Ah.... 10 minutes to myself. I've taken my final and now can relax. So It's been a while since I did a recipe. How about an off the cuff coconut cream pie - the easy way. First you'll need a baked or "prepared" pie crust. I'll let you decide if it's a traditional pie crust or a graham cracker crust or a cookie crust (sugar cookie dough) Then you'll need some sort of custard or pudding. Vanilla is good. You will also need some shreadded coconut- not flake but shreadded. Last ingredient is stabilized whipped cream. That's whipped cream with a little sweetener and some gelatin - not Jello but cullinary gelatin comes in sheets or powdered form. Ok first you need to take about one cup coconut and spread it out on a cookie sheet and toast it in the oven until nice and golden but not really brown. From that take about half a cup and mix it with a quarter cup untoased coconut. Mix this with the vanilla pie filling. Place the mixture in the prepared pie crust. Top as you want with the whipped cream.... lattice looks nice rosettes are fine or just smear it on top. Take some of the remaining toasted coconut and sprinkle on top.

OK back to class... I don't understand. If I've taken the final why are they still teaching at me???

Ok I'm a little behind on my blogging, but I have a good excuse. I've been working on the house and training at work for a new project. If you count sleep and eating time I have a total of three hours a night to read mail and email, pay bills, do laundry and all that life stuff. Ok I'm behind on my laundry too. The house is finished though. We passed final inspection and are awaiting electricity and propane and air-conditioning. Especially air-conditioning. It arrives next month. Then we can move in.

I've been thinking about my survival villiage. I'm thinking of people with skills to rebuild after the big event whatever it is. Of course now there's a television show starting this fall that seems to be doing something similar. We'll see whose better equipted to survive. On a similar note they've started replaying episodes of Dark Angel. I don't think we need genetically enhanced super people in my villiage.

Oh well back to class to learn stuff. I don't think any of these skills in the new world.... unless I need to hook up a surround sound system.

Excelsior!!!! Beware! The end of the world is Nye!

You laugh now, but just you wait. You'll be knocking on my door for that steak with potatoes and a cold beer. They say the world is going to hell in a hand basket and I'm packing my own lunch! If some wannabe super power drops a dirty bomb or some techno geek hits civilization with an electro-magnetic pulse I will be prepared. I won't care if the economy crashes - I will have food on my table. I've got the plot of land. I am getting ready to start planting my garden of Eden. Fruit and nut trees, berry vines vegetables and herbs and spices to keep it tasty. And don't forget the hops, barley, and wheat for beer and bread. What? You think I'm kidding? My crop of (volunteer) hops is already to pick this year. I'm going to use them in my first batch of homebrew for the new house. If things start going south I can see getting some chickens and maybe a couple of goats and some sheep. A matching pair of cows would be good. We have an endless supply of rabbit and squirrel. Don't turn up your nose yet. Several years ago I got a recipe from a good old boy from Pennsylvania who swore by his shake and bake squirrel recipe. I can do it up with some international flair with a rabbit and squirrel tagine over couscous

Now I'm not just the chief cook and bottle washer for noting but that's not my only skill. I'm a talented, complicated woman. I'm a pretty good shot. I can hunt my dinner. I can brew beer. I can make yarn from cotton, wool fleece or silk cocoon. I can make cloth and sew clothes. I can knit warm things and socks. I can make soap. I'm going to learn how to make glass objects from other glass objects. I own a steam distiller so I can in theory make ethanol and alcohol as well as essential oils and hydorsols. I'm an armchair student of herbal medicine. If I put my mind to it I can do anything.

Now I can't run the world on my own. For one it's not my style. I need to populate my mountain village with other useful talented people. My first pick is of course my lovely and talented husband. He can cook, clean, and sew,and garden. He's also a blacksmith and can build a few things with his hands. He's pretty good stacker of rocks. Being an archaeologist he is in tune with the local native culture and understands ancient technologies which could come in handy if we need to know the best way to fire our handmade clay cooking vessels or how to leach out the bitter flavor out of your acorn mush. He's a better shot than I and can keep the household mechanics going. He has lots of other skills I will elaborate on later.

Well for now I have to get ready to go to sleep. We have the last two big inspections this week before the house is done and I want it to be perfect. So early to bed early to rise you can clean up stairs before it fries. Maybe I'll climb in the hottub or sleep in the most comfortable chair in the world.

I Love My Job
No really, I do. Where else can you make this kind of money, actually do your job and still have time to blogg. I have time to do lots of stuff at work other people don't get to do. I can do jigsaw puzzles, knit, spin fiber, I've perfected felting - and not the dry needle kind the actually hot water and soap method. I have done major sewing projects - at least the fiddly handwork parts. I actually work better when I'm busy with something other than work. It diffuses the frustration of working with the public. I am then a happier worker and better at my job.

If I work in a cube farm (which I do ) that would make my desk the back 40 left fallow. I mean there is no one sitting near me for desks - except my boss. But that's ok- I do my job to the best of my abilities so I'm not intimidated. It does make for conversation when people and visiting dignitaries come to visit. I always get asked "why do you sit way back here by yourself?" I've come up with the definitive answer that makes the most sence is "The have me here because I am a trouble maker" that gets lots of nodds of acknowledgement and the ever thoughtful "Ah".

Some days I think of the cube farm as a big rat maze. Someday I'll find the cheese. For now I'm happy with taking calls and doing craft projects.

I needed a new hobby:
Anyone who knows me knows I need another hobby like I need a hole in my head. If I had a hole for every extra hobby I have I'd look like the local tattoo artist- if you know what I mean. If you don't take a trip to the local tattoo parlor and see who's running the paint gun. They are probably tattooed like a comic book - sorry graphic novel- and pierced in places that I can't imagine using while weighted with jewelry. So back to my new hobby. I am jumping on the band wagon of the online poker geeks. Yes I have my very own account at Partypoker.net. I have a cute anonymous screen name and soon after I lose my fear of online interaction (other than chat rooms) I will join the masses of online gamblers.

The house is not done yet. But we did have some progress. I figure if the upstairs bath gets done and the downstairs gets trimmed and the pump guy finishes the well improvements we can call the county for inspection. My goal is to finish and get in the house before the guy down the street finishes his house. He started grading in March ... of this year.

I should throw in a recipe here... OK take half a cup of balsamic vinegar, a cup of brown sugar and reduce it to a quarter cup of liquid over a medium heat. The result is a dessert syrup great over fruit from strawberries to peaches.

My success this week is stringing out my wardrobe to not have to do laundry for another week. Monday may be the breaking point. I can't wait to use my washer and dryer in the comfort of my own home when ever I want to. There will NEVER be a need to. Heck I'll go roll around in the garden to get stuff dirty to wash it in my laundry set. That's why the laundry room is next to the easy clean bathroom. It's dump your dirties in the washer take a shower and relax. We really did think that one out.

Well there you have it- my life is more complete. I just saw the movie trailer of Clerks II. I get another installment of the Jersey Chronicles. The downside is I get to live down all the teasing about my penchant for Kevin Smith. I can't help it. He's on my sexy list. But so is Paul Gross. I defy anyone to question that choice. I'm a multifaceted woman. For instance would it be weird to wear my snoochie boochie bracelet along side my livestrong and my blessed be bracelets?

Speaking of Pop culture... How about those Jetta commercials about stereotyping Jetta owners. I have a friend who owns a Jetta and she does do yoga, she does hike, and she does dance. Bring it on Volkswagen so far you know who your market used to be. At least they got rid of their ad campaign of VW Engineering ist in da haus. That one creeped me out-

I've been spending too much time watching the food network lately. I am so desperate to cook. I miss having a kitchen and a stove. We figured out I haven't been able to cook in my own kitchen since 2002 when we purchased out house. The first house or as we call it "before the cedar fire" we owned it for 10 months and lived in it for 9 months but the stove was only working for 3 weeks, Most of that we were busy. Well I'm prepared. The last thing on the house is not going to be the stove. We have the stove, the propane line is in and the propane tank is full and ready to go. I have started a list of things I am going to cook. I have stared my cookbook collection. I have some classics: Betty Crocker ring binder edition, Boston Cooking School book, and my newest Vegetable Love. No it's not a Vegan Porn classic it's about nummy vegetable dishes. I have already put in my first Penzeys spice order. I still have a few straggles I need to get plus peppercorns. I couldn't decide so I didn't order. Russ (my husband) told me to order as many as I wanted. After all it's pepper- we'll use it!

Geeze is it 1:30am already? I've got a ton of stuff to do today- I really must go to sleep. I hate insomnia.

It was just a matter of time that I found the time to start a blogg. I've actually tried this a couple fo times before. Somewhere in cyber space is my attempt to document the travails of rebuilding my house after catastrophic disaster. The house ended up taking way too much of my time so that never got off the ground. Thank Google for making it easy for me to keep up.

I guess I should explain what I want to do with this blogg. I want to share my evergrowing knowledge with the world. Stop laughing! I know a few things about a few things. Really. Like did you know that salt is more than just flavoring on your french fries? You can prepare food with it, for example brining a turkey before roasting. Salt can be a method of cooking like baking fish in a salt crust. Salt can be a preservative- salted cod or salting a hide before tanning to name a few. Salt can be used it to ionize the air with a salt lamp. There are many different types of salt. Rock salt, sea salt, flake salt, Sel de Fleur, Sel de gris, popcorn salt, kosher salt, and iodized salt. Salt is a many splendored thing.

So my goal is to post a new blogg page once a week. That doesn't seem like too much pressure. But we will see. All of this talk of salty treats has made me hungry. I think I'll go hunt down some dinner now. Until next time