Fresh and easy

I’m feeling so lazy that I’m not going to prepare my lunch for tomorrow – I’m just going to buy a frozen cat burrito at the 7-11.

No, I’m not so lazy that I just picked this up from cuteoverload.com … I think it’s from metafilter. I think I’ll even have a nice chocolate finger for dessert.

Six point extra sharp

Those of you reading this with a “Los Angeles has no culture” prejudice (I believe you are called “haters”) may want to sit down before viewing the following photo I took this past weekend:

It’s a deer head made from 100 grilled cheese sandwiches, created for the First Seventh Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational. And you know, the only thing with more culture than 100 grilled cheese sandwiches is 101 grilled cheese sandwiches. This delightful creature’s antlers were made from pizza dough, it was covered in an extra fine cheddar/American blend, and its eyeballs were carved out Babybel cheeses fitted with something that I don’t remember hearing about because I think I blacked out a little when they unveiled it. I was actually able to sample and vote on some competition sandwiches this year, so I really feel like I’m making some inroads in my quest to be respected as a culture maven. Los Angeles is an excellent city.

Fancy notions, stupid ideas

Do you ever get stupid ideas? Stupid ideas like, “Maybe I should move to Japan. They have a cooking show hosted by a poodle named Francis”?

I get stupid ideas like that.

Better than Slugworth’s

I recently learned that Roald Dahl’s widow compiled a couple of recipe books based on cuisine found in his children’s books like James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolote Factory. It took some doing for me to get more than a cursory look at the book online, but I finally found a website that was willing to face the wrath of the Puffin Books copyright police. (Note to copyright police who might take issue with me reprinting the excerpt I found online – reprinting excerpts of the book for review or editorial purposes is fair use. Just saying. I know this because I am a copyright policewoman myself).

Unlike Google Books, this blog I found was good enough to reprint a couple of the recipes found in the book. At first I was bitterly disappointed when I saw that the hot frog recipe contained no frogs, but then it started getting better.  The Hansel & Gretel spare ribs recipe called for a vague “American style spare ribs,” which to my mind left the door open for what kind of ribs could be used. The ribs of a couple of children immediately came to mind, though they are Australian rather than American.

Anyway, then we got to the Wonka recipes.  While I didn’t find instructions for candy balloons, it appears that what they did include in the book they got absolutely right:

Hair Toffee to Make Hair Grow on Bald Men

1/4 cup    unsalted butter    50 mL
1 cup    white sugar    250 mL
1 tbsp    warm water    15 mL
1 tbsp    white wine vinegar    15 mL
2 tbsp    golden syrup    25 mL
1/2 cup    egg vermicelli (broken in half and cooked)    125 mL

Melt the butter in a large, heavy bottomed pan, stir in the sugar and remove the pan from heat. Add the water, vinegar and syrup and stir over a low heat until the sugar dissolves. DO NOT allow the mixture to boil. Add the egg vermicelli. Place the sugar thermometer into the pan. Now bring the mixture to boiling point and boil steadily for approximately 15 to 20 minutes until the thermometer reads 300°F (150° C). Pour the toffee into the greased tin and allow to cool. As soon as it is cool enough to handle, lightly grease your hands with butter. Take two forks and scrape up a few strands of vermicelli. Then using your hands, roll the toffee into a small bite size mound. Repeat. Place on greased try and allow to set. Wrap and twist individually in greaseproof paper, kitchen foil or, better still, cellophane, to prevent them from becoming sticky.

Now, I’m not lacking in the hair department, but this does sound like it would be delicious with some hot ice cream and a nice tall butterscotch & soda.

Photo by Hugh Candyside on Flickr

Can we get an instant replay?

Rats. I should have looked on the website neatorama yesterday while preparing for the Superbowl. Contributor Miss Cellania posted not one but two food tips for the big game, and while we had a good time with plenty of beer and birthday cake and Rotel dip and parsley for the rabbit, I wish I could have added to the festivities with a football stadium made out of snack food (originally found on holytaco.com):

I seem to recall doing a similar thing for Thanksgiving one year, but in the form of a bunch of pilgrims and indians rather than a stadium, but maybe this was just a fever dream from long ago. I’m also opposed to the use of Twinkies here, as this is a savory stadium and additionally I find Twinkies to be pretty foul, but all in all this is a good presentation.

The other direction I could have gone was making snacks a la molecular gastronomy. Pizza pebbles, beer ice cream, bleu cheese whiz, and foods infused with hickory smoke with the help of a bong. This is some science I can get behind.

So next year, I’m going to have to remember to do my snacking homework ahead of time so I’m better prepared.  Either that or go with my original idea of doing a Puppy Bowl sort of thing but with bunnies and an all-clover field. No ball; whoever eats the opponent’s side of the field first wins. Maybe I’ll still be hungry, but the rabbits will be satisfied.

Mon petit chou

Madam JujuJive over at The Everlasting Blort has found a wonderful new dressmaker in artist Nicole Dextras. Nicole is making some very lovely clothing out of plant material, and because she’s an artist she has this whole artist statement about it:

“Weedrobes is a series of ephemeral sculptures linking our dysfunctional relationship to both our bodies and the environment. It points the concept of environmental art into the realm of the body as politic and the hegemony of the fashion industry.”

Blah blah blah; I hate artist statements. Anyway, her pieces are gorgeous. The camellia dress is probably the most ornate, but because I’ve been sick I’m finding myself drawn to the cabbage smock:

If I had this dress right now, I’d wear it into the hot tub and take a nice, long soak. Lunch is served.

Just the thing for a cold winter’s day

Times are tough. Times are tough. Times are tough. I get it. Thankfully, The Wall Street Journal is here to help with some recipes. Here’s just one:

Rat Stir Sauteed with Spring Onion and Herbs

Ingredients:
2 cups fragrant khotweed
Several spring onions
Quarter cup of fish sauce
Two cleaned and gutted rats, chopped into chunks
Half cup of vegetable oil
Fresh basil

• Mix the rat chunks in a bowl with fragrant khotweed and spring onions. Add the fish sauce. Let stand for 10 minutes to allow the flavors to sink into the rat meat.
• Then, gently heat the vegetable oil over low heat and add the mixture, slowly stirring. Cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Serve with steamed rice or rice noodles. Garnish with fresh basil.

Also, a tip from the accompanying story: “For connoisseurs of rat meat, slightly chubby rats are the most sought after.” That seems fairly obvious. But what is khotweed? There is something off-putting about that name. Fragrant khotweed. I think I’ll pass.

Quick, delicious, random

Oh crap. You somehow got stuck in the Thyme Cube while planning your Thanksgiving dinner menu, and you forgot all about shopping for food. It’s really down to the wire now. What are you going to do?

The traditional popcorn/pretzels/jelly beans/toast/whipped cream feast is too elaborate to pull together in such a short amount of time, and nobody was fooled by the papercraft turkey last year. Crap crap crap.

Okay, let’s pull it together. Maybe the Random Recipe Generator can help:

Chocolate Tart

Serves 1

You will need:

• 1 lamb chops
• 10g chocolate
• 50ml tabasco sauce

Instructions:

1. slice the chocolate
2. grind the chocolate
3. throw the chocolate away
4. microwave the tabasco sauce
5. rinse the lamb chops
6. serve piping hot

Yum.

Once again, the Random Recipe Generator has saved your ass.

That’s a potato

Yesterday, Martha Stewart had Snoop Dogg on her show to make cognac mashed potatoes. Now, I know a lot of you may hate Martha Stewart because you may think she’s a snob or an overachiever or a condescending bitch or something, but I beg you to rethink your opinion of her. Come on. She frequently has Amy Sedaris on the program discussing bong water, she drinks in the morning, and now she has the Snoopy Dog making mashed potatoes.

Yeah, yeah; I know she said stuff to him like, “Can you spell?” and “You dance all the time,” but look – she’s an ex-con. When you’re in the Big House, dissing people like that is a survival tool. She meant no harm. She may have blanched a little when Snoop made reference to her felony record in his vocabulary lesson: “Ball til ya fall!” (meaning, of course, to make as much money by any means necessary), but she didn’t hurt him or anything. And she could have; there was clearly at least one shank sitting right there on the table.

Of course, I’m a little torn as to who would make the better mashed potatoes if left to his/her own devices. True, Snoop seemed to be leaning toward Parkay rather than real butter, but he also had a desire to mash the potatoes by hand and to leave the peels on, which Martha put the kibosh on. So, I don’t know. Judge for yourself:

Flowers from shit

I was pretty excited when I started perusing the archives for the now-defunct blog Cooking For Losers this morning. It was a community blog, so the recipes ran the gamut. You had something like:

take a whole wheat tortilla. spread half with plain cream cheese and the other half with hummus. drop some cucumber and yellow bell pepper in it.
fold in half. cut in two.
do that all over again.
pack in a ziploc thingy.
add orange, granola bar, and yogurt to the lunchbox.
top with ice packs and close

forget lunchbox at home.

and then the next entry was:

Drink very dark beer and eat Whoppers™ or some other quality malted milk ball product.

There were a lot of recipes for stoned people:

smoke bowl
open bag of sterzing’s potato chips
open jar of applesauce
dip chips in applesauce

do not attempt this recipe with any other brand of potato chips. this is very important.

but also for overwhelmed parents:

2 packets Lipton Cheddar Broccoli Rice for Losers
1 packet hot dogs

Put the amount of water it says on the packets in a pot. Realize the packet calls for butter, which you do not have due to a tragic Act of SevenYearOld. Realize the measuring spoons are dirty and there’s no hot water, due to hosing off the SevenYearOld after the butter incident. Add a random splash of oil and call it good enough. Cut the hot dogs into the oily watery faux-cheesy rice crap, put a lid over it and run to haul the kid away from where he’s attempting to pull one of the hard drives out of the computer. Pull the cheesy broccoli rice hot dog casserole off the stove when you start to smell burning. Tend to where you burned yourself trying to keep the child from thrusting his hand into lava hot casserole. Feed the child and count the minutes until the little snot will fall asleep so that you can ferret through your kitchen to see if you have anything alcoholic on the shelves. Think that people who hate children might have a point.

Even the asshole at work who eats other people’s lunches made a contribution:

Dinner at the office
Must be between 9pm and 11pm
20 sugar packets
1 cup of terrible office coffee
15 mints from the secretary’s jar down the hall who went home 4 hours ago and will never find out
Miscellaneous foods left in office refrigerator.

Drink terrible (but free!) office coffee quickly. Eat sugar packets to erase the taste. Eat mints, 5 at a time, until nausea sets in. Then peruse the office fridge for food items that have been left and eat everything you can find. Laugh heartily.

But then I noticed that an awful lot of the recipes required planning and effort. Skill. Sauteeing. Overnight marinating. Homemade enchilada sauce. The recipe for Beef Strokin’ Off involved mincing fresh garlic. The unemployed person with a recipe woke up at 7:45 am. The instructions for making fish sticks while doing laundry showed a proper level of loserness when it explained that the tartar sauce in your fridge was years beyond its expiration date, but it suggested that you add dill weed to mayonnaise as a substitute sauce instead of just using mayonnaise. And really, if these people were true losers, they would not have real mayonnaise in the first place; they would be using Miracle Whip. These people weren’t losers; they were fancy.

Some weeks I can’t be bothered to go to the store or wash the dishes so every meal is just something spread on a tortilla and wrapped up. Hummus. Cream cheese. Peanut butter. Regular butter. No heating up, no adding spices; just wrap it up and go. So if these people really were losers like they said, what am I?

But then, I remembered: their website has been dead since January 2005, except for the ad for hoodia that was added in 2007. Permanent links to their individual posts don’t even work any more. I am still here and they are dead. Ha ha. Losers.

Photo by amy b on Flickr