Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Micro wave virgin no more
Having watched the BH do things with the micro-wave from time to time, today I made the big step forward and used our micro-wave for the very first time. The first time in fact that I have ever used a micro wave at all. The operation in question being the heating of the second hand rice for FIL's lunch, it being alleged that he would not care for the lentil soup that I was having. So BH puts the rice in a green Berylware bowl. Covers with cling film and sticks the point of a knife through it a few times. I'm instructed to do it on high for a minute, stirring once during the process. All of which seems a bit fiddly but never mind. In the event I do it for two minutes on high, stirring once. The result did seem to be suitably hot. Very slightly less bother than doing the same job in a saucepan. Slightly less energy consumption so slightly more eco in that I was not heating water to throw away afterwards; although to be fair to the water option, since I would have put the heating water in the indoor compost bucket the heat would have gone to warm indoors and not have been wasted at all, given that we have thermostatic heating on just presently. Didn't think to ask FIL what he thought of the rice, but I suspect that reheating works better than it does for mashed potato. You wouldn't get the stale taste that you get with this last. Will I now go on to bigger and better things from our copy of 'How to get the best out of your micro-wave'.
Prompted by a review of a play about the Kreutzer sonata in the Guardian, I thought I ought to listen to the same, having acquired a mint condition set of the sonatas from the Oxfam shop in Tavistock (see above) played by Perlman and Ashkenazy. Very good it was too, although slightly irritated by the record notes which made the outrageous suggestion that this late sonata was the first quality sonata of its kind. Whoever wrote the notes appears to have quite overlooked Mozart's cracks at the form and I dare say there are others. Most odd. I then started trawling through related items. I don't have a copy of the Tolstoy short story which was the source for the play so I couldn't have a go at that. Luckily I know someone who does so I won't have to borrow it from the library. Then I thought that there is another piece of music called Kreutzer. A bit of poking around and this turned out to be a string quartet by Janacek, written in 1920 or something and apparently inspired by the short story rather than the Beethoven sonata. Next I thought of the 'Good Soldier Svejk', feeling sure that there is a mention in there somewhere. But the book is 400 or so pages long and I no longer know it well enough to be very confident of tracking the mention down. Had a quick look in what seemed like the right section but no luck. Then thought to see if there was a digital copy out there in English somewhere but failed on that front. There was a Czech one but that was organised by chapter and would have been a bit of a pain to search, even supposing that Kreutzer is spelt the same in Czech as in English. But ended on a slightly higher note, finding out from Wikipedia that the original Kreutzer was the musician son of a royal court musician at Versailles. Didn't get the chop along with all the other royal lacqueys during the revolution and went on to be a famous violinist.
Franklin continues fat and seems to have decided that BH is the best bet, despite her throwing him out far more often than I do. Maybe she has just the right magic touch under the jaw. Which associates to the French for tickle, chatouiller. So perhaps the French know a thing or two about tickling cats too. Which then associates to the English for disaster, catastrophe. Also Kattish for disaster or being chucked out of the warm kitchen. But sadly, not. Catastrophe appears to be a perfectly ordinary word of Greek origins, nothing to do with cats.
# posted by Jim @ 6:19 AM 
