to be firm and moist - holding it's shape well - you don't want it to be overly crumbly from too many breadcrumbs or overly moist or slimy from too much tomato sauce or too many eggs. When cooking in Baltimore, I actually usually make a 2+ lb batch, which I split into two smaller loafs, saving one for a second meal with my folks.

Now, once everything is nicely mixed, and (for larger batches) split into equal loaf sized parts, you shape your meatloaf. This is the ... trademark? ... of my meatloafs. Ever since I was very small and helping my parents make meatloaf, I've always always always made my meatloaf into shapes. A cat, a Christmas tree or snowman, something seasonal. I've found that rabbits are particularly nice. Bake for 1.5 hours (more or less - obviously for more meat, cook longer, for less, cook shorter). Serve without ketchup.

Fun with Soup Stock

As I've mentioned in a few previous posts, I save chicken (and duck, and turkey, and lamb) bones in order to make my own soup stock. This results in me having, first, random bags of bones sitting in the back of my freezer, and second, large amounts of soup stock sitting in my freezer. Which means even when I'm busy, I have easy access to quality soup. It's easy enough to make soup stock: fill your pot 2/3 or 3/4 up the way with bones. You can add in some veggie scraps if you have them - or some garlic, or onion, or celery - for a bit rounder a flavor. I usually toss things like corn cobs in a plastic bag and save those in my freezer as well. Cover entirely with water, with a couple inches above the bone line to spare. Add in a bay leaf if you have one, and possibly a bouillon cube as a bit of a starter, and salt generously. Cover and cook. In a regular pot you have to cook for HOURS (and you probably want to smash up the bones with a hammer or something so they release their flavor a bit easier). However, I have a pressure cooker. Hence, I can just pressure cook the pot for about 45 minutes to an hour, and it's gonna be as good as it's gonna get! Once that's done, simply strain the soup thoroughly - first to get rid of the bones, then through a finer strainer to get rid of any small particulates which may have slipped through. Apparently fine restaurants strain their stocks up to 5 times to get them extra smooth, through increasingly finer strainers, but I generally don't go that far. Any sort of bones work here - as I've said, I've made turkey soup, duck soup, chicken stock, lamb stock, shrimp stock, and even veggie stock once (I didn't find that veggie stock was worth it, though - I'd have rather just eaten all the veggies and bought veggie stock - the difference from store bought didn't seem significant, except for a bit of a stronger dill flavor, but I digress). You can also make soup out of actual meat - buy a whole chicken and work from there - and that will end up with a delicious pot of soup as well - with actual meat in it to boot. But I rather favor this bone based method, as it's nice not to waste the bones from your lovely chicken roast and to reuse them for new, delicious purposes. It feels thrifty, and it turns out very well.

So in the past few weeks, I've made a couple different soups using my stock base (and yet, still have some remaining in the freezer). First, I made a sort of 'leftover' soup using a bunch of items that I had in my fridge I wanted to get rid of. This ended up consisting of onion/garlic/celery/cream cheese/parmesan cheese/heavy cream/chicken soup/cumin/bay leaf/chili powder/pepper/cayenne pepper/chives/corn starch/MSG/salt/anchovy paste/hot sauce! I don't have a picture, or even a recipe really other than my list of ingredients, because I just kind of kept adding things to the soup, tasting it, and whisking vigorously. So I guess this bit of the post is just a self-reminder and PSA that making soup once you have a good base is pretty easy and flexible. And there aren't any rules about it. Just stick things in that will taste good, and there you have it.

More recently, I decided to make some congee. This is also a relatively recipe-less dish. At it's most basic, it is rice in soup broth, cooked for long enough that the rice breaks down and becomes mush. So it is mainly a question of what you want IN your mush. However, I scandalized Benson by putting onions instead of scallions in my congee (one of these items I had, the other I didn't. The onions taste FINE, but admittedly the scallions are a BIT more traditional...). "Why would you put onions in congee? Nobody does that." I don't recall his EXACT phrasing, but the upshot was I was corrupting one of his favorite dishes, apparently. He also gets on me for putting sugar in my tea. Which is why I don't put sugar in green tea any more (but still keep to my sugared black). Anyway, this is an example of when I like to take full advantage of my slow cooker to just let the soup sit on my counter as everything cooks. So here are the ingredients I put into my most recent batch of congee - again, the only real things you need to put in are rice and broth. And scallions. And perhaps some ginger. And salt.


Congee
1 quart chicken stock+ 4 cups water (aka, 2 quarts soup)
1.5 c. uncooked rice
2 chicken thighs
1/2 diced onion (or, fine, SCALLIONS - ok? I had to promise Benson that if I ever made this for him, I'd only put scallions in.)
Ginger (alas, I only had the ground stuff this time, but I prefer to chop up a few actual chunks/slivers - that's what I tend to do. I usually have it around, but I recently finished off my last hunk.)
Salt
Pepper
MSG (see my post, Cooking For One, if you want to hear my mini-rant on MSG having a bad rep)
Soy Sauce
Maggie sauce
Sesame oil
Jyok3 sung1 - which is shredded... dried... pork stuff? From Chinatown. Added at the end as a kind of garnish, on top of the soup, not cooked with it. Also delicious over straight up rice. Or over other stuff with rice. Or on it's own. Just look at the picture, not really sure how to describe it other than kind of sweetish dried shredded pork.

Shredded dried pork product

I add the bit of water to my soup stock because stock is STRONG, and I added other stuff into it for flavoring, so I can get away with diluting it a bit. It goes further that way. But yes, toss everything in your crockpot, give it a stir, and let it cook for 4-6 hours until the rice has broken down and it's nice and porridge-y. That's when you taste and adjust the seasonings. Obviously, since I tossed in raw chicken, one can't taste until after it's cooked through. But I don't even bother taking the chicken off the bone - just tossing the whole thing on is fine, because after a few hours it falls OFF the bone. So yes, all of the ingredients, save the jyok3 sung1, into the crockpot for 4-6 hours. Stir occasionally. Or in an actual pot, but then you have to keep an eye on it and stir a heck of a lot more often. I mean, I put it in the pot and then watched a movie with Benson. Can't do that with a pot sitting on top of your stove. (We watched Hot Fuzz, which was great. And in case you are wondering how I watched a movie with Benson when he's in England and I'm in New York, we do this by getting the same copy of the movie, shared via Dropbox, getting on Skype, setting up the movie, and counting backwards to hit play at the same time. Then we keep Skype going, and usually IM comments back and forth throughout. It's nice. We do TV shows the same way.)

 So, that's it for now. Hope that this encourages folks to stop and enjoy some delicious, delicious soup. After all, when I was little, soup was my absolute favorite meal of all. I'd eat it almost every day. Nothing wrong with that - it's extremely versatile and a wonderful comfort food.

Catching up, plus Deviled Eggs

Hey all!

It's been much, much too long since my last blog update. Very sorry about that, I genuinely WILL TRY to go back to an update schedule of every other week at a minimum. So. What have I been up to since... gosh, has it really been since last summer, basically? I've had many blog posts I meant to write. My dining experience at Per Se. The rest of my trip to Italy. The many various things I've cooked over the last 6 months or so. Well, I've been up to a lot in that time. Benson has visited twice. I've gone to Baltimore more than one might expect, including a week of housesitting plus keeping an eye on my grandfather who recently moved down to an assisted living place in Baltimore. A dear friend of mine got married and had a lovely wedding. I gave a public outreach talk on some interesting debates in the history of astronomy, plus have participated in other outreach activities with the astro department. I've been running/attending a movie night with friends in the department, too, so lots of good movies, there. My research has been going well, and I've been working on some papers and gotten several proposals in, and even accepted (well, my research group has, and I've helped). I went to the AAS meeting in National Harbour, MD, to present a poster on my research. I got glasses, and want to get a monocle (but these are a bit hard to find prescription). I bought some single malt scotch with some of my Christmas money. Benson went to Cambridge, so we've been adjusting to an all-new 5 hour time difference. I went to the beach in Ocean City, MD. I wrote a couple pieces of fanfiction (you saw the piece for the WTNV election, my last blog post!). I've been spending too much time on the internet, particularly Tumblr, AO3, Facebook, etc. I've been going to Chinatown semi-regularly with a group in my department, mostly for dim sum though recently for the Chinese New Year and peking duck (amazingness!). I went to my 5 year Brandeis reunion. There was Christmas. Iceskating and sledding with Benson. Watching too much TV, including a new season of Sherlock, starting Supernatural, the Sopranos, and the usual Doctor Who, Homeland, HIMYM, and other shows. Played a few good computer games - particularly Fez and the Stanley Parable. Movies: Godfather Trilogy, Hunger games, Desolation of Smaug, Pulp Fiction and Resevoir dogs (in a one night Quintin Terintino marathon). Hung out with my friend Lloyd and cooked with them a bit as well. Went to a Doo-Wop festival in Wild Wood, NJ, dressing all 50s in a poodle-skirt both for that AND Halloween. I may do some mini-blog entries on some of these things, we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, with this "sort of" entry, I figure I'll post a "sort of" kind of recipe. I made some deviled eggs last weekend for an Oscar party I attended Sunday night, so there we go!

I've always loved deviled eggs. It's probably one of the first dishes I made on my own without help or recipe from my parents. I'm not counting sandwiches or scrambled eggs or cake mix here, or a recipe I made 100x with my mom before doing it again by myself - I mean a recipe I sought out on my own. This is also not counting the numerous instances when I was really young when I would mix spices, water, and food coloring to make 'magic potions' - those were pretty inedible, considering they were made entirely of edible substances. Anyway, deviled eggs. I ate them for the first time... probably at my aunts New Years Eve party or something similar... and really loved them, so resolved to make them on my own. I don't know the age when I started making them, but it was probably sometime in elementary school.

Now, my recipe is a bit different than most deviled egg recipes because of this. When I was younger, I HATED mustard. Would not eat it. Could not stand it. So that very classic ingredient in deviled eggs has been substituted by thousand islands dressing, which apparently my childhood self decided was the obvious substitute for that much-hated condiment. And I think it works very well.

The other thing about this recipe is that it doesn't have 'proportions', per se. I just tend to add each thing until it looks/tastes right. My usually 'stopping' point for adding ingredients is and always has been that when I can't stop myself from tasting it because of deliciousness, that's when I can stop.

This recipe has also evolved to be spicier over the years. The hot sauce is a relatively recent (ie, college-aged me) addition. This is because, in addition to my spice-tolerance growing, my mother dislikes spicy food. In fact, I'd always fill a couple eggs early for my mother prior to adding some of the spices (like the old bay and chili powder) before making the rest of the egg fill more spicy for my dad and me. I contained this trend of a separate early non-spicy batch in college for my dear friend Kaila, who has an even more extreme spice intolerance.

So my point is, this is not so much a recipe as much as a flexible set of guidelines for how to my style of (awesome) deviled eggs. Modify and taste throughout for your best personal results. Feel free to experiment until you find the combination that's best for YOU. But DO include the Old Bay - it is my not-so-secret key ingredient.

Deviled Eggs

Eggs (hard boiled and shelled)

Miracle Whip

Thousands Islands (French) dressing

Hot Sauce

Spices:

      Old Bay

      Cajun seasoning

      Chili Powder

      Paprika

      Pepper

      Anything else you think might be delicious, like chives, if you have them!

Obviously, the first step is to boil and shell however many eggs you are planning on making. I usually make a minimum of 6 at a time. I have a very nice egg transport container, with little divots for the eggs so they'll be stable, and that will hold 20 half-eggs, so when making them for large groups I'll make a dozen, eat 2 of them, and put the rest into the container for transport! So. Once you have your eggs boiled and shelled, slice them all lengthwise (as shown) and remove the egg yolk and put it into a small mixing bowl. The egg whites go into your egg container to be filled later.

Now, first, add in *roughly* equal parts Miracle Whip and Thousand Islands dressing - not *quite* equal, though, I tend to put in a bit more of the Miracle Whip than the dressing, because I like the tang. How much of each of these, you ask? Well, that depends on the number of eggs, for one thing, so add a bit at a time and MASH everything with a fork. You want the yolks to form a thick paste - on the creamy side of crumbly, and as smooth as you can get it, like really thick icing. When the texture seems pretty good, take a taste to balance the Miracle Whip/dressing ratio, make sure that's good, and then you can start adding your hot sauce and spices. The amount of hot sauce, of course, depends on how spicy you like things and the spiciness of the sauce in question. I have a thing of "Dave's Insanity Sauce" which I've been very slowly working my way through for a while now, because a little goes a LONG way. As far as spices, I'm VERY generous with my Old Bay (being a Maryland Girl at heart). But the cajun spices are also a really good addition and I put those in with a fairly liberal hand as well. And of course, chili powder and pepper for a bit more kick, and you can't make deviled eggs without paprika. All I can say for this bit is just keep mixing and tasting. This time I also happened to have some chives in my fridge, so those turned out to be a really nice addition, but I don't usually have those around.

Once you're egg-paste is to your satisfaction, you can fill your egg yolks. I would be generous in how much you put in each egg - it's better to have nice fat eggs and just munch on an empty egg white or two than to be skimpy here, I feel. Plus, you've added mass to the egg whites by adding in the Miracle Whip and the dressing, so you should be able to fill most of them. Once that's done, for a dash of color (and a bit more spice) I toss a dash more of Old Bay and paprika (and sometimes the cajun seasoning, or in this batch, chives) over the top as a lovely decorative touch!

Anyways, hopefully this is a useful set of guidelines for deviled eggs. Also hopefully it won't take me forever to update this blog again. I do like writing it, I just got busy and then out of the habit of posting. Ah, well! Such is life. Like I said, I may try to do a few mini-blog entries describing a few of the things that have gone on in my life in the past 6 months in a bit more detail in the future!

Welcome to Night Vale Elections

(A note: this blog post will make absolutely NO sense to anyone who is not familiar with the podcast "Welcome to Night Vale", which you can find for free on iTunes, and I have been really enjoying listening to of late. You are warned. This is basically something of a writing exercise, as I want to get back into the habit of posting. I also highly recommend this podcast, which I have clearly overthought.)

This year, as there aren't any major elections in my voting district, my thoughts turn instead to the mayoral elections of Night Vale, where, after the withdrawal of Mayor Pamela Winchell, two newcomers to the political scene have entered the race. First to enter the race was Hiram McDaniels, who posted his interest in joining the race on his blog this past December.

 McDaniels has some problems in his past - he was arrested for insurance fraud, falsifying identification fraud, evading arrest, and assaulting a police vehicle with fire. It is also worth stating that he has come under some criticism for his very nature: he is literally a five-headed dragon. However, despite some of the negative stereotypes for multi-headed beings, and general dragon-bashing, he has taken this fact and tried to turn it into a positive, using it as his campaign slogan: "I’m literally a five-headed dragon. Who cares!" McDaniels has a reputation for his intelligence, new ideas, and focus on youth development - both in business and physical activity. He has also expressed interest in expanding local park systems. His opposition, however, has pointed to his exchanges with corn lobbyists with concern, in fear they may try to move in on the local imaginary corn market.

Less is known about the other mayoral candidate, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home, who announced her candidacy this past July. While McDaniel's description is well known and circulated (a five headed dragon,18 feet tall, weighing about 3600 lbs, and with red, black, green, and yellow eyes - mostly green), the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home tends to be always just out of your sight. However, she is regularly in touch with the media and, like McDaniels, has an active online presence, based on her internet browsing history found on your computer cache, and her requests for your wifi password. Her stated positions include some innovative new ideas for increasing school funding while still lowering taxes, as well as for simplifying the political system which she believes has become too complicated. It is also rumored that she holds critical information that the Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency is eager to get hold of. This information may or may not be about you.

As an editorial, at the moment I find myself leaning towards Hiram McDaniels, since I feel I know more about his policies. And, while I try not to lean on stereotypes, I can't help but feel that being a five-headed dragon may give him a unique advantage for generating new ideas which may benefit Night Vale and a fresh perspective. However, I am not yet ready to endorse him in full - he is, in some ways, the more conservative candidate - and I would like to know more of the ideas from Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. There is something to be said for being in touch with the voting base, and based on her residency, she is certainly more familiar with the day to day goings on in Night Vale than her opposition, who clearly originates from somewhere other than our little world. 

 I am looking forwards to the rumored debate which may (or may not) occur this coming Friday, which I plan on listening to with an open mind.

AstroFest and Créme de Menthe Brownies

WOW it's been a while. Hopefully now that the academic year has started up again, I'll start posting more regular updates. And I'll  try to go back and maybe describe the rest of my big trip and some other exciting things from this summer. I've been quite busy, and the summer tends to be a bit unstructured, and while this may imply more free time, it also means I tend to let things go at the same time. But I've been quite busy, cooking fun things, not to mention other summer plans (like a trip to Ocean City Maryland and eating lots and lots of crab plus plenty of time on the beach), so I have plenty of new content, if I just write it up. So now that the academic year is back in the swing of things, my move to a regular and structured schedule should return. I'll aim for an update approximately two times per month, probably with a few extra updates in the next two weeks catching up with my life until now, starting with some recent events and a recipe for my delicious créme de menthe brownies!

One recent event was my department's annual "AstroFest." Every year, everyone in the department gets together and each person gives a four minute talk (plus one minute, for questions) on their research or some related or interesting aspect of astronomy (in theory - in practice not everyone signs up each year and we have some outside folks as well, though graduate students are required strongly encouraged to present). This lets us all be social with each other, remind ourselves what everyone else is doing and how their research is coming, familiarize ourselves with cool topics in modern astronomy, plus get a pretty decent breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the department. Plus, coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. We're talking 60+ talks starting at 9am and going on 'til 5pm, albeit with breaks for coffee, lunch, and breathing space. A really fun event, though it can also be overwhelming.

I myself gave a talk on the same object I presented in South Africa - now with a few more data points, but compressed to 1/4 of the time to present. So I basically gave an overview of the theory driving our observations and showed a few pretty plots demonstrating why it's interesting. I left off by tossing the subject to the speaker after me - another graduate student who is also looking at the same object - with more of a focus on modeling - who has been working with my advisor and me for the past year. So I also provided her talk with a bit of background, while showing off my pretty, pretty data, and having the benefit of not having to cover EVERYTHING about this object in four minutes. Which would be, frankly, impossible. I'm currently working on the paper for this object, and the roughest of rough drafts, without figures, citations, or finalized data (plus a conclusion section which is simply bullet points at the moment) is already three pages of very small type print. So it worked out quite well, we even practiced together a bit beforehand to make sure we flowed well, topic wise, and that I could set up her talk decently. We got a fair number of complements on our joint talks, in fact!

After AstroFest is the all important AstroFEAST: where (after hitting a bar for an hour and a half first) we head over to one of the professors apartments and just eat, drink, and be merry. It's always a very nice time, this year with loads of Indian food, some of which is even now in my freezer (there was so much left over, the hostess insisted we take food home, and I found myself with a huge tray of lamb curry). Other highlights of the evening include an entire table covered in different sorts of ice cream, playing some cat's cradle and hand games with other graduate students (including teaching another grad student how to play "cups"), discussions of Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time and other geek favorites, random musings about science, and general revelry.

After all that astronomy and festivities, one might ask how I work a recipe into the blog post. While I'm certainly not above simply sticking in a recipe at the end, it is somewhat related. FOr the breaks between talks at AstroFest, graduate students are also required encouraged to bring in an afternoon snack. So this year hailed the return of my much beloved recipe of créme de menthe brownies, which my family has been making since I was but a wee barne. Créme de menthe brownies: a delightful mix of rich chocolate and mintiness in three delicious layers.We generally only made these about once a year at home, mainly because they have many separate steps which need to be spread out during the day (or, in a crunch, an evening). So they take a while. However, each individual step is pretty straightforwards - it's just that each layer needs to bake/cool/chill/set before you can start the next one.

These are made with creme de menthe liqueur, but if you are not a fan of mint youc an substitute other flavourings. I have some friends who always make these brownies with Kahlua instead of creme de menthe for the middle layers. While these are also delicious, I'm partial to the brownies of my childhood which were always, ALWAYS mint. Nostalgia dictates. This recipe also requires almost three full sticks of butter, so it's not for the faint of heart!

Crème de Menthe Brownies (in 3 layers)

Layer 1:

1 c. sugar

4 eggs

16 oz Hershey’s syrup

1 c. flour

1/2 c. butter (melted) – 1 stick

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350°F

Mix all ingredients and bake in an ungreased, unfloured 9x13 baking pan for 30 minutes. Let cool COMPLETELY before starting the next layer.

Layer 2:

2 cups powdered (10X) sugar

½ c. butter (1 stick)

4 tbs crème de menthe

Mix ingredients thoroughly, spread over layer #1 and chill – let solidify before starting last layer. This will take at least an hour.

Layer 3:

6 tbs butter

1 cup chocolate chips

(Actually, you can also use a full 1/2 c. butter and 1-1/3 c. of chocolate chips for a thicker layer. I sometimes do this if I'm feeling particularly decadant. Or if I just don't want to have those 2 tbs of butter left from the stick. Whatever.)

Melt butter in saucepan, add chocolate chips and stir on low heat until melted. Spread on layer #2, chill for 30-45 minutes and then cut into squares. If you chill longer, when you cut them the 3^rd layer will crack when you cut them. But if you are just going to let these sit out at room temperature a while before you cut them, the cracks aren't a huge problem. But you DO want to chill them for a while to make sure the top layer sets! These also freeze well, for long term storage!

All in all, delicious. Three layers of delicious.

So until next time, and with much hope for more frequent updates, enjoy!

Travelogue: Brussels and Prague

Benson and I are currently bopping around Europe for a couple weeks before he goes to a string of conferences. We are having a lovely time, and I thought I'd give a summary of our trip so far.

Our first major stop was Prague, but we deliberately chose a flight with a nine hour layover in Brussels, Belgium, so that we could explore the city for the day. After the pains of customs, we took a train into the city, and set out exploring. With only about 5-6 hours actually available (since we had to return to the airport to go through security again) we had carefully planned out our top priorities in Belgium. Which is why throughout the day, we went to six different chocolate shops, drank three types of beer, ate waffles, mussels, fries and a local rabbit dish, and, of course, saw the Grand Place and the Mannekin Pis.

We were quite systematic: after our first stop for waffles (with chocolate sauce!) we went to Place du Grand Sablon, which has a lot of little chocolatiers. At each we had a salted caramel filled chocolate to establish a baseline between places. We also chose out a few others at each for some variety. Perhaps our favorite place was Mary, which is apparently the favorite of the royal family, as well. But the other places also had really, really good chocolates: Pierre Marcolini had really good quality CHOCOLATE itself, (and had the cocoa beans on display), Leonidas had the most excellent caramels, and Wittamer had these delicious Grand Marniere chocolates. We also went to Neuhaus and Chocopolis, which I also highly recommended!

Our non-chocolate stops were a lot of fun, too. We went to a lovely bar with all sorts of local beers, which were quite nice. Grand Place was beautiful. The pissing kid (as we called him) was.... as expected? I guess? It's this little fountain depicting a child peeing. The church outside of which he resides dresses him up in different outfits on regular basis. It was... weird. The restaurant we went to for lunch was quite tasty. (Our main focus was clearly on food sampling.) At this point, we hadn't really slept in 24 hours due to flights and time direness and while Benson deals with jet lag pretty well, I was exhausted. So I slept for the 3 hour plane ride to Prague after that.

On arriving in Prague, we schlepped through public transport and made our way to our hotel, then, after unpacking, we went to a nearby Czech restaurant for dinner. In general, Czech food is kind of similar to the German food we have had: heavy, an emphasis on meats, and best washed down with a nice glass of Pivo (beer, and the only word of Czech that I learned). The food is quite tasty. The beer was WONDERFUL. I miss the beer already, seriously. All the beer we had in Prague was good. And in general, it was dirt cheap. I'm not just talking about the (admittedly quite good) exchange rate between dollars and Czech crowns, but beer is usually cheaper than soda, or on par. And it's everywhere!

The food was also good - as you might expect, there is a lot of pork, very good sausages. We had some really good stews (venison, pork), potato dumplings, roasted pork, more sausage, pickles, pretzels, an interesting cheese dish whhich consisted of pickled Brie with a spicy pepper salad of sorts (we were skeptical, but it was QUITE good), head cheese, some amazing fresh potato chips at an outdoor marketplace, and a   personal favorite: fried cheese on a bun - like a giant mozzarella stick, with grease in all the right places. We had that about three times as a snack. Almost every day, we went to a a lovely bakery type place called Paul, which had all sorts of goodies for breakfast. There were also a few non-Czech places we tried, on the recommendations of the book "Where Chefs Eat" which gives recommendations for the best restaurants in a large number of major cities. In fact, our first full day in Prague we hit the trifecta of recommendations for Prague: Paul, Limonada, and Itchnusa, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All three were really great - we went to Itchnusa twice, in fact.

Prague itself was also wonderful. In general, the architecture was gorgeous. Benson said that if we took a picture of every gorgeous building in Prague, we'd have the equivalent of a Google street view map. My mother, when telling me about HER trip to Prague, described it as like a fairy tale, and I could see why. It felt very old, and beautiful, and its a city you can very easily travel mostly on foot. Honestly, the cars and the few modern buildings felt very much out of place. We had four whole days of Prague, which was a good amount - we actually planned on doing a day trip out the last day, to a castle an hour away, but that fell through and we just spent our last day exploring some of the smaller museums. These included the gastronomic museum (a history of food prep), an alchemy museum which included going into underground tunnels beneath Prague which led to a secret alchemy lab (and was behind a bookcase, classic!), and the KGB museum, where we got to see lots of the stuff issued to KGB agents and similar items - plus got to hold them and play around with them in some instances!

But there were many nice big ticket items in Prague (besides wandering around enjoying the atmosphere, which took up a good bit of our time, if not most of it). Prague Castle took up most of one day- you could get tickets to tour the various parts of it, from the art gallery, to the towers, to the actual window where the defenestration of Prague took place (such a great word, defenestration), to the Golden Lane where people such as Kafka lived. Really cool! The Prague astronomical clock in the old town square was extremely neat: it gave the location of the sun, the zodiac sign, the phase of the moon, the time, the old Prague time (splitting daylight into twelve even chunks) sunrise and sunset, and date. Every hour, the apostles will spin around while death chimes the hour. We wandered the Jewish quarter and across the Charles Bridge, went to the National Gallery of Art, went to the Vysehrad castle/fortress and the lovely cathedral there, where we happened upon a children's chorus giving a performance. That castle was also lovely for watching the sunset. We ended our trip by going to the Prague State Opera on Saturday, where we saw Carmen, happily with English subtitles as well as Czech.

And from the, it was on to Italy! Where I currently am. We are staying with a friend of Benson's from UCSB, in a town that is about two hours north of Rome, Capodimonte. But more on that in another blog post, I think!

Recommended Procrastination Reading

The internet is a wonderful thing. It connects people all around the world, provides information on any number of subjects, and, perhaps most importantly, provides endless new sources of procrastination. Sites like Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and so on can very easily take up the bulk of a person's day, if one isn't careful. More than that, there is an endless supply of reading material: news, science, fiction, stories, comics, everything. THIS post is going to focus on recreational reading material: the stuff I read purely for entertainment. Not to say I don't read science blogs, or informational data sets, or interesting news articles and whatnot during my free time, but I have an awful fondness for things like webcomics and web fiction. 

One fact about me that I may not have mentioned is that I also have a fondness for listing things. The first thing I do at work is make a to-do list of goals for the day. If I'm stressed, one of the easiest ways to deal with it is to put EVERYTHING that I need/want to do out on paper, sort through it, and break things down step by step. I have a multitude of lists on my computer for long term to-dos (both work projects and for fun), ways to inspire myself, books to read, things to watch, and so on. Even my personal financial spreadsheets are waaaay beyond what most people would keep track of. I really like data, interesting data visualizations, and things of that sort (which serves me well as an observationalist). So I've decided to go through and list some of my favorite things to read online, as recommendations and for personal reference.  I've broken my list down into categories, and then tried to keep them in a vague semblance of order by putting my favorite stories first within any given topic. Of course, all of the stories on the list are ones I like, obviously, and which is exactly my favorite at any given time depends on my mood. Nevertheless. Here are various top recommendations of comics and stories! 

Webcomics and Serials:
I've been a fan of webcomics since my uncle introduced me to a couple of them when I was in 10th grade (I think I still remember the comics he started me off on, too: Acid Reflux, Dominic Deegan, Kevin and Kell, Faux Pas, Suburban Jungle, and Dakota's Ridge). Indeed, I probably now follow what most would consider an excessive amount of webcomics, and have finished or dropped even more, since I've been following and finding webcomics for more than a decade, now. But thank to RSS feeds and other tracking sites, it's easy enough to keep tabs on them. Anyways, this is by no means a complete list of webcomics and web serials, but these are some of my favorites!

Gunnerkrigg Court: The Court and the Forest have long been separated. Antimony Carver joins the court for her schooling. Webcomic, ongoing.
This is my favorite webcomic: just read it, you'll like it. This is a fantastic comic: the pacing and writing are excellent, the story is intriguing and has a great blend of realism and fantasy, and the author clearly knows how to weave a story together. Initially the art is a little 'meh', but over the years it has developed quite a bit; now there are some really gorgeous pages! 

Girl Genius: Agatha lives in a world run by Sparks! Clanks! and Mad Science! Webcomic, ongoing.
A close second on the favorite webcomic front: this steampunk-y webcomic is great fun to read, full of action and adventure, and of course, MAD SCIENCE!

Digger: Wombats, elephant statues, dead gods, and oracular slugs. Webcomic, Complete.
This is a completed story in its own right, and has a lovely blend of humor, adventure, and wombats.

A Girl and her Fed: A girl discovers that she's been placed on a watch list by the government, and is being spied on by a very unusual agent. Though he hasn't picked up on the fact that she lives with the ghost of Benjamin Franklin. A webcomic about civil rights, ghosts, and ethics. Webcomic, ongoing.

XKCD: Individual Comics relating to a myriad of topics, with a focus on science. Webcomic, ongoing.
If you aren't familiar with XKCD, you really should check it out, especially if you tend towards science. These don't follow a story, they're pretty much all one-shots, and have a lot of gems.

Tales of MU: Mackenzie Blaise begins college, determined to make a new start for herself and hoping to ignore her non-human heritage. Web serial, ongoing.
This is an interesting fantasy web serial with some very nice world building (which I tend to enjoy) - the setting is basically a D&D type world which has moved into the modern age - think 1990's. Honestly, some of my favorite chapters are the ones which describe Mackenzie's classes, simply because of the level of detail involved. For the most part it's a kind of a day to day life sort of thing, not so much focused on plot,. There is quite a bit of sex, and some of the early chapters can be a bit off-putting. You can start either at the beginning of Volume 1 or Volume 2 - the second volume is Mackenzie's second year, and the author tried to write such that new readers could pick it up at that point, so you may want to start there.

No Rest for the Wicked: November has been unable to sleep since the moon disappeared, so she goes forth to seek her fortune, in this fairytale based land. Webcomic, ongoing.
Although slow to update, this story has very interesting takes on a number of famous fairy tales, including the Princess and the Pea, Little Red Riding Hood, and Puss in Boots.

Mixed Myth: Keeva, half-goblin, half-elf, is being chased for something that she doesn't even know she possesses. Fantasy. Webcomic, complete.

Abstruse Goose: Individual comics, with science focus. Webcomic, ongoing.
This is another good set of comics for those with a science focus.

A Miracle of Science: Benjamin's job is to track down and subdue people affected by Science Related Memnic Disorder (more commonly known as Mad Scientists), and in pursuit of his latest quarry, he must work with an envoy from the enigmatic Mars. Webcomic, complete.

Hyperbole and a Half: A highly entertaining mix between a blog and stories told with MS Paint. Blog, ongoing.

Order of the Stick: An adventuring party and their ongoing quest for gold, XP, and justice! D&D based. Webcomic, ongoing.


Fanfiction:
One of my guilty pleasures is fan-fiction. Yes, I know, I know; a lot of it out there is really bad, or really smutty, or otherwise terrible --- I fully admit this. But some of it is written well, and it can be a lot of fun. 
I'm particularly partial to fanfiction based on the Harry Potter series (which I love) and that which is based on Sherlock Holmes, particularly the BBC version. So I've broken fanfiction into those catagories, with Crossovers between works and non Harry Potter or Sherlock fanfiction falling under "Miscellaneous". Most of these fictions can probably be read with just a passing familiarity for the original works, though there are definite spoilers in some.

Harry Potter:
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Harry is a rationalist: he was raised in a loving environment by his Aunt Petunia, her husband (an Oxford Professor), and a steady diet of science and science fiction/fantasy books. When he gets his Hogwarts letter, he decides to claim the magical world in the name of SCIENCE! Work in Progress. 

This fic ALWAYS makes the number one spot on my list - it is amazing. It is well written, scientifically minded, interesting, and well thought out. If you like either science OR Harry Potter, you should really check this out. It's written such that you don't actually have to have read the books, but the author does poke fun at, reference, and keep some of the plot-relevant points from the originals. And you can't beat trying to understand magic with the scientific method. [You'll also find a couple other fics by this author under "Miscellaneous."]

Harry Potter and the Natural Twenty: An 11-year old wizard named Milo is summoned across the planes from a distant land: one in which people have hit-points, there are a limited number of spell slots per day, and a critical hit can make all the difference. Despite his strange magic, he soon enrolls in Hogwarts and befriends Harry Potter. Work in Progress.

This fic is a lot of fun: D&D players will particularly enjoy it. The author even keeps a fairly up to day character sheet for Milo, keeping track of his spells and stats.

Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past: The Battle of Hogwarts did not go well at all... so Harry casts a desperate spell to merge with his 11-year old self, and re-do Hogwarts with advanced knowledge. Work in Progress.

Getting the Hang of Thursdays: After a catastrophic accident in potions class, Severus Snape finds the day repeating itself, always resulting in the death of Hermione Granger. Complete.
This story has two possible endings, so make sure you refresh the last page to get both.

The Prince of the Dark Kingdom: Voldemort won, all those years ago, and currently rules over Great Britain. Harry discovers his wizardry and enrolls into Hogwarts, and soon catches the eye of the country's leader. Work in Progress.

Sherlock (BBC):
You'll note I list a fair amount of Sherlock Holmes fanfiction here - I really enjoy the BBC TV series, Sherlock, which is frustrating because there are only 6 episodes out, and they still haven't announced when the next season will be coming out. So lately, I've been glutting myself on Sherlock fanfiction in order to stave off my hunger pangs for the new season. It's sort of working, but needless to say, I'm really looking forwards to season 3, which is currently in production. 

The Googe Street Gambit: Bored at a crime-scene, John and Lestrade play a quick game of Mornington Crescent, to Sherlock's confusion. A short one-shot, complete.
A really funny short story, though you should probably be familiar with the game Mornington Crescent.

The Road Trip Series: Sherlock, John, and Lestrade need to travel 12 hours in a car together in order to get to a crime scene outside of the city. This goes about as well as you would expect. Complete.

Wee Doctor: While pursuing a mad scientist, John is hit by a gun which rips him out of time, and finds himself as an 8-year old child in a world where he never existed. Work in Progress.

The Green Blade: Sherlock and John investigate a string of murders by a serial killer. However, due to some recent events, Sherlock's credit with the Yard is at an all time low. Complete.

Performance in a Leading Role: Sherlock and John are actors, who meet (and fall in love) on a movie shoot. Complete.

Love, Thieves, Fear: After John is shot in Afghanistan, he finds he can talk to ghosts. He tries to ignore this, until he meets someone who has the same ability. Complete.

A Week is just Seven Days, isn't it?: Mycroft asks John to go back to Afghanistan for a week to investigate some issues for him, which means leaving Sherlock alone in London for a week. Nothing that bad can happen in a week, right?  Complete.

A Slip of the Finger: While still in school, John Watson accidentally sends a text to a wrong number: namely, the phone of Sherlock Holmes. A series of texts and phone calls as their relationship evolves. Work In Progress.

Midnight Blue Serenity: Sherlock and John investigate a series of murders by going undercover as a bartender and bouncer at a local club. Work in Progress. 

In Which John is a Cuddly BAMF Assassin: John is an assassin and Sherlock is trying to track him down. But John tracks down Sherlock first --- to ask him on a date. A short one-shot, complete.

Sometimes Family is the Most Terrifying part of the Fairy Tale: Sherlock takes John home to meet his family, and doesn't notice that Mummy doesn't like the doctor at all. Work in progress.

The Flat of Two Serial Killers: Breaking into 221B is not the best decision ever. Short one-shot, complete.

A Completely Different Untitled Police Force John (and Sequel): Sherlock meets John Watson when the doctor starts working forensics at crime scenes, and falls in love at first sight read-through of forensics report. Short, complete.

Letter of the Lore: Sherlock is Faery-blooded and bound by the rules of the Fae. A short one-shot, complete.

Knock Knock: Sherlock deletes most useless trivia, and in some cases, the results can be extremely amusing. Short one-shot, complete.

Long Ago and Far Away: Alternate universe which takes place around WWII. Sherlock and John romance. Complete.

On Feathers and Bacon Sandwiches: John Watson was killed when he was hit in the shoulder in Afghanistan, but conveniently, a demon was able to step in and use his body, anyway. And being a demon is an advantage when you live with Sherlock Holmes. Complete.

Semper Fedelis: John and Anthea (Mycroft's assistant), are framed for betraying their partners (Sherlock and Mycroft) and are forced to go on the run to clear their names. Complete.

Miscellaneous/Crossovers:
A Study in Emerald: Sherlock Holmes/H.P. Lovecraft, written by Neil Gaiman. Based on "A Study in Scarlet," this is a detective story set in a Lovecraftian Victorian England. Short story, complete.
This might be stretching what counts as "fan fiction," since this is published in an actual book somewhere, as well as being available for free online.  But I'm already a huge fan of Neil Gaiman (who wrote, amongst other things, the Sandman comics, Neverwhere, Stardust, Coraline, American Gods, and other pieces of awesomeness), and this story is amazing, so I don't care.

Trust in God, or the Riddle of Kyon: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Kyon and Haruhi are graduating, which makes Kyon wonder what is going to happen next. So he comes to an important decision. Complete.
This is my head-canon for how this anime should end when everyone graduates high school. Note that this and "the Finale of the Ultimate-Meta-Mega Crossover" (below) are by Eliezer Yudkowsky, who ALSO writes Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (see Harry Potter Fanfiction list above). I'm a big fan of his work, in general - his other writings are also definitely worth checking out.

Friendship is Optimal: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. My Little Pony executives put out a new game, with an A.I. version of Princess Celestia running it. Only, she's truly a VERY advanced AI. Complete.

I don't even watch My Little Pony, but this is extremely well done, and you don't need to know much more than the bare essentials of MLP at all to enjoy it. In fact, this fic is actually one of the more terrifying things I've read.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc: Sherlock/Addams Family Crossover. On his mother's side, John Watson's family have some unusual traits and abilities. We see his life growing up, including visits to his extended family, the Addams, and eventually see when he moves in with Sherlock and tries to keep his odder quirks under wraps. Complete.

Loss of Flesh and Soul: Sherlock/Silence of the Lambs/Red Dragon Crossover. Sherlock was a psychologist and a serial killer, put behind bars by D.I. John Watson. But after some copy-cat crimes, the police want Sherlock's help in catching another serial killer. Work in Progress.

I Used to Live Alone Before I Knew You:  Sherlock/Good Omens crossover. Sherlock is a Demon, Mycroft is an angel, and John is just John. Short one-shot, complete.

The Magic of Deduction: Sherlock/Harry Potter Crossover. John is in Hufflepuff, Sherlock is in Slytherin. Friendship, love, and mysteries over 7 years at Hogwarts. Complete.

Stardust: Sherlock/Hunger Games Crossover. For the 74th Hunger games, John is selected in District 12 and Sherlock is selected in District 8. Complete.

The Finale of the Ultimate-Meta-Mega Crossover: Fire Upon the Deep/Permutation City/Miles Vorkosigan/Suzumiya Haruhi/Sherlock Holmes/Doctor Who/Star Trek/Hitchhikers Guide/Alice in Wonderland/Disk World/Matrix/Ah! My Goddess!/Monty Python/[Error: Overflow]. Short, complete.
So.... the list above where I list the stories this crosses over... I haven't actually read the first two items, and after that, I just listed some --- NOT all --- of the works that the story crosses over with that I'm FAMILIAR WITH. There are many crossover works mentioned in the story that are things I'm NOT familiar with; indeed, there may be more that I haven't read/seen then that I have. This is not important, nor is it the point. The point is that this story is a mere two chapters long, and not only makes this work, but it gives a reasonable explanation for why this is all happening in the end. Yes, really.

And I can think of nothing else online that would be better to end on then that, so until next time, happy procrastinating!