I blame the cask strength MacCallums
Jan. 28th, 2007 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rissymonsterYesterday was a blur of activity, from morning til night, and I never entirely felt like I got to experience anything from beginning to end properly until the party last night.
Started out with the delegate assembly of our Local (Bay Area) union chapter in SF. I tried joking with our chapter leader that I thought one of the main purposes of a union was that one didn't have to show up somewhere for duty at 9am on a Saturday morning, but he didn't seem to find that as funny as I did.
The meeting, for various reasons*, was pretty contentious, and since I was technically** co-hosting a women's clothing exchange that ended at 2pm, I decided to leave the meeting at 1:10pm with my union brethren still going strong and an hour behind schedule.***
And then didn't get to the exchange until 1:50pm, just in time for clean-up. Since I had committed to making savory pies that evening for our friend Highlander's Robbie Burns party, I then headed to Berkeley Bowl**** for ingredients, then back at our placing rushing to throw (some very tasty) grated potato crust-roast veggie pies together.
I made vegan, vegetarian, meat-no dairy and cheesy-meaty versions, covering almost every permutation of eating restrictions, and then decided to be nice to myself and take a cab over to Berkeley for the party, meeting up with Bobsquatch and the crew.
And in an apartment whose people-density at times approached the people-density of Times Square on New Year's***** was finally able to relax, kick back and eat tasty foods (and haggis), drink scotch******, and just hang out. And there were bagpipes. And in honor of actually seeing things through, we actually stayed through the end of the Braveheart screening*******, ("Even though Mel Gibson is a homophobic anti-semite, he did make one helluva good film about Scotland."), and then caught one of the all-night service buses home.
Now, I'm a little hungover (and slept through aikido, on which I blame too much cask strength Maccallums), but feeling largely tranquil. Today, we clean house.
* Various reasons including the Exec. Committee having fired the ED, a 20 year employee of the union, last summer in the face of ED's nonchalance over actually following the budget (going 10% over on a $4M budget is bad news), high staff turnover and weird contracts, and ensuing sometimes ugly union officer elections.
** Luckily this was not at my place, and folks I invited all found and amused each other.
*** In part because the pro-former ED folks were mounting all sorts of weird little challenges. e.g. At one point, someone tried to amend the minutes from a previous meeting from "the" to "a".
**** Never go to Berkeley Bowl on a Saturday if you can help it. Some woman, while I and the carshare mobile were patiently waiting for her spot, packed her car slooooowly, and then proceeded to return the cart not to the return right nearby, but the return in front of the store, a city block away. Oh, if they only didn't have the best produce section anywhere.
***** We've done it (once); it's over-rated.
****** Cask-strength whisky, someone later observed by reading the bottle, is supposed to be diluted over water. Go figure. Cask-strength in pure form has its charms as well, IMO. Excellent muscle relaxant.
******* I admit I fell asleep a bit in the middle.
Started out with the delegate assembly of our Local (Bay Area) union chapter in SF. I tried joking with our chapter leader that I thought one of the main purposes of a union was that one didn't have to show up somewhere for duty at 9am on a Saturday morning, but he didn't seem to find that as funny as I did.
The meeting, for various reasons*, was pretty contentious, and since I was technically** co-hosting a women's clothing exchange that ended at 2pm, I decided to leave the meeting at 1:10pm with my union brethren still going strong and an hour behind schedule.***
And then didn't get to the exchange until 1:50pm, just in time for clean-up. Since I had committed to making savory pies that evening for our friend Highlander's Robbie Burns party, I then headed to Berkeley Bowl**** for ingredients, then back at our placing rushing to throw (some very tasty) grated potato crust-roast veggie pies together.
I made vegan, vegetarian, meat-no dairy and cheesy-meaty versions, covering almost every permutation of eating restrictions, and then decided to be nice to myself and take a cab over to Berkeley for the party, meeting up with Bobsquatch and the crew.
And in an apartment whose people-density at times approached the people-density of Times Square on New Year's***** was finally able to relax, kick back and eat tasty foods (and haggis), drink scotch******, and just hang out. And there were bagpipes. And in honor of actually seeing things through, we actually stayed through the end of the Braveheart screening*******, ("Even though Mel Gibson is a homophobic anti-semite, he did make one helluva good film about Scotland."), and then caught one of the all-night service buses home.
Now, I'm a little hungover (and slept through aikido, on which I blame too much cask strength Maccallums), but feeling largely tranquil. Today, we clean house.
* Various reasons including the Exec. Committee having fired the ED, a 20 year employee of the union, last summer in the face of ED's nonchalance over actually following the budget (going 10% over on a $4M budget is bad news), high staff turnover and weird contracts, and ensuing sometimes ugly union officer elections.
** Luckily this was not at my place, and folks I invited all found and amused each other.
*** In part because the pro-former ED folks were mounting all sorts of weird little challenges. e.g. At one point, someone tried to amend the minutes from a previous meeting from "the" to "a".
**** Never go to Berkeley Bowl on a Saturday if you can help it. Some woman, while I and the carshare mobile were patiently waiting for her spot, packed her car slooooowly, and then proceeded to return the cart not to the return right nearby, but the return in front of the store, a city block away. Oh, if they only didn't have the best produce section anywhere.
***** We've done it (once); it's over-rated.
****** Cask-strength whisky, someone later observed by reading the bottle, is supposed to be diluted over water. Go figure. Cask-strength in pure form has its charms as well, IMO. Excellent muscle relaxant.
******* I admit I fell asleep a bit in the middle.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-28 10:59 pm (UTC)I'd love to see a recipe for your grated potato crust.
Did the hosts make the haggis?
Jersey made the haggis
Date: 2007-01-28 11:44 pm (UTC)It tasted rather like a combination of liver cat food and Dinty Moore beef stew. So not good exactly, but not as bad as I'd been led to believe.
The potato crust is a little by feel, but the rough proportions are ~2/3 potatoes (I used a mix of red, yukon, purple and sweet taters, mostly red) and ~1/3 other stuff, held together a bit with eggs (except in the vegan version), flour (rice flour last night for folks with wheat issues) and a bit of olive oil, all mixed up. The 1/3 other stuff includes onions (two last night for a large quantity of mix), apple and garlic, plus a little rosemary and pepper. With all of the grating, a food processor is a most welcome tool here.
I pre-baked the crusts ~20 minutes, then added cubed/chopped veggies (bell peppers, mushrooms, etc) and chicken sausage to the meated pies. The vegan pie was topped with silken tofu and chopped cilantro/cayenne/spice coriander. The other pies got an egg/yogurt/grated cheddar plus cilantro, etc. topping. Then they cooked for another 40+/- minutes, depending on pan size (the vegan/vegetarian versions were in 9x13 pans). I feared the vegan version would be a bit bland, so I added a little salt there.
Shiny goodness.
Re: Jersey made the haggis
Date: 2007-01-28 11:58 pm (UTC)