Sugar

I'm still on my sorghum kick, so I ordered some sorghum syrup. It arrived today.

I dipped the end of a spoon into the bottle and was surprised by how sticky the syrup is. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but it took forever for the thread of syrup to stop stretching and find its end. That was at room temperature but I'm guessing it'll be easier to use without a mess when it's colder.

More when I know it.

I got the syrup for its iron content and its general sorghumness. Then I did what you're not supposed to do and I put it in yogurt, with a few chopped pecans. It was super tasty, but I probably defeated the iron absorption with the dairy.

I love using different kinds of sugar. With my coffee it's always white. I didn't know until Mickey and Raylene told me that to make it that color they use animal bones. I care about too many things, and that one I just draw a veil of charity over, if you know what I mean.

Palm sugar (jaggery) is my favorite to use in savory foods and some sweets. So tasty with lime, and it proffers good funk. I first used some jaggery from mrguy's stash of brewing ingredients. When I ran through it I went to the Pakistani grocery and asked for jaggery and the nice lady pointed to a bag of C&H. Did I realize previously that the word just meant sugar?

No I did not. This is the same place where the lady got tired of my asking for Amul butter during the pandemic. I eventually found a different source because we are lucky enough to be *thick* with South Asian markets around here. Anyway, on that day I was the red-faced purchaser of palm sugar, and her store is still my go-to. I mostly use this sugar in my applesauce. Jaggery, some allspice leaves from the slowest-growing tree to ever be sold by fastgrowingtrees.com, a little lemon from the tree (if any are hiding within it) and I am good. I made a lot of applesauce during the pandemic because every day my mom took an apple from her diningroom to her apartment and she never ate them. When the elder hoard became too large, her caregiver brought them to me and I made applesauce.

Popping back up to the top -- yay sorghum. I look forward to finding things that you will make more tasty. 

Perhaps my next batch of greens. 

Flights of Scandinavian Fancy

A friend suggested that we apply for a residency to stay on Svalbard and make music with another person we know. That just took me down all kinds of roads. Mrguy is not down with this idea, given that if you go there and want to walk outside the city limits you are required to carry a rifle because of polar bears. Eek.

You know me and bears.

But mrguy was not invited by my friend, by the way.

The third person fronts a metal band. It isn't outside of the realm of possibility that we could make music in Spitsbergen. Efterklang did it and made a beautiful documentary. I heard about it on Fresh Air, and we asked for the digital file of the film. The deal was that in exchange you had to get a group of at least 5 people to watch. We tried, but couldn't really sell it to our friends. Finally, at least ten years later, we broke the rule and watched it in Guy Home Theater. 

So this Svalbard thing took me down many rabbit holes. What kind of music could I do? I haven't sung or touched an instrument in years. I was reminded of the artist Louise Hoffsten, who made the most beautiful album called Käre Du, which took Swedish folksongs and gave them a light, gorgeous, jazzy twist. The song  "Om dagen vid mitt arbete" just slays me. Could there be inspiring songs in Norwegian?

Reddit suggests "...the Norwegian band Folque". They're pretty cool. In a I-can-imagine-Jack-Black-shredding-this kinda way. Then I tried listening to some Danish 80s music by Danseorkestret. I know one of those guys and it would be funny to revamp / tweak one of their songs. I don't really know much about them -- yet.

That's what happens on a Sunday. I was feeling crappy in the mind this morning, and now I feel much better.

From me to you.

A Stray Dog

The prompt was that we were to write from the perspective of a stray dog in our home town. Instead I wrote about my mother's nemesis, the dog down the street.

There are no strays in my neighborhood. My name is Mei Ling, I am a Pekingese, and X Road in San X is my scene. Because I “wet” on Mrs. X’s lawn and leave brown spots, she does not like my father who walks me. I’ve heard her daydream out loud of planting pokey plants in her front yard to make me go elsewhere. I don’t care. I’m a proud lady Pekingese and I own this place.

Sorghum

The anemia continues. I would really like to know what a blast of iron feels like, and I'm responding so slowly to the iron pills that I've decided to go with infusions. First one was today, and then one a week for the next three weeks. I didn't really know what I was signing up for, and it's quite like mrguy's infusions and in fact it's in the same infusion lab. The infusions last for 2-3 hours.

In the meantime, I've done some research about iron-rich foods and one of them is sorghum. What do you know about sorghum? I knew nothing, except that I thought it was sweet enough to provide a syrup. Turns out that I am right. I have some coming by mail in the next week.

A few weeks ago I got some sorghum via Bob's Red Mill. Cooked it up, and probably didn't cook it enough. It was chewy but nice. Maybe I'll ask mrguy to prepare some in his instant pot. Then I'd be sure it was cooked through. Then on my buy nothing facebook group a guy was giving away some sorghum flour. So today I made banana bread using white *and* sorghum flour. I think it tastes pretty good, although I baked it a bit too long.

Readers of mrsguy know how I love a one food festival (like the asparagus festival!) -- so I started exploring where the sorghum festivals can be found. Unfortunately the nearest one is two states away.

There's the Simon Sorghum Festival, in Ohio. Here's their YouTube video about the festival. Rural heritage crafts demonstrations are a bonus.
The Wewoka Sorghum Festival in Wewoka Oklahoma. This one has the added benefit of being co-sponsored by the Seminole Nation. So there are living culture demonstrations, as well.

Blairsville Georgia has a Sorghum Festival, as well. It includes a biscuit eating contest.

So today's excitement was going in for my iron infusion. I enjoyed the pink tape. Iron infusion goo resembles Coca Cola syrup, by the way. I mostly slept while the infusion was happening. It's literally in the same infusion center as mrguy visits, and he was even in there for part of the time I was, because it's his disconnect day.

Everybody there was so nice. They all knew mrguy, because he's a regular. And when he told them that I was in curtain 9, some came in to introduce themselves, which allowed me, in return, to thank them profusely for the great care that they give him.

I worked from home for the second half of the day. Looking forward to feeling better. They say that I should start to feel better in a few weeks as the iron does its duty.