The Daffodils Looked Lovely Today

I am not much of a poet, so I settle for enjoying the work of others. I tend to prefer words with music, but come on, what alternatively minded girl has not had a slight crush on Brandon Lee reciting Poe's The Raven in The Crow? My favorite poem has always been Wordsworth's I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud, possibly because it is one of the few I ever bothered to learn to recite by heart, and because it reminds me of Cranberries' Daffodil Lament. I wanted to blog about this during spring, when my street was beautifully lined with yellow daffodils. The opening page of my first ever homepage back in -98 was an ode to this poem, pagan symbolism and Nick Cave. And no, I was not on acid while building it.

William Wordsworth is part of the reason why I at some point grew into such an anglophile, and the early romantic and romantic era as such was the time period during which most of the classical pieces of both writing and music I love were created. Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt and off course the powerful Wagner (I once saw a "trailer trash" stage version of Lohengrin in the Oslo opera, and although unusual it was very good - I've yet to see a traditional production of it, however). Writers like Wordsworth and Coleridge, the before mentioned Edgar Allan Poe, Hawthorne, Goethe, Lord Byron, Keats and off course William Blake. Sometimes I wonder if I was born a couple of hundred years too late...

Wow, what a rant. What I wanted to communicate was as follows: I've seen O Brother, Where Art Thou? in the movies today, and liked it. One of the sirens looked so god darned familiar to me I had to ask Erin what her name was... googling it I now find out she's Musetta Vander, and I don't think I've ever seen her before in my life. She does, however, look very much like Justine Joli, which would explain why she caught my eye.

Driving home, I just missed the opening hours of my local K-Market, and hence I had to improvise dinner this evening. And for once with excellent result (should you not yet have heard of my broccoli smoothie or tomato sauce wok blunders, feel free to ask). I haven't needed to shop much since returning from China, and hence my fridge was scarcely populated with things not containing, or intended to mix with, alcohol.

wild rice
minced chilli
minced ginger
spicy sesame oil
chicken in red pepper and garlic marinade (from freezer)
Heinz Garlic Sauce (yes, Heinz as in the ketchup brand, their garlic sauce is brilliant on hamburgers)
cucumber
pesto

If you're thinking "Oh no, she didn't!" at this point, yes I did. 1.5 dl of wild rice takes about 18 minutes to finish, and in the meantime I had fried 1 table spoon of minced chillies with 1 table spoon of minced ginger in olive oil in a very hot frying pan. When the smell of ginger started clearing my tear ducts, I put in the chicken, poured some sesame oil on it, and let it fry for a while to settle in with the spices. I then proceeded to pour a good amount of garlic sauce over it all, and thinned it out with some skimmed milk as I wanted it to simmer for a while without becoming all lumpy.

This sounds weird, and I was thinking "Why did I think this would work?" as I almost managed to wait until I had cut the cucumber before I drowned it in pesto and ate it in large chunks instead. But alas, it turned into a lovely, lovely marinated chicken dish and I will make it again - I think with creme fraiche and water instead of skimmed milk, but apart from that it didn't really need anything more.

For oft, when on my couch I lie,
in vacant or in pensive mood,
they flash upon that inward eye
which is the bliss of solitude;
and then my heart with pleasure fills,
and dances with the daffodils.
W. Wordsworth, 1804