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"What have you eaten" Parallel Chat

Sounds great.
It is tempting to just drive to Leeuwarden and not go to work. my work commute is at least in the right direction. Work is not that much fun at the moment. With a 1 hour commute each way and no Homeoffice it is tireing. Plus it is only a 2 year contract so moving there is not an option. Currently it is a governmet funded job to create climate protection concepts for city councils. So it is a government job with lots of bureaucracy, even worde as it is german bureaucracy. It is the third job of this kind now and finally I‘ve come to the realisation this kind of job is not right for me. so now I am searching for something new an a bit more exiting where I can actually make a difference and not just write concepts that disappear in a drawer somewhere. Sorry for the long rant I am just a little frustrated at the moment and trying to find the right job for me.

Foodwise not the best couple of days. The evening meals were fine I had miso soup and sashimi and a steak yesterday. The lunches at work are the Most days I have a sandwich. Bit of an IBS flare up last week and then my body only tolerates starchy foods which are not great for my insulin resistence. Sugars are ok but needing loads of insulin which is not great for weightloss. Oh well one problem at a time.
I hope everyone else is ok
 
I don't think the essays are particularly valuable. The pollen one was just a fairly short explanation of why I thought pollen sampling was less valuable than might be thought. The black house one was a bit more expansive, but the tutor shot me down a bit over not referencing my arguments - that's because they were all based on personal observation. I'm keeping them though - just as a reminder.

I took various online courses in subjects that interested me while I was studying for my degree and MA (also open learning and part time) but my main job, at that stage, was lecturing in Office Technologies and Management. A subject many people find boring, so I needed a range of knowledge to make my subjects interesting to students. My classes covered everything from ecology, wind power v nuclear, hierarchy on merchant ships, why computers work, how to make best use of them, administration, welfare, health and safety, running a catering business, designing/publishing literature, fund raising, job seeking, employment law and much more. All out of date now, of course. Even basic management seems to be run on different principles these days and so does administration. A dinosaur - that's me.
 

wow! what a wide range of knowledge! Tell us something interesting. I think the principles haven't been outdated since the time of the dinosaurs. Due to the fact that a modern computer does not look like a computer from the 80s, the principles of data transmission have not changed much. It's how von Neumann came up with it, and it still works
I have never seen anyone compare wind energy with nuclear energy. It is usually compared with electricity. What are the advantages of wind? only environmental friendliness?
My interests were usually limited to physics and literature, so the most interesting thing is that I don't know much of anything interesting. To my shame, I don't even know geography well.
 
Geography isn't my best subject either. Although I had to learn about all those subjects, to a degree, it was only sufficient to support discussions on my real subjects - those I was paid to teach. A bit of a Jack-of-all-trades really. Principles haven't changed really - just practice (sadly?)

At the moment my interest is in history - based on family history and how my own family have been affected, or have affected the course of history. I'm finding that I need to know much more about the flow of history through time and am quite well aware that I am now part of that history and have seen the introduction and the waning of quite a few technologies and ways of living in my lifetime. Much of the equipment that I have is now obsolete, but I still insist on using it. Much of the current technology is beyond me. That's a failure of this ageing brain.
 
Breakfast in a rush (I took too long getting to my shower this morning) because I had to go to my leg bandaging session (legs, and probably everything else, more swollen due to decreased diuretics). So I just had a couple of RyVita with some ham and cheese, as a sandwich.

2nd meal: there's still some of the cabbage and sausage left, so I'll have that.
 
Annb said:
At the moment my interest is in history - based on family history and how my own family have been affected, or have affected the course of history.
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Is your family powerful enough to influence the course of history?! wow! Mine is just a small grain in the huge millstones of history.
 
Zhnyaka said:
Is your family powerful enough to influence the course of history?! wow! Mine is just a small grain in the huge millstones of history.
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It appears so. How are the mighty fallen. In more recent generations we were just farmers and trades people but in the past .... movers and shakers. In my generation and the next one, my brother got all the drive and ability, as did his kids. My lot are all pretty ordinary.
 
How far do you know your family? I do not know beyond the great-grandfathers. It must be incredibly cool to know what has been in your family for centuries.
 
Zhnyaka said:
How far do you know your family? I do not know beyond the great-grandfathers. It must be incredibly cool to know what has been in your family for centuries.
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With certainty back to 13th century on 4 lines and back to 11th century on a couple. Further back the lines are there, but the records are not so certain. A couple of lines offer Mark Anthony and Julius Ceasar, others offer Charlamagne. Godwin and his son Harold (II of England - killed at Hastings in 1066) and William (the Conqueror) are all in there as well. These families, all over Europe seemed to intermarry a lot of the time so are not that difficult to trace using the internet. Of course, there are other lines - (the peasantry) who are not recorded back beyond 18th century. Some of them were not really very nice people and had a habit of killing off rivals whether family members or not. Others sacrificed their lives for their faith and seem to have been good people as far as I can tell. At the moment, I am trying to find out my ancestors' roles in the Civil War - probably some on each side.
 

Are you saying that I'm talking to Julius Caesar's relative right now?!
By Civil War, do you mean the war for the abolition of slavery in America in 1861-65?
 
Zhnyaka said:
Are you saying that I'm talking to Julius Caesar's relative right now?!
By Civil War, do you mean the war for the abolition of slavery in America in 1861-65?
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If we could all trace our family history beyond a few generations, and after that get into a big pedigree, we would probably find that we are all descended from one of history's big hitters and, therefore, to quite a few because way back then, they all intermarried (keeping the cash/power in the family).

The Civil War I'm thinking of was the English one, when Charles I was beaten by Cromwell's forces and beheaded (1649). The Republic didn't last long though, it ended with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660.
 
Breakfast was a couple of sausages and a couple of fried eggs. Didn't intend to have any more sausages so soon but I asked Neil to get some that I could keep in the freezer for a later date. He came back with a pack right on their expiry date, so I cooked them straight away and have put some int he freezer, ready cooked. However, I did keep a couple back for my breakfast.

No idea what the 2nd meal will be - it's in a box, still frozen with its label rubbed off. Through the plastic, it has some tomato in it, but nothing else is obvious. Life is a mystery these days.
 

If we go deep enough into the past, about 4.2 billion years ago, and reach LUCA, we will find that we are all related, not only to each other, but even to plants or bacteria
 
Zhnyaka said:
If we go deep enough into the past, about 4.2 billion years ago, and reach LUCA, we will find that we are all related, not only to each other, but even to plants or bacteria
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I can't think why anyone has a prejudice against any other person - we are really all one family ultimately.

The box of something I took out of the freezer has turned out to be a casserole of lamb's heart and kidney with some vegetables. Smelling good right now and ready to eat.

I've just put some red cabbage and apple on to cook down a bit and then I can have that with the sausages next time I take them out of the freezer. There's enough there for 2 meals so may ask Neil to get me some pork belly next shopping day. Pork, red cabbage and apple - yum.
 
Annb said:
I can't think why anyone has a prejudice against any other person - we are really all one family ultimately.
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Kind and unsophisticated people were the first to die, even before homo became sapiens. The recognition of one's own and others appeared millions of years before civilization. Civilization is generally the thin young crust of our brain, which does not even have a dedicated area, like as breathing, for example, not to mention humanism, which has been achieved only in recent centuries. In case of a threat to life, the brain will immediately turn off our civilized part.
If we were born into a cannibal tribe, we wouldn't have any problems eating another person, so humanism isn't built into us by evolution and we have to teach it.
but fear is inherent in us by evolution. This is largely influenced by propaganda, when it says that "someone" threatens people like you, and dehumanizes the enemy, affecting the animal part of us and pointing out something like that "others" smell bad.

I hope I'm not boring you too much.

Are you stewing cabbage with apples? The cuisines of other nations are so different! it sounds a little strange to me (same as casserole of lamb's heart and kidney with vegetables), but I want to try. How do you cook it?


I bought myself a burger today. I knew I would regret it all night, but it was so delicious and I had such a hard day that it was worth it. Bg is surprisingly quite good after this
 
Zhnyaka said:
Are you stewing cabbage with apples?
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Red cabbage is typically eaten with apples in my country as well!
Just Google 'rode kool met appeltjes' for Dutch recipes, I'm sure Google will translate for you.
Zhnyaka said:
I bought myself a burger today. I knew I would regret it all night, but it was so delicious and I had such a hard day that it was worth it. Bg is surprisingly quite good after this
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I'm always of two minds when I have a not so smart meal diabetes wise but it turns out well. I'm happy my bg behaved but also frustrated because it's a surprise and I wish I could pull this trick every time.

My own meal was two burgers with cheese cooked at home, no buns, fried onions, and lots of salad. One burger would have been enough so that's lunch covered for tomorrow.



On monday I'll have an introductory meeting for the new job on the bridge, tuesday will be my first working day. I'm starting to get seriously nervous and it's another 4 days...

My main concern is the long days. I'll have to leave home between 8 and 8:15 am, and I won't be back until 7:45 pm earliest, an hour later in the summer season. Which leaves me with very few hours to unwind and feed animals between coming home and having to be asleep. And I have a tendency to stupidly refuse to go to bed when overtired, especially after a day of mental and social overload...
I received the planning for the whole season, and it's mainly wednesday, thursday, friday one week, monday, tuesday, saturday, sunday the next, which sounds doable. But scary.
 
Red cabbage – shredded
Star anise – 3 whole
½ cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
Enough vegetable stock to moisten the cabbage but not cover
Splash of cider vinegar or lemon juice
Salted butter – about 1 ounce
1 dessert apple, cut into chunks


Put all the ingredients, except the apples into a pan with a thick base.
Simmer until the cabbage is soft.
Remove the cinnamon stick, star anise and bay leaf.
Add the apple and cook longer until it is tender.

Alternative: use less water and put it all in a microwave-proof dish. Microwave until soft as above.

That's the cabbage recipe that I use. Never actually found a recipe for it. It seems to work though.

The offal was cut into slices and slow cooked in beef stock with a mixture of vegetables (carrot, onions, squash, tomato puree).
 
Over all these millions of years, we have evolved from those early homo species and we have developed a range of civilizations and learned not to behave in the ways that our distant ancestors did. Fear may well be inherent but is not reasonable, for the most part (any more than is my fear of spiders). We have to be people of reason these days, even if we are still suspicious and ready to expect the unexpected. Humanity has grown up, society has grown up and it is about time we started behaving like grown ups. There are things that it is reasonable to be wary of, but those things are not other humans, just because they have red hair, dark skin, or wear tartan, or green, nor if they have a different culture or faith.
 
Long travelling day yesterday.
Midday, a piece leftover frittata
Snacks of walnuts.
7pm in an Italian restaurant, a sausage stew with beans. Also had 2 pieces bread to mop up with. Paid with a too high bg.

Our hosts both had nasty continuous coughs. I've been feeling cold and shivery all day today, but did fit in 2 dog walks, one on a stunning but windy beach.

Today food was
3 hard boiled eggs breakfast
Lunch of 1 crispbread with olives and anchovies
Mid afternoon 3 ginger biscuits
D: sausages with cabbage and pesto. Glass red wine.
Hubbys just made me a hot chocolate but one taste showed he used some fancy hot chocolate, not pure cocoa powder. Still drank it though as I'm cold. Bg OK so far.
 
This short post generated a lot of different feels from start to finish. How I wish things were exactly as you described in this day and age.
Still, happy to realise that you, I, and @Zhnyaka are family, even if it's only through a shared ancestor of fytoplankton!
 
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