So, what did I do this weekend? I played gender specific role playing games! Specifically, David did the Man things like replace the exhaust system on his car and I did the Woman things like laundry, dishes and cooking dinner.
I ended up making fried rice with the tofu and bok choy. Not entirely exciting but not bad.
Tonight my sister is coming over and we’re slumming it with KFC! aw yeah, i know how to be dirty.
There’s not much else going on, really. I researched reliable Volvo mechanics, found one near my house. I made all the arrangements with the dog sitter for this coming weekend. I looked up flights for new orleans for thanksgiving, they’re expensive, plus all trips must factor in boarding the dogs at a kennel or getting a dog sitter.
This weekend is the GOAT FARM!!!! We are so excited! Goat Farm! Nothing says romance like surly ungulates.
Did you know Tang makes Horchata? they do! It’s in my fridge right now. It’s overly sweet but good.
Monthly Archives: October 2005
I hear it
In my never ending quest to find the winning strategy to turn my into a productive adult I’ve started buying audiobooks from iTunes to listen to while cooking or cleaning or whatever.
Positive results so far.
A word of advice, though, if you are blue. If it is a gloomy day and you are feeling down and it’s been ‘one of those weeks’, do not download Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking”. It’s an excellent book, but you will find yourself crying into the dishwater and you don;t need that.
I want to make eggplant parmesan for dinner, but I dont have half the ingredients and would have to run to the store. On the other hand I DO have bok choy and tofu and both of those need to be used before they go bad. Why did I buy the big bag of bok choy from United Noodle?? Because it was stupidly cheap and I like bok choy.
Problem is that you can really only make stirfry with bok choy and tofu and that just does not appeal to me.
I’ll keep you posted on the results as I am sure you are dying dying dying to hear what I make for dinner every night.
I wonder if my sister is interested in highly unhealthy food for dinner tomorrow night. Just the two of us. I’ll wear my fat pants.
Speaking of fat pants, I did fat pants laundry (the laundry where you put on the giant pants you only wear inside when no one is looking, in my case a pair of too long black velvet pants that are baggy and tie at the waist) and you wash every single other item of clothing you own. Everything is washed, even David’s brown shirt that I love so much.
When David gets back from home depot I will poll his dinner opinion and get started.
That’s quite a grudge
Yesterday I was tasked to go to the library and get some movies. I never go to the library. I never go and I try to tell people, in English words, why I cannot go to the library…”I am completely and totally incapable of returning items”. I don’t know why this is, I really don’t, but I seriously cannot return things to places like the library or Blockbuster or whatever.
No one ever believes me, either! They always counter with “but it’s easy” or “convenient” or “you just have to drop it off”. It’s really not a matter of ease or convenience, the library is 6 blocks from my house, it’s incredibly easy and convenient. There is just some mental block in my head, i am incapable of returning things. I just don’t do it.
So yesterday, against my protestations, I was sent to get movies from the library. I went and had to go through the ordeal of switching from a hennepin county library card to a minneapolis public library card (she also would not listen to me, I tried to explain it was not worth it for me to get a new card, I’ll never use it. I think my problem with the library is that it puts in me in a number of situations where nobody will listen to me). While she’s messing with the beeping computer and I am constantly repeating my phone number to her because she mistyped it I am also helping the happy asian family next to me use the auto-checkout (they kept scanning the wrong bar code).
Finally, the librarian lady, acting all confidential and embarassed for me prints out a piece of paper that shows I have a previous fine.
I’m wracking my brains, when did I last have a minneapolis public library card???
12 years ago!!!
Yes, back in 93 or 94 I checked out a book and, true to form, never returned it. I had a $30 fine. $30. It was more than the book was worth I’m sure. I didn’t even remember the book or checking it out.
So this is it, this is my severe mental defect. I cannot return things t the institutions from where I borrowed them. Blockbuster owns my soul for all the late fees I’ve paid them, the library got a $30 check from me for a book I don’t even remember.
Netflix seems to be working out okay for me, for now, but that won’t last.
Sometimes it is hard to be a small brown puppy
It’s one of those grey days with the weather that has more bite than mist but more mercy than drizzle. Chilled, but not cold. In response I’m making veggies and dumplings, it’s like chicken and dumplings but without the chicken. I am out of mock duck and tofu and don’t feel like making seitan right now. So veggies and dumplings. Good for us.
The other night for dinner I marinated some canned mock duck and onions in garlic sesame oil, franks hot sauce and lime juice, cooked up some rice, seasoned black beans with garlic, lime juice and special secret seasonings. Fried the mock duck and onions and served the whole thing with molé sauce (david got all the onions, i hate onions). Fantastic!
The molé that Lily brought me requires you to mix 3 parts water to 1 part molé. So, I don’t 2 quarts of molé in the fridge, I have what amounts to 2 GALLONS of molé in there! Happy eating! I made up the sesame seed variety (ajonjola? Lily is that right?). God it was good. I’ve had good molé but damn.
Dang
Work is coming along with the new site, hopefully I can go live soon. I’m bringing over each post one at a time. The funny thing is that the halfway point was reached at a post just over a year ago. I’ve been going since early 2001. I’ve really ramped up production around here. I use the term production loosely, in the same way a bulimic might ‘express her creativity’ into a toilet.
SO, while David practices his guitar and the dogs snooze and chew things, I will wander off into the kitchen and do my best to maintain the illusion of a productive human being.
Also, to those of you within breakfast radius, I’m taking a break from coordinating breakfasts for a while. If any of you want to take the baton and run with it, i will gladly pass it over. Otherwise you’ll have to wait a bit until I get things back under control again.
Would you prefer the easy way?
How is it that our mothers managed to put a meal on the table every damned night? How did they do that? I swear to god I’m lucky if I can get a real meal out there 3 times a week. I’m wondering if having kids is the defining point? The only other person here is David and I know he is capable of feeding himself so it’s not like he’s going to starve to death if I don’t put a plate in front of him.
The sad thing is that half the time i’m uninspired, which is a joke to anyone who has seen my pantry. There are ingredients in there that are so exotic, even I’m stunned. Bhutanese red rice? Yeah, second shelf from the bottom. Egyptian feta? Door of the fridge! Udon noodles? Fridge AND freezer! Authentic mole from mexico? 2 quarts! 2 varieties! in the fridge.
Of course the things I do want to make, like kale risotto or spanakopita have missing ingredients.
I’ve mentioned before that I would love to do something like the Julie/Julia Project as long as someone else funded it, but honestly I just don’t think I would stick with it. I would get bored or tired or disinterested or completely fucking freaked out about removing the membrane from calves brains (is there a membrane to be removed? I don’t know!).
The only time I’m really inspired to cook is when I have company over or when I have discovered a new ingredient. Even then I rarely pull out anything new. Poor Owen has been fed the same lamb meal probably 3 or 4 times now.
Cooking is like a drug, an addiction, you need more more new new all the time or you don’t get high and if you’re not getting high then what’s the point?
I have mole and I have seitan and I have rice and I have veggies and I am going to have to make seitan mole tonight because I really really need to get better about cooking meals.
Maybe I need to write more about what I cook. That would serve the dual purpose of being accountable and driving all of you away from my site completely from the last straw of boredom.
I took pictures of the process of making the rack of lamb dinner in order to share it but I completely forgot to take pictures of the entire middle part of the process and also forgot to take pictures of the side dishes being made so we essentially go from seasoned meat to plate.
Any suggestions out there? Any moms that manage to feed their families every night? Do I need to just give in and start buying more frozen food? Is it worth it to do that just to maintain the illusion of a thoughtful meal?