Jul 03 2008
am alive
fyi things are fine here. Bonnie is literally in Mongolia and I’m super busy, but the protests haven’t affected me so far other than a ban on alcohol sales (which still doesn’t affect me much)
Sep 30 2007
Muttonloaf surprise
In no particular order, the weekend has been productive at the least. This past Friday was apparently the most auspicious day of the year for getting married as well as traveling and likely a few other things, so I have been invited to at least two weddings, if only as a friend of a friend. I didn’t go to any, though, due to other random commitments.
Yesterday I visited my counterpart’s ger and ended up hanging around and eating buuz. She has a very nice ger - a 6-wall one - and definitely takes the household appliance prize. It was nice to just sit for a bit too and not be either reading or playing megalomaniacal (as has been previously described by some) computer games. She has the cutest 6-month-old too - she looks like a miniature sumo wrestler - I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby that fat 
Today was the busy day - looking ineffectually for parts for a cider press, dehydrating, and general housewares. The ladies in the courtyard didn’t have yogurt, which meant sadly dry granola. After 3 weekends of looking, I finally came across butter knives. I only need one but I got excited so bought another one for grins (and 100 tugriks). I also ended up buying a three-tiered wire rack item for ostensibly shelving but more for its ability to serve as a dehydrating appliance. It cost me 6000 tugriks though, which was quite painful. I got a spiffy grater which has paid off already, made bread crumbs, began dehydrating apples, and ate what I am now calling “Muttonloaf Surprise.” Essentially, mutton meatloaf with au grautin-like potatoes (I had no milk/cream) on the side yet cooked in the same pan/pot. Hence the surprise.
Recipe as follows:
MUTTONLOAF SURPRISE
“Muttonloaf”
1 1/2 pounds of ground mutton
onion, chopped
few cloves of garlic, minced
2 c bread crumbs
1 slightly beaten egg
shredded veggies of your preference, about 1 cup
salt
worcestershire sauce
meatloaf-y spices (or my current add-all, trader joe’s poultry seasoning)
some water
“Surprise”
5 small potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 slice “emmenthal” processed cheese slice (fancy austrian kraft singles)
butter
salt
pepper (which I would use if I had)
milk/cream (would be very nice)
Really, you can cut out just about all these ingredients to just meat, egg, and breadcrumbs (and potatoes and salt and pepper). But it tastes better the more random items you include. I do think that beans, or TOFU, sound like a random kind of food that should not be allowed. Reduce your mutton by half a pound by picking out those chunks of pure ground fat. Squish all muttonloaf items together well by hand in a loaf pan or all-metal pot, eventually shaping to only fill up half the area of the pan. Layer potatoes in other half of pan, throwing in random layers of butter, milk, cheese slice bits, salt and pepper to taste. Stick in 350F (or about 170C) oven until muttonloaf is cooked all the way through and the potatoes look as though they have seen better days. This is 45min to an hour or so.
Spoon tomato sauce if you wish over the muttonloaf, or gravy if you’re lucky.
I got to talk to Bonnie for two hours or so today at the post office internet, but it flashed by pretty quickly. I got kicked out by the postal lady as I was the last one about so the conversation ended a tad abruptly. Her plans for transition are proceeding apace and everything looks good (except she should rest! because she is having stomach issues today!! ahem). In case you didn’t know, she is for sure now going to work at UCLA.
On the way home in the darkness I managed to step into a small water-filled crater with one foot. While it’s warmed up a bit since last week, it’s still probably in the 40s outside, so that was very not pleasant. I’m now sitting in my pants long underwear with my slippers, as the pant leg, sock, and shoe are squishy and cold.
Finally, I found out my cable of mysterious provenance has Al Jazeera news. I watched that some in Seoul on the way here and was impressed with its news quality, so maybe I’ll turn the TV on more than once a month or so…between that and the teenage boys breathlessly narrating Counterstrike matches, and the Spanish and English-subtitled Korean soap operas.
