Bacon Chocolate

"Applewood smoked bacon, Alder wood smoked salt, 41% cacao". No, not just bacon flavored--actual chips of bacon in the chocolate. Kind of unnerving to see pork listed in the ingredients for a candy bar.

The other one is hickory smoked almonds and grey sea salt. The hickory smoking definitely adds an unusual taste.

Both quite weird but not bad. It would be fun attend a chocolate tasting at Vosges, they have some really odd selections on their website (as if bacon isn't odd enough).
Nothing like Bacon & Chocolate to say I love you on Valentine's Day.

Blown away

Literally. The wind was crazy yesterday -- gusts past 50mph here, up to 70mph where the fires are still burning. I looked out our back door this morning and noticed the deck looked a little cluttered. With a tree. It wasn't possible to fit all of the tree in the photo, but this gives an idea. I think it would have scared the crap out of us if we'd been here when it fell. It didn't cause any damage to the house or deck, but our bikes are under the branches right now. I looked at the tree still standing, and there's another good size chunk that looks primed to fall in the next bad storm.

It's kind of fun right now. The branches form a shelter of sorts, it's like sitting in a green cave. I'm not sure what to do with it once we get it off the deck. Maybe it's time to get a chainsaw.

Brush Fire Detour

We were trudging home after our visit to NoVA to see my parents. It was a fun visit, we were just tired and wanting to be home. The wind was buffeting the car and making the trip interminable. We finally were within an hour of home, admiring the fiery sunset and purple mountains up ahead. Then we realized it was widespread smoke making the landscape so pretty from the distance. A bit later we could smell the woodsmoke and saw a sign warning the interstate was closed due to brush fires. We hopped off at the next exit and descended into the valley hazy with smoke. It took a bit of effort and a frantic Chinese Fire Drill at a stoplight, but we eventually made it on back roads to D.'s mom's house. We're hanging out here for the time being, waiting for news of the roads reopening.

It was tasty, but...

What the hell did I eat? D. and I went to dinner with my brother and his wife at a Chinese restaurant (Oriental Regency, Vienna, VA). We figured it was a good sign that most of the patrons were Chinese and most of the dishes unrecognizable. They had standbys like steamed dumplings and sweet&sour chicken, but we had a laugh over some of the more exotic items like fish head casserole, Maw with rape, duck blood soup. I wanted something unusual and was set to order the baby eels with white leeks, given my love of unagi maki, until my brother told me to ask if they were freshwater or saltwater eels. Good point! The waitress seemed tickled I wanted to order eel but I changed my mind when she said they were saltwater. I ordered "bean curd layers with cabbage" expecting a lasagna-like dish of tofu slices and bok choy in sauce.

The dish they put in front of me looked like a pile of skin grafts with edamame. I really thought it must be the wrong item, but figured I'd give it a try. Long strips about 1.5" wide of thin pale crumpled flimsy stuff, much more resilient than a noodle. If you tugged on a strip it was elasticy and had a subtle mesh impression on it. Definitely skin grafts. We decided it wasn't animal-based after I ate some. No one else would try it, not even my brother who was extolling the list of weird foods he's eaten. I gave up trying to figure out what it was and just enjoyed eating it, although part of me really wanted to know. Towards the end I remembered another menu item called 'bean curd skins' and realized the layers in my dish must be the same thing. Well, I wanted something unusual and eating a dish no one could identify definitely counts. I might have to buy some at Oasis for lunch sometime.

Disillusion and Dissolution

What? Two political-based entries in a row? From someone with the political efficacy of a 1950s housefrau? I really need to eat more hummus, maybe it'll keep me from watching the news. I did make tuna salad using hummus instead of mayo and it was really tasty. Ok, back to the point --

We had MSNBC on most of the evening watching Super Tuesday. I never would have been interested if D. didn't talk about it so much, rather like watching the State of the Union last week. It was interesting to watch, although frustrating how they jumped to conclusions so quickly. For instance, they said someone was the projected winner in a state, but when you read the graphic only 4% of that state's votes had been tallied. So why was there a big freakin check mark next to someone's name when 96% of the vote had yet to be counted? I don't think 4% is statistically significant, but then I'm not a professional statistician. Still, I know enough not to use the word "significant" unless it has some numbers to back it up.

I sat on the couch knitting, which I think will be a mandatory activity for all political events from now on. D. was down the hall tearing up his guitar. It was like an hour long live Black Sabbath concert -- all the hits from NIB to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath to Dirty Women (a personal favorite). He was playing his Gibson '61 Reissue through a Fender amp, and the sound was indistinguishable from their album. He plays all the time so I tend not to notice it, but I really sat back and listened to him, and realized how cool it is and how lucky I am to have someone like to listen to.

One of the pundits made a point that we're seeing a diss-a-loo-shun of racial voting. I wonder if he mean disillusion or dissolution. Either way the point is still the same, but I really wonder which one he meant, and if he realized his homophone problem. I've never voted in a Primary before. Hell, I've gone to vote and skipped the presidential election section in the past. So I'm shocked that I'm planning on voting in the upcoming primary next week. Not that it'll matter in the general election, but maybe I can help influence the party nomination in my own small way. I figure, if we can keep Walmart out of B'burg, we can keep certain people out of the Whitehouse.

State of the Union?

Are you effing kidding me? This is the one speech per year most Americans tune in to, and that's the best he can do? And what the hell is with the sycophantic clapping? Bush could barely get a word in edgewise between bouts of clapping. Was there a light-up Applause sign? Is it some weird pool the congressmen have, to see how many times they can cause the whole room to clap? I wish instead of clapping they would see if they could start a Wave. Hehe, given the tendency of everyone to follow along, I bet it could happen.

Ok, ok, let me back up. I was throwing a slime ball for Windy waiting for the hour to change and Flight of the Conchords, an irreverent New Zealand sitcom on HBO, to start. My husband came in and asked if wanted to watch the upcoming State of the Union with him. My first reaction was no, I don't care to hear what Bush has to say, but then I figured there's a reason he's asking me, I really should go sit and watch it with him. I still tend to avoid politics, but he's becoming much more interested in it of late. I figured I should bring my knitting along to work on, remembering a quote by Elizabeth Zimmermann that says "Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises". I think this is one of those times. It reminded me of Penelope, who knits while watching politics, and now I understand why. Focusing on my knitting kept me from jumping up and yelling at the TV. Well, almost, I did speak forcefully to the TV a couple times. By the end I was just mocking the sea of sycophants who kept leaping up clapping. According to Wikipedia, a sycophant is is a servile person who, acting in their own self interest, attempts to win favor by flattering one or more influential people, with an undertone that this is at the cost of their own personal pride, principles, and peer respect. Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Egads, I'm scared what this last year of the Bush Regime will bring. Reminds me of the quote "So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause".

On a side note, I didn't think it was possible for all 3 branches of government to occupy the same room together. Really, if something happened to that room (I want to give a pithy example, but the Patriot act is keeping me from taking that risk), who is left in the government? The congressional, executive, and judicial branches are all gone, along with the cabinet. I don't remember enough 7th grade Civics to know who's next in line.

Kapow kaboom kersplat

Ooh, it's going to be one of *those* days, isn't it? Ultra clumsy Darcy to the rescue! This morning at the gym I was on an elliptical machine and reached forward to change the display. The moving handhold part hit the back of my arm right above my elbow and hurt like hell. There's an impressive purple-red bruise there now. Later I was headed to the car on the way to work, carrying an apple in one hand and my keys in the other. Somehow I stabbed my keys into the apple trying to get into the car. Once at work I stepped one foot out of the car, not realizing the entire parking lot has an unseen glaze of ice on it. My foot went out from under me when I was halfway up and I smacked the back of my head into the top of the car door frame. And it's only 8:27 am! Ooh boy, I can't wait to see what the rest of the day brings =)

Update at 3 pm -- I was standing for a while at my bench, and noticed my right upper thigh starting to ache. It hurts to walk normally and I have a bit of a hop-limp going on now. I think I have a spontaneous groin pull. I'm going the ibuprofen-ice-stretching route and hopefully it'll be better tomorrow. At least it sounds funny, try saying it outloud and see if you don't smile. Spontaneous Groin Pull. Bwahaha!

Update later on -- I figured out how I strained my adductor muscle. When I slipped getting out of the car, my weight shifted suddenly and my right leg compensated. I realized this when I got out of the car running errands and pushed up on my right leg to step out. Ouch! For some reason I feel like this is a really stupid muscle strain to have, far more than a hamstring or pec or something.