Electric Avenue

Hold still!
No, get up!
Wait!

First of all, make your grocery list.
Write down these things:
bottle of vodka
arugula
agave nectar
one lemon

Now go to the grocery store.

Buy the things on your list.

Return home.

Quick! Get out some tools!
+something to muddle with (perhaps a wooden pestle?)
+something to muddle in (perhaps a small bowl?)
+a cocktail shaker
+a glass to drink out of
+a very fine mesh sieve

The time has now come. You're going to make an epic new cocktail. It's going to freak you out and make you confused and happy and amazed.

I encountered the recipe for a similar drink in the new issue of Bon Appetit. In the magazine, it's called the Roquette, named for the French word for arugula. Across the pond in the UK (and also in some other fancy places like Australia, I believe), arugula is called rocket, which is obviously a much cooler name for it. The recipe calls for Hendrick's Gin, lime juice, and dark agave nectar. I was plumb out of Hendrick's (or so I thought -- it was actually hiding behind the bread-and-nuts mountain on my counter), so I opted for vodka. I had a very moldy lime available, but I did have a lemon, which seemed more appealing. I had light, not dark, agave. But, the important part is that I had arugula, which is how this drink gets its shockingly electric green color. So I made do, and it was nothing short of a miracle.

But let's cut to the chase, shall we? You're thirsty!

Make this thing:

The Altered Roquette
Muddle:
+the juice of a wedge of lemon and
+a handful of washed arugula
for about a minute. Bash it a lot! You'll end up with greenish juice and arugula veins.

Into a shaker:
+ice
+the arugula mess
+vodka (Be generous! You're worth it!)
+agave nectar to taste (start with about a tablespoon)

Shake it up. Strain through a very fine mesh sieve so that all of the funky bits stay out of the drink. Purity! We're going for purity!

Your drink should be a little sweet from the agave, a little peppery from the arugula, and you should just barely taste the lemon. The arugula will be the star in this drink. You honestly might not even taste the liquor very much. It will taste like a garden in the best possible way.

Your drink will be startlingly bright green. You will think somebody sneaked in some green dye, but they didn't. You will think the Incredible Hulk melted in your cup, but no! It's just the byproduct of your own brilliance. And to think that you never imagined liquor and vegetables in the same place (deliciously). And that, I think, deserves a toast. You know, to your health.

Chin chin!

Saturday Came Back

Miracle of miracles, what could be better than a real Saturday? By real, I mean getting the magical phone call from Mr. Peoples Gas Company (jarring, since it was at the crack of dawn, but fantastic nevertheless), having the gas actually turned back on (no more Little House on the Prairie!), having Matthew here (and not at work! Say what?), and, as a return-to-Saturday-life breakfast celebration, having waffles. You know, the most Saturday-y thing to eat. Waffles. Better than pancakes, better than french toast! Holes to catch bits of things! A funny-looking machine to use! And, best of all, seriously easy to make.

The waffle iron that we used to have was made, I think, in 1502. It looked something like this:

No, I'm not kidding. Was it charming? Ah, yes. Practical? Not so much. It was in my family for years, and I remember when I was a kid and my grandfather, the ever-crafty and handy one, reconfigured it with a new electrical cord to replace what had become a dangerous-looking, sort-of-shredded cord. Suddenly, good as new! Magic. He was the kind of guy who could fix or build anything, the kind of guy you really want to have around, and the kind of guy you would really want to have for a neighbor (or as a relative -- lucky me!). We used this waffle iron while I was growing up, and I'm sure it made many outstanding waffles in its heyday. Although, in the end of its life, things weren't so pretty. It wasn't such a handy machine when it came to live with its auntie in the big city. Revolt? Rebellion? Antiquity? Pain and confusion about still having to make waffles when it was 80, 90 years old? I'm not sure. All I know is, this waffle iron nearly killed us both.

Matthew's expression when he first saw the waffle iron was priceless.
Questions were as follows:
+Wait, so what is that?
+We own that?
+So, it's like, a decoration?
+We're going to use it?
+Are you sure?
+Are you sure it still works?
+Aren't you nervous about using this thing?
+Are you sure it's, um, safe?

I'm sure I replied with something flippant, like "Duh, it obviously still works! Why else would I have it?"And then we used it. It took a long time to heat up that first time. Like, maybe an hour. Then, when it was hot, it did do a pretty good job making the waffles, but we were ready for lunch by then and not quite as interested anymore.

The second time we used it, it heated up faster, but burned the hell out of the waffles after the batter had been inside for 6 seconds. Smoke. Charbroiled waffles. A rather funny breakfast.

The third time (why did we let there be a third time, anyway?), the whole apparatus smoked an unnatural amount, creating a cloud of vicious smoke in the kitchen, and sparks flew out of the cord and landed on a towel, where they had a mini-fire and I had a panic attack. After all that, the batter wasn't even cooked. Following that episode, I asked my mother for permission to stop owning the waffle iron. She granted it. We were waffle-iron-free! Matthew had been right. As usual. He's so smart! It should have been a decoration. Or, better yet, it should have been a permanent visitor to an antique store. One day I will start listening to him, I swear.

After all this drama, Matthew got me a brand new, 21st century waffle iron that has been useful and not dangerous. We've used it 4 or 5 times so far, and no one has been injured. I see it in the cabinet and groan because it takes up so much space, and it's a royal pain to clean, but I still love it, and it makes me happy. Pour the batter in, wait for an undetermined amount of time, and, eventually, you have a waffle! Our waffle iron is a little basic -- as in, when you plug it in, that's what turns it on. It has a red light and a green light that both light up when this happens, and both lights stay on the whole time it's plugged in. Clearly they are just decorative (it's a Christmas toy!), although I imagine someone at the factory wanted them to actually have a function, and it just didn't quite work out.

The waffle iron does its job though, and, really, when you are itchin' for a waffle, you don't care how much space the contraption has been taking up in your kitchen. The waffles I made yesterday were of the peanut butter persuasion, which may make you nervous, but you should not be! The peanut butter flavor just comes through really gently and not obnoxiously -- and you could use almond butter, or sunflower butter, or any of those other wacky alternative-butters; I've found that the recipe works just as well and just as deliciously with many of them. The pecans are just because I have a fondness for such things. In waffles, they always remind me of the pecan waffles at Waffle House, which is a very happy sort of thing. You should push this recipe around a bit, and try some different things. The core of the recipe is a terrific base for any sort of add-ins, so you can have any kind of waffle adventure that you can dream of.

Easy, Dreamy Peanut Butter Pecan Waffles

2 1/4 C flour (all-purpose or whole wheat, or a combo!)
4 t baking powder
1/2 C peanut butter
1 1/2 T sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/4 C milk (I used 2%, but any kind will work)
1/4 C vegetable oil
1/4 t kosher salt
2/3 to 1 C chopped pecans (use as many as you like, or leave them out if you don't roll like that!)
cooking spray or melted butter

Combine first 8 ingredients, whisking well to combine peanut butter completely with everything else. Stir in pecans. Preheat waffle iron and when it is hot, spray with cooking spray or brush with butter. Spoon batter into waffle iron and cook each one until golden brown. Serve hot with butter and syrup (and bananas!).

$4.50 Well Spent

Plum Dinner

In keeping with my recent theme, which is clearly called annoying disasters in the kitchen that make me a little cranky, I will tell you a new tale, which is about being cut off from all cookingness (and general life needs) due to this: my gas seems to have been shut off for no apparent reason. Which means that, on Wednesday evening, before I actually knew that all my gas had gone missing, I stood at the stove for a half an hour, cursing every last stove bit, trying to light the burners (which M. calls eyes, which is utterly adorable, yet beyond the point of this story because as you recall, I am MAD). After eighteen thousand failed attempts, and after setting myself on fire fourteen times, I decided to give up. Really, who needs to actually use a stove, for pete's sake? Who needs to cook?! Not me! I've got better things to do, I decided. Like eat plums for dinner.

In the next scene, I am discovering that my dryer full of wet clothes is not actually getting dry. Moving them around, yes. Making them dry? Not so much. So then it was decided: the gas had probably been shut off. (Seriously, how long does it take me to give in? Um, a very long time.) Next scene, I am discovering that the "hot" water coming out of the faucet isn't really all that hot. I tried to pretend it was hot for about two minutes, and then I succumbed and called Peoples Gas, which is the most terrible excuse for a business operation, ever. EVER. To sum it up, I contacted what's called the "emergency hotline for all your gas needs and services," only to be told that they could come out "probably sometime in the next 48 hours, between the hours of 6 am and 10 pm." Yep, that's right, folks, 48 hours. No rush, guys, really. Who needs warmth, anyway? Who needs clean things or cooked food? Nobody, that's who! Warmth is for losers! I decided at that point that I was clearly never going to cook again. Or have a shower. Or have clean clothes. It's a pirate's life for me. I'm ready.

What planet are we on, anyway? Why would we be at home for 48 hours straight during the week? Argh. Needless to say, I turned down the service offer due to, you know, having a life, and, several cold showers later, I called them back this evening to start the prison sentence. So, here I am in prison. Cooking prison. The thing is, I like fruit, and I like cereal, and I like toast and salads and salami and cheese. They are, however, only a good thing to have for dinner when you are rebelling against the stove. When you don't have the option of cooking, it is, of course, all you want to do. It is quite funny the things that I've dreamed of making since Wednesday night -- things that I rarely want to make in real life -- flan! madeleines! duck! crackers! tempura squash blossoms! Yet, alas. I am destined to be resourceful and clever for at least awhile, and I will look at lots of pictures of cooked foods and pretend that I just made them. I will do this, and I will wait patiently and pretend that I hate to cook and pretend that there is not an entire bushel of peaches in my refrigerator waiting to be made into jam. It's cool. Really, Peoples Gas, it's cool. I don't need you! I love my plum dinner and I love it here in cooking prison. So there!

The Accident

Sometimes, you know, you're really tired at breakfast time, and you've just made toast in a hazy blur, and you've put the peanut butter on your toast, and you're pretty excited because you're actually eating breakfast, which you've heard is a very smart thing to do, and you know just what will make your peanut butter perfect, so you open your spice cabinet to find the cinnamon-sugar, and you go for the container that is the exact same shape as the cinnamon-sugar container, and the exact same size as the cinnamon-sugar container, but it's not the cinnamon-sugar.

It's cayenne pepper. Which you discover after it has landed on the peanut butter. You try to be hopeful. You think, maybe this is the best new discovery ever, and it'll taste so good and I'll end up eating it every single day and I'll mourn the days before I knew about cayenne and peanut butter toast. It could be like peanut sauce! It's like Thai-style toast! It's epic! Revolutionary! The best snack in the universe! You'll be a toast-flavors billionaire!

But as it turns out, it's not so good. It makes your toast taste awful and strange. It does, in fact, taste like hell, which makes you sadly slide it from your plate into the trash and then you feel really guilty, and you stare at it, and it reclines there morbidly in the garbage can, sending you an evil glare. You feel like you want some normal toast. You feel like you want someone to make it for you, for crying out loud. This is exhausting, this whole breakfast thing. It's no wonder you don't usually eat breakfast. And, well, mainly you just feel like a bit of a moron.

Oh, you love mornings! Really! You do!

Dragon Slayer

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a dragonfruit was discovered at the Golden Pacific Asian Market on North Broadway Street in Chicago (you know, home of Just As Fresh One noodles). It was one of five dragonfruits, nestled in a box, all of which had traveled many miles in order to land in this spot, on this shelf, in this market, in Chicago, a quadrillion-billion miles from the nearest dragonfruit tree. It was a miracle!

I was excited about this miracle because it would not only be my first dragonfruit, it would be a snack, an experiment, and a small but mighty culinary adventure. Onward, I said! (Not really. But we'll say I said this. It makes me out to be more of a knight.)

So, cut to dragonfruit living on my kitchen counter for a week. Maybe, um, two. Now, in my defense, this dragonfruit was not yet ripe when I checked it the first five times. (I am nearly certain that there is no fruit on earth that is intended to be consumed when it is the consistency of a brick -- except, uh, coconut.) In the dragonfruit's defense, this dragonfruit was easily ripe after the first seven days of living in my house. I watched it get less and less pink, less and less fancy. I wasn't ready yet! I didn't know what to do with it! I was nervous, for crying out loud! I worried. I shrugged and pretended I didn't see it sitting there, bemoaning its sad, uneaten life. Give me a peach, or a mango, or a fig, or even a kumquat, and I can pretty much find a way to consume it before it shrivels up completely. Agh, dragonfruit. Help!

Next, please cut to me traveling with the dragonfruit to Michigan, where it continued to sit on a counter top, looking sad and pitiful there as well. Then, finally, one day I had had enough. I went at it. I took that dragon by its scrawny neck! I peeled off its leathery skin! I attacked it! My dad took the sword, I mean, knife, to it! We poked it and prodded it, cut it into bits! I...discovered that it is very pretty on the inside. I discovered that it is not all that delicious when it has traveled so far and had a lengthy vacation on two kitchen counters while I thought about what to do with it. Seriously, think of something that tastes like wet paper -- like, oh, say, mushy wet paper. I read later that dragonfruit is "so delicious because it's so crunchy." Oops. I think I missed my window, or rather the whole, entire, confusing dragonfruit boat. Ah, slaying. Always more educational than one expects.

Stop Being So Cute