No I haven't deserted you. But you know, sometimes life interferes with blogging. Things on my mind today:

Tacos al pastor with cilantro and onions from Taqueria Arandes. The one on 290. There are a lot of them in town and, even though they are a chain, the one on 290 is the only one that makes these tacos this way. You know, the right way.



_______________________________

These presidential "debates"? What a crock of shit. First, they aren't debates. I took debate in school. Ladies and gentlemen, this ain't it. Second - a common question this year is "How, in your brilliant high worthiness, would you fund your new wacko bullshit scheme to rebuild the American Health Care System (which isn't actually broken but that's another story)?" To which the answer, in one form or another, is always "I would take one third from the individual users, one third from taxes, and one third from the government".

Doesn't this make you want to go out and kill a wombat?? What do these people think - that we ALLLLLL are stooopid?

Let's see:

1/3 from individuals = Money out of your pocket directly.
1/3 from taxes = Money out of your pocket through taxes.
1/3 from the government = Money out of your pocket through taxes.

This equals 100% from you, the blind and foolish person, citizen, individual. Where do people think "government money" comes from? ARE YOU THAT STUPID??? Maybe you're the wombat I want to go out and kill.

_______________________________

Ever got an urge to go over to one of your best friend's house, stick her into a plastic trash bag, mold memory mesh screen to her breasts, and then plaster a life cast of them? Me, neither. BUT. My friend is in luuuuv. Bad luuuuuv. And she's also one seriously horny little girlfriend in luuuuuv.

So she decided she wants to dress up in the Leia slave costume for her boyfriend - you know - the one she luuuuuuvs. Off to the costume shops we skip. On to the net we surf. Then we have to take some nitroglycerin because we're both having heart attacks over the prices people want for these costumes. Holy. Cow.

Now, this is the friend who, a few years ago when I hand made valentine's papier-mache candy bombs and folded little origami boxes for them to live in until they were popped, came up to me with a deeply quizzical face and said "So. Do you just go home sometimes and.....craft????"

My answer was of course, yeah - you got a problem with that?

So I'm sitting around - actually I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep - when I was struck by in-spi-RATION. Let's mold her breasts!! Yeah!! We can MAKE a Leia slave costume!! I've spent enough time trolling the aisles of Michael's and Hobby Lobby to know that they have this memory mesh screen stuff and this pre-plastered cloth strip stuff. And I have tons of gold paint (naturally). And I've got the craft know how.

All these things came together one night when I went to my friend's house and felt her up. Now, I remember the first time I ever met this friend. It was in an all staff meeting at a job two jobs ago. I remember when she walked into the room and I heard her talk that I thought: Oh Wow this girl is so freaking cool and pretty and unbelievably SMART. I like her so much but she is so cool I know we'll never be friends. And here we are, six years later, me feeling her up. You just never know where life will lead. These two picks are of the first phase: The Feel Up Your Friend Phase. The first is the "Yeah haha I actually got her to wear a garbage bag" photo



The second is the "Wow this is what your tits look like molded in plaster!!" photo. As you can see, we've drawn on the basic outlines for the decorative gold swirls and I am now ready to do the build-up for those and cut out the actual pieces. Not pictured here is the girdle piece that goes over her butt.



I'll share more of "The Making Of" photos as I make progress.

Labels: cooking, cult, fashion, headlines, personal urban drama

I got a note on an email list in my mail today that Amazon is having a 48 hour sale. So I popped over to check it out. I'm currently on the hunt for a new toaster oven but, being the annoyingly picky person I am, (have you READ the post about my waffle iron?) I will not accept just any toaster oven. It's not about the brand, it's about the features. Envision Scarlett standing in that potato field, that dainty fist raised in the air, dramatic and glorious Selznick sunset at her back, shouting to the heavens, "As God is my witness, I will never buy a toaster oven that doesn't have a rack that pulls out when you open the door again!" The Amazon sale is a bust.

But one of the follow up messages left me really wondering. Someone had replied that they were interested in the Lodge dutch oven. Someone else exclaimed that they had recently been at Costco and noticed a sale on a couple of Lodge skillets, a 10" and a 12" set, but that they didn't have lids. The last line of the message is what gave me a "Huh?" moment. It said... "No lids, but a great buy if you need new cast iron!"

Who the hell needs NEW cast iron? I mean, it's like herpes, isn't it? Once you've got it, you've got it for life, eh?

I have it. No, not herpes. I think. I have my grandmother's 12" Lodge skillet, and my grandmother's Lodge dutch oven. I'm pretty sure she got the dutch oven from her mother. Need I tell you that when the time for getting into The Will came in our family, the skillet and the dutch oven were more hotly contested than the pearls and the family bible? (I am sad to say I lost out on the cornstick pan. The Sister got that one.) There is a slight chance that the dutch oven is where the family's riches were hidden during the War of Northern Aggression, but I am pretty sure that is just family hooha. Unlike the story about Grandaddy Taylor's wood still. Ahhhhh, Mississippi.

Any southern girl worth her deviled egg tray learns how to season cast iron before she learns how to con her way out of a speeding ticket. (Hint: One involves cleavage and one doesn't. One still works the same way it always has, the other not so much with the advent of female peace officers and free online porn.) One of the first big arguments my husband-to-eventually-be and I had was over my iron skillet. The man washed it. With SOAP. It's a wonder he lived through the night, I swear.

My point being, I guess, two-fold.

1. Who the hell ever needs NEW cast iron? Season that shit and get on with it. The older it is, the thicker the crust gets on it, the better the onions will caramelize, you idiot.

2. As I write this and remember the arguments The Husband and I used to have about washing The Skillet, I realize that it is redundant to own both a Ruger .357 and a Lodge 12".

Labels: cooking, husband

Mmmmmmm, yeast. Again, this is what happens when I'm bored.


No, not so pretty. But how pretty would you be if you were just a bunch of wheat flour, honey, oil, and stinky, wildly multiplying yeast bugs? Yeah, that's what I thought.

This was so much fun! I've never baked bread before so I was kneading on hope and just keeping my fingers crossed about the alchemy around this whole yeast blooming thing. When I unveiled the dough ball after the first rise wow was I excited. It had grown like the blob! When I dumped it out to shape it for the loaf tin it was WARM. This thrilled me beyond all reason.


Every couple of seconds I kept checking the recipe. How many times did I squash it? Should I cover it with a damp cloth? Or is this the time I use oiled plastic wrap? THE STRESS! The second rise was in the tin and well, it was perfect.

Then...THEN...it had to bake. My oven runs a little hot so I was a little worried. I angsted while it baked. Should I have put a bowl of water in there for a crisper crust? Should I have buttered the top? Should I have carved my initials in the dough like Zorro? Should I use a foil tent? Should I leave it in the whole time or take it out early? What if I fall asleep and it sets the whole freaking house on fire? By the time it was almost done the only thing I was worried about was if I would be able to stand the in-fucking-credible smell for another second. I wanted to go rip it out of the over, tear it open, and just stuff my whole face inside the loaf.

But I waited, I followed the rules. I pulled it out of the oven, I turned it out, I thumped it on the bottom (Woohoo! I got the hollow thump sound!). I was patient enough to let it cool 10 minutes before pulling out the dreaded bread knife. I inherited this bread knife from my mother and have never put it to its intended use, namely, slicing your very own homemade baked bread. It did its duty beautifully.



I'm thinking maybe I should just be a baker. Except they get out of bed at like 3am, don't they?

Labels: cooking

Some days you simply can't get what you want. Yesterday I was seriously hungry for "wanton hang out in bed like a pasha and eat sinfully" food. Off to Central Market I go where I can pay outrageous prices but it's OK because pasha food can be expensive. Fresh baked hard crust sourdough bread? Yeeees. Thick slab of honey ham for chopping into finger food sized bites? Yeeees. Hormelo pepperoni, sliced thin at the counter? Um, no. What do you mean no? I took a number! I waited in line 10 minutes while that ridiculous girl with the green and blue hair made you let her taste every single ham and roast beef in the window!! This is the FOODIE place, RIGHT? NO PEPPERONI??? Fine. I settle for the pre-sliced stuff that is pre-packaged in the open coolers. I'm reasonable. I can compromise. Big tub of garlic basic pesto with those luscious pine nuts? Where is it? I cruise down past the olives, past the guac, past the ranch dressing, past that disgusting neon orange stuff that never gets bought by ANYONE. WHERE IS THE GARLIC BASIL PESTO??? It's usually right here, between the sun dried tomato stuff and the lemon and dill stuff (that I will admit smells good). There's the space it's usually in. There is NO METAL TRAY. There is NO SPOON. THERE IS NO PESTO. Well fine then. I don't want any of this other crap. Who needs it if there is no pesto to dredge?

So as a consolation prize, over to the Rice Epicurean. I can be OK with jalapeno cheese bread. Not happy, but OK. There's the cinnamon bread. There's the sourdough (not as good as Central Market's). There's the four kinds of rye. There's the pumpernickel. Does anyone really eat that stuff? Where is the jalapeno cheese? Ask the lady behind the counter. Get a look as if I'm from Wisconsin or something. What do you mean you don't have it. Even the little friendly wicker basket where it normally lives isn't here. NO JALAPENO CHEESE BREAD???

I tell you, people. I just flat out gave up. Anyone up for tuna surprise?

Labels: cooking, personal urban drama

Confirmed that Chuck (referred to as my "Second Husband", who will get custody of me if my current husband ever dies or decides to leave Texas) will be joining the festivities tomorrow night? CHECK

Got all the stuff to make the BEST banana pudding ever, which will be my culinary contribution to the festivities at T-Ray and Lori's tomorrow night? CHECK

Cranium Turbo with fresh clay (YES, Husband, we WILL play and you will LIKE IT). CHECK

$187 of seriously dangerous fireworks (never transported into the city limits but taken directly from the Black Cat Store on 290 to be stored legally at T-Ray and Lori's who live out in the county)? CHECK

Fire extinguisher which I am betting big cash that we will need since Lori has a new "INDOOR" turkey fryer that she will roll out for its inaugural fry tomorrow night? CHECK

Ready for 2007. CHECK

Labels: cooking, husband, personal urban drama

I bought a beautiful new 10.5" saute pan today. Why do you care? Because there is this warning on the back of the label:

For safety, please keep pet birds out of the kitchen.

I swear...for the life of me....

Labels: cooking

It's the morning after Christmas (thus the above date). The Husband had to get up and go to work this morning (slight bitterness because he works for a Canadian company {Eh?} and all the folks north of the border get today off for Boxing Day). I didn't (no job = not having to get up and go to it). The Black Dog and I snuggled in until almost 10am so that was nice (sorry, Honey!).

So this morning my mind is on:

1. Belgium or regular? I grew up in a house with a waffle iron. I'm old, so it was the old kind of waffle iron. The thin waffles with lots of small ....waffles. I asked for a waffle iron from Santa. Santa came through! But I sent Santa the wrong link to Bed, Bath, & Waffle Irons. Santa got me a Belgium iron. I, being an ungrateful waffler, whined. Yeah, I'm ashamed. But it's NOT the same. After extended discussion with a Santa who knows NOTHING about waffles it has been agreed upon that there will be an After Christmas Exchange. I'm just afraid to go do it today because all I want is a regular waffle iron while all the other millions of people who will be driving on I-10 today and going into the stores are actually after the 70%! Percent! Off! Christmas! Items! Two! Days! Only! stuff.

2. The fantastic banana pudding we brought home in the care package from yesterday's Christmas FEAST at my sister's house. It didn't make it til morning. Got eaten about 11pm last night, in bed with The Black Dog and a good trashy crime novel. Wish I had some for breakfast.

3. It's sunny out there, but I know it's too cold to drop the lid.

4. Do I have clean underwear or do I have to do laundry today?

5. Synthroid and Levothyroxine are NOT the same drug regardless of what the FDA says. With most drugs, things like antibiotics and such, generics are totally the way to go. But with a hormone that is measured in MICROgrams, um, no. Because of the allowable range of deviation within each pill, a generic can have a good bit more or a good bit less of active ingredient. Because pharmacies are always going to buy the cheapest drug available on any given purchasing event, it's hard to get the same generic manufacturer consistently and each manufacturer is going to be slightly different not only in active ingredient but also in fillers. Got a infected itch? Get the generic. Got a hormonal imbalance that can screw with YOUR WHOLE LIFE? Get the brand. C'mon. The co-pay difference isn't THAT much. And it doesn't take that long for your doctor to write "Brand Medically Necessary" on the script.

6. If you're laying in bed Christmas morning enjoying the warm covers and bedmates, and you hear a siren pass by in your neighborhood, take a moment to be thankful for the professionals in that vehicle: the police officers, the firefighters, the paramedics, the EMTs. They're up saving people's lives while you're laying in bed thinking about cornbread dressing and that cool cranberry sauce that comes out of the can in the same shape with the same can marks on it that you've been eating for 40 years.

7. I know you've heard it before but, Diabetes is not to be trifled with. I got a call last night from an old friend. He is, again, in the hospital being carved up. He's been diabetic for decades. The first couple of decades he blew it off because He's A Tough Guy. The third decade he began having to stick himself with needles ever day (probably should have been doing it for years but Denial Isn't A River In Egypt), he had his first of many heart attacks, and started to lose feeling in his feet. In this decade, about eight years ago, he had a good bit of one of his feet chopped off because he got an infection, didn't care for his feet, and ended up with green and black flesh. THIS is not a good thing. This year, on Christmas eve, his son rushed him to the emergency room because he was seriously not right. He had developed blisters on his thigh, big nasty ones. They came on quickly, and progressed from worrisome to disgusting in a matter of hours. Two hours after hitting the ER he was in surgery where he was getting chunks of his thigh carved off. Eight hours after that he was getting carved on again as the infection moved fast up his leg. Last night, he was being watched closely for further movement of the infection. The next thing to be carved off if the infection keeps moving north will be his MAN PARTS. It's that bad. Staph is SERIOUS stuff. Especially in a diabetic whos numbers regularly come in at 300+, who has a poor diet, who is stubborn, overly macho, and (Love you guy, but...), flat out STUPID about how he takes care of himself. When I visited him in the hospital a few years ago when he had part of his foot removed, the first thing I said when I walked in the room was "What the hell's the matter with you? How stupid can you be???" I'm probably taking a drive down to the VA tomorrow and I'll probably tell him the same thing. Amazing that he loves me, still.

8. I miss my Mom and Dad.

9. On New Year's Eve, The Husband and I will be over at a friend's house blowing stuff up (they live in the county) and playing Cranium Turbo. I'll partner up with Ray and as long as he doesn't get a little too happy (read: DRUNK) we're gonna kick everyone's ass.

10. Don't do it. Regardless of how sweet and pretty and loveable and charming those two greyhounds that you spent Christmas eve with are, DO NOT adopt one. Even though your sister-in-law's fiance has two at his kennel who are retired from racing and ready for Forever Homes. There's hardly any room in your bed now with you, The Black Dog, and The Husband. If you get a greyhound you'll have to start sleeping on a blow up mattress in the living room.

Labels: cooking, husband, medicine, personal urban drama

I just made the best damned cookies. EIGHT DOZEN. Hey friend, guess what you're getting for Christmas!

I got this recipe from my friend Shannon. When she gave it to me she called it "Rachel's". I call it "Shannon's" because I don't know who Rachel is. I guess if you try it you should call it "Carol's" since chances are very very slim that you know who Shannon is.

Shannon's Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies (She calls them Whomp'm Cookies)

2 ¼ cups flour
1 large package dry instant vanilla pudding mix
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter, softened (don't let it melt though, this makes the cookies to runny)
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
½ (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips
1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chunks (she had a hard time finding these so she just uses the chips for this part, too.)
½ (12-ounce) package toffee bits (It works if you get the chocolate coated kind, but its better if you just get the toffee.)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix flour, pudding mix, salt and baking soda in a small bowl.
Set aside.
Mix butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla until smooth. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture, a little at a time, until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips, chunks, and toffee bits.
Place large rounded drops of cookie batter on a cookie sheet. I got 8 to a sheet. Makes 3-4 dozen.

Labels: cooking

My husband gets on a tear every few years and decides to build something. A couple of years after we first became roommates, he decided to build a remote controlled airplane from scratch. He filled our entire apartment with balsa wood dust and the smell of a heat gun and various glues that I am sure were toxic to bunnies and other things that have lungs. But the plane was a great success and he had fun flying it. Until some other guy with a plane took off nose straight into the air and flat out tore the wings off Husband's handmade beauty.

A few years later, he decided to build high power rockets. This of course meant lots more wood dust, in addition to glue fumes, paint fumes, and the acquisition of some very exciting explosives and fuse lines. I freely admit that I had a great time driving out into the country with him, the car loaded with enough rocket motors to blow up another federal building. We would get to the farmer's fields or big dry flats out in the middle of nowhere and be joined by fifty or a hundred other crazy people who had brought there own high explosives. We would spend the day in the sunshine watching grown men play with their big dangerous toys. My personal joy came from the bad outcomes. The rockets that shot fifty feet in the air and then went horizontal. The rockets that blew up on the launch pads. The motors that ejected from the rockets and set fields on fire. Those were especially fun because the big strong men in shorts and no shirts grabbed huge jugs of water, ran wildly into the fields, and doused the fires before they caused death and destruction. Some of these rockets were so big they were launched from gantries and required FAA clearances for plane diversions. Great times. All that ended when the BATF changed the rules about who could have access to the big rocket motors. We aren't exactly anarchists, but we didn't want to establish a armory and have it certified and inspected by The Gub'ment. So no more rockets.

Now it's radio controlled speed boats. As usual, he can't go to a hobby shop like a normal sane person and buy a shiny ready to go beast. Nooooo. He has taken over the kitchen table with yet more balsa wood dust, glue fumes, power tools, and intricate blue prints. Today, his best buddy came over and the two of them just spent over an hour talking about rheostats and rigging electrified hotwires to shape the foam ballasts. They're working out how to do all this hopefully without causing anyone's death. So they come up with a hairbrained scheme. They decide upon a jig construction. They head out into the garage and gather some scrap wood, the sawhorses, various limb removing power tools, and no written plans or genuine idea of what they're doing. They decamp to the backyard and begin their mad scientist adventure.

So they're out there sawing and talking and cutting and rearranging and planning and generally taking their fingers for granted. I am in the living room on the sofa with The Black Dog reading a book that I'm finding tedious. I hear some wood break, then I hear silence. Next, the back door bursts open and The Husband blows through it, followed by The Buddy. The Husband says "Time for Plan B!" The Buddy says, "Yeah, Plan B".

I look at them and say "Plan B?? Shit man, you two didn't even really have a Plan A. You two are like Lucy and Ethel but a little more dangerous."

The Buddy says, "No we're more like Tim and that sidekick guy on that Tool Time show."

I think of all the mishaps and disasters that were featured on the show and say, "Somehow you think that's supposed to be better???"

ADDENDUM: So in the time it has taken me to type this they have apparently re-thought Plan B. They just came into the house from the back yard. Husband said, "Now we have a plan!"

I say, "What do you mean NOW you have a plan. What happened to Plan A and Plan B??"

Buddy says, "Well Plan B wasn't really a plan."

Husband says, "And this isn't Plan B. This is Plan A.1".

I just smile and they say, "What?"

I say, "I'm trying to think about where LifeFlight will land, and if we get a Frequent Flyer Discount."


On another note, I made my first ever from scratch quiche today. I meant to take a picture of it for you all but, you know, I ate it instead.

Labels: cooking, husband

The THINGS I do for my cult.

One of our cult members bred earlier this year. Tomorrow is the little bundle of joy's Cult Coming Out Lunch. Yeah, we're girls. I got volunteered to bring dessert but would June Cleaver just BRING dessert? No, I didn't think so. I put it to a vote and my orange cake won. It is the orangiest, moistest, most sugar filled white death you've ever eaten (unless you've had my carrot cake, of course). I threatened to bring tiny individual 4" cakes but no one believed me. Ha! HA HA!



The basics of tiny little individual cakes, with their heads cut off. Stacked up and ready to drown in orange buttercream frosting. Man, you should have been in my kitchen when these started coming out of the over. Made you want to go smash your face into some citrus it smelled so good.



This is what happens when I'm not working. Don't ask the secret to making it so moist. You won't like the answer. Celeste - SEE what you're missing being up there in Virginia?

Labels: cooking, cult

I could get into this housewife gig.




Last night? Made from scratch cream cheese cinnamon coffee cakes. Little individual ones, 4" across.

That's what happens when a girl buys a dozen Wilton 4" cake pans. I need to start looking for a job next week.

Labels: cooking

First I made the perfect shortbread. Now, I've graduated to the perfect ice cream. Maybe I should get me sugar checked. Ha!

I came across a very simple no-cook ice cream recipe a few days ago. So off to the store for some fat (milk), some more fat (cream), some empty calories (pure cane sugar), and some cholesterol (eggs). I already had the vanilla at home.

The cool thing about this recipe is that you don't use a churn. Although you could, it's much more MacGyver this way.

First: The Recipe*

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup raisins, diced peaches or strawberries (optional)
1 1/2 cups rock salt
7 pounds crushed ice (about 20 cups)

What you do is combine the cream, milk, egg, sugar, and vanilla (and fruit if you must). Stir it all together.

Here's the fun part. The original recipe called for a 1 pound coffee can and a 3 pound coffee can. It has you putting the gooey stuff in the small can and sealing it, then putting it in the big can and layering the rock salt and ice around it. We don't drink coffee thus, no coffee cans. But we do use petroleum by-products by the boatload so I used a set of nesting plastic bowls I happen to have laying around in my way overstocked with crap kitchen. A bonus was that the big bowl has handles which helped keep the palms of our hands from freezing when we became human agitators.

I created the package, sealed it, and went to join my husband on the sofa. He actually agreed to agitate which shocked me because he usually only agitates me. I shook for about 3 minutes, then he shook, then I shook.

We shook the contraption for about 10 minutes. I opened it up, stirred it all around (it was getting nice and custardy by then). Re-sealed and had another old-married-couple-sitting-on-the-sofa-shaking-freezing-fat session for about 10 minutes. Then?? Then it was like Christmas morning.

I opened the precious bowls and stirred gently. There were ACTUAL GLOBS OF FROZEN ICE CREAM in the bowl!! I felt like Tom Hanks when he made fire.

I snuck a lick off the spoon and wanted to give myself a freezing sugar facial by plunging my face into the bowl. They could have made me a wooden replacement nose (because mine would have fallen off from frostbite) like they did for that woman in that made-for-tv-movie where the woman was kidnapped by Oppressed Native Americans who raised her and made her their token white woman without a nose.

We let our precious concoction freeze overnight and the next evening we feasted on the tastiest frozen dish I've ever made. As a loyal Texan I might be struck dead by lightening for saying this but, Blue Bell ain't got sheeeeyit on my stuff. Maybe my tomatos don't rate, but I'd rather eat ice cream, anyway.**

*Rest assured, this is the first recipe I've ever posted here on the Chicken and chances are good it will be the last. Don't worry - I'm not going to become the second Alton.

**Yes, I'm pouting.

Labels: cooking

How do you make me happy?


A bowl of boiled peanuts and a cold beer.

(And a week off for Thanksgiving.)

Labels: cooking

Isn't that just about the most enticing BLT you've ever seen?

I know there's a friendly competition going on over at Doc Chaz based on Growing The Great American Tomato but I gotta tell you - my CEO has you all beat.

Last week my department went out to her place near Brenham for a retreat and I got introduced to her garden. She has the most outrageously happy tomato plants I've ever seen. There are eight of them and each one is heavier than the previous with fruit. They're at least five feet tall. They've burst out of their cages and are riotous with their delight. You can smell them 20 feet away.

I was gifted with a basket of red globes to take home and for lunch today I ate one of these sandwiches. I forgot how good tomatoes are supposed to taste. I was raised on home grown sweeties and now that I've run out I've got to go kiss some ass and convince to her bring some back to me every week while they last. I just don't feel like I can ever eat another gassed-in-the-warehouse-store-bought-tomato again.

Good luck competitors! I wish you could mail me some!

Labels: bloggers, cooking

The entire world is so lucky that I'm going back to work next week, and it doesn't even know it. My motto has become "WWJD?". That's right:
What Would Julia Do?

Aaaaaand something inside of me said: Julia might try to make chocolate coated banana slices! Yeah! That's what Julia would do!

Well I tell you Julia might have set out to do so but if she had, this would have been her first attempt. Then she would have kept at it until she perfected it. I'm not that obsessive about perfection so I just stuck them in the fridge for later munching.


And went on to bigger and better fruit.

Ever had an urge to make a big pretty colorful bouquet out of fruit pieces? Yeah, me too. And here, in the final week of my If Wasn't My Freaking Fault That Bitchface Jerk Couldn't Be Bothered To Stop At The Red Light So He Murdered My Miata And Put Me In The Hospital Incarceration, I decided to pull out all the cookie cutters and fancy cheese slicers and big old butcher knives and see just how big of a mess I could make in the kitchen.

It began, as all well thought out ideas do, with good preparation:


And....ta da! A bunch of Romaine lettuce, one canteloupe, two dozen strawberries, two tangerines, a bowl full of grapes, one fresh pineapple and a plastic box full of blackberries later I had produced a lovely bouquet. Which I promptly imprisoned in lots of plastic wrap in the hopes that it will not rot before tomorrow. I'm going to a meeting at my office with my team and new boss and I thought "Hey! I can bring my fruit...thing!" "If it isn't rotten!" "Yeah!"

Labels: cooking, personal urban drama

This is what happens when you lock a woman who is normally already pretty restless in her house for three months with a cable tv subscription and an unnatural affection for Alton Brown.

Witness: Triple Layer Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake with Ghiradelli Chocolate Ganache Frosting. Now, ain't that purty?



What, you don't know who Alton is? Poor poor you...

Labels: cooking, personal urban drama

Today I went shopping and picked up a bar of that sandlewood soap I talked about earlier. It is still made and marketed with the same wrapper after all these years. I restrained myself from smelling it until I got home and unpacked the bag. Took me back to being 15 and doing anything I could think of to drive my mother (more) insane.

At home, I cleaned the kitchen, did dishes, spiced and trimmed a brisket which I put in the fridge to soak overnight and will put in the oven to roast all day tomorrow while I am at work, cleaned the grill, dirtied it making hamburgers and then cleaned it again, packed my lunch for tomorrow, had a delightful supper with the black dog who finally agreed to eat the dry food in his bowl after he realized that no I was NOT going to give him anything scrumptious like, oh, say, human food, and topped off my meal with a big bowl of Splenda NOT sugar chocolate yummy ice cream which I allowed to halfway melt in the bowl to the consistancy of really thick pudding before eating. I am become domesticated.

Back to work tomorrow. Oh. Boy. !.

Labels: cooking, personal urban drama

Yes, there is lust in my heart. Yes, he's truly geeky and more than a little strange. But he comes to me faithfully at 10:30 p.m. central standard time every weekday night and makes me laugh and teaches me some new and interesting things a woman surely should know.



Alton Brown, you got some truly interestin' chemistry working for ya, boy!
Good eats, indeed!

Labels: cooking, video

Clementines are here! Clementines are here! I bough four crates and hauled them home yesterday. Little round orange balls of seedless sweetness. The perfect size to fit in your palm, with soft rinds that come off in one long citrus-ey smelling strip. I love getting fresh tangerines in the winter. THANK YOU, SPAIN!!!! THANK YOU!

Labels: cooking

For your slightly strange voyeuristic needs, you can go
here and read other people's grocery lists.

Do you make a grocery list when you go shopping?

If you do, does it have bananas on it? Seems like most everyone else's does.

Also observed:

Item on List:: Douche.
Do people really still douche? If you did douche, wouldn't you know that you needed to without adding it to a list? Like "Oh, my doctor told me to do a douche" and since that's such an incredibly strange thing, wouldn't it be at the top of your mind?

Trait #1: LOTS of people can't spell the most basic grocery staples.

Trait #2: Some people write the price of each item on their grocery list. Did they write this before going shopping, to guess how much they would spend? Did they write this after shopping but before checking out to see if they were over their limit or if they had spent enough to get a free turkey for Thanksgiving? Why write it when you get a computer printed list with the item and the price that you can take home with you as a lovely parting gift?

Trait #3: I only found one person who does what I do when I have a list to keep track of what I still need to get - they tear the paper from the edge through each item to show it's been picked up - this person is like me and doesn't ever have a pen with them to maniacally scratch through each item until it has been obliterated from the paper. (Looks like lots of people take out a lot of hostility on grocery lists).

Trait #4: Some people date their grocery lists. (In a chronological way, not in a romantic way - er - as far as I know.) Why? Do they have a list they're going to go buy on June 6, but they have another list they're planning to get on June 7? What if, say, toilet paper is on the list for June 7, but you run out on June 5. Do you have to wait for the appropriately dated list to buy some?

Trait #5: People are embarrassed by bodily functions, even on grocery lists. Very few lists I saw had the word "toilet" spelled out - they all write "t. paper" or "t.p." instead. Toilet! Toilet! Toilet! I happen to think we should be thrilled with toilets! Imagine the alternative!!

Best List:
squirt gun
hot peppers
strawberrys (sic)
bee trap
pie pans

OK - first of all - what the hell are the people with this list about to go off and do? Who needs a bee trap, a squirt gun and pie pans at the same time?? I want to know these people. They sound fun! Or at least adventurous.

Second Best List:
Cake
Candles
Carpet
Wine

OK - Where do these people shop? What store has both a fine wine and a good berber with a 10 year stain protection warranty?

Third Best List:
Vodka
Lighters
Milk
Ice Cream

Sounds like a flaming good party to me!

Labels: cooking, headlines

Today stands out for a number of reasons and here are two of them:

According to my boss, "HELL IS FREEZING OVER!".

This is because:
1. I wore a dress to work.
2. I wore pantyhose under the dress.
3. I valet parked at the luncheon.
4. I danced at the luncheon.

My boss is a smart ass, in case you hadn't noticed.

The other reason it's a red letter day?

My husband actually agreed to go to Cafe Express for supper tonight and even though that's pretty impressive, that's not the thing. The Thing is - get this - he put little chopped up green onions on his baked potato. Now, I know it was just to screw with my head, but the point is, he DID IT.

TWELVE YEARS, people, and he hasn't eaten even a tiny bite of a green onion. They're green and they're onions, after all.

I didn't tell him about the Hepatitis outbreak that has been connected to raw green onion. I just couldn't.

Labels: cooking, cult

Kool-Aid. How the hell long has it been since you've made up a pitcher of Kool-Aid? Frankly, I didn't even know we had any until we came home from a short errand to find that one of the dogs had gotten into the food pantry and pulled a packet out to snack on.

So I mixed it up with some wonderful filtered water and was delighted to be reminded how much I love Tropical Punch Kool-Aid. Yummy!

Labels: cooking

Had a shooting contest with husband yesterday because he just couldn't get past me doing so much better than him this past weekend. We tied with groupings of 2.25 inches. I feel a rematch coming on.

Ate at a place called Lasagna House. Didn't order lasagna of course because my mother's recipe ruined me for all other lasagnas many many years ago but I really like the place because one of the appetizers is, quite simply, meatballs.

I actually ordered meatballs as a side to accompany my seafood ravioli and wished I had ordered meatballs for my meal. Loved it - a simple white plate, two huge, dignified meatballs, and a slathering of delicious, thick, chunky tomato sauce.

Labels: cooking, husband

Even though we have access to cuisines from all over the world as Americans, we rarely eat True and Original recipes. Most of what we eat has been Americanized, made more palatable for our mainstream tastes. For instance, if we Americans think Italian, we usually think tomato-based sauces, but that couldn't be farther from the truth in most of Italy.

This is never truer than when talking about Mexican food. We think Mexican food and we think rice and beans and fajitas and cheese enchiladas.

And nothing will bring this truth closer to home than a stroll through the meat department of a culturally Mexican grocery store. Now, I grew up knowing about Tripe and Menudo, and even though it will never cross my lips, I understand that different cultures grow up with different foods and uses for various animal parts. (Ask me to tell you the story about Mother's Hog Head Cheese. Hint: they don't just call it that for no reason.)

But nothing - and I mean freaking nothing - will ever be able to make me understand why, in the meat department in the Fiesta down the street from me, right there next to the boneless, skinless chicken breasts is a neatly wrapped package of bright yellow chicken feet, claws and all. For sale. As a foodstuff.

Labels: cooking, personal urban drama

New favorite restaurant in Houston: Panera Bread. Get the Coronado Carnitas - it's a sandwich made of marinated pork roast, mozzarella and a zingy, spicey, make-you-want-more-of-it-slathered-on everything ancho lime sauce with carmelized onions (ask for extra onions!) on this wonderful baked-on-site bread they call Ciabatta. I've had it twice now and actually crave it. Ask for a little cup of the ancho lime sauce on the side for dipping of anything - left over bread, their surprisingly good potatoe chips - your fingers - whatever.

This time I also tried the bakery side and got a - yes, there is apparently a real place called heaven and it's over on Tidwell & 290 - Chocolate Croissant. Also, got a round of Assiago Cheese Sourdough bread for the house and it's halfway gone - had it with pan grilled turkey breast and Ken's Caesar dressing for supper. Overall wonderful!

Can you tell I had a food day?

Labels: cooking, personal urban drama