Super Blue Blood Moon

Tonight we have a Super Blue Blood Moon to cap off January 2018. It's Super because it is at it's closest proximity to Earth, and thus appears larger. It is Blue because of a popular saying that refers to the phenomenon of having two full moons in one month, and it is Blood because of a lunar eclipse, which causes the sun's light to reflect through the moon and give it a reddish colour. Pretty freaky.

I don't know how I missed out on the symbolism of having the first of the year occur on the night of the full moon, which is what allowed today to be a blue moon. I'd like to say that  it started on a blue moon, but I don't really think you can call the first of the "set" of full moons a blue moon, even if it's just as necessary for the phenomenon.

Yesterday I took a Social Psychology test that I don't have much confidence in, although I also recently took a Russian Studies test which I got 100% in. I've got an Art and Society project due next week where I have to find some piece of music and argue why it's a folk song.

 I finally filled the spice jars my grandparents gave me. As a reminder, when I broke a spice bottle on my fancy spice rack, my grandparents attempted to replace the bottle. When they couldn't, they gave me their cool spice bottle set. The bottles didn't have default labels like my other set, so I got to choose what to fill them with. I went with ginger, cinnamon, cumin, garlic powder and onion powder. With the remaining bottles from my old set, I also have oregano, rosemary, thyme, sage, basil, and chili. I think I still have coriander in Guelph, too. I thought I broke coriander and tarragon, but I guess it was only tarragon, because my mom showed me a fully intact coriander bottle from my old set last I was there.

I need salt and pepper shakers, of all things...

Last time I was home, I got to make stirfry for my mother and brother. I don't usually get to take command in my mother's kitchen, so this was exciting.

My stirfry is probably the best thing I consistently make. I know I've said it before, but I reverse-engineered the technique by observing the Conestoga cafeteria chefs and the people at Mongolian Grill. Not very complicated technique. You pour boiling water over some rice noodles, you put some meat in a pan, fry it, add vegetables, add rice noodles, add sauce. For a long time I just had been using frozen vegetables but recently upgraded to fresh. I prefer to use vermicelli as my choice of noodles, then cauliflower, snap peas, carrot, mushrooms, bell pepper and onion for vegetables. I used ground turkey for the meat, and teriyaki and sriracha for the sauce.

Went over well. They spoke highly of it, but what else are you going to do when someone makes something for you? But I was encouraged the next day when they ate the leftovers, and encouraged again when my mother wanted to make a stirfry utilizing some of my techniques.

Flattering that she felt she could improve her recipe with some of my innovative techniques, but she wound up upstaging me. She used a homemade sauce, used sliced chicken breast instead of ground meat, and she used ginger.

I tried using ginger in a stirfry recently and completely overspiced it. Now I don't know if I should just throw it out or if I should force myself to eat it. I'll probably leave it in the fridge and pretend that I'll eat it because I don't want to waste the food, but put it off long enough that it goes bad and I have to throw it out.