Just A Suggestion

Hug It Out

Ice (On the Rocks)

Gas Station Snack

What on earth have we been doing without each other for ten whole days? It's not even right, my leaving you all alone. Will it make you feel better if I show you this? I found it in my travels across the Midwest. You do like Oreos, right?

It's Rotten Old

Happy Anniversary, dear little blog! And hello to you, dear reader. Thank you for sticking around while this whole year happened. I suppose there's no reason to wax poetic about it, though. Let's get down to business, for crying out loud!

"Business," as it were, will consist of a conversation that I heard today between a boy and his mother, the boy being perhaps seven and the mother being, well, his mother. It was in a coffee shop and it was both funny and awkward. I wasn't eavesdropping, I swear. Their table was two inches away from mine. Okay, three. Or four. But really. It was close. (I also had the cupcake gelato, and it was actually very good and not as weird as it sounds. My decaf espresso tasted like burnt marshmallows -- in the best possible way.)

Mother: How was school today?
Boy: (eating gelato as fast as he can) Um.
Mother: Well, what did you do?
Boy: (still eating) Um?
Mother: Who did you play with?
Boy: (swallowing) Shannon.
Mother: Oh! How nice. What did you play?
Boy: (intensely peering into cup) Um, I don't know.
Mother: What else happened?
Boy: Math.
Mother: Do you have homework? Is there anything in your bag?
Boy: (still eating) I don't know.
Mother: Your bag is light! That means there isn't anything inside!
Boy: (watching cartoons on a muted TV that is mounted on the wall) Okay.
Mother: This is our special date and you're watching TV. And it doesn't even have sound!
Boy: (scraping cup with tiny spoon) Mm hmm.
Mother: Look at me! Say something!
Boy: I used my ticket at lunch.
Mother: Did you run out of money on your lunch card again?
Boy: I think. I gave it to the person and then they gave it back to me.
Mother: What did you have for lunch?
Boy: Breadsticks.
Mother: Oh! Did they have cheese?
Boy: No.
Mother: What else did you have?
Boy: Yogurt.
Mother: Oh! Did you like it?
Boy: I didn't eat it.
Mother: Why not?
Boy: I never like yogurt, not ever.
Mother: What do you like?
Boy: Breadsticks! Cheese! Nachos!
Mother: And cupcake-flavored gelato.
Boy: (still scraping cup) Not really.
Mother: Oh.
Boy: Do you see that robot?
Mother: (glancing hurriedly and frustratedly at the TV) I guess.
Boy: Why is it chasing that guy?
Mother: I don't know. Should we go?
Boy: No. Can we watch TV?
Mother: I think let's go. Do you want dinner?
Boy: Oh! Dinner? I like dinner!

And that was that.

Happy new blog-year, everyone. I'll see you (in our special, non-live way) very soon.

It's Over Between Us

The Bread Thrower

I was camera-less when I first saw this beach bread yesterday, so I went back today to document it. So much bread! An explosion from the bread factory! Honestly, it's quite a lot of bread. Over and over,  I have envisioned the breadkeeper emptying out several giant brown paper bags full of these rolls, thinking the seagulls will be all over this shit! Well, sorry, breadkeeper. The seagulls are not really into your bread offering. They've eaten none of it. And seagulls, well, they'll typically eat anything! Sure, they've walked around it a great deal, but they haven't consumed any of it. Maybe because it's, um, frozen? 

I Hate Kale Juice

Kale juice, I wanted to love you. I wanted us to love each other. I thought we would be happy together. The problem is that I absolutely, positively do not like you, even though you are the prettiest juice I ever laid my eyes on. When you are in your regular kale-ish role, I like you. I have eaten you raw and cooked and I feel good about your qualities. You can be so good. But I have to give it to you straight, kale. Your juice tastes like terrible, horrible poison. No, really, I think it was the most disgusting thing I have ever consumed in my entire life. I'm not exaggerating. It tasted like turpentine combined with all of the most miserable flavors that any one human can think of. One whole leafy bunch of goodness, gone. These, my friends, are the woes of juicing.

Not to worry, though! My failures are making me stronger. 

Ring of Fire

It's dinner time!
Rice? Check.
Vegetables? Check.
Sriracha? Um, check.

Introducing:

Let the freshness begin!

I have just received in the mail my brand new juicer, which is also often known by its more robotic name, Juice Extractor. I'm pretty sure that I've wanted a juicer all my life, so I'm not sure why I just got around to it. Oh, wait, I know! They're messy, hard to clean, too gigantic to store anywhere, and grossly expensive. That's why. So, you may ask, what came over me? 

Well, I've done a great deal of research and I found a very reasonably priced machine that isn't too huge and, honestly, not as big of a pain as I thought it might be. After using this item 1 (um, that's one) time, I highly recommend it! I think I just had juice for dinner, in fact. It's a miracle. I have just consumed three carrots, one pear, two apples, one beet, and a hunk of ginger in less time than it takes to peel one of those carrots. I also feel like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, what with that list and all. But, most importantly, I feel as though I have saved myself a great deal of time. Not to mention the extreme health sensation inside my body! AND I just saved my teeth some major grinding work!

As I began my foray into the juice universe, I discovered some important tips in my owner's manual, and I would like to now share them with you.

1. Do not insert fingers or other objects into feed chute!
2. Turn off motor before disassembling.
3. Keep jewelry and hair, as well as spatulas, away from feed chute during use.
4. Not for use by children or dogs.

Okay, so I made up the dogs part, but it IS a true story that yesterday I was reading a description of an adoptable dog that said, "This dog is best suited for a home that does not contain squirrels, children, or cats." I swear. 

Now then. I followed all the nice directions and proceeded to make my juice. Down the tube! Whirr! Bizz! Bang! Vroom! Juice!

I intentionally did not use any of the recipes that were provided in the owner's manual, mainly because I had just spent sixty dollars at the produce market and wanted to use some very particular things that I had gathered. But, let me tell you, there are some very useful recipes in that booklet!

My top ten favorite recipe names, in order of coolness:

1. Mr. Bone's (Yes, there's an apostrophe. It's his juice. Duh.)
2. Teacher's Pet (This means apple juice. Obviously.)
3. Healthy Men (Yes. Plural.)
4. Healthy Women (For ALL the women!)
5. The Fiber Press (I predict that ALL of these juices will be a fiber press.)
6. For Your Eyes Only (You guessed it. Carrots.)
7. Passion Potion (Drinking juice is, after all, mainly about getting some action in the bedroom.)
8. Liquid Fire (Contains jalapeños and tomatoes.)
9. X Zone (Featuring alfalfa sprouts, and not to be confused with...
10. Y Zone...which features worcestershire sauce and onions.)

I would like to mention that the #1 juice, "Mr. Bone's" is conveniently translated by my booklet into French (Monsieur Os) and Spanish (Del Señor Bone). 

Something else I found very useful, once I made my juice and was left with a large amount of dry, cloggy, fruit skin-bits, was: The remaining pulp left after juicing is fiber and cellulose, which, like the juice, can be used in many ways. There are many recipes that use pulp. You can also use pulp to thicken casseroles or soups. Thanks for those great ideas, owner's manual. I am going to rush right out and buy the Cooking With Pulp Cookbook, which I'm sure exists. And I will certainly be using all those tasty, bits of fruit rind in all my cooking this week. Perfect. I'm actually pretty sure that Cream of Roughage Soup is the first course at Alinea these days.

Okay, so I think you get the idea. It should be pretty clear by now that my juicer is the best thing that has happened to anyone, ever. 

Fortunately, Matthew has called from work to announce that he has fallen ill, and thus it is with great honor and vitamin professionalism that I will now concoct Juice Number Two. We're never going to eat solid food again!*




*That's not true.

Year of the Cheese

                                  

Aah, tradition. Tradition in the form of a cheese mound! When New Year's Day rolls around, people, this is what you eat. It's a rule. It's sheer delight. It's a hand-crafted cheeseball, complete with the triple cheese effect and a very luxurious garnish of parsley. This is livin', folks. You have not had a cheeseball until you have had this one. 

Here's the thing: I have always eaten this cheeseball on either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, and it goes without saying that not eating it at the beginning of the new year will certainly bring some sort of bad luck. But my mom and I seem to have decided that as long as one person in the family makes and eats the cheeseball, we will all be saved from evil that year. It's a team effort, you see. So, yes, while the rest of the family was running wild on their playdate in San Diego, I was saving them from all kinds of frightening and earth-shattering trouble in 2011. You're welcome, family. I've got you covered.

When you grow up with a special food, it never even crosses your mind that someone else (as in, a non-family member) wouldn't like it. It seems ludicrous, in fact, that the whole world wouldn't love it. So when I first started introducing other people to The Family Cheeseball years ago, I was surprised that not everyone was completely head over heels for it. I mean, who couldn't love an olive-studded, triple-cheese-infused dreamboat? And why was I spending time with these people, for God's sake?

I've eaten this cheeseball at my parents' house, at my grandparents' house, and at all the places I've ever lived. I've eaten it in kitchens and living rooms, at coffee tables and dining room tables and kitchen tables and on the floor, in my bed and standing up over the sink. I've eaten it late at night with my brother in our parents' kitchen, and with many of my friends, who were very good sports but a little trepidatious (wait, so what is this thing again?). I've broken all the rules by eating it with non-Triscuit kinds of crackers, and I might have even applied it to vegetables. I've seen it in perfect ball form, and I remember some years when it was mysteriously runny to the point that it would not go into a ball shape to save its little life. Even through all my years of raw onion weirdness, I still always ate the cheeseball without any hesitation (okay, maybe a little smidge), and even when I was the staunchest vegetarian, I boldly ignored those anchovies that were lurking in the worcestershire and I went in for the kill. It's stuck by my side for years, this cheeseball.

I took a cheeseball over to Colleen's tonight, and we did some pretty substantial damage to it, which is both an incredible feat and an embarrassment. It may or may not have been accompanied by yet another one of the world's best dips (do you know that a can or artichokes currently costs FOUR DOLLARS AND FIFTY-NINE CENTS?! And a jar of mayonnaise costs FOUR TWENTY-NINE?! What is the world coming to? I can't stop talking about how ridiculous it is! And, yes, I know that I sound like a very cranky ninety-eight year old when I whine about things like this.) Anyway, I am here to tell you that two dips, an avocado, and some caramels do indeed make a reasonable dinner. 

Anyway, it's time you were swept off your feet, wouldn't you say?

The Family Cheeseball

8 oz cream cheese*

4 to 7 oz. blue cheese, depending on how much you like

7 oz. spreadable cheddar cheese**

1 T worcestershire sauce

2 T minced green olives (nothing fancy, please! just the kind with pimentos inside.)

3 T minced white or yellow onion***

Put your cheeses in a bowl and mix them up with a fork or a rubber spatula. (If they are still cold from the fridge, you'll want to loosen them up a bit in the microwave -- in 10 second bursts at a low temp, microwave the cheeses until just soft. Don't overdo it! If any of the cheeses start to melt, you're screwed!)

Add a bit of black pepper to taste, and form into a nice, pleasant-looking ball. Add some minced parsley to take it up a notch. Serve at room temperature with Triscuits, preferably the triangle-shaped ones. 

This makes a pretty big cheeseball. The one in the picture is half of the batch, so you can make either one large ball or two smaller (and much more manageable) balls.

Notes:

*I actually prefer the "light" cream cheese for this, if you can believe it! It's sometimes called neufchâtel, and sometimes advertises as having "1/3 less fat," depending on the brand you buy. It's softer and creamier, so it mixes into the other cheeses better than regular cream cheese.)

**The original recipe calls for a jar of Kraft Old English cheese spread, but it's so tricky to find in the stores here, so I used Merkt's instead, and it works just as well, if not better.

***If you can believe it, I've never been completely smitten with the traditional raw onion in this. On a daring leap this time around, I cooked the onions, which might actually be illegal according to the family bylaws. I minced them first, then sauteed them in some olive oil until almost caramelized. Way more flavor, I think, than the raw onion, and a very successful choice, if I do say so myself.

Welcome, 2011. You're here!