I Said...

I coulda sworn I posted this, but apparently blogger et it.

The best thing about my Evolution prof: She calls white Americans "European-Americans". Always.

C'est l'halloween, on veut des bonbons!

Every halloween of my childhood I went out. I kept going trick or treating until people started turning me away, at about age 14 or 15, then I got up to other age-appropriate revelry, like scary movies, Samhain rituals, parties, whatever. Then, when I was 17 I moved out, and have lived in apartments every since. For the first time since I moved out, I happen to be at my parents place this halloween. So I insisted that my dad and I buy some candy and put it in the orange plastic bowl and put that bowl by the door, just like it always was when I was on my way out for my reveling. I promised that I'd take care of the hordes.

You know what? It's not as exciting as I expected. I was hoping for something like this, but instead, it's all just lame fairy princess costumes and no eye contact.

I'm disappointed.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Apparently, Hamas is training American Muslim college students in terrorist techniques. Now, I don't want to come off as fear mongering here, but I think we all need to be very careful. Muslim girls in American colleges have learned the previously-unknown-to-them terrorist techniques of wearing head scarves, rolling their eyes, and getting up to pee. If we don't act now, no psychotic right-wing Christian speaker will ever be safe from... um... neutral or mildly rude behaviour?

Shit, I can't keep this up. I can't even pretend to follow the reasoning here. Just go read Thers' post cuz it's funny as hell.

Chocolat chaud amer*

I first got the idea for bitter hot chocolate from Toi, Moi et Fumée,** who serve it that way, with a sugar bowl so you can sweeten it to your taste. I found that I liked my hot chocolate very bitter indeed, with just barely enough sugar to take the edge off the cocoa.

Here's how you make it so that the cocoa dissolves properly. It's usually not worth the effort if you're only making it for one, because it's a pain to deal with one mug's worth of milk on the stove, but if there's two or more of you, it's perfect.

Ingredients:
milk
cocoa powder (NOT hot chocolate powder)
sugar

Equipment:
stove
pot large enough to hold all the milk
tea strainer like this (plastic is also fine)
wooden spoon
funnel or ladle
mugs, spoons, and so forth for serving.

Instructions:
Measure the milk by filling the mug you'll be drinking out of until it's just slightly fuller than you would want, and then pouring it into the pot. Do that as many times as there are people.

Put the pot on the stove at medium heat and let it warm a bit (it shouldn't be close to boiling). Add the cocoa, about 2.5-3tbsp/person, as follows: over the pot, dump about 1.5tbsp cocoa into the tea strainer, then tap the tea strainer on the edge of the pot to sift the cocoa into the milk, while stirring constantly with the wooden spoon. Make sure that the first strainer's worth of cocoa is fully dissolved before you add the next one. Keep this up until all the cocoa is dissolved in the milk. At this point the milk should be quite warm. If it isn't, keep it on medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is. You may have to turn the heat down at some point during the dissolving process to keep the milk from boiling, which you do not want. Also, if you really stir constantly it will prevent the milk from acquiring a skin.

Dish up the hot cocoa using the funnel or ladle and serve with a sugar bowl and spoons. I like to add just under a teaspoon of sugar to my mug, but ymmv.

I'm very proud of this recipe, as I invented it my very own self. It's kind of a no-brainer, but my biggest problem with hot cocoa was always getting the cocoa properly dissolved, and I can now declare that no longer a problem.

---

*Which has no business being spelled like that, but WordReference.com swears up and down that there's no accent on that e. Any francophones care to weigh in?

**I guess we have to rename it now that Quebec has gone smoke-free indoors

meep

I have four midterms and a major lab report to do before the end of next week. Don't be surprised if you don't hear from me until then. Also, don't be surprised if you find yourselves picking little bits of my brain out of your hair after my head explodes from stress. Anyone want to read and summarize a bunch of articles on sexual selection/prey selection tension in guppies for me? No? Oh well.

You Know You Spend Too Much Time Online When:

I just spent a full minute grumping about how CBC's insistence on using Windoze Media format for their streaming audio makes it impossible for me to listen to the live election results until I remembered that, hey, there's an *actual radio* sitting on the shelf in the living room. It's plugged in and works and everything.

I'm a moron.

Go! Now!

The polls are open until 9 tonight. If you haven't already, please go vote.

Uuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh

Last night at the party I remember asking myself why it had been so long since I'd done shots of JD, so yummy and shootable. Now I remember.

Excuse me while I curl up with my pint of water and moan.