Saturday morning, we went to the Portland Farmers Market.

And at the Portland Farmers Market, one is generally not lured in by such things as fermented black soy beans and giblets, two of this month’s Paper Chef foursome.

No, indeed. Instead, we heard the siren call of maitake mushrooms, patty pan squash, and glorious, fat leeks for a dollar a piece.

(Okay, so we didn’t exactly hear the call — the market is rather noisy and what with that odd band playing some sort of world beat, syncopated version of the 70’s disco hit “Ring My Bell,” well, the quiet voices of vegetables and fungi were completely drowned out. But boy did they look good!)

So we brought them home, stashed them away near last week’s Moreland Farmers Market purchase of Pale Blue Ewe from the Black Sheep Creamery in Southern Washington, and were promptly distracted by household and family issues.

That is, until tonight when Chopper announced he was going to make goat cheese stuffed patty pans with crispy pan fried leeks and sautéed maitake mushrooms. (And, after a quick and boisterous exclamation of YUM, I scampered to the computer, double-checked the date and the rules and declared: Hey! This is perfect for Festa al Fresco!)

So, to Ivonne and Lis, I hope we’re not too late to join the party! Chopper finished our dish just as the sun lost itself behind the giant elms and maples to the west, but the hazy summer light lingered long enough for me to snap a few shots out on the porch railing of our current, temporary abode. Look! There’s even a tree in the background. Perfect for a picnic!

la festa al fresco

Most people recoil in horror when they are told what the primary ingredient is in the classic Mexican breakfast dish menudo. No, it’s not Ricky Martin…

The first time I ever tried menudo was at a tiny Mexican cafe in San Diego back in the mid-nineties. My friends told me it was good, and having never heard of it before — I was rather young — I ordered it. Little did I know I was about to have a “Mikey” moment, where my friends were just seeing if I’d eat it. Well, I did, and I really liked it, especially the little tender chewy bits.

“What was that?” I asked my friends as they were about to burst into laughter…

That’s right, beef tripe. Stomach of cow. The funny part for me was that I didn’t mind.

Now, I’ve always been up for a good experiment, so why not try my hand at this culinary gem?

I think I did it justice. It was spicy the way I like it, and the texture was just like I remember. It was good enough for Mrs. D to give it a try. In her words…

Chopper sez: So, I’ll consider this experiment in Chopper’s lab a success. What’s next, you may ask… Just wait and see.

MizD sez: Braaaains, I tell you. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiins. (Hey, what can I say? We’re only seven and a half weeks from Halloween.)

It’s baaa-aack.

Today’s whine from MizD is brought to you by the letter I for Irritable Intractable Impeded Internets.

Here goes:

Once upon a time, many months ago, before MizD dropped everything to go care for her ailing parents, she had a growing web design business. Okay, it was slow-growing, like asparagus in Alaska (she imagines), but point is, she had opportunities to build her client base and actually do well at this web design thing. Then, she moved to a tiny island where not only did everyone’s websites look like they were designed by Front Page version 1.1 circa 1996, but MizD’s caregiving efforts took precedence and the web design fell by the wayside.

Now, many months later, MizD has returned to her roots in Portland and she, with meager savings from a summer’s work in tourist retail, is determined to dive into the freelance thing again. She is excited. She has many ideas. She knows that some success in this endeavor may even give her and Chopper the resources they need to start a culinary business together. She forges ahead.

Or rather, she would forge ahead, but MizD is stuck in a place with crap-for-internet service. In short, there’s a big nasty hairball in her tube and she’s completely lacking in CyberDraino.

Why just yesterday, MizD attempted to upload a single CSS file for a client’s website, and it took her an hour because of how many times the connection failed.

So, what did MizD do? What every frustrated geek would do at that juncture: She stomped out the door of her tiny cave, trudged down the street to the nearest coffee shop and ordered a double espresso.

And when she received her rich, supposedly mood-enhancing beverage, she took a single sip, opened her sleepy eyes, and promptly wept at her surroundings.

For MizD was in a forest of wireless laptops. Laptops at every table, and at each one, fingers tap tap tapping away, writing blog posts, shopping, networking, surfing the web at 21st century speeds. She was, in a word, surrounded by productivity and none of it was hers.

Alas, all MizD could do was drink her now bitter espresso and wander back to her cave to spend another hour trying to upload a new index file for a soon-to-be-annoyed client’s website.

Fortunately, there is light at the end of the tube (beyond the hairball). For in just two short weeks, MizD will be out of this cave of antiquity and two weeks after that, MizD will be in her own home at long last, and there, at long last, she can make leaps and bounds toward her ultimate goal of freelance success.

Providing she doesn’t run out of money and clients first, she thinks, glaring at the evil hairball that looms before her at every turn.

(And speaking of turns… got something to whine about? Share the love!)

Lappy!

So, here I am, total dork, reveling in my newfound wirelessness by snapping pictures of Chopper at the Ugly Mug Coffeehouse while he reads the sports page and we drink our double espressos. Yes kids, this is me, blogging our very first trip to a coffee shop with a laptop that actually CONNECTS TO THE INTERNET!

(And with that technologically antediluvian confession, we’ve completely lost all of our geek cred.)

In truth, I wasn’t expecting to luck out like this, but two days with mouse poised to refresh and browser open to Craig’s List really can pay off.

Seriously, this little baby’s processor is faster than the one in my desktop. And it’s got a DVD player that I swear plays DVDs better than the gizmo that’s hooked up to our TV. Crazy, huh? I’m like a kid in a candy shop and I’ve just discovered this newfangled thing called the gummy bear. What’s next? Phones that take pictures? How cool is that?

Now for the fun part: No, not formatting, uploading, organizing, watching Platelicker and The Cat fight over who gets to be on my wallpaper… Not that tedium. No, the fun part is naming my new lappy!

Whaddya mean you don’t name your computers? Doesn’t everyone name their computers? Hell, I even name my hard drives within my computers. My desktop? He’s Aziraphale, after the angel in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens. (There, that should restore some of that geek cred.) My three internal drives? Horrabin (after the terrifying clown-on-stilts in Tim Powers’ Anubis Gates), Jivecow (after, er, nothing at all – I’m certain Chopper made that one up), and Seraphim (yeah, I know, it’s plural. Get over it.)

So now I’ve my new lappy, and lappy needs a name!

In fact, oh what the heck.

It’s MizD’s Name My Lappy Contest!

Submit your suggestions here.

The winner, selected either by MizD, Chopper, or The Cat as she walks across the keyboard and votes with her claws, will receive the fabulous prize of:

The Undying Gratitude of MizD’s New Laptop, Which, by the way, is an Inanimate Object and Completely Incapable of Expressing Undying Gratitude!

(Ahem. Bonus geek cred restoration, courtesy of Chopper’s t-shirt logo.)

My captors are toying with me again. First, we move from my island paradise to this tiny basement with but one window ledge for me to perch on and no outside access whatsoever, and then, adding insult to injury, they place an alien cat (a large and rather quarrelsome black and white creature) just beyond my reach to taunt me. I am in feline agony. And worse: I’ve no means to vent!

Yes, for the entire month of September, venting was, due to circumstances far beyond even my captors’ control, a lost cause. Why? Apparently someone in this overburdened flophouse of slackertude determined that they were the sole arbiter of internet access and — would you believe — HID THE MODEM when they weren’t using it for themselves.

Needless to say, my captors and I weren’t pleased. Oh, to be as blissfully ignorant as that silly furball. Ha. Just wait. Some day SHE’LL have literary aspirations, and they too will be squelched!

But I digress. You see, we’re no longer in that tiny purgatory of spiders and cement. We’re almost home! ALMOST.

Trouble is, my captors promised me a move toward better things. Toward a YARD again. Maybe even a CAT DOOR. Well, guess what? I’m still waiting.

And, where am I waiting? In yet another basement, only this one doesn’t even have a window ledge!

Oh sure, there’s carpet instead of cement, and I haven’t seen any spiders, but I ask you, is that supposed to make up for the SECOND EVIL CAT lurking outside the glass door, or the TWO ADDITIONAL DOGS in the house?

Be patient, they say. It’s just a week of house sitting they say, but I am cursed. Cursed!

Well, I’ll get them, I will. And meanwhile, I’ll laugh in the face of their daily traumas. Can’t find a tea kettle? The iron is broken? Allergic to one of the dogs? Oh, SUFFER. Next time, when you’ve got to dump the leftover gravy out of your one suitable pan so you can make a cup of evening tea, put some of it on my freakin’ cat food or I will walk all over your keyboard like I’ve never walked on it before.

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THERE. SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT. I’VE GOTTEN THE CAPSLOCK STUCK AND YOU’VE NO IDEA HOW TO UNDO IT, DO YOU?

BWAAHAAAHAAA!

OH, AND NEXT TIME YOU WANT TO WATCH ONE OF THOSE SILLY BRITISH SCIFI SHOWS, IT BETTER NOT BE AN EPISODE WHEREIN ALL THE CATS ARE VILLAINS. TRUST ME ON THIS. YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT ELSE I’VE GOT PLANNED.