the essential kit

Kitsnaps: Baby Bongo

February 18, 2013

This baby bongo was born last year at Dublin Zoo. I remember the first time I saw the male bongo, whose antlers (horns?) are quite magnificent. He was curled against one of the fences, his head lowered so his mouth was near the ground, and when I looked at him through my camera viewfinder, I saw a classic African carving. It was an absolutely visceral visual, completely startling to me, and quite wonderful, as I’d never experienced anything like that before. Sadly, that picture didn’t turn out nearly as successfully…

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lemon curd!

February 17, 2013

I was thwarted yesterday. First the buses were badly timed/already buggified, so we ended up not going out to the farmer’s market, where I’d intended to get lemon curd from the award-winning lady who makes it. But we went downtown instead. Rats. But then! I got to go out to the market later! Hoorah! Except the lemon curd lady wasn’t there. *despair* But! I had lemons. So today I made lemon curd. It’s only the second time I’ve made lemon curd. I’m not at all confident it’ll set up (because…

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Recent Reads: MAGICIAN’S GAMBIT

February 17, 2013

! I had forgotten there were scenes and sections in MAGICIAN’S GAMBIT that were entirely from Ce’Nedra’s point of view. I knew there were in CASTLE OF WIZARDRY, but I had no recollection of it in MG. This endears the book(s) to me as an adult even more than as a teen. I was not one of those female readers who as a child felt left out because all the stories were about boys and I wasn’t a boy so therefore couldn’t relate. Yes, well, there wasn’t a magical passageway…

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Kitsnaps: Annie Moore

February 17, 2013

This statue of Annie Moore and her brothers Phillip and Anthony look west at Cobh Harbour, from whence so many Irish left for America. Annie was the first immigrant processed at the newly opened Ellis Island on January 1, 1892, the same facility my own grandfather passed through almost thirty-five years later. There’s a statue of Annie Moore at Ellis Island, too, looking eastward toward Ireland. I’d love to get a picture of that statue, too, but it wouldn’t be as spectacular as this one, by simple dint of being…

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and the rationalization begins

February 16, 2013

Rationalization #1: Chocolate milk isn’t REALLY junk food. (Hot chocolate is definitely junk food. But not chocolate milk! Except maybe hot chocolate you make at home, which hasn’t got whipped cream and peppermint in it. So chocolate milk you make at home is fine!) Rationalization #2: Homemade biscuits with butter and honey aren’t REALLY junk food. Well, they’re not. They’re not. But three of them may be abusing the spirit of the law. (I did not, in my defense, have three!) Rationalization #3: If I just have ONE SCOOP of…

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