Monday, February 12, 2007

bullets of Monday is lentil fun-day

  • My sister and I are cosmically linked, as she says, since we're both cooking lentils on this cold evening. I'm making lentil soup with sausage; don't know her recipe.
  • I have to remember about the Moosewood cookbook. It has a great collection of soup recipes, for one thing (minus the sausage - just added that myself).
  • My class is, like, going OK. I've revised the syllabus so as to have a 3-week mini-unit on film: watching/talking/writing about without sounding like a jerk. (Perhaps that should have been the subtitle of the unit. Alas.) Friday is our first discussion, on I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, this great Paul Muni movie from the 30's. Last semester, one of my students claimed that he dreamed about being a fugitive from a chain gang after seeing it; I can only hope that some this semester are thus inspired.
  • They're a friendly bunch this term. A few were friends with each other already before taking the class, but not in a cliquish way.
  • I've just returned their second formal assignments, and overall I'm more impressed this semester with their work at this stage than I was last semester. Is it the benefit of an extra semester of college on their end? Or is my change in methodology having an early impact? I'm not convinced that their final portfolios will end up looking better than last term's, but many of their drafts are promising.
  • I just made a pledge to my local NPR affiliate. Enough to get a coffee mug. I was swayed by the plaintive voices of the broadcasters asking for just 258 more pledges so that the pledge drive could finish. Countable numbers really make a difference.

6 comments:

Jane Dark said...

Lentil soup with sausages sounds fabulous -- did you just brown the meat first and throw it in?

kermitthefrog said...

I just used one pot -- cut up the sausages into chunks & browned them, then threw in onion/celery/carrot/garlic to saute a bit, then added the lentils, water + veg bouillion cube, thyme and oregano. I added a fair amount of red wine vinegar at the end - I think I would have needed less if I had used fattier and saltier sausages, but I used chicken sausages, which didn't really add much flavor to the soup broth.

SK said...

your blog has come alive again! yay!

Arbitrista said...

Am I the only liberal snob who doesn't listen to NPR?

kermitthefrog said...

Uh, probably? Although my listening is way sporadic.

Jane Dark said...

Man, that sounds tasty. I might have to try the recipe myself at some point.