36 posts tagged “food and drink”

The dish I had brought to the potluck last night was a pasta salad.  I would love to tell you all about the salad, but I can't, as it is a secret family recipe. Classified intel.  You understand.  All I am permitted to say is that I do something to the mushrooms that makes them taste of extreme happiness.  Another thing I am permitted to say about the salad is that it does not include broccoli.

I have nothing against broccoli (unlike certain of our former presidents); I think broccoli is a fine vegetable. My salad recipe, however, does not call for broccoli, and thus there was no broccoli in it. Until, that is, I brought home the remainders of it that no one had eaten.  I gazed deep into those salad remainders, looking lovingly upon the mushrooms and the various other secret ingredients, and what did I spy in the bowl but broccoli.  Broccoli!  Just sitting in there among all the legitimate ingredients as if it belonged.  I glared at it.  It gazed back, nonchalantly, jutting its broccoli chin out as if to say, "Yeah? What of it?"

What of it, indeed. It was time to launch a full investigation.  I called my assistant Jameson to my side.  If need be, I would also consult the hound.

Where had this broccoli come from?  And then I remembered:  someone had brought broccoli salad to the party.  I knew the type exactly:  it had been a broccoli salad of the kind sold in the deli case at the local market.  The kind with mayonnaise and raisins.  The gross kind.  I took a slug out of my whiskey glass and shuddered to myself.  It was good, strong stuff, but was it strong enough to wash away the phantom taste of mayonnaise and raisins from my mouth?

After deep reflection and some sniffing on the part of the hound, I was able to reconstruct events. Apparently, there had been a little bit of this salad left at the end of the night, and whoever had taken it upon herself to wrap everyone's remainders had, I assume, decided to toss the broccoli salad remainders in with my salad remainders.  Why, no one can say.  Perhaps the broccoli's owner had determined there wasn't enough to warrant being brought home. Perhaps the remainders-wrapper had decided that no good stalk of broccoli ought to go to waste, and had dumped the unwanted stalks into the nearest vegetably thing she could find.  Perhaps she just wanted to stir things up in this town and see what would shake out.  That I do not know. One must not attempt to understand such decisions--it is like reasoning with madmen.

Case Status: Green and Stalky.

I buy things, a lot of the time, because I like the packaging.  If I'm trying to pick a new wine, and I don't know anything about any of the ones in my price range (which is low, low, low), I just choose the one with the best label.  Like this one, for example:

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Come on, now, who doesn't want a wine called "the heretics" with a star chart on it? As it turned out, it wasn't at all bad.  More than I can say for this one:

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The naked lady and the bicycle on the label couldn't make up for the overly herbaceous aftertaste here.  Next time I'll just chew on a house plant.

Don't worry, though, guys; we're not here to talk about wine today. Rather, we're here to talk about the fact that I like things that are pretty.  I extend this philosophy to as many things in life as possible--cigarettes, for example.  Currently I and my wimpy lungs have been smoking Parliament Ultra Lights, but you can bet that when these Red Kamels came out several years ago I bought a bunch of them. 

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For the box, of course.  The ad campaign calling them "cigarettes for poets who write on napkins" didn't hurt, either. 

Anybody remember those Orbitz drinks?
   

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I just hate things that are ugly--MySpace, let's say. (I just googled "ugly design," and a handful of articles about good old MySpace appeared in the first page of results.  Sheesh. They ain't fooling nobody.) I hate things that look cobbled together or that don't work--there's no excuse for a bad design. I would never buy that frightening Diet Pepsi "Jazz" business, for example.  It's just too hideous.

All of this is to say that I have a new way of "shopping" for fun lovely things--the soon to be ubiquitous Style Hive.  Adding something pretty to my bookmarks is almost as nice as buying it.  Er, nearly.  Well, actually, not at all, OK?  Not at all. But I am still, last I checked, a poor student, so it will have to do. (Ed McMahon, when are you going to show up with my check already?!)

I spent a while finding cool things online today, and as the kilowatthour tells us, it is indeed addictive.  Boy howdy is it addictive!  Here's the thing, though.  I went around looking at clothes and shoes and jewelry, and I'll be damned if there is anything out there this year.  I swear to god if I see any more gaucho pants, skinny jeans, or ballet flats, it is going to be head-bustin' time.  I mean, I am pretty tall, but any combination of those things is going to make me look like Stumpy McTrunklegs.  On the bright side, they seem to be making shirts slightly longer this year, which will help me hide my hideous flesh (and the back of my underwear) from the world a little bit more efficiently. 

I did manage to find about 400 sofas that I like, though.  Maybe this is a sign.  Maybe it means I should just hang around naked all the time on my couch, drinking wine out of bottles with pretty labels.  That could be a good thing, right?

Anyway, my badge of slick consumerism is down the sidebar, just under the "donate" button.  I figure you should know where your moneys are going.

Dear Stomach,

We've been working together, you and I, for the last twenty-eight years.  It's been a life mostly harmonious, albeit with a few spectacular moments memorable for their techni-color dissonance.  When I was a little kid, I sometimes got sick in my own bed when I was too young to know I was going to puke and thus couldn't make it to the bathroom in time.  Back then, throwing up always made me cry.  It still does, sometimes--little feels as futile and frustrating as trying simply to digest food and not being able to. 

You know, though, Stomach, I am not here to complain about puking:  I don't do it all that often anyway.  The issue I am writing you about today is the gnarling.  You know the gnarling, don't you, Stomach? The horrible, twisting wrench that squeezes me from the inside out? Of course you know the gnarling.  Don't play dumb-- YOU'RE DOING IT RIGHT NOW.

The gnarling is almost worse than puking, I think,  in that rather than forcibly ejecting food already eaten, it just sort of stops one from eating in the first place.  It's the same gnarl that had me on a shaky-handed diet of nothing but coffee and English muffins for about two weeks after Self-Involved Sculptor Guy broke up with me freshman year in college.  Admittedly, Self-Involved Sculptor Guy was in fact a complete and utter tool, but try telling that to you at the time, Stomach.  You were all a-flutter from day one, and when you decided it was time to get gnarly, there was no stopping you. 

You have pulled the gnarl out of your box of tools countless times--when I was applying for graduate school, you haunted me with gnarling for a record eight months.  You inflict it on me every night before a new school term starts, every time I have to speak in public, every time I wake up in the middle of the night with a whirling stream of thoughts about money or deadlines or phenomenology, every time I have a job interview, every time I consider telling a boy that I like him.

Stomach, the gnarling has got to stop. I would like to eat a meal around here without regretting it, oh, about four seconds later.  I think you might like that, too, Stomach.  Come on, I am just trying to give you a chance to DO YOUR FUCKING JOB. Don't you aspire to greatness? Digestive greatness? I do.

You are a stomach. Stop acting like a pussy.

K

Did I not tell you that baking was badass? I mean, did I not tell you that a dude who can walk into any kitchen in the world and make bread is COMPLETELY RAW?

I should have.

I just made Rachael Ray's recipe for lime-and-honey-glazed salmon with warm corn and black bean salad.  It was delicious and easy to make in under 30 minutes.  That stupid whore.

This morning I took Egon out to relieve himself (as he is very mature and dignified now and would not think of going in the house) (I rule), and a positively insane event occurred.  I saw him pick something up from the ground, which he does approximately every five seconds. Usually, he tries to eat the item, especially if it is a beloved item of clothing, a dangerous shard of pyrex, a poisonous flower, a poisonous mushroom, or a germy turd.  These are his favorite things.  In this case, he had hidden the item in his mouth, but wasn't chewing or swallowing, but rather running in frantic, ever-widening circles around a little fir tree while I chased him, trying to untangle the leash and get him to drop the item (which I figured was a rock), all to no avail. His jaws were clamped down so tight I could not get them open, but I could hear something hard rattling against his teeth.  He continued freaking out and running around in crazy circles.  As I caught him again, I peeled his lips back and saw the crimped edge of a bottle cap.  A beer bottle cap, in fact.  A Mirror Pond Pale Ale cap.  While this doesn't quite answer Jeremy's whiskey question, I think it shows he has my dog pegged.  At least Egon goes for the good beer.

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           "Beer!  Beer!  Beer beer beer beer! Beer!"

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              "Eeeehhhhxcellent."

Dear Pyrex Bowl,

I thought we had a good thing going, you and I.  I mean, I know it was sort of a casual affair:  I'd ambitiously buy a bunch of fruit, you'd stoically hold on to it all until bananas grew soft and black; oranges' peel became weird and leathery;  avocados gently sagged, abandoned.  You were a caretaker of forgotten fruits!  It was noble!

Every now and then I'd use you to hold rising dough, a tea towel draped over your simple form.  Those were the days, Pyrex Bowl!  Just you and me and a wad of olive-oiled focaccia dough sitting in the sunny window sill.  It was picturesque!

Then I would give you a cursory wash and leave you balanced on the wooden X-frame dish-drying rack, forgotten for a few days, at least until I came home with another sack of produce. It was domestic!

But today, Pyrex Bowl! Today!  Today you had to go and fuck me!  You had to leap, unprovoked, right off that wooden drying rack in a suicide attempt the theatrics of which had never before been seen.  You hit the floor and in a frightful reverberation YOU EXPLODED.  All over my floor!  Your bits flew from the sink to the floor to the living room rug and all the way to the front door. One piece of you embedded itself in my foot, another in the neighboring bookshelf. 

You scared the bejesus out of me, Pyrex Bowl!  My heart paused for a bit too long.  You had my pets frozen in shock; you had me rushing through eighty-seven different evacuation plans so that no cat or dog would lose a toe to your treacherous, jagged, thumb-sized shards.  It was terrifying!

What a way to go out, Pyrex Bowl, you fucking histrionic drama queen!  You couldn't, like, eat a bunch of 'ludes or something? 

I hope you're happy.

Katra the Lacerated

I swear, I went into the grocery store just looking for some orange juice (sweet, sweet nectar!) and a bagel to ease my slight hangover this morning.  Instead, as soon as the glass automatic doors eased quietly shut behind me, I found myself unwillingly drawn to the sweets side of the bakery.  Like a Homer-Simpsonesque automaton, I was pulled into the gleaming doughnut case, a gentle refrain of "mmmmmm....glaaaaaazed orbs of dooooooough..." echoing between my ears.

In addition to the doughnuts, I left the store with three different kinds of juice and something called "smart water," which promises that after drinking it I will become not only stronger and smarter but purer and moister, generally.  I find this claim a little dubious, I'm afraid, and not just because I accompanied the water with a cruller the size of my arm. 

Some people, I say, Some People prefer oranges exclusively, while, myself, I say that there is not--nor ought there be--anything so exalted on the face of God's great earth as that prince of foods: The Lemon.   For that reason (well, that and the fact that Z sort of scoffed at the idea of my doing it), I decided I should engage in the noble pursuit of lemon-drop mixing at home.  I outfitted my kitchen with all sorts of lemony supplies: citron vodka, a little squeezable plastic lemon filled with juice, and several of the honorable yellow orbs themselves.    Witness my gloriously rad results:

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              Lemon Drop on Counter.  Also pictured: lemons, knife, cocktail mixer,
              delightfully citrus-hued cutting board, beautiful blue martini glass.

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                The Lemon Close-Up.  There is little I like better perched on the edge of
                my glass than a sugared lemon slice.  I once was known to loudly
                proclaim, while waving aloft the slice, "this sugared lemon is the best
                thing I have ever seen!"  Then I accidentally flung the lemon across the
                bar. It was my birthday, so I think I was forgiven.  I hope.

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                The Gritty Aftermath.  The drink was sublime in every way, but it
                happened to lead to some ugliness on the countertop the next morning. 
                Witness the scuzzy ashtray and the dried-out lemon remains, lying
                neglected in a sugar-encrusted saucer.   Only one lemon in the world
                is sadder than this one...

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                The Saddest Lemon in the World.  It soared to great heights on the
                sugary lip of this blue glass, but was dashed to the lowest possible
               low by the clumsy, be-sudsed hand of a careless dishwasher, and now
               is condemned to languish among the shards of  this once-perfect glass. 
               They can reminisce, alongside  the dirty drain, about the glory they
               once shared.

Let this be a lesson to you:  If you dare to strive for the greatness of a sour-but-radiant drink of your own design, you too could be cleaning splinters of sweet, lemony glass from your sink the next day.   Ups and downs, man; strikes and gutters.  It was fun while it lasted.

Apologies for the entry composed late last night, deep in the throes of a Red Bull binge.  I still feel a whisper of crack snaking through my veins, but today has been fabulous in spite of my having abused myself with caffeine and ox bile.

For those of you keeping track of the pointless vicissitudes of my hair (and really, who among you isn't?), it is back to its natural color, almost, and all the "non-matchy-uppy pieces" have been excised.  I am the very picture of polished blonde sleekness. (Until, of course, the first time I have to style it myself, without the aid of the Fabulous Stacey and her magical balms, ointments, and unguents.  That will be a difficult time, and I hope you will keep me in your thoughts.)

I am teaching one of my favorite authors tomorrow--one whose "dainty tomes" Zerlesen believes would not be sufficient to weigh down my cat.  Or so he has said [before].  (It is probably true, my cat being huge, as well as fat, and also surly.  Such is the nature of the beast.)  None of this will matter in the classroom, however, as I and my enraptured students will simply revel in the brilliance of these admittedly a un-weighty tomes.  Light and translucid.  That's more like it.

In another pleasant development, I will not be needing a five pound law book to put a stop to the antics of the next pet I will be illegally housing in this apartment.  (Details forthcoming, so cool your jets!)