I saw a white coated pigeon with a long tail and furry feat. I thought this sort of pigeon only existed in pigeon breeders' broods. Maybe it escaped from one.
I ordered a Kiwi milkshake and got a Vanilla one. Gah.
The book I chose for my book review (Kate Fleet. European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman Empire: The Merchants of Genoa and Turkey), despite being short, is described by another reviewer as being "not for the faint of heart". Shit.
One PRC asked whether the red hair tie I had around my wrist was a lucky piece of string. Wth?!
I had a class at 3:15pm, and I was pissed off to find out that no bus brought me directly there (one bus goes by there normally, but not at that time - after 13:48 or so it's replaced by an Express bus, the next bus stopping at that stop only comes by my place at about 4pm or so). So I took the Express bus and walked from the Centraal Station. I arrived just at 3:15pm, only to find that the door to the place was locked. A girl outside told me they location had been changed (I'd forgotten to check the new location on WebCT, Utrecht's IVLE equivalent, being unfamiliar with the system, and there hadn't been an announcement at the previous lecture).
She was preparing to zoom off on her bicycle and I briefly considered asking to hitch a ride. I quickly dismissed the thought though, with 3 post-hoc reasons: I didn't know her, I didn't know how to hitch a ride on the back of a bike and I would destabilise the bicycle.
Grilled Chicken Chop with Balsamic Caramelized Pears (made according to this recipe)
I know the recipe says Pork Chops, but I took the wrong thing out of the fridge. I essentially followed it this time except for the rosemary. Recipes don't scale down well - reducing 40ml of vinegar in a saucepan is damn hard, and I had too little of it in the end despite adding a bit more than supposedly necessary, resulting in the end product being a bit dry (especially since the pear wedges absorbed all the sauce). Also, I think Vidalia onions are quite big, so my onion wedges went to pieces despite careful treatment on my part.
Instant mashed potato is much nicer when you mixed in fried vegetables, and even better with ham bits inside. It also becomes nice and creamy when you add mayonnaise.
Instead of placing my eggs in the egg tray in the fridge, I tried leaving them in the tray (incidentally, one nice thing about buying eggs from Aldi, besides the price, is that inside the carton they place 2 feathers) and marking it with my initials. It worked for a while but one time 2 got stolen, so I moved them to my room. Meanwhile, milk was stolen from 2 of my cartons (and definitely more than 2 occasions), so after the second time I transferred it to a 500ml soft drink bottle and placed it at the back of the fridge, which seemed to work. It's not so much the price (Full cream UHT milk is €0,45 for 1L, and half-skim UHT €0,36 or so only [it was on offer today - only €0,27]) as the principle of it. If it gets stolen again I'm definitely going to enquire about the price of laxatives.
I saw fried pork skin labelled as "bacon chips".
Fried vegetables smell much better than they taste.
I paid €1,35 for a can of sugar cane (A Thai brand, not Yeo's). It tasted like boiled sugar cane. I wonder why they don't sell the crushed variety in cans.
I was disturbed to find Kordial in a Surinamese supermarket, some of it labelled as being Surinamese (in flavour? country of origin?) What was worse, though, was finding Apollo Kek Lapis. Ahh!!!!!! In the same shop I also found banana, mango and cinammon flavoured incense sticks. Uhh.
I got a scoop of gelato for €0,50 (I assume that's what "Italiaans Ijs" translates as). It was quite small (maybe half the size of the Nuremberg one) and came in a lousy sugar cone, but still - €0,50 gelato!
Almost vegetarian fried rice
Onion, carrot, courgette, garlic and egg and fried with soy sauce and rice wine. And I remembered the pepper this time (though it didn't seem to make much difference, maybe I should do a controlled experiment). The only meat comes from the chicken stock powder I added to the vegetable mix in aqueous form and whatever meat was in the oil in the saucepan leftover from the previous user (I'm quite mortified, really). I added too much soy sauce, but I remembered to beat the egg this time before throwing it in.
Stroopwafel bits
Stroopwafels are Dutch syrup waffles. They cut the waffle into 2, smear some butter syrup on it and then smack it back together. The bits are the leftovers after the whole bits are sold. I saw a huge pack being sold for €1 and bought it. I liked it even better than the stroopwafels themselves - it's basically a less oily version of sak khair mah (sp?), this Chinese confectionary consisting of fried flour bits glued together with syrup.
Fried pork strips topped with Hawaii sauce and served with mashed potato with vegetables
I bought 340g of pork strips/bands (reepjes) because it was going for half price, expiring on the same day. I was wondering what to do with them, and my Favourite Test Tube Washer gave me this suggestion. So I marinated them in sunflower oil, garlic and Italian herbs and under her guidance I starched and egged them ("if you don't dry the meat the egg won't stick to it. the starch will absorb water on the meat surface so that your breading doesn't fall right off the moment you stick it into the oil. then you'd have fried meat and fried flour").
At first I coated each strip individually but after a while I got fedup and mixed the pork as a batch. Since there was too much egg (eggs don't scale down in recipes either), I had this weird yellow goo on my hands and on the plate. There was also a bit too much starch, so my deep fry oil became very cloudy by the end.
The taste was good, except that I hadn't put enough herbs or any salt (I expected the Hawaii sauce to compensate, but it didn't). Also, I forgot to heat the Hawaii sauce so it was too cold.
Quotes:
I think of making furniture in my future business, so trade and financial integration are important to pay attention [to]. (I'm thinking)
two sowden and one (thousand)
fathering order (following)
financial quizzes (crises)
economic integration of the word (world)
unexpectively (unexpectedly)
dee vair loping countries (developing)
sig nee fee sernt (significant)
be lee tr'earl trade (bilateral)
[On the pandocheion and prostitution] Social services such as drinking and engaging in other after-hours activities.
[On not dropping a discussion] There's ***'s point, and he's not going to get away with it...
You can be ker'nay'zhern [Pronunciation: "zhern" pronounced like the "sian" in "asian"] (Keynesian)
[On Central Bank credibility] You must say, 'I won't do anything. You can all die unemployed.'
Ver'rye'ence in inflation (variance)
People may have more information than the Central Bank. This is quite implausible. If you are employed by Goldman Sachs and you're being paid ten times those economists in the Central Bank, if the pay [shows how good you are,] then maybe.
[On expectations] I always say... If you go to the train 5 minutes early, you can start running, even though you have 5 minutes left. Other people will also start running. It's quite funny.
[On accidentally skipping to a page with many equations] Don't be scared.
[On the Barro-Gordon model] Don't be disappointed with this simple model. It will be very complicated next week.
[On output shocks] If I ask you, 'Will there be a shock next year', you will say no. If you know, it's not a shock.