I feel somewhat mollified that the same things that bother me about time travel also bothers physicists. Now, if only I can get them to agree with me about that darn theory of relativity.

Tip: When your corningware containing tacos will not fit in the microwave, putting it in the oven to melt the cheese is a viable option only if you: a) do not put it on broil, b) do not put it on the topmost rack, and c) do not forget about it until you start to see smoke pouring out of the oven.We ate them anyway.

Sour beer and sour grapes

We went to the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison this weekend and sampled some tasty craft brews. My favorites were the sours from Jolly Pumpkin and the Annun Unum from Flossmore Station, also sour. I didn't like sour beers the first time I tried them, but now I find them refreshing.

The whole event was a pretty neat experience. It's held in a park on Lake Mendota (? possibly Lake Monona), and you get a tiny sampling glass to walk around to all sorts of good midwestern brewers. It was very well thought out, so much so that the lines for beer weren't very long, and I never had to wait in a line longer than two people for the port-o-potties.

The only sad part was a talk on beer and chocolate pairings that I went to in the education tent. Only the people with chairs (of which I was not) got chocolates and beer, and the whole talk was not about pairing chocolate and beer in general, but those specific pairings (THAT beer with THAT chocolate). I could overhear people in the chairs (we'll call them the Haves) chatting with their fellow Haves about how the chocolate was the most amazing chocolate they'd ever had, blah blah blah, while us Havenots were left to sit on the cold muddy ground with nothing to do but watch them lick their fingers. Before too long I left the education tent, as I was not being educated.

Zucchini in pasta sauce

I've been hearing that you can put zucchini in a pasta sauce and you'll never know it's there. It's true! Even Chris grudgingly admitted that he liked it. I shredded a zucchini on my box grater and sauteed the shreds with the salt, pepper, olive oil, and garlic that I was going to use to make the sauce anyway. (Next time I think I'll salt the shreds and let them drain in a collider for a while first, just to see what happens.) I meant to saute it until brown, but the zucchini actually just sort of built up a layer of browned mush on the bottom of the pan and I didn't want that to burn so I just aborted that plan (any ideas for how to avoid the layer of mush?). I deglazed the tasty brown mush with tomato juice from the can of diced tomatoes I was going to put in the sauce, then added everything else. Browned zucchini sort of gets that savory flavor that I'm pretty addicted to this time of year, and it added a subtle smokeyness to the sauce.

Let the bears pay the bear tax

Everytime we drive into Maryland, Chris starts looking for bears. There's signs all over the highway sporting a bear and a deer and it says, Watch for our wildlife. This promise has never been realized as the only bears we have ever seen have been in zoos (so not technically wild). We went to Colorado and Idaho hoping to see a bear. No bears, just disappointment.

Two days ago there was a black bear wandering around INSIDE the Eau Claire city limits. WHY have we been going to far off places to find bears when they were in Wisconsin all along? Will have to keep eyes peeled.

I just made this salad dressing last night - my first ever creamy dressing. It's fabulous, and also not terribly fattening, as I usually assume creamy dressings are. I used lowfat buttermilk and mayo, and it was just fine. I put it on a somewhat boring cabbage/radish/celery/green onion salad, but I think it'd be good on just about anything. Since I had green onions, and didn't feel like buying chives, I left them out, and it was still great. I got the recipe from smittenkitchen.com.

Buttermilk Dressing

1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons minced shallot
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives

Whisk together buttermilk, mayonnaise, vinegar, shallot, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl until sugar has dissolved, then whisk in chives.

I went to the Irish Lion for lunch yesterday. We sat in the bar area, which is something I've never done, and the waiter was an older guy. I guess he must be the Irish because I couldn't understand a blessed thing he said. It was pretty astonishing. I remember not understanding the Irish I knew the summer I worked at the beach, especially the guys from Kilkenny, but their meaning was usually clear even if the details got lost. This guy? Off the charts.

Food was good, though.