on money and happiness and charity

When I was a tween and a teenager, we didn't have a lot of money. I don't mention this very much because I don't feel that we had sufficiently little money to complain about -- we had food, a place to live, and health insurance (via my dad's retirement package from the Army); when I grew -- which I did a lot as a teen, as did my brother, of course -- I could get new clothes, I had a warm coat in the winter, we had a car that ran. We were okay.

( More about money, poverty, and happiness below the cut )

Sous Vide Experiments #5 and #6: Parsnips, Potato Salad, and Salmon

Parsnips with lemon-butter, warm German potato salad, and salmon mi-cuit. With pictures.

Also, a dose of personal nostalgia. ;)

( food neep beneath the cut )

(It's been feeling really weird to write these -- I've been so pleased with the sous vide, which makes me excited and I want to share it, but the only way I can really do that is to talk about how well the food has come out, which basically means squeeing about my own dishes. Which feels awkwardly self-congratulatory! But the sous vide supreme really is pretty darn awesome, and a lot of the amazing things -- like the super-juiciness of the meat dishes, and the way the flavors meld -- are more it than me.)