The Octopus's Garden

My goodness, look at the time!

Ashley Lange — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:13:15 +0000

I started this blog and never went anywhere with it, but I don’t think that’s an acceptable answer at all.

Mostly it feels almost irresponsible to continue blogging with anything close to the same theme as before. How can I be so frivolous or oblivious? Food posts and photos of my (totally adorable) dog and talking about all the stuff I watch on TV?

So instead of tossing the idea out on its ear, I’m just going to refocus. Things that matter and things I like. I’ll talk about them all. I’ll also be making it up as I go, so bear with me!

To sum up:

I love TV and movies and anime and books and music. I love entertainment and fiction and spending far too long analyzing all of it. This includes being something of a social justice advocate. I will highlight all of the things that I love on the internet too. My intention is to be a curator.

This is all pretty exciting! We’ll see if it lasts.

Stupidly simple sauce

Ashley Lange — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:07:22 +0000

Do you like food? Do you like to cook? All of the above? You should probably read Smitten Kitchen! It’s a wonderful blog run by one of the most admirable cooks I’ve ever known about. Deb, her husband and her new, precious baby Jacob have introduced me to so many great food ideas. Everything from my favorite brownie and chocolate chip cookie recipes to curried lentils and a tomato-corn pie I still need to try. (Yep, tomato pie. With mayo and a biscuit crust. There is no way that is not heavenly.)

So, I trust her immensely when it comes to food. Know this when you see where I’m going with my dinner plans tonight. Here’s what I’m attempting: Tomato sauce with onion and butter. And…that’s it! Really. Check it out. Now I’m going to try this recipe, which she swears by. Please look at her results, and her lovely pictures, then check out my results! (Try to forgive my photos in comparison to hers. Photography has never actually been my strong suit, despite my love of all things that involve capturing the impact of light chemically or digitally and reproducing it for later viewing)

((Also, please keep all comments about how the fact that I am making the simplest recipe in the world for my first food-blogging outing to yourself. Tina might hear you and you’ll crush her perception of the world. She has such a high opinion of me, you see.

See? Totally crushed. Shame on you.))

The results!

Before

After

It was very good, even with my inability to NOT tweak a recipe. Yes, embarrassingly, I thought I needed to add to it. I put in basil, extra salt and a sprinkle of sugar. I probably should have left it all out. In addition, too much pasta, not enough sauce! Such a tragedy. I also left in the onions, because I wanted to eat them, so there. In retrospect, they might have made the sauce too…flavorful? Something. It ruined the delicate balance. Next time I’ll take them out and eat them on the side, I think.

I’m not the only one who is embarrassed…

“You shamed us all, even the little weird bug-eyed dog.”

So, yes, definitely try this, and definitely ignore my stupid mistakes. Finally the source of “stupidly” in the title is revealed. Hooray!

Octopus’s Garden by The Beatles

Ashley Lange — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 23:32:02 +0000

No better way to start this blog off than with something that made me happy enough that I finally decided to get this little project off the ground. After hearing about how Octopuses (octopi?) gather up nice things along the bottom of the sea and put them all together in an “Octopus’s Garden,” Ringo was inspired to write this incredibly sweet and simple song. Read more about it at The Beatles Bible and Wikipedia.

I move too fast I think, sometimes, and I don’t enjoy just how lucky I am. I have wonderful people in my life, the best dog in the world, and a future ahead of me that is extremely exciting. No reason to get bogged down in sea-bottom gunk, just watch out for the bright, nice stuff and you’ll get by. That’s my belief, at least for now.

And without further ado…. Octopus’s Garden!