Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I may have too many tangerines.

In addition to a crate of clementines, I bought ten of those "New Year's tangerines" jonsinger wrote about. I'd been seeing them around Chinatown and wondering, and Jon's recommendation was good enough for me.

I also have filet of sole, baby bok choi, snow peas, ginger, and shallots. And some leftover bean curd Szechuan style, because I called eleanor and asked her to meet me at Excellent Dumpling, and she and fangorn and I shared an order of dumplings--my ulterior motive, since when I go there alone I'm not hungry enough to justify dumplings in addition to my regular lunch--and three main dishes. It occurred to me, after the fact, that a serving of dumplings and my usual inexpensive sweet ginger duck over rice would have cost me less than my share of our large lunch today. So I may do that sometime, and not worry about leftovers.

All this was after spending the morning at the gym. That workout: a bit over two hours of exercise, plus showering and changing time, in the morning when the gym is uncrowded, is a luxury of being underemployed. There ought to be a few. Next week I suspect I'm going to have to choose between getting up very early and doing a fast workout before being an office drone for a day, and working out in the evening when I'm tired and everyone is there.

I did a bit of extra walking, I think as a reaction to having not gone beyond the nearest bit of Inwood Hill Park yesterday. Up to Grand Street for the produce (after lunch in the more western part of Chinatown), and then along the unplowed path through the park,while carrying the sacks of citrus and other groceries. All that went smoothly, and then I misjudged my balance and stepped into a snowbank a block from home. Fortunately, it was only a block from home: I went from "got to get in out of the cold, because my foot is wet" to realizing that, since I was indoors and warm, it wasn't actually urgent to take that sock off. Nonetheless, I am in my slippers, because I can.

( exercise numbers )

I have now used my fax machine for the first time. It works, but takes what seems to me to be an unusually long time to send documents (after scanning them and storing them in memory, which it does fairly quickly).

My back hurts, which I suspect is neither from the exercise nor from schlepping all those tangerines, but because I tend to get lower-back aches when I have my period. Am contemplating ibuprofen.

Usually, when I want authoritative but wrong, there's something apt in Aristotle. — rysmiel

After reading jonsinger's post, I decided to get some of the "New Year's tangerines", the ones with stem and even leaves on some. A vendor on Grand Street had a box of them, loose. Five for a dollar, so I bought ten. I also picked up a crate of clementines from a nearby store, because I could.

So far this afternoon, I've eaten two of each.

The New Year's tangerines smell strongly of tangerine, even just sitting in their plastic bag. Clementines (and most citrus I've had) don't give off a noticeable aroma until you start to peel them. The New Year's tangerines also have a stronger flavor; however, this batch aren't as sweet as the clementines. The New Year's tangerines are juicier than the clementines, and it's easier to pull the clementines apart into individual sections. (These are large clementines, which may or may not be relevant.) Also, the New Year's tangerines have quite a few seeds, and the clementines are just about seedless.

I am now taking a break from my research, to drink tea and eat dark-chocolate-coated cookies.

[Cross-posted to my journal and food_porn]

I tried making sole with a tangerine sauce this evening. It came out much too bland--the mild sauce and the mild fish--but I'm recording it here as a basis for future experimentation. The sauce was quite tasty on the basmati rice; for sole, I think I'm going to try adding the juice of a lime next time, and some more nutmeg.

The recipe:

3 sole filets (about 1/4 pound each)
1 New Year's tangerine
one tablespoon olive oil
some dried rosemary, crumbled (approx 1/4 tsp?)
pinch of ground nutmeg

Zest the tangerine. Then juice it, by squeezing the segments between your (clean!) fingers, and letting the juice run into the bowl containing the zest. Add the spices and olive oil, and mix well.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180 °C).

Lay the fish filets in the bottom of a baking dish. Pour the tangerine mixture over the fish. Bake 20 minutes.

(We also had the snow peas. Not a great meal, but it worked. Nonetheless, I think it's going to be thoroughly non-experimental cookery tomorrow night.)