Consider the Following

Heya folks! It's been a bit but then, I've been busy Last weekend (9-12 June), Othalla and I went to Gent to pay Zel a visit. We left Friday morning around 11 and finally arrived at Gent Station around... ehm... sixish? Something like that, it was a hell of a train trip anyway. Went out to eat that evening and then had a good time out in the city.

The rest of the weekend were fun where we got to see some of the sights Gent has to offer and enjoyed the good weather as well as the new X-Men movie. Monday morning, we left again taking the elevenish train out of Gent and finally arriving back in groningen around 7. Ugh! Almost all the trains we were in had a delay of some kind and the weather was terribly hot so all in all, the train trip back could've been better. Although, pleasant company does make up for a lot of it

June 2nd was my Dad's birthday, the old man turned 63. The family came by and we had a very nice day and evening. I really like my family (and I have a lot of them) and am always pleased when special occasions or events (like a birthday) bring the family together. Just two days after my Dad's birthday, my uncle had his so there was another get together.

Coming weekend, the 18th, another aunt and uncle of mine will celebrate their birthdays. The 18th is not the actual date but since their birthdays are only about ten days apart, they usually pick a date in between and celebrate both birthdays together. I'm not sure whether or not I'll be going seeing as how they're having the event in a nearby community centre thingy and not at home. So, whether or not I'm going depends on if my parents can bring the dog. If they can't, I'll be dogsitting.

The Saturday before, on the 17th, me and some of my friends will be going to a Rapalje performance in Nieuweschans. Fun!

Finally, Sunday the 25th I'll be dogsitting as well when my parents are going to visit another aunt and uncle of mine and, if all goes well, the day after that my excavation will start. We'll be registering the profile of a wierde in Anjum (as far as I know, I will be going down to the city to check up on the exact specifics). It's gonna be exciting as it's down to the original habitation layer at some points.

Being the Trekkie that I am, I recently purchased the Star Trek Cookbook. I thought it would be a nice idea to give you all here a taste, so to speak, of what this book has to offer. To accomplish this, I invited a friend over for dinner and picked out a recipe.

The recipe is Alfarian Hair Pasta. Before I go on to the Earth variety of this dish, I'll give you some background on the original. The Alfarian Hair Pasta is made from the hair-follicles of an Alfarian. This high-protein and fibre hair is harvested during shedding season on the planet Tarkannan. Since the Alfarian is not present on Earth, some adjustments have been made to the recipe and the ingredient list (for four servings) is as follows:

1 16-ounce package of angel hair pasta
1 6-ounce can of anchovy paste removed
1 6-ounce can of tomato paste
6 large tomatoes, chopped not present
2 medium onions, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped became red pepper
½ clove of garlic, sliced thin
½ clove of garlic, crushed
¼ cup of parsley, freshly chopped not present
1 teaspoon fresh basil not present
1 tablespoon oregano
2 teaspoons sugar
1 bay leaf removed
2 tablespoons olive oil
Grated Parmesan cheese to taste not used
half a courgette (aka Zucchini)

I slightly modified this due to not having tomatoes, parsley or basil. It being Pentecost, I could not go to the store and get is as they were all closed. I also did not have a green pepper so substituted a red one. A final modification was the removal of anchovy from the ingredient list (I hate anchovy) as well as the bay leaf (no idea what that was). I added courgette and some more tomato paste to make up for the lost real tomatoes and anchovy paste.

The cooking procedure itself also underwent some modifications as the recipe, when followed to the letter, takes more than 1½ hours to finish, and we just did not have that much time.

So, on to the actual cooking itself. The process as I describe here is what I did, and is not a direct copy from the book. It also assumes that all the necessary chopping, slicing and crushing has been done.

Put the olive oil into a large pan and add the sliced garlic. Quickly cook the garlic and then add the onions and pepper. Then add the tomato paste, stir and let simmer for a bit. Keep stirring or else it will stick to the bottom (as happened to me, I did get it all off but it's a pain in the ass when doing the dishes). This can be stopped by adding a generous amount of cooking cream (I use light) to make the paste a bit more fluid. Add the herbs, sugar and courgette and stir again so it mixes nicely.

The dish is a vegetarian one, but this is a nice time to add some meat to the mix (chicken or something). You can either use precooked meat that you dice and add to it so it can heat up again, or prepare some meat in a separate pan while you make the sauce and add that.

When you're almost done with the sauce, cook the angel-hair pasta following the directions on the packaging. In general, the noodles need to be put in a pan of water and placed on the fire until the water boils or is near boiling. When that moment comes, stir the noodles to make them loose and leave them in the water for a few more minutes. Then remove them from the water and drain to get rid of all excess water.

For a fancy way of serving this, put the noodles in a bowl and place some sauce on top. Put the rest of the sauce in a separate bowl and serve. Regular, plain-ol'-Jane style involves the noodles being divided between, and placed directly on, the plates. The sauce then follows the same procedure and you just hand out the ready plates.

I really liked what I made and so did my friend so I'm hoping this will inspire (some) of you to wander into the kitchen and try it out for yourselves. Have a fun time cooking and enjoy the result.

The Rapalje gig saturday was great! Check my gallery for a bunch of photos. Eva also put some video bits on Google, see: Rapalje playing, Rapalje & Annemarie doing Caledonia & fans playing music on the field

Ingrid picked me up from my parent's place at around 2:45 and we went on our way to pick up Eva, Judith and Mellien before going back to Ingrid's place to get some stuff she forgot.
After that, we were finally ready to head to Nieuweschans where we arrived roughly 3:30.

We took a stroll across the fantasy market they were having and it was fun, I was tempted to buy some mead but decided against it. We lounged about for a bit until we met up with Renate, a colleague of Eva. We had just gotten comfortable on the grass when all of a sudden, the fenced of part of the terrain (reserved for the concert) needed to be enlarged. As we were sitting right were they were going to pass with the fences, we hastily made way.

After that had happened, the market soon drew to a close and the concert was near. Everyone had to get out and come back in so it could be checked that everyone had their ticket and the complimentary Rapalje beakers could be handed out. Fortunately, we already had ours so we were back in pretty soon with a shiny new Rapalje beaker.

We found ourselves a spot on the grass behind a bench so some of us who wanted to sit on the bench could while the rest lounged on the grass. Ingrid went to get Fyndlings, the coins used to pay for the food and drinks on Rapalje fests and we all went lazy and gave her money to get us some coins as well. :D

Cooking Highlander was there to cater, as usual, with their kick-ass three tier barbeque and soon we we're standing in line to get some food. I had a very tasty chicken leg, yummy! My first drink of the night was a simple coke but later I decided to get some mead and, while I usually don't like alcohol, I'd found out during an earlier event do like mead. And this night I found out I really like mead so I had another.

Shortly after we'd gotten food, the concert started and it was great as usual. David Myles was there to accompany them. He's an amazing bagpiper and I adore his playing. I hope to one day be as good as he is.

As this was a fest to celebrate their 10 year jubilee, they'd invited musicians that played with them in their first years and played with them again. There was also some dueting with a very good singer called Annemarie whom they apparantly sometimes play with. Her voice and Williams' mixed wonderfully!

Rapalje played three sets spread over the evening and in between there was a jam session opportunity for the public. Annemarie and some of her friends played and some others as well.

The evening ended around midnight and then we still had to get back home and drop all of us off at where we belonged. All in all, I was in my bed at 1:30, not a good time if you have to get up at 7:30-8:00 (on Sunday morning...).

That was since my folks would be at my door at 9:00 to pick me up to go to the birthday party of my aunt and uncle, two hours away. I was quite sleepy in the car and may have dozed off even. We arrived safely and the day was lots of fun as the party was at the special needs daycare centre my cousin works. It completely took care of the kids who loved all the play opportunities as well as the snuggle room that had a waterbed and moodlights and stuff like that. I had great fun as well, playing a bit with the kids, taking photos (and some movies as well) of them.

We had brought the dog with us as well as we had no sitter for her and she enjoyed herself as well, the terrain was fenced in so she could walk around freely and me, my mom and an aunt of mine went for a walk with her that afternoon.

She did nick a cheese sandwich when we got back :D They had been placed on a low shelf, right at dog mouth height and we got back in from walking her and she just went straight for it and grabbed one.

At first I didn't quite see what she was doing and went like "Tessa? What're you doing?" She glanced back guiltily with the sandwich in her mouth and I couldn't help but laugh. I sent her outside and quickly put the sandwiches up higher. Funnest thing was, she did it again later... Only this time she nicked a sandwich from someone's bag...

Ah well, she didn't end up with any nasty side effects and neither did the person she nicked it from so, all's well, end's well.

Went home with the parental units and slept there for ease. Was glad to be back in bed that evening, two busy days had me pretty beat.

Ronan Keating has a new album out and it's called Bring Me Home. Being the fan that I am, I got it a few days ago and I love it. Some of the songs took a bit of getting used to like a cover of the Goo Goo Doll's Iris, and the song To Be Loved, which was previously done by Westlife, but that happened soon enough. These two songs remain the ones I like least of the album but the other songs more than make up for it, most notably the title song Bring Me Home and All Over Again, a duet with UK folk singer Kate Rusby. Other favourites include Superman and the up tempo Back in the Backseat.