use real butter

Every time the power goes out and we must light candles, I think of what it must have been like in the days predating electricity. Candlelight is romantic, but it sucks when you want to read without eye strain. Our power went out last night around 7:30. At first, the electric company said it would restored by 10 pm. Jeremy was hoping so since his observation runs began around 10 pm. We lit candles and gathered ourselves into the office, which remains warmer than the rest of the house with the door shut. We were prepared to spend the night there anyway due to the racket caused by the windstorm. I used my headlamp for reading up on sights to see in Australia.

in the beginning, it felt like luxurious camping

I had mentioned the possibility of losing our power to Jeremy that afternoon and he had the foresight to download essential files to his laptop. Good thing. The power company updated their estimate of power restoration to 2 am. Jeremy got on the phone with the telescope operator to have them run his observations as he instructed. I didn’t dare use my laptop in case he needed both of ours for the duration of his run. The night was filled with 20 minute restless naps between checking the house temperature as it steadily dropped and setting the faucets to drip and just making sure nothing was being blown away in the storm, or burned down by IKEA tealights. And by 4:30, the lights came on and I realized how desperately thirsty I was. We made some soup and tea and watched the last episode of Arrested Development (so sad that it’s all over now), then fell asleep to the lovely sound of our heat running throughout the house.

It was still windy as ass today, but somehow the wind isn’t as menacing during the daytime as it is in the evening when you have no electricity. I think the winds finally calmed down about 15 minutes ago. I got an email from my mom this morning asking me if I was dead because she sent an email yesterday and didn’t hear back from me. Ugh. If I had that sort of expectation with email/communications, everyone I know could be presumed missing or dead.

kitchen tutorial: hot and sour soup
Hot and sour soup is a favorite Chinese soup. I don’t especially like the kind in most restaurants that is heavy on the cornstarch and light on ingredients. I also don’t put pork or chicken in my version because I load it up with tons of goodies: tofu, tiger lily buds, tree ears, black mushrooms, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, enoki mushrooms, and egg.

rehydrate the black mushrooms, tree ears, and tiger lily buds
trim and slice

slice tofu, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and trim enoki mushrooms
bring chicken broth (2 cartons) to a boil in a large pot, add the rehydrated items

let boil and add remaining items except egg
return to boil and while stirring, pour in beaten eggs (4)

add red wine vinegar and white pepper to taste, serve

January 8th, 2007: 9:36 pm
filed under chinese, general, soup