Hey, I think I've figured out how fix a broken curdled coconut milk sauce. I'm not sure if this would work if it were badly broken, and it does add calories, but with that in mind, you do this:

1) Take out anything that was cooking in the sauce and set aside. (A Chinese spider works well for this.)

2) Get a fresh can of coconut milk, and add it to the sauce. Stir on low heat, paying attention this time, until well-blended.

3) Adjust seasonings -- the coconut milk will have added a bit of sweetness and mildness to whatever you had going, so you may need to add more of whatever else was in the sauce. Be esp. careful adding acids, like lime juice. 4) Cook down, simmering, until sauce reaches desired thickness.

5) Pour through sieve (to catch any curdled bits) over stuff you took out in step 1.

6) If you can wait to serve, wait. There will likely be some extra oil floating at the top, from the previous curdling. You can remove that with a paper towel, or a slotted spoon holding ice. (The oil will cling to the ice.)

Yes, it's a lot of steps, but better than throwing it all out and starting over!

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I'm still working through with my students on their experience of reading my blog; I just read their typed responses, and wrote some notes on them. Thought this part might interest you guys too:

---

Most of you had no trouble with the disclosure-level of the blog generally, although a few would have preferred not knowing so much about their professor. I did warn you on the first day. :-)

But more seriously, I wanted to briefly repeat a few main reasons why I gave you some of what I did:

a) Part of what's most interesting about blogs is the way they make the personal public, and in order to really analyze that, we need to talk about where the line is, what is 'overly-personal', or 'disturbingly inappropriate'. Especially in the early days of the blogs, there was no real sense of where that line might be -- some people exposed far more than I did, others, far less. Only a few of you seemed to think that what I gave you crossed the line, which is interesting -- if I'd taught this class ten years ago, I think most of the class would have thought that. I'd argue that the public privacy boundaries have shifted radically.

b) Why not have that same discussion just reading someone else's blog, not your professor's? Two reasons, really. One is purely historical -- by accident of fate, you're taking this class with someone who was there at the beginning, and whose blog is in an almost-unique position as both extremely long-running and still-continuing. But more importantly, it's much easier to read about a stranger's sexual or other escapades without being disturbed -- but it's not just strangers anymore. Now it's your best friend or relative posting skimpily-clad photos of herself, your minister having a few too many at the church picnic and being photographed for posterity and the world to see, your kids writing about you. So one of the things I was trying to do with those early readings from my blog is to attempt to disturb you. To show you, viscerally, how blogs have fundamentally shifted the way in which we experience community knowledge of each other.

You may or may not agree that that's interesting and worthwhile, but I wanted to be sure you understand the pedagogical rationale behind those assignments. Hope this helps.

thanks,
Mary Anne

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Sorry I'm back to the to-do lists. I've started working through my backlog, with some stuff going back to when Anand was small, and it's good to get through this stuff, but it's also sort of overwhelming. And so, lists, to keep it manageable.

• teach classes - x
• get groceries: eggs, milk, dinner for tonight, something spicy to cook for writing date with Angeli tomorrow - x
• pick up kids from school - x
• cook and feed family - x (beef bolognese, vaguely, over pasta) - x
• exercise 20 min. - x
• watch kids and put them to bed because Kev has a work dinner - x
• move a bunch of stuff over to Thursday because I'm too exhausted to do anything else - x

  Thurs:

• straighten up third floor, so housecleaner can actually clean it - x
• pick up any supplies new housecleaner needs - x
• drop off kids at school - x (Kev did, actually)
• read student's novel-in-progress - x
• 11:00 have phone consultation with student (who can't make it to my office hours) - x
• 11:30 cook for Angeli (beef curry, cauliflower fry) - x
• 12 - 4: write with Angeli (yay!)
• draft quiz for 474 - x
• upload readings for 491 - x

  Fri:

• grade all 474 assignments - x
• print quiz - x
• teach 474 - x
• meet with student - x
• get snacks for writing date with students - x
• straighten up house - x

• 1 - 4: have advanced fiction students to house for writing date
• finish draft of Wild Cards story for George and send it to him
• buy plane tickets for Toronto
• choose illustrator; send consolation check
• schedule Anand's doctor's appt. (just a checkup)
• finish all outstanding ASAM work
• exercise 20 min.

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I may need to print this up and hang it on the door to my bedroom.

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." - Emerson

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