Things I Hate

Those of you that were lucky enough to have Mr. Banker for Honors American Lit last year remember the end of the year speech. The speeches were our last assignment for the year, about 5 minutes worth of time to say anything you wanted to; to share, to explore, to ponder, to expose, to vent, etc.
Of course I chose to vent.
And of course, I talked about the things I hate.
This is a growing (and extensive) list of things that irk me, to things that I vehemently abhor. They ranged from body odor (seriously, CVS has deodorant for $5 a pop) to Jew jokes (though I find Asian jokes hilarious.)
But you know what I really hate?
Food élitists.

I don't hate them necessarily. I just highly dislike them, and occasionally want to punch them in the face when I meet an especially arrogant one.
Hear me out.
By "food élitist" I mean people that refuse to eat at diners, fast food joints, street carts, unlabeled hole-in-the-wall restaurants because it's not "good enough" for them.
These are not people that choose not to eat at these places due to "health concerns" and "lack of décor". These people are more concerned with the price of the menu.
What the hell?

Chicken. With 40 Cloves of Garlic.

I find this post hilarious, because despite the name of the dish, I took no time to take pictures of the garlic.
All 40 cloves I painstakingly cleaned and peeled.

I told my mother, "Mother, do they not sell pre-peeled garlic at the super market?"
To which she replied, "My dear daughter, those have a "bad garlic" smell to them; it's much better to peel your own,"

So it took me an extra 5 minutes to prep.

Woe to my world.

A even bigger woe, as I had to cut a whole chicken into ten pieces. By "I", I mean I cut the drumsticks and then couldn't figure out how to amputate/dislocate/lacerate the rest of the poultry, so my mom did it.

Here is the recipe, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen:
Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic

Yield: 4 servings.
1 3- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces, at room temperature
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
About 40 large garlic cloves
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup chicken stock or canned broth.
1. Season chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Place a deep, nonreactive skillet or Dutch oven over high heat, and add oil and butter. When fats are hot but not smoking, add chicken pieces skin side down and cook until skin turns an even, golden brown, about 5 minutes. Work in batches, if necessary, and carefully regulate heat to avoid scorching skin. Turn pieces and brown them on other side for an additional 5 minutes.
2. Reduce heat to medium. Bury garlic cloves under chicken to make sure they settle in one layer at bottom of skillet. Saute, shaking or stirring pan frequently, until garlic is lightly browned on all sides, about 10 minutes. Add wine and stock, scraping bottom of pan.
3. Cover and continue cooking until juices run clear when a thigh is pricked, 10 to 15 minutes more. Serve chicken with garlic and pan juices and, if desired, rice or sauteed potatoes.

I only have reds and riesling in storage, so I ended up using vermouth, which is a FAR CRY from a dry white. I don't even know why we have vermouth.
I find the darnest things in my pantry sometimes!
But the fact I used vermouth makes me want to cry thinking of it. It's like when a recipe calls for panko crumbs but you decide to save $3 and make your own by toasting white bread crusts and putting them through the food processor...except maybe worse.

Next time I would DEFINITELY use a dry white though; the vermouth wasn't overpowering, but I have a feeling following the recipe would have led to a simpler dish.

Where are the pictures you ask? Not here...yet.

P.S. Vermouth is quite good if used with shrimp, a little garlic, and fettuccine.

Eat well,
Steph

Monday Night

Mother dipped some strawberries into chocolate.
Unfortunately, the strawberries were kind of ugly.

Still yum.

All I wanted was cassava balls...

And they didn't have any.

For winter break our family trekked down to Cancun; with a little urging from me to Poppa Lee (lamenting my rejection from WashU and the inevitable fragility of my mental health), the trip was booked.

I'm only half joking.

In any case, the last time I visited a warm weather destination, I discovered the wonders of cassava balls, and fell in love.

So obviously on this trip, I was planning on stuffing myself silly with some quality cassava balls: deep fried, sweet, and sticky. The innards somewhat resembling freshly made rice cakes, but better. And Cancun did not have any.

:(

I was so sad that I whipped out my euro textbook on the beach and cried while Sufjan Stevens sang to me:


And I felt a little better afterwards.

HI KRISTI!

Here's Margo, Allyson, Kristi, and Chelsea.

You can tell they're all really excited.

That was because we had squash ravioli's and veal/chicken mess (?) and Caesar salad for dinner with yellow cake with chocolate frosting and ice cream and Crunch bars and Kit Kat bars and Hershey's kisses and we played Just Dance and got our fortunes told and the fortune teller said I'll meet Sufjan and it made me really happy oh and Kristi was also extremely surprised and shocked and it was great and this is such a run-on sentence it's not even funny.

Oh god, but the squash ravioli was SO good. I can't describe how delicious it was. It was just so much yumminess.
Who's a good writer now?

Happy early 18th Kristi!

I shall be back posting posts circa December/January in the next few days.

Keep eating,
Steph

Coffee: Friend or Foe?

Once again it is Sunday night/Monday morning, and I am wide awake.
I swear, I'm not one of those crazy, self-diagnosed insomniacs; it just happened I didn't listen to my own good conscience or my college coach and left my sad little supplements to be for the last minute.
He warned me, "those things sneak up on you pretty fast," and I just thought to my lonely self, "oh, but I'm so happy these days! Glitter! Butterflies! Sufjan Stevens! My first A on a DBQ! I'll get them done!"

Three weeks have passed, and here I am.

Currently, I am procrastinating.

Today, I write to you about coffee.

First, I have a really cool mug:


It is a souvenir from my Iowa days; that's right, I lived in the beating heart of America.
Where corn grows a plenty, and the skies are robin-blue.
The baseball players (and the corn) become visible once hot liquid is poured into the mug.


How did I come to acquire such an object?
Apparently the movie Field of Dreams was shot in Iowa, and our family visited the baseball field.
I don't even know why. No one in my family has watched the movie.
No one in my family (with the exception of Jen) has any significant hand-eye coordination skill.
Well my dad does, and thank the lord, as he's a surgeon. But I don't think this hand eye coordination carries over to sports.
(NOTE: golf is not a sport).

Anyways, I got this mug as a souvenir, and my sister got a dorky locket necklace.

If you haven't guessed by now, I use the mug to drink coffee.

Yay coffee!

I can talk forever about this beverage; this goes from personal stories in which coffee has played a role, embarrassing moments, to disjointed fragments of erudition from my AP World Coffeehouse Debate sophomore year.

Here are some boring stories--

Personal Story:

During one of my alumni interviews, I had clover-brewed coffee from Starbucks for my first time.
I don't even know what clover-brewed means, but it was amazing.
The interview also felt like a blind-date, because I didn't know what the guy was supposed to look like, thus, I was reduced to making eye contact with every 20-something male that walked through the Starbucks in Boston's Financial District.
Not as unpleasant as it sounds. ;)
To be realistic, it was quite unpleasant/anxiety-producing because I was worried he wouldn't be able to find me/forgot about me/missed me/didn't know I was asian despite my last name because I didn't say 'hello'/make the first move etc. etc.
At the end, the interview went well (a subjective statement on my behalf, so I don't really know), and the clover-brewed Venti warmed my frigid digits during the whole two hours so I wouldn't have to sit on them like a total dunce.

Embarrassing Moments:

I spilled coffee on my scarf and my boots one morning in the library (the same morning I was covered in glitter because my Beowulf project needed much, much glitter).
On the bright side, my scarf smelled really good (yum coffee!), and my boots are that awkward beige/light brown shade that one can never be sure if it is clean or dirty.
In retrospect, I don't consider this situation embarrassing, but I guess other people would.
But some of my friends laughed at it, so I guess that qualifies it as an embarrassing moment in my life.
This also happened in the high school library.
I don't think Ms. Metcalfe knows.
Please don't tell her.

Remnants of Knowledge from Sophomore Year:

Excuse the picture, which is geographically inaccurate in context of the next few sentences:
I got to write a pretty sweet affidavit as a coffee stall owner in the Arabian peninsula.
You know, the usual deal: recanting the story of how a goat herder noticed his goats acting crazy, how the monks used the beans to stay awake for long prayer sessions, etc. etc.
The Coffeehouse Trial was just a swell party.

So is coffee a friend to society? I would say yes.
However, it is a diuretic, and it makes you frequent the bathroom quite a bit.
So really, is coffee an endearing friend that allows us to work longer hours, or just a cumbersome pest?

Discuss, discuss, discuss!

P.S. It would bring me great joy if you re-read this post in a NPR voice.

Also, listen to this interesting story on the economy and the cappuccino:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/12/17/132115320/after-the-crisis-an-economist-reconsiders-cappuccino

You can never have too much caffeine,
Steph

I'm just going to say...

The patty melts at Friendly's=bomb dot com.