Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Juicy

Having just spent two years in a country where we worked right through Christmas, it's now rather strange to be in a land where everything shuts down for Easter too. There were a few of us in the office nonetheless and current programs spent today nicely spiraling into chaos.

A few years back I went on an object oriented programming course where we were informed that no one sub-program should be more than 7 lines long. A program should be made up of many of such sub-routines, but the likelihood of losing track of what you're doing drastically increases when you have to keep 7 lines worth in mind at any one time. Anyway, I'm flagrantly breaking such rules and paying the price right now.

Anyway, mid-day today I was invited for lunch to the house of one of the professors, who lives up on a hill overlooking the city. Following an extremely fine meal cooked by his Swedish wife and some excellent Spanish brandy, I was given a large bag of home-grown lemons to take back with me. So, this evening half of them have been sliced, salted and juiced and are sitting, glistening on their way to being preserved. The first week is the salting week, after which they are steeped in oil and left for up to six months to be used in tagines, risottos and any number of other Middle Eastern recipes.

preserved lemons
Tomorrow I still have plenty to get done in the office but four couchsurfers should be descending on my place at some point. They'll be doing their own thing over the weekend so I'm hoping to continue the current pace of productivity.

3 comments:

Benjamin said...

Just popped in and caught up on some interesting bits and bobs in your life. More interesting tales to tell those couchsurfers. Hope Spain feels good for you just now.

Unknown said...

Hey there, thanks for stopping by. All good here, just rather non-stop! How about yourself? Would be good to catch up some time soon.

Benjamin said...

All good here too, thanks, Jon. I'm sure you must be very busy. It's nice that there are regular entries to JTA so I can catch up and say hello from time to time.