Namaste, Bitches

I am free once more to pick stuff up, push stuff around, go back to work and fuck. Hooray!

Walked around some Hallowe'en stores this afternoon. I'm whupped. I'm going to take cupcakes to work w/me. I got some seasonal cupcake cups, an assortment of sprinkles & google-eyed toothpicks. I'm going to get some yellow or white cake mix & color it orange, and some devil's food cake mix & make orange & dark chocolate marbled cupcakes :) I frikkin' love Cupcake Wars - it inspires me. The Food Network inspires me, period. I finally made a successful roux last week for home-made clam chowder. The only problem was the portion - I made too much soup & not enough roux, so it only thickened to a certain point. I like my clam chowder super-thick. Night before last, I made another blonde roux for gravy to go w/baked chicken & mashed potatoes. I had the opposite problem - too much roux, not enough stock, so it was sort of a chicken-flavored pudding. Not very appealing, but I mixed it into my mashed potatoes & ate it anyway. It had good flavor. If I had managed to add enough liquid to thin it out, I think I would have ended up w/about a gallon of gravy.

That is all. Other than the fact that I don't really want to go back to work next week :(

I have some coffee sponge cake from the Asian bakery. I have Bailey's Caramel Irish Cream. I have caramel ice cream topping. I put them all together.

Oh yeah, baby. Life is good.

We're having a potluck tomorrow for a coworker's birthday. It's a nacho bar and I got elected for dessert. Noemi just said, "Chocolate".

Keeping in the slightly Mexican theme, I'm making a Chocolate Tres Leche cake. I'm not a fan of Tres Leche myself - wet cake, ew. I'm also, surprisingly, not a big chocolate monster, either, so I probably won't even eat any of the cake. I had to taste the batter & the tres leche sauce, of course, and it tasted good, but... This thing looks like... I can't even describe it in food-like terms.

And my kitchen is a fucking mess. I bought a canister of cocoa powder & it had a peel-off lid. When I opened it cocoa powder went everywhere. I looked like one of those old-fashioned & oh-so-politically-incorrect blackface minstrels. Cleaning up cocoa powder is kind of like cleaning up fingerprinting powder or powder toner. You can't get it wet or it just smears around. And naturally, because I'm not the world's neatest cook, my floor and countertops were wet. Yay.

I have no idea how I'm going to get it to work tomorrow. It's going to be an adventure, of this I'm sure. I'll probably have to put it back in the cake pan or something.

I've lost a roll of tinfoil somewhere. I probably had carried it into my room or maybe stuck it in the linen closet or something. Don't ask me why I might have been carrying a roll of tinfoil with me last night while I was doing laundry... I've found stranger things in stranger places, like a bottle of shampoo in the freezer. I've also put my glasses in the cabinets above my washer & dryer. Between alcohol & anaesthesia, my short-term memory is fucked.

Ah well, back to spooning chocolate sauce over a spongy soggy cake.

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It doesn't seem so weird since it's a major name brand, at least in the world of curiously strong breath mints, but Altoids chocolate-coated ginger mints were weird. Very weird. I bought them, ate one or two from the box - and threw the rest away. It was a hard, chalky ginger-flavored mint coated in dark chocolate.

No, don't see myself trying those things again.

Saw this on 101 Cookbooks Jamaican Veggie Patties. These sound so good, especially if I took the corn out of the mix (not a big corn fan).

I think if anything could ever tempt me into vegetarianism again, this book might be it: Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry.

I actually tried going vegetarian for about a year. I've also tried the Atkins diet before. I've found that I am at my most healthy, at least digestive-wise, when I eat a balanced diet. Anyone who has ever dined at my house knows I serve meat, a starch & a vegetable or two for dinner. When Rob got diagnosed w/the diabetes, we just cut the starch out & added an extra veggie. Contrary to popular belief it's not all red meat in my kitchen. Granted, we do eat a lot of beef, especially lately, because chicken has been goddamned expensive. I think dark meat is disgusting, so we only eat the breasts... and wings, but I've got to lay off the buffalo wings because of the sodium. Any poultry right now is expensive - even turkey. Right now in my freezer I've got some flank steak, some lamb shoulders, a coupla pork chops & some chicken breast (it was on sale at Fresh n' Easy & I had to fight someone for that last package...). There'd be some seafood up in there too, but we ate the last of the shrimp & salmon last week. It says a lot when crab legs, shrimp & salmon in a land-locked state are cheaper by the pound than chicken. Of course, it means we get to eat more seafood :P

Anyway, because this book got me thinking... my year of being a vegetarian, non-ovo, non-lacto, non-pesci vegetarian was extremely painful. Giving up dairy & eggs is not a big sacrifice for me because I'm easily grossed out by the thought of eating chicken miscarriages & something that comes out of an udder (yes, as a matter of fact I was bottle-fed). While I was on my vegetarian kick, which was mainly to try & bring down my blood pressure w/out medication - I didn't lose weight & my b.p. didn't come down. What happened was a year of diarrhea, gas & bloating (not to mention constantly feeling like I was starving). My ulcer flared back up. My hair started falling out, my nails splintered. No one could stand to be near me for long because of the gas, and I could barely stand to be around myself. Beano did not help, probiotics didn't help, acidophilus didn't help, bromelain & papain didn't help. All the vegetarians I talked to told me various lines of bullshit like, "Oh, once you're cleansed of all the toxins, that will stop" and "you have to retrain your body to accept real nutrition". Yeah... with a year of diarrhea I was lucky I had an intestine, let alone anything toxic left in my system. After being told I was anemic & malnourished, I added protein back into my diet... within a week or two - no more stomach problems. Some people just can't take a 100% fiber diet.

When it came out, I tried the Atkins thing. No carbs, whatsoever. Just meats & fats. For one, it was hideously boring and ridiculously expensive. Meat, meat, meat. For two, my cholesterol levels soared beyond belief. And the pain was unbearable. I can't even describe the pain. It felt like a flaming ulcer had enveloped my entire stomach. Once again lines of bullshit, these from the Atkins groupies, I was told that once I was cured of my addiction to carbs my stomach would stop hurting. I think the first time I went 6 weeks... the second time couldn't even make it to 3 weeks. Yes, I lost weight but it was mainly because I was in too much pain to eat. And constantly hungry. Like starving, slavering, willing to kill for half a fucking french fry.

Tonight for dinner, I made some chicken breasts, mashed potatoes & peas. All low-sodium. Marinated the chicken breasts in a crushed red pepper vinaigrette & they were so moist & tender. Mashed the yellow potatoes with a little unsalted butter & sour cream for the tartness, peas is peas. That baking chicken smelled sooooo good. It was nommy. Tomorrow I get to take a mixed rocket salad to work w/leftover chicken breast & a cilantro Caesar dressing. I am definitely one to promote the omnivoran lifestyle. Eat a variety of foods, eat well, eat often, make it a joy to sit down at your own table.

I picked up some rather inexpensive swordfish steaks tonight at Smith's - $4.99 a lb & I got two nice thick steaks. I broiled them w/salt, pepper & a little Balsamic & Olive Oil salad dressing (from Trader Joe's - it has a smoky black-pepper flavor, savory but not too vinegary)... I get nervous about thick slabs of fish because Rob is just learning to enjoy sushi & sashimi, and a wide strip of raw fish in the center of a filet would turn him off of it in a heartbeat.

I don't like to toot my own horn, but that fish was the absolute most fantastic thing I've ever cooked in my entire life. I have never had swordfish that good in a restaurant or cooked by any other person. It was done all the way through, but still tender and juicy, and the thin strip of skin on the outside of the filet was crispy, and the flavoring was amazing. Every bite made me want to just burst into tears because it all came out so good and I was lucky enough to get to eat it.

I like okapis. They're making a comeback.

I'm sitting here reading AIM news, & they have this nifty feature about old cookbooks & the horrible, horrible recipes that lurk inside them.

Liver Mousse in Port Aspic is particularly gruesome, but AIM's blurb is priceless:

Liver Mousse in Port Aspic
From Time to Entertain (1954)

Recipe highlight: "Skin the liverwurst and beat it with the butter...fold in the whipped cream." Do not pass Go. It is not "Time to Entertain." It's time to sit very solemnly and contemplate what's gone so wrong in your life that you've decided that feeding your loved ones liver and jelly in whipped cream is an okay thing to do.

I pretty much have to agree. I'm not a huge fan of Jell-O or gelatin desserts, but meat-flavored gelatin is even nastier. I will never eat a canned ham because of the jelly factor.

Their comment for the Gold Medal Flour Cook Book from 1917:

"We get that wartime cuisine is all about maximizing the use of inexpensive foods, but after reading this, we can happily go the rest of our lives without seeing another recipe that includes the phrase, "Boil head."

I fucking died.

On average, Rob and I aren't heavy consumers. We drive used cars, I buy used books, I have reusable storage containers as opposed to plastic wrap and tinfoil and freezer baggies, I'm not a clotheshorse or shoe collector. I did go out and buy a new computer for myself about 4 years ago, and a new computer for Rob earlier this year, but that's after about 10 years of us having salvaged computers that were mosh-pits of scavenged parts. We still have all that crap laying around the house, too, in case we decide to build some sort of Frankensteinian creation to play DOS games on or something. We don't recycle, which we should, because bums come through the neighborhood and scatter people's trash looking for recyclables. I wouldn't care if they were respectful, but they knock people's trash cans over & strew stuff out in the street to get to cans and bottles. I just don't want to encourage them. Most of our furniture is used, coming from either Rob's mom & dad or from the sidewalk. The newest piece of major furniture we have is that big screen t.v., which the in-laws bought for us as a gift. We would never have bought it for ourselves, but what am I supposed to do? Refuse it & piss them off? I'm not militant about trying to use old stuff until it finally wears out or breaks, but I don't see why I should have to get a new car every 3 years or why I absolutely positively have to keep up with the Joneses. When we were robbed we didn't really lose that much because, well, we don't have anything a robber would really want. We have a lot of junk, but none of it is bright, shiny new junk. We do consume food. I mean, you gotta eat. Since Rob has been diagnosed w/diabetes, I've been cooking at home more, so shopping for food and preparing food and eating food has suddenly become an integral part of my life. Before his diagnosis, I was trying to change my eating habits (which I did successfully, originally with the goal of losing weight but now that's been thrown out due to my day job) simply by eating less more often. Living in the wonderful land-locked state of Nevada, fourth highest gas prices in the nation, means that in general I'm going to be paying more for all products, including groceries. Groceries are fucking expensive here. Especially fresh fruits and vegetables. A pound of fresh cherries runs about $4.99 a pound. (The stores conveniently package them in 2-lb bags). Tomatoes are $3.99 a pound. There are a few things I buy frozen - peas, green beans, brussels sprouts, mainly because Rob likes green beans but I'm not a huge fan & I eat more of the peas & brussel sprouts, so I can make one serving from a bag of frozen veggies & it's better than having fresh veggies growing mold or trying to make like, half a can of peas. (Since I started this, we entered into a heated lively debate about who was more personally responsible for their slow constant development into 'whack-job', Michael Jackson or Tom Cruise, which led into a conversation about why I cannot accept or be tolerant of Scientologists, and then Karl had to bring up Dead Zombie Jesus, so my whole train of thought was derailed.)

I cooked food over an open flame last night, whee! The great challenge was in getting the charcoal to light & stay lit. Kingsford Charcoal is not so great.

I'm thinking of starting a second journal this summer - one herb or one Tarot card per day. Or maybe one herb and one card per day.

My insomnia is in full swing - not sleepy, waking up, not dreaming. At least if I only get three hours of sleep a night I don't wake up in the middle. I'm screwed if I get 5 hours though because I'll wake up at least twice. No paranoid delusions this time around at least. I feel all muzzy & my stomach's upset today. Blagh.

Josh called me last night. I'm so changing my phone number when I quit the Excalibur.

I am so full of sea creaturey goodness right now it's not even funny. Or fun. Shrimp sauteed w/peppers & King crab legs. Made a salad, too, but all I did was eat the croutons - which I dipped in the melted butter for my crab. Zomg. I can't move under my own power - I'm waiting for high tide to come along & wash me to my bed.