Are you hungry?

I had a discussion with La Fabulous the other day about cooking and she expressed again that she thinks she doesn't know how to cook. This is problematic when you are attempting to woo someone via their stomach (not that I have ever done this *cough*.) I decided that it would be a travesty if she - or any of you! - was to perhaps lose a chance at the love of one's life because you were forced to go to IHOP because you couldn't whip together one quick and astonishing meal from things you can buy at the bodega across the street. So: frittata.

You will need: Eggs, about 3 per person. Potatoes. Some veggies - I always use onions, but also like bell peppers, mushrooms, spinach, zucchini... things you wouldn't hate in an omelet. Sausage, if you are a sausage eater. Cheese, if you feel like it. A touch of cream or milk or half and half or non-vanilla soy milk. Salt and pepper and cayenne if you like; garlic too, powder or minced.

First, get all your veggies ready. Chop them up into bite sized-ish pieces. Slice your potatoes into rounds thinly.

this is the minimalist version - peppers, onions, potatoes

Now choose a pan. I was making a lot of breakfast for a lot of people, and used three Russet potatoes, a whole red pepper and most of a largish onion, so I went with a giant cast iron skillet. When I make this for just me and the boy, I use an 8" square brownie pan and about 1/3 the stuff. Oil the pan generously and put your potatoes in so they form the crust.

Saute any of the fillings that require it - any meat that is raw, like sausage or bacon or the neighbor's awful cat, and any veggies that won't cook thoroughly in the time it takes to bake, like onions or mushrooms or broccoli. This is where I toss the seasonings in: salt and pepper and garlic. Softer veggies or ones that will overcook, like bell peppers and zucchini, don't need this step.

Layer your fillings on top of your potatoes.

just throw it all in. if i put cheese in, it goes on the bottom.

Now your eggs. Crack as many as you need - two or three per person - and add about a teaspoon of dairy (or soy) for each egg you use. Like I said, I was feeding lots, so I used a whole dozen eggs and a 1/4 cup of soy creamer (this was the dairy free version. I found out later it should have been meat-free, too. My bad.) Whisk them all up until they are creamy and light.
Then pour it on the top of your stuff.

this is balanced rather precariously, which was pointed out to me as I almost threw it to the floor in my frenzy to photograph it.

You should have had your oven preheating at this point, but I won't tell if you forgot. 350-ish, and closer to the bottom than the top of the oven is better. It takes about 40 minutes, until it doesn't jiggle when you shake it and the edges are a little browned. If you want cheese and didn't put it in before, it's alright to melt it on the top.

Cut this into wedges and serve it with sourdough toast and plenty of butter and marmalade. Or make muffins. Muffins are always delicious. If you're eating this for dinner, opt for a warm crusty loaf of bread and a light red wine. I prefer the sausage to be chorizo at dinner. Green bell peppers and tomato with the chorizo make it like a Spanish torta. The best thing about this is, there is the potential for lots of prep work to be shared with the person you are out to impress, while standing shoulder to shoulder in your tiny kitchen, talking about your travels and feeding each other bits of cheese. And if the person should turn out to be the sort who eats your scrumptious meal and never returns your phone calls, you can take comfort in the fact that you probably blew less than $15 on dinner, not counting the wine, and that's what you would have spent on take-out.

Still no pictures

Here are some things that helped to erase my truly bad attitude today:

1) S. came back from Europe with the prettiest shopping bag I have ever seen, full of marvelous little gifts wrapped in hot pink tissue paper.

2) There were still lots of cherries when I went to Chelan at 11:00 this morning. I ate the whole bag of Rainiers before noon.

3) I was asked today, "Do you ride a longboard?" No, I said, I can barely walk down a flat street without falling over. Trying to ride a skateboard is beyond me. "Oh, well, I saw a woman in a red helmet longboarding the other day, and my first thought was that it must be you. I couldn't think who else it would be." Dude. I am not that awesome, but thank you.

4) My retro styled lemon yellow bathing suit arrived in the mail. I put it on immediately. It makes me feel like a Vargas painting.

5) I am going to make beets at some point today. Sooner rather than later, hopefully.

That's it. All of it. I am better now, really. All I require is a nap, and maybe a really cold beer. Ahhh.

How to make a really good sandwich

1) Start by preparing a batch of gorgonzola dressing. A basic buttermilk recipe with lots of black pepper and an equal amount of gorgonzola cheese blended in is perfect. If you MUST, you can go with some prefab stuff, but stay away from the plastic bottles of "blue cheese" on the non-refrigerated shelf. You will call me ugly names if you go that route.

2) Find some sturdy bread. I like mini baguettes, but a good solid sourdough would work, or pita. Just be sure that whatever you choose is going to have to integrity to withstand the filling. I would avoid regular sliced bread; it will break under the strain like your high school boyfriend did when you dropped him because he wouldn't wear a lime green silk waistcoat to prom.

3) Choose an assortment of vegetables. My last version included a perfectly ripe avocado, red pepper slices, a Roma tomato, leaf lettuce, and shredded carrots. Forget to add one of these veggies in the building process - I went with the carrots - otherwise your final result may prove unwieldy.

4) Slice some good medium cheddar cheese. I know you like other cheeses better, but you want to compliment the bleu cheese in your condiments, and something mild like Muenster is going to get lost, and something bold like a sharp cheddar is going to be too prevalent.

5) Assemble: A generous dollop of your homemade dressing on one side, a scant smear of a biting mustard (Dijon for me, but don't let it stop you from using stoneground or something) on the other. Avocado goes on the bottom, lightly mashed so it stays put. Then tomato, lettuce, cheese. The pepper slices, due to their affinity to slide around, go in the hollowed out top, where the dressing is, so they are kind of glued into place.

6) Slice in half unless you intend for the vast majority of the filling to be in your lap rather than your mouth.

7) Enjoy with a glass of fizzy water and some Kettle chips. I went with barbeque.

8) If you want, we can make these together and sit on the couch and eat them and read magazines and I will regale you with interesting tidbits out of my National Geographic about Peruvian mummies and you will finally have to tell me to stop talking about dissection while we are eating and so I will pout for a moment and then try to steal the Rolling Stone out of your hands. Then we will make a batch of cupcakes and you will try to borrow something, probably a shirt or maybe my new Chuck Klosterman book, and I will let you because I am THAT HAPPY that you came over just to eat sandwiches with me. Or we could rent a movie if you don't want to read magazines. It's up to you.

Comfort food for uncomfortable times

So La Fab and I had a conversation recently wherein she confessed that she had written down almost every meal that I had ever made for her. I was touched in a way I didn't expect. I don't really feel like my cooking skills are anything out of the ordinary, but apparently some people beg to differ. There are a handful that stand out in the constellation of meals, ones that I can recall the flavor of even now. They are mostly colored by the circumstances of their creation: here the pumpkin ravioli that marked our first family dinner, there the batch of jambalaya V. and I made to commemorate our first year since the Big Easy, over in the corner the picnic lunch of croissant sandwiches filled with swiss cheese and ham and sweet mustard and dreams. I remarked recently to a friend that in my circle, there is no more honest or powerful way to show you care than with food. Breaking bread, sharing wine, tapping through the caramel shell of creme brulee - every bite is a bond.

Not long before she left, Princess J. and I made a meal because she was homesick. I made a batch of pierogi for her, and sauteed cabbage and kielbasa. It was a huge, butter-soaked orgy of comfort, and I haven't made it again since then. (Mostly because there was still cabbage in my fridge from the last time, and that was more than two years ago.) Until tonight, that is. The talking heads were talk-talk-talking about the debate, and I was seized by the sudden desire for potato-filled dumplings. I was also seized by the desire for a stiff drink, but that's just because McCain started talking.
So I made some. Pierogi are a bigger commitment than I would usually undertake on a Friday evening, but I couldn't bring myself to give the debate my full attention, lest it cause vessels to burst in my brain. So I buried myself elbow-deep in sourcream and eggs and potato peelings, and listened to my blood pressure rising. Pretty soon, I realized that even eating a third of the filling wasn's going to cut it, and fried up a pan of polska kielbasa and a half a head of red cabbage, with half an onion and a healthy three shakes of caraway for good measure. Somewhere along the way I had a second stiff drink; soon after that I nicked my palm with my Global chef's knife. To be fair, I think that happened when McCain accused Obama of wanting to invade Pakistan, so the first kitchen injury I have received in several years was due to the Republicans.

I finally finished up right around closing remarks, and I sat down to the post-debate analysis with a plate full of this:
and sour cream. That is onions browned in butter on top of my pierogi over there. And apple chunks in the cabbage and sausage. I feel a little sick now, because this was about a week's worth of saturated fat, and because I listened to/ watched the whole thing. I think we might not win. I pray, desperately and fervently pray, that I am wrong, but I fear that I am right. I hope there is kielbasa in New Zealand, and I hope they need baristas and/or doulas down there come the fifth of November.

La Fab, I am sorry to sully this culinary memory for you. I swear I will make it up to you with some enchiladas or something. Broccoli soup. Barbeque. Something.

Flush

Eating:
Figs. Fresh one are very scarce in Sitka; it has only been in the past two years or so that I have ever even seen them on the shelves here. We bought two exorbitant baskets of them from the fruit truck yesterday, and one is almost gone. The majority of the ones I have eaten were delicious, but still the close side of ripeness. There is always an exception that proves the rule. I bit into one that was precisely right: succulent, intensely sweet, musky, and complex. My knees actually weakened for a moment standing in the kitchen. I know I made a small noise of satisfaction. The smell and the texture and the layers of flavor were sharply reminiscent of... that very thing that figs are rumored to put one in mind of.

D.H. Lawrence speaks on them:

Figs

The proper way to eat a fig, in society,

Is to split it in four, holding it by the stump,

And open it, so that it is a glittering, rosy, moist, honied, heavy-petalled four-petalled flower.

Then you throw away the skin

Which is just like a four-sepalled calyx,

After you have taken off the blossom, with your lips.

But the vulgar way

Is just to put your mouth to the crack, and take out the flesh in one bite.

Every fruit has its secret.

The fig is a very secretive fruit.

As you see it standing growing, you feel at once it is symbolic :

And it seems male.

But when you come to know it better, you agree with the Romans, it is female.

The Italians vulgarly say, it stands for the female part ; the fig-fruit :

The fissure, the yoni,

The wonderful moist conductivity towards the centre.

Involved,

Inturned,

The flowering all inward and womb-fibrilled ;

And but one orifice.

The fig, the horse-shoe, the squash-blossom.

Symbols.

There was a flower that flowered inward, womb-ward ;

Now there is a fruit like a ripe womb.

It was always a secret.

That’s how it should be, the female should always be secret.

There never was any standing aloft and unfolded on a bough

Like other flowers, in a revelation of petals ;

Silver-pink peach, venetian green glass of medlars and sorb-apples,

Shallow wine-cups on short, bulging stems

Openly pledging heaven :

Here’s to the thorn in flower ! Here is to Utterance !

The brave, adventurous rosaceæ.

Folded upon itself, and secret unutterable,

And milky-sapped, sap that curdles milk and makes ricotta,

Sap that smells strange on your fingers, that even goats won’t taste it ;

Folded upon itself, enclosed like any Mohammedan woman,

Its nakedness all within-walls, its flowering forever unseen,

One small way of access only, and this close-curtained from the light ;

Fig, fruit of the female mystery, covert and inward,

Mediterranean fruit, with your covert nakedness,

Where everything happens invisible, flowering and fertilization, and fruiting

In the inwardness of your you, that eye will never see

Till it’s finished, and you’re over-ripe, and you burst to give up your ghost.

Till the drop of ripeness exudes,

And the year is over.

And then the fig has kept her secret long enough.

So it explodes, and you see through the fissure the scarlet.

And the fig is finished, the year is over.

That’s how the fig dies, showing her crimson through the purple slit

Like a wound, the exposure of her secret, on the open day.

Like a prostitute, the bursten fig, making a show of her secret.

That’s how women die too.

I do apologize if you're flushed.

Last night's dinner

The light in my kitchen was really good yesterday, which means that my pictures looked halfway decent for a change. I shot my dinner because of it, and just glancing at them to get them uploaded is making me kinda hungry. The main course (hah!) was gemelli - crazy twisty pasta - tossed with a little bit of the olive oil/butter/garlic mixture that went on the garlic bread, a little Meyer lemon-scented olive oil, a generous handful of grated Parmesan cheese, and a lot of black pepper. It's in my new bowl that I bought online from Anthropologie. My mother adores Fiestaware, and so that is what we have a cupboard full of. All their bowls, though, are shallow and flat-bottomed, which is useless for everything except salad, so I bought a couple of lovely, bright yellow porcelain bowl with fuschia-colored roses and gilded edges. I lurve them.
I also made some browned garlic spinach by sauteeing three cloves of garlic in 2 T olive oil and 1 T butter. I brushed my little loaf of French bread (over on the left, there) with a bunch of it and then drained the rest of the oil and butter in to the pasta, leaving a little sheen on the pan and all the garlic in the bottom. I threw three good handfuls of baby spinach on top and stirred until the spinach was wilty. Then I sprinkled it with sea salt. It smelled so good that instead of putting it in a bowl and eating it as the same time as the pasta , like a normal grownup, I just ate it right out of the pan. It was heavenly.
And this is a picture that Bea took of me at breakfast this morning. She's still getting the hang if this picture-taking stuff. Plus, she's short.

I Think This May Be a Regular Feature

Watching: BSG. Still. Yeah, it's pretty good. Like, can't peel my eyes away. Also, Girls Rock! Shane and Arne have put together a really good movie, and I have to commend them for being so sensitive and honest with the subject matter.

Listening: Janet Klein and Her Parlor Boys. Naughty 20's ukulele jazz. AKA: my next career move.

Eating: This morning, cheesy garlic biscuits and hardboiled eggs with iced coffee and orange juice.

1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 T. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. cold butter, in chunks
3/4 c. grated sharp cheese
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 T. parsley
3/4 - 1 c. buttermilk or skim milk

In a food processor, add all dry ingredients except parsley. Pulse to combine. Sprinkle with butter. Process until pea-size bits form. Add cheese. Pulse briefly to combine. With processor running, slowly add milk until dough comes together. Bake at 400 F for 20-25 minutes. Eat warm.

Obligatory pop culture update

Listening to:
- She and Him. Zooey Deschanel is obviously a fairy tale, because without the benefit of fairy godmothers, no one can be this talented at this many things, or that enchantingly pretty. Damn her.

- Deke Dickerson. Go on, roll your eyes. I dare you.

-The Phenomenauts. Because I am still a convention-going, card-carrying, costume-wearing science-fiction non-apologist from way back. Word.

Reading:

-The Canon, by Natalie Angier
This is kind of science lite, an overview of various disciplines by a non scientist for people who are frightened by science. I still got stuck on the probability chapter. My only real beef with Angier is her tendency to insert herself into her writing. It worked well in Woman: An Intimate Geography, but only because it was her personal experiences that prompted her research. Here, I wish she had let her voice speak for her.

-Natural Acts, by David Quammen
Quammen comes right out and says what Angier will not: he is not a scientist, and he writes about natural history and the social sciences because it is the only way the world makes sense to him. This collection, which is published in its 25th anniversary edition, is more noticeably magazine articles than his later collections of essays. Still, he never fails to inspire me when he wryly makes an observation about, say, octopus eyes, or the evolutionary path of mosquitoes, and in doing so makes a larger point about our own place in the world and how frail it, and we, are.

-Louis Armstrong's New Orleans, by Thomas Brothers
This was not as well written or as insightful as I wanted it to be. I haven't finished it yet, and it has to go back to the library this afternoon. Prospects are not good for its completion.

Watching:

-Leatherheads

Whither hast thou gone, Spencer Tracy? And why the hell should we accept Renee Zellweger in place of our beloved Kate Hepburn?

-BSG
Alright, already! Okay! I give up! Look, Netflix is winging this to me as fast as is humanly possible, okay, so no revocation of my aforementioned sci-fi geek card. You people are fucking RUTHLESS.

Eating:

Nothing of value in Las Vegas. But here at home, I am very fond of dried apricots stuffed with goat cheese, and also bacon pie, which I understand is a breakfast delicacy found in New Zealand. You make it thusly: chop and fry three or four rashers of good bacon with some diced onion, and some mushrooms if you like. Line a pie plate with puff pastry. Throw in your bacon. Scramble six or eight eggs without milk. Pour that on. Toss in a handful of shredded cheese. Top with another sheet of puff pastry. Seal your edges, cut vents, egg wash. Bake at 375 for 35 or 40 minutes. Rest it for a few, then slice and enjoy.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled snark. Suggestions for this list for next time?

Crimes of the heart - or gullet

I've been kiting candy out of my kids' Easter baskets for nearly a week now. Mind you, I have a basket of my own, but it was filled with candy I don't actually like. Somehow my mother has decided that Jordan almonds are my absolute favoritest, and so she gives them to me at every opportunity. Needless to say, I have a Jordan almond surplus over here. Y'know, one or two or even a handful are sorta good in a bland way every once in a while, but I have three 1/4 lb containers of these now, and I don't know what to do with them. Also, there was a plethora of fancy candy in my basket - liqueur flavored chocolates and the like - that in abundance leads to indifference. My top ten list of Easter candies (yes, it's that long. shut. up.) were sorely underrepresented. So I've been snitching.

My number ones, Cadbury Minieggs, I was smart enough to buy a huge (try two pounds!) bag of, and dumb enough to misplace in my kitchen ten minutes after I put four eggs each in the kiddos' baskets. So I have eaten six of the eight of those available within the first couple days, but I feel okay doing it, since I plan on replacing those as soon as I find the bag.

My number twos, Peeps, I have not been able to steal successfully. I limit us to to a single box per year, and there are only ten Peeps in a box. Stupidly, I forgot to parcel these out evenly, and so we opened the box and split it all at once. Now, I don't hold with any of that stupid Peeps-at-any-time-of-the-year-'ceptin'-Easter nonsense. If the sugar crusted marshmallow perfections are ANY shape except a chick, and ANY color except yellow, well, then, they are obviously evil and deserving of destruction. Not the kind involving your mouth, either. So my measly two chicks did not last the night, And the children, who are wily in their own way, hid their portion from me before I could find the stale crispy marshmallow glory.

My number threes, pastel wrapped Hershey's kisses, sadly did not make the candy cut this year. If you could buy these in little packages of twenty or so, it would be perfect, because who needs more than twenty kisses (of the Hershey's variety)? But the remaining 3,489,583 kisses in the bag go stale before you can pawn them off on anyone, and then there's the guilt about wasted kisses.

Number fours, jellybeans, I've been guzzling by the handful. At several points in my life, these have been my version of crack. I used to pull all-nighters in college fueled entirely on jellybeans and Diet Coke. I once got a box of them bigger than my head for a Christmas present. I still love them, and they would be higher on my list, but frankly, anymore you can buy jellybeans any time of the year and the candies higher up are seasonal specialties. Luckily for everyone involved, jellybeans spawn as along as they are left in Easter grass, so no one will notice or lament this particular larceny.

Five on the list, Cadbury's Creme Eggs, are there mostly for nostalgia's sake. My sister once brought me three of these concealed in her school bag the year that we were living with her father while my mom was in training while in the Army. He was a weird survivalist religious fanatic who had bizarre rules governing food, and he thought candy was evil. It was the only year in my more than three decades on earth that I have not had a Halloween costume, for example. And we were not allowed to eat meat (which we ate every single night, no exceptions) less than well done. Anyhow, my sister, who was in high school and had a boyfriend with a car, showed how much she loved me by checking out books from the town library in Madison and bringing the occasional clandestine chocolate from the grocery, a 1/2 mile down the drive, past the railroad tracks, over Rollercoaster Hill, through the poor side of town, past Cherry Lake and its resident alligators, right next door to the hair salon.


There are more candies I love, but I will stop enumerating them here. Talking about them all makes me feel sad that soon we will be down to the dregs of the baskets, all grass covered, squished lime flavored jellybeans and the just plain wrong "Bunny Corn" (again, this is OUT OF SEASON. Candy Corn belongs to Halloween, thank you. I don't see me forcing ribbon candy on you at Flag Day, so BACK OFF) in all it's insipid aqua and pale pink glory.

Third time's the charm

Three things I ate on my recent trip to Seattle:

- Muenster cheese, organic baguette, almost overripe but actually perfect pear from Ralph's Grocery, the gourmet grocery store across the street from our hotel

- A handful of peanut M&M's from a vending machine in the hallway of the movie theater, because you can't buy a package of them at the concession stand, while you are purchasing your medium (also known as the bucket large enough to soak your head) soda

- A trio of creme brulee: cappuccino, butterscotch, and zablagione, washed down by a shot of Amaretto DiSaronno and an espresso doppio con panna.


Three movies I have seen this week:

- Juno
My biggest beef with Juno was not the dismissive way it treated reproductive health care providers or the apparent ease with which the title character dismisses abortion as an option, but instead... the music. Juno goes on at length about her old-school punk sensibilities, and Jason Bateman's character, whose name I can't recall, loves the early 90's grunge, but the soundtrack is nothing but twee indie pop. I mean, damn. The girly tosses out names like Mott the Hoople, Iggy and the Stooges, and the Velvet Underground, and they trip convincingly off her tongue, but while they show up on the soundtrack, in the movie itself, they play as background music. The Velvets do show up singing "I'm Sticking With You" in a pivotal moment, but anything cutting ended up (sorry, I have to) on the cutting room floor.

- Sweeney Todd

It was bloody. Very, very bloody. Also, Johnny Depp listened to a little much glitter rock in his formative years, and Tim Burton needs to make a different movie, for God's sake. Not the same movie with different sets and children, a different movie, please. No more strange, misunderstood outsider. No more longing beautiful woman willing to overlook his faults. No more shredded velvet and puffy shirts and weskits. Enough.

- The Darjeeling Limited

Luggage as baggage. Subtle.

There were a few rough editing cuts in the beginning that I know were intentional, but which felt to me like poor filmmaking. Wes, please read my note to Time Burton above. Except please replace puffy shirts and weskits with bespoke suits too short in the inseam and quirk.

Three items of clothing in my closet I am anxious to wear when the weather returns to normal:

- The new red dress I bought in Seattle, which has a vibe that is a little forties (square neckline, cap sleeves, A line skirt) and a little mod (oversize black buttons arranged double breasted, a wife black belt).

- The cherry print camisole with red buttons I bought at Anthropologie last summer.

- My cowboy boots. Any of them.

A little window into Stella's psyche.

Yes, yes. I her you thinking to yourself, isn't every single post a window into her twisted and yet somehow not terribly compelling inner workings? Ahh, but this one is about FOOD.

Okay, gather your ingredients: 1/4 yellow or white onion, 2 TBS butter, a littleish steak - cheap is good, you're gonna slice it into bits, a hoagy roll, some cheese if you want, minced garlic or in a pinch, garlic powder, salt, black pepper, and - this is really important - a bottle of au jus concentrate. No scoffing. Also, if you want to add a token 1/2 a green pepper, I won't stop you. Same goes for a dash or two of Tabasco.

Firstly, make sure your knife is sharp. Then use your sharp knife to slice the onions and the steak very thin. Cut the steak against the grain, it'll be tenderer. Throw half your butter in a hot skillet, let it melt, and then toss in your onions and steak. Meanwhile, put a sweet potato in the microwave to nuke. A small one will be done in about 5 or 6 minutes. Okay, back to your mess in the pan. When your meat is well-done, add your seasonings: s&p to taste, a clove's worth of garlic, and a tablespoon of the au jus concentrate. Stir constantly for another minute or two, then take out of your pan. Deglaze said pan with 2 TBS of au jus concentrate and 1/4 hot water (just out of the tap. No whining) until it simmers. Pour it off into a conveniently located decorative dish, or a custard cup, which is what I prefer. Put your skillet back on the heat. While it warms up, butter your hoagy roll with 1/2 TBS butter on each side. Yeah, you read that right. Sprinkle it with garlic powder if you have some laying around, but if not, no big deal. Now put those butter side down in your pan. Toast them until the buttery part is crispy. Okay, then bottom of the roll, a slice of swiss cheese, your onions and steak (and peppers if you weren't too lazy, like I was), top of the roll. Squish liberally. Put your custard cup of au jus next to your sandwich, cut into your sweet potato and dot liberally with butter and sprinkle with salt (or brown sugar if you're daring). Think about a salad. Decide against it. Pour a gigantic glass of Cabernet that you've had sitting around for a few weeks, actually about a glass and three quarter's worth, but who wants to go back for a refill? Alternate dipping your sandwich, sipping your wine, which is okay for sitting so long, and taking tiny bites of caramelly sweet potato. Make a big mess splashing au jus around. Roll your eyes at the debris in the kitchen. Lament the lack of pudding in your house.

This is best consumed while listening to Elvis Costello.

In which our heroine consumes delicacies and muses on many tangential thoughts.

So I was thinking of all the stuff I wanted to say with this post. I was basically going to whine about what amounts to nothing but whining, and I was going to explain about going to the store for chocolate milk and potato chips, and realizing that I was too hungry for that, and buying a bunch of stuff I'm too tired to cook, and then wishing I had a GBF (gay best friend or gay boyfriend) to surprise me by swinging by my house with some wonton soup and a bunch of rom-coms we both swear to hate but really secretly love, and then thinking about how much I love dim sum and other assorted weird things, and then realizing that I already wrote that post and had to conjure up something else to write about, which led to me thinking about how I am for all intents and purposes white, even though I have a healthy portion of SO NOT A WHITE CHICK running through my veins and then I got on a little kick about how people always assume wherever I live that I am a member of the closest ethnic group of dark-haired, brown-skinned people, and how once for fun on a bus in Denver when a pimply Aryan type called me a greaser, I shouted, "I'm Cuban, asshole!" even though I'm not, and how not funny my friend thought it was. Oh yeah, and I was thinking that I really want to go to that great newsstand in Pikes Place Market and buy a copy of French Vogue and read it in the patisserie while eating apricot-filled croissants. But that of course is just a normal, unremarkable desire for me.

The comestibles this evening are: baked tofu basted with hoisin sauce and five spice powder, steamed vegetables, and rice, accompanied by lumpia I bought for Christmas dinner and never cooked. Don't worry, they were frozen. Oh, and instead of chocolate milk, Cherry Coke because why the hell not? It's Friday!

By the way, anyone interested in another round of mixtape? PLEASE? I promise it won't be about stupid boys this time.