Yay

[telophase]

Power on all day today except for the 20-30 minute block of time around noon.

Water started coming back this afternoon! Slowly, and we have all the faucets on at a trickle now because the temps outside are still below freezing. If they were frozen, I guess the house being kept at 66F (the energy company is asking people not to go above 68) slowly warmed them enough to thaw? But we’re still not sure exactly what happened to deprive us of water, so even though there’s no boil water order in our area that we’ve heard of, we’re going to act as if there is and use the stored water for the next couple of days since we have plenty.

Dinner tonight: the last of the Lancashire butter pie leftovers, kept in the garage which is at a pretty damn low temperature, plus summer sausage and cherry tomatoes with a spice dip we make.

Pie: https://dejafood.uk/2019/01/20/lancashire-butter-pie/

It’s basically butter, butter pastry, potatoes, onions and butter, so really there’s very little that could go wrong. Myrialux says the pastry reminds him of buttermilk biscuits. The recipe says it’s good cold but I didn’t like it much that way. Reheats well.

The spice dip we make is a mixture of a chili lime salt, a little bit of chili powder, along with ground cumin and ground coriander. We don’t stick to too many measurements for it, just put it in and taste until it seems right. You cut cherry tomatoes in half and dip the cut sides into it. It sticks to the damp bits.

We played another scenario of Gloomhaven (yhlee: fuck oozes!!!) and tried a game called Canvas that Myrialux backed on Kickstarter. You are artists competing at art shows, and assemble artworks from transparent cards with elements printed on them, so the various elements form an art piece when stacked, and win ribbons based on various criteria you set up beforehand. It was entertaining.

D.Va was bouncy all day chittering at the birds on the feeder, and finally collapsed on the blanket I was using when we were prepping dinner. However Myrialux is now online in his office with several friends who also have power and internet, so I shall be stealing his blanket right after I post this.

My workplace had an HVAC thing bust in the attic, which drenched one end of the building, but it was mostly workspaces and only 10% of the collection in the building was affected, I hear, so that could have been much worse. Myrialux does not yet know if his building survived: several campus buildings have had floods from frozen pipes and the like, I hear.

All in all, it could be much worse. Tomorrow is forecast to hit 33F and Friday 41F so prepare for lots of snowmelt. I think we’ve survived the worst of it, fingers crossed.

Comments

[adafrog]

Lucky not much got damaged in the collection.

[telophase]

We’ve been really lucky with that in the 15 years I’ve been here. Multiple water disasters, mostly due to water pipes breaking in weather or because of age, and each time so far it’s been a minimum of things that get damaged.

We also moved the bulk of the collection offsite a couple of years ago to make space for more people in the building, which helps, but also that means the stuff left in the building is the high-use stuff.

[adafrog]

Lucky.
So far we still have electricity. *crosses fingers*

Yeah, so that's at risk.

[havocthecat]

I have never before heard of Lancashire butter pie, but I would totally eat that. but I would eat the heck out of that. But I'd be lazy and not peel the potatoes.

[telophase]

Totally valid! I just like peeled potatoes better in most applications which is a bit odd because I eat the peel if it’s baked.

[havocthecat]

I think it's always most important to eat things how you like them best. I also just like discussing variations on recipes, which is never meant as a criticism, but as a compliment that the recipe was so engaging that I want to talk about its variations!

[telophase]

No worries, I didn’t take it that way. XD I just found my inconsistency amusing. (I think it’s a texture thing—I usually don’t like combos of creamy and not-creamy.)

[yhlee]

Man, the butter pie sounds amazing but we have no food processor and I am completely unconfident of my ability to make crust.

Stay safe, y'all!

And yeah, re: Gloomhaven: fuck oozes. I hate them SO MUCH.

[telophase]

You could just buy a deep dish crust (in the packs of 2–use one for the bottom and the other for the top) and use that. Wouldn’t be the best, but it’d be fine.

I think I’d add a little more potato and back down the onion— most recipes don’t seem to realize that the onions down here are GINORMOUS. I read in one cookbook once that medium onions come 4 to a pound, and our onions tend to be 1-2 to a pound.

[yhlee]

Yep, sometimes I use half an onion instead of the whole dang thing because our supermarket onions are GINORMOUS. XD

[havocthecat]

I will second telophase and the "buy crust, it's not cheating!" I've purchased plenty of crust in my life.

And also I would like to say to you (should you ever feel like it) or anyone else who might want to make a very basic crust by hand: I don't have a food processor, anyone who tells you that you need one to make crust is lying to you. All you really need to do is mix the butter (or your fat of choice) into the flour (and other solids) until it forms pea-sized crumbles. You can use a pastry knife, two knife blades, a fork, or do what I do and just dig in there with your hands. It's easier to make crust with a food processor, sure, but you don't need it.

[telophase]

Yup! The only thing you need to keep an eye on is that your body heat will melt the butter faster, so chucking it in the fridge to chill before rolling it out may be called for. (I suppose I ought to be saying this to Yoon, not you...)

[havocthecat]

Which, that second paragraph might be a fundamental misunderstanding of what you said, but apparently I got too excited at the idea of talking about crust and I should go bake instead of talking about crust or something, whoops.

[yhlee]

Nah, it's fine. What's a pandemic for if not trying new things? XD Although I might have a backup frozen premade crust in case of crust disaster...when grocery shopping is possible again, anyway. XD

[silverr]

Ah, Texas here. House got down to 46 on Tuesday. (Three to five minutes of electric each hour is not really enough; the 5 seconds we got in a 10 hour period on Tuesday were REALLY not enough.)
I'm tentatively optimistic now (5 am Thursday) as it seems we've had power all night, and the house is around 19-20 C (66-68)

[telophase]

The lowest we got before we got power back was 52. I think we got power back longer and earlier than a lot because we're not too far from a bunch of medical offices and a hospital. My boss lives very near a hospital and they never lost power.

Good luck! We haven't had an outage since yesterday, and all the faucets are back.

[loligo]

So glad things are improving!

[telophase]

Us too! XD Thanks!

[rachelmanija]

I'm glad the power's mostly back and most of the collection is safe.

That butter pie sounds delicious. I love butter.

[telophase]

I highly recommend the pie!