Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Blog, page 16

Orgeat: It’s What’s for Summer

Cherries are, without question, my favorite fruit, and now, in early summer, they are plentiful. However, as with my last recipe post about pickled asparagus, there just isn’t enough time to consume all the cherries before they go off, so I’ve been playing with various ways to preserve them. Which led me to having bowls […]

Who’s a Heat Wimp?

I can handle triple-digit heat. I lived in Jerusalem for a couple of years. I’ve camped in the deserts of California, Nevada, and Arizona. In summers of my youth, my folks dragged us all to northern Minnesota to visit relatives where the humidity was 99% and the temperature was higher. Here in Seattle, we can […]

Super-Easy Pickled Asparagus

Growing up, there were two foods I hated: liver and asparagus. As an adult, I learned that the reason I hated those foods: my mom cooked the bejeezus out of them, turning the former into chew-toys and the latter into grey-green cylinders that were half vegetal mush and half indigestible cellulose. While liver never made […]

The Key

It is not a needleIt is not a syringe

LoTech/HiTech Handiwork

I develop software for my living, so all day I’m steeped in high-tech endeavors: data analysis, solution design, use cases, text-based and GUI-assisted coding, iterative testing, etc. When it comes to actually living, though, I prefer low-tech activities, such as gardening, reading, writing, and working with wood. But as much as I love low-tech projects, […]

Taking a Breather

Occasionally, the tyranny of social and news media becomes too much for me to handle. About ten days ago, I reached my limit, full up to here with the naïveté of the left, the mendacity of the right, the fear-mongering of the media, and the narcissistic selfishness of humanity in general. I needed a break. From […]

Understanding My Father

My father was a distinctly midcentury man. He was a man of tract homes and manual transmissions, cigarettes and pipe tobacco, straw hats and huaraches, sand dunes and surf fishing, Frank Sinatra and Mel Tormé, pancakes with his kids on Saturday morning and roasted meats with his dad at the table on Sunday nights.  He […]

Bound

In the space between their words . . .

Practice Session

Decades as an orchestral musician taught me the value of practice. Years of woodworking taught me the wisdom of the planning and the pre-cut double-check. A stint running a newspaper press taught me the dangers of over-confidence. Twenty summers working in my gardens taught me the peace that can come from taking the long view. […]

Scattered

I visit his grave