How to make Thai food

This evening we assembled to cook a Thai dinner. It begins with ingredients: green onions, peppers, noodles, peanuts, sesame oil, fish sauce, basil, hot peppers. Knife, cutting board, recipe. Plus one excellent chef guiding us through the meal preparations.
Crush the peanuts with a rolling pin!Then make some piles of deliciousness in various pans.Finally, plate as desired and eat.I took notes, so I should be able to recreate this meal. It was excellent. The secret of using fish sauce is to add just enough to counter the other tastes, but not too much that you can actually taste fish sauce, which smells disgusting on its own.

Thanks, E.!

This post's theme word is gasconade, "to boast extravagantly," or simply "boastful talk." The blog post provided no relevant instruction, serving merely as a gasconade of gustatory gratification.

Wherein 'gauche' and 'wink' are cognates

Gauche, from gauche (French), from gauchir (Middle French), from gaucher (Old French), from welkan (Frankish), from *wankjan (Proto-Germanic). Proto-Indo-European root *weng. A variant of *wankjan, of course, is *wenkanan (also Proto-Germanic), whence wink.

Compare wanken (Old High German) with vakka (Old Norse).

Thanks, J.!


This post's theme word is antanaclasis, "the repetition of a word in different senses." Having experienced this derivation, now I am interested in tracing the changing meaning of the word!

Wherein I learn to tie knots

This morning I learned to tie:

• a figure 8 knot
• a stronger figure 8 knot for fastening climbing harnesses
• a bowline
• a noose
  

The noose takes a lot of rope. The bowline is self-tightening and easy to undo (for those with fingers -- a good reason not to have monkeys on your ship!).

Thanks, R.!


This post's theme word is pectinated, "interwoven, as with fingers" (see Inky Fool). I pectinated those lines!

Birthday gifts!

I staged my birthday party as an exchange of sorts, wherein I lured people to my apartment with promises of cake. In return, I asked that each guest teach me something. The guests were creative and entertaining; many promised future lessons in X, since there was not enough time at the party for all the learning.

Here, then, is what my guests taught [promised to teach] me for my birthday:

• how to belly dance
• how to make ravioli
• disappointment*
• how to make Thai food (dish of my choice)
• how to make metal plate armor (stop signs are apparently a good source of raw material)
• how to break into a coke machine
• how to make char cloth
• that "gauche" and "wink" are cognates (and the derivations thereof)
• how to make flammable gel from just 3 common kitchen products
• how to tie knots or the true meaning of lust* (I chose knots!)

The starred items earned extra points for entertaining delivery. I'll write about each thing as I learn it, to keep you updated.


This post's theme word is bailiwick, "a person's area of expertise or interest." I look forward to learning about their bailiwicks.