three great things

[cimorene]

• Good news! I had been checking the city's health portal for updates and the last one was in early March (something like, "we've received a small amount of this third vaccine..."), but today I decided to just check anyway by trying to book a time and there were some open slots for Moderna! So we'll both finally get our third shots on Friday (the first ones were all Pfizer).



• Even better news: in my desperation for something to read I recently reread that Avengers university AU where Tony Stark is an engineer and architect and Steve Rogers is a younger architect who wants to date him, and for some reason the story embedded an image of a sandwich that one of the characters texted to another one and the sandwich was a "caprese" of fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil, arugula and pesto on... it was probably ciabatta actually. Well, I instantly texted Wax that I needed to eat this sandwich so we bought a single beefsteak tomato and a single ball of lactose-free fresh mozz last night, along with a bag of breadrolls and some little potted basil and arugula. And we had them for dinner tonight, and oh wow, SOOOOO GOOD. Amazing that it's been so long since I've eaten this - why? I'm an adult, I can buy these things when I want!



• Not news, but it was funny: Saturday night before Easter I actually dreamt that my parents, sister, favorite aunt and uncle+cousins, and maternal (Catholic) grandma were visiting us in Turku for Easter (for some reason). We took them to a street fair (that doesn't exist) that was like an American county fair, except the parking lot was one GIANT ballpit full of cars, and somebody had hidden corpses wrapped up in sheets in among the balls, which I discovered like... by accident halfway through the dream, only then it ended up not being scary. I guess my subconscious changed its mind about switching genre to a murder mystery; instead my uncle came out to the parking lot to look for me, I said I was looking for a jacket, and we went back to ride a ferris wheel and buy cotton candy.
  
  Then we all left to go to the Catholic church for Easter for the benefit of my grandma and favorite aunt, and since I don't actually know where the Catholic church is in Turku, we got lost a lot while my brain kept changing its mind about where it might be. But eventually it decided on a totally fictional Byzantine-looking basilica, having an Easter service even though it was nighttime by then, and the Easter service was in the form of a "traditional Easter pageant", but in the dream the traditional Easter pageant wasn't the story of Jesus's death and resurrection; it was a parade of children dressed as different animals carrying various types of plants and flowers, interspersed with children dressed as Jesus, the virgin Mary, the prophet Elijah (a character in Pesach who appears when the children leave the room to search for the afikomen, if you leave the door unlocked for him, and drinks the glass of wine left out for him), and various saints I didn't know. Each of the human characters had a couple of random lines to read. Everyone was satisfied with this Easter service. Then I woke up. This totally sounds like something a UU church would do, by the way, although it's not one ours (my childhood one) specifically has done.

Comments

[twistedchick]

What's the name and author of that Avengers AU? It sounds interesting.

[cimorene]

It's the first of the It takes time series by shetlandowl

it's well-executed, but it's very much a Tony/Steve story and not an Avengers ensemble piece. When I first read it a few years ago I had been mostly reading Tony/Steve stuff, and it really stood out as a lot better than the crowd - witty, knowledgable, engaging, snappy dialogue. But rereading it now without the shipper goggles took some of the shine off... although the execution and wittiness and so on are all still there.

[torachan]

This is our favorite summertime dinner sandwich, though we don't use arugula or pesto, just mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil, with olive oil and vinegar and salt for seasoning. It's the perfect combination.

[cimorene]

Wax doesn't like pesto but it's one of my favorites. Bad pesto will ruin a dish, but the good kind will elevate a couple of ingredients to sublime! Even stuff jarred in Italy that you buy at the store often substitutes cheaper ingredients - the wrong kinds of nuts, oil, even parts of the basil. But you can make it homemade and omit the alliums and so on, and I'd highly recommend that if you like basil and parmesan and haven't tried it! I think it's a common but not integral part of the caprese salads and sandwiches I've seen and had (but I don't know how correct that is, never having had one in Italy or from an Italian cook).

If you usually don't like arugula, like I don't - it will just ruin so many dishes - it might be worth trying a piece of a fresh leaf in the mix here anyway. It's one of those weird flavors that just combines with certain other flavors like magic, and having it alongside the other bits adds just a hint of leafy spiciness. The tomato and the fresh mozzarella are SO sweet and sour that they reduce the slight pepperiness of it to a little flourish.

[torachan]

I do love pesto and we have made no-garlic pesto a few times! I just don't eat it much these days since I can't eat premade kinds. I think we still have a partial bag of pine nuts in the fridge, though, so we should try that next time we have the sandwiches.

[cimorene]

Oh dear, that reminds me that we have pine nuts in the fridge but I'm afraid they might have gone bad... 😬

[torachan]

IME pine nuts stay good in the fridge for ages. In the past we've had an open/resealed bag in the fridge for over a year and it was fine. I don't think the ones we have right now are quite that old but it's been a while.

[cimorene]

Oh thanks! Fingers crossed then.

[waywren]

That service sounds absolutely delightful and my childhood uu church would absolutely have done that.

[cimorene]

Like, ours WOULD do this, but tbh this is cooler than any that they actually did. Think how much fun the kids would have like... picking the relevant facts about the saints and characters to include.

OMG, what if one of the characters was a matzah?