Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

LB: Jenn at NOA.

This Week's Fancy Pants Meal: Lasagne de Fornel

DESSERT LASAGNA!

I've been wanting to try this since I heard about it, and finally decided to make it as my last meal of 2023 (And for the first week of 2024).

There's a mild sweetness in this, and the main falvor is the apples. I don't even taste the raisins or walnuts, and there're just hints of fig. Honestly, I was expecting a sweeter dish, but a light sprinkle of sugar/sucralose helped. Your mileage may vary.

Suggestion: For ease of cutting, I'd boil the heck out of the pasta, cause it will thicken up again in the oven and make portioning the lasagna a little rough.

# Lasagne da Fornel

Italy Magazine
6 Servings

10.0 whole dried white figs (thinly sliced)
0.5 cup white wine
1.0 cup golden raisins
1.0 cup walnuts (finely ground)
2.0 whole red delicious apples (grated)
12.0 tbsp butter (melted) [cooking]
butter [greasing]
1.0 pound lasagna pasta sheets (cut into 2.5 to 3 inch wide strips)
2.0 tbsp poppy seeds

1 - Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C
2 - Generously butter a 9-inch oven-proof serving dish or baking pan butter.
3 - In a small saucepan combine the figs and wine and bring to a boil over high heat.
4 - Boil on high for a minute or two, then reduce the heat to low and simmer until all the wine is absorbed, about 2 minutes.
5 - In a bowl combine the figs, raisins, walnuts, grated apples and 1/3 of the melted butter.
6 - Cook the lasagna strips in boiling, salted water until al dente. Drain and toss with 1/3 of the butter and the poppy seeds.
7 - In the prepared pan, put down a single layer of lasagna strips haphazardly (do not arrange the noodles end to end—just put them in a flat layer).
8 - Spread with 1/3 of the fruit mixture. Repeat for 2 more layers.
9 - Top with a final layer of noodles and drizzle on the remaining melted butter.
10 - Bake about 20 minutes, until hot throughout.

#thisweeksmeals #cooking

Things my grandmother would never expect me to grind in her molcajete, number 5794:

I needed ground walnuts, I got ground walnuts!

The Jenn Dolari 2023 One Sentence Year In Review

"All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle."

This has been one of the roughest years of my life. Nearly toppling 2001 as one of the worst with the almost immediate layoff and pinched nerve...but there have been a number of good things happening in the dark.

Sure, I was laid off just hours into 2023, and I have not been able to find work since. But Tableau paid me until March, then paid for my insurance until September, gave me enough severance that with unemployment, I've been alble to survive (it's still only about half gone). I've been able to coast (not that I have) this entire year, and likely would have been far more productive without the pinched nerve.

Six months ago, I got involved in city politics after the removal of the Pride Wall. Nothing big, just, observing and speaking my mind. This changed about three months ago, in a way I'll announce later and elsewhere, where I'm now more directly involved. Hopefully, things will work out in such a way that it will be educational for me, and enlightening for the community.

Two other projects have opened up, one for a non-profit and one for a possible publishing job. These were in the last month.

2023 was a horrible year, but it really feels, looking back at it, that it was a major setup for a busy and productive 2024.

Previous Years in Review:

2022: Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly and most underrated agent of human change.
2021: The Universe has decided otherwise.
2020: I AM looking on the bright side, and it's dark...very dark.
2019: Never push a loyal person to the point where they no longer care.
2018: What's left for a warrior to do after he's lost the big one, but win some of the little ones?
2017: He's very brave and very silly and I think, for a time he's going to be very sad, but I promise, in the end, he'll be alright.
2016: Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams...and against this peril we can never surrender.
2015: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
2014: Sometimes, by losing a battle, you find a new way to win the war.
2013: All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.
2012: Here at last, on the shores of the sea, comes the end of our Fellowship.
2011: Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.
2010: Sometimes life has a way of moving you past wants and hopes.
2009: FINEST K.O....YOU LOSE.
2008: Jump...Jump now!
2007: Darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
2006: The show must go on.
2005: What to have, what to hold: A poor man's roses, or a rich man's gold.
2004: You like me! You really like me!
2003: Once more...with feeling!
2002: Wow...that could have gone better.
2001: I hope you die and get ate by worms, Milkman Dan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJIS3KjinPc

All the PCs have been erased and reset for the new year. I tend to be pretty neurotic for clean OSes, and have decided that I'm going to try REALLY hard not to reinstall them anytime I get itchy about it, and run them for two years before decrufting again.

We'll see how long that goes.

Last Boost: Me the last two days.