TV is stupid.

I just finished season 2 of Ugly Betty (I stopped watching when the strike put everything on hiatus), and now I'm all excited about jumping into season 3, the current season. And then I do some googling, and it turns out that Ugly Betty is being shelved in late March and won't be back until June. Lame. Well, at least that gives me most of a season.

Now I know how it felt when you (aka, L) lost Firefly...and Pushing Daisies. Booo.

Edited to add: What the hell? Ugly Betty will be replaced by some show with Christina Applegate (Samantha Who?, not interested) and a show with Megan Mullally, "where she will be acting out real-life stories submitted by mothers." WHAT. IS. GOING. ON. First the Homeland Security show (not kidding), now this. Boo.

I repeat, TV is stupid.

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Thwarted again! (Fooood fail.)

I was getting ready to start some bread dough for no-knead bread at the perfect time this afternoon. Unfortunately, I think I'm about a cup short on flour. Boo! I could've substituted some of it with whole wheat flour, but I was too annoyed, and that would require de-crystallizing the honey and bleh, nevermind.

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Twitter replaces rambling.

Twitter is perfect for all the little random thoughts I have. Usually I would try to throw them into a conversation, or flesh out a blog entry, but that would require a backstory, some good transitioning, so screw that. Especially for something simple like how much I miss well-ripened beefsteak tomatoes. That was twitter #100, by the way. Between my airport tweets and my inaugural tweets, I'm almost caught up with the tweet a day non-goal. And twitter makes it seem more casual, because 100 twitters is probably not a big milestone for normal people.

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Food Recap and Scheming

Today I was bored and I made kumquat-orange curd. I've never made it before, although I suspected it would resemble the lemon filling in my mom's lemon meringue pie. I was right.

Unfortunately, because I strongly associate that flavor and smell with meringue pie, the serving suggestions weird me out--on scones, biscuits, toast...It's good though, I think. We'll see how it tastes after it's chilled. And after I bake some biscuits.

After that, I made a pale omelet with the whites and some shredded chicken from dinner a few nights ago. Very oyako-esque, but mid-quality egg whites plus bland mid-quality chicken tasted kind of icky and metallic, so I drowned the sucker in salsa and parmesan and resolved to never try that combination again.

I've been wanting to make no-knead bread recently, but I always remember the day before I have to do something, and the timing's off. With an 18-hour resting period (I know, I need to just start making normal bread), it gets tricky. I've finally relaxed enough to realize that letting it rest for more than 18 hours is usually a good thing in my cold kitchen, but that doesn't help when I have to be somewhere in less than 18 hours. And it's worth waiting (for me, I think).

I've also decided that I want to make more Japanese food this year. Over the last year and a half, I conquered no-knead bread, buttermilk biscuits, scones, macaroni and cheese (baked and stove top), carnitas, pot roast (way too rich), a couple easy shredded salads, easy enchiladas (you're supposed to rub the tortillas individually with oil? damn, I didn't know that.), pasta e fagioli...I meant to make a list, and maybe I will someday, but you get the picture. I've been cooking from my America's Test Kitchen cookbook. So now it's time for Japanese food. I've got the time.

So far, I've made gyoza (pretty good), and I've finally figured out bacon fried rice. I know it's easy, but I could never figure out the timing, so the bacon ended up being limp and pale. And I bit the bullet and used the チャハン function on the rice cooker instead of using cold rice. Go me.

Next on deck: nikujaga, or maybe takoyaki. I've got the pan, it's just intimidating. And a bit decandent, considering I'm still not working full time (picking up odd jobs here and there, favors from friends).

Oh, and funny story. I had G's mom pick up some black vinegar from the store for me, just to try. Annnd, I accidentally asked for sweetened, because I didn't know better. Tell me if I'm wrong, but it looks like sweetened black vinegar is primarily used for pigs feet, which is mostly a confinement food. Whoa.

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Keeping things straight: Kenny vs. Kenny

Kenny Loggins and Kenny Rogers

Kenny Loggins is famous for a bunch of songs, which include Footloose and Danger Zone. Man, the 80s sure were rockin'.

Kenny Rogers is famous for his song, The Gambler (You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em...).

They both had beards at one point, so can you really blame me? I think it's funny that I know what Kenny Rogers looks like because he did commercials for a casino in So Cal, but had no idea what Kenny Loggins looks like, even though I'm more familiar with his work.

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What's-his-name

I often have problems remembering the names of supporting cast actors. This is probably because I don't watch many movies (and I'm trying to fix that). But they're good actors, and they keep popping up, so here's a few that I've seen lately:

William Sadler
He played Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption (along with a few other Frank Darabont movies), was in Deep Space 9, and best of all, played the Grim Reaper in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

William Fichtner
Remember that banker in the opening scene of Dark Knight who pulled out a shotgun and tried to be all badass? He was also in Contact, but I think he's more famous these days for Prison Break. Oh, and he was in The Longest Yard remake, along with Bob Sapp.

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I know I am hungry when...

I am reading a cookie recipe that calls for a boiled egg yolk. I get all excited because if I were making those cookies right now, I'd get to eat the cooked egg white. Maybe I'm just craving eggs right now. Mmmm.

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Reuben sandwiches!

I will keep track of my Reubens here.

Current Favorite:
Three Girls Bakery - Pike Place Market
Giant sandwich, warm and consistent.

Great
Elysian Brewing Company - Tangletown
There's a caramelized sweetness that I couldn't identify after one bite. I need to try my own.

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It's Crunch Time.

I have 3 and a half days to cook, eat, or freeze everything perishable in my fridge. Why? Yes, I'm leaving for 2 weeks, but it's also because I know no one will cook or eat leftovers while I'm gone. Depressing.

But on a better note: baking bacon, and then using the bacon grease to oil a roasted kabocha was the best idea EVER.

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First Snow Post of the Season!

It's snowing! Not that exciting, but I don't remember it snowing this hard last year, ever. So, I'm excited. Here's your creepy night shot photo:


I can't wait for tomorrow!

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Slow slow slow cooker.

I eat slowly, I cook slowly. Latest example: Lasagna.

3:45pm, start making sauce.

6:22pm, into the oven.

It's worth it because I know I'm not doing anything else tonight, and I don't like being rushed, but still. I need to speed things up a little.

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I like my neighbor.

He's stumbling through "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" on his piano. It's 11:45pm. I wonder if he needs to learn it by tomorrow? I don't really mind, because I like listening, and his mistakes aren't that bad. (He also plays the violin.)

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I am well prepared.

A few days ago, I was informed that for an upcoming get together, I was to provide 4-8 dozen cookies and a side dish. It's now been bumped up to 5-10 dozen cookies. (We're doing a cookie exchange, and 2 more people got invited.) At first I panicked, but then I realized that I had a quick broccoli dish I could make, and there are two cookie recipes I've been meaning to try. It's so nice having a (small) trusted recipe collection for situations like this. The recipes are below, just in case you're curious.

Garlicky Sesame-Cured Broccoli Salad (New York Times)
Brown Butter Brown Sugar Shorties (Smitten Kitchen)
Caramelized Matzoh Crunch with Chocolate (David Lebovitz)

Also, I've decided to follow David Lebovitz's twitter. Why? Because it contains gems like these:

I just found the other half of the banana I started eating for breakfast. It's now 2:34pm.
Peanut buttter, photographed with a Canon 430EX Speedlight, looks remarkably like dog food.
some bird took the hugest dump on my window last night & I'm procrastinating cleaning it up. can you blame me?

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Teaser

LOOK AT THIS AWESOME MEAT:

So. Awesome!

More later, like when I'm not supposed to be packing up to leave in a few hours. (Hey, there's actually stuff in the suitcase, which is better than usual!)

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Epic Food Making

This is probably a little bit less than half. Straight from the pot, it was fantastic.

6 lbs of carnitas took 6 hours. And I'm still not done yet. Damn.

This came about because pork butt was on sale for .99/lb and I'm a sucker for a good sale. The internet told me that carnitas or a similar pulled pork was the way to go, so after a few hours of recipe scrutinizing, I figured out how I wanted to do it. I used a hybrid of David Lebovitz's recipe and a Cook's Illustrated recipe (registration required). I'll email my notes if you're interested. It's definitely a weekend project, and unfortunately, this particular method requires an oven, so I'm not sure if you can replicate it in Japan without some adjusting.

I've got some notes below, but those are mostly for me. And here are your icky pictures.

See, this is why I didn't originally include pictures. Gross.

You really can't tell with the steam and the terrible flash, but there was easily a 1/2 inch of oil and liquid fat kicking it on top. Wow.

5:40pm
Started with all the prep work (spice measuring, etc.)

7:40pm
In the oven. I know I wasn't browning the meat right (temperature too low, pot too small), but still, 6 pounds takes a long time.

10:25pm
Meat finished. It was interesting how the smells changed every half hour or so. It went from sweet (the citrus?) to smoky (the chili), to a little bit spicy (the cinnamon?). Fun. Watching the Cook's Illustrated video, I think I cooked the meat too long, because it fell apart in juicy flakes instead of staying in chunk form. Delicious, but could make the last step (braising on a rack) impossible.

11:40pm
Ready to go for a couple rounds of broiling tomorrow. The stupid liquid took 46 minutes to reduce, when the recipe said it would be 8-12 min. I'm pretty sure I doubled the recipe, but 46 minutes of stirring and praying it wasn't burning or melting my spatula was LAME.

Poor G was probably looking forward to a nice, slightly late meal. Instead, he cooked us some carrots and had a sandwich. Aw. Looking at all that meat, part of me is panicking, and wants to invite lots of people over to help eat it. It's silly, because I'm used to dealing with 5 lb chickens. The other part of me wants to hoard enough so that maybe next week, if I'm not too comatose from Thanksgiving, I can try making tamales.

Tomorrow, we feast!

[11/25 Edited to add photos. Sheesh.]

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Hey look, I found myself a theme song.

Track 10. You can here it at ruembarrassed.com if you hurry.

Now I just need to learn to play the trumpet.

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I hate dreams like this.

I dreamed I was a shape-shifting Neil Patrick Harris, with an eye patch and big beefy arms. I robbed an ATM. I woke up in the dream, and I still had a paper bag of crisp $100 bills. (What ATM gives out $100 bills?) I spent the rest of the dream worrying about getting rid of the money and wondering if I could somehow launder it without being caught.

Practical dreams are so lame.

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Today was awesome!

List of awesome things that happened today, with links!

1. Some random stranger is going to send me an election day newspaper!
2. I made dinner without using a recipe! It was decent!
   
3. I saw John Hodgman!
4. I saw Jonathan Coulton!
5. I saw Sean Nelson!
6. I saw John Roderick!
7. My Obama shirt arrived! (Late, but I don't care!)

John Hodgman did a reading from his new book, More Information than You Require, but that's always more exciting because it includes Jonathan Coulton. Somehow this turned into a little skit that brought on a "replacement" singer, John Roderick (The Long Winters), and a "replacement" tweedy nerdy guy, Sean Nelson (Harvey Danger). It was like watching a cheesy high school skit, but with talented, clever people.

It was way awesome! There will be more photos elsewhere, but here's the one with Sean Nelson, because I love Harvey Danger and Sean Nelson is fantastic. I mean, look at that suit. It's teal a well-worn black suit (judging from other photos)!

John Roderick, Sean Nelson, and me!
(Yes, I am small, but they're seriously huge.)

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New Template!

This is the first time I've changed my template in...two years! I'm not completely satisfied (it's quite...large and wide, I think I want to put the archive column on the right, but that means switching to the right-side template...), but it's progress. It's really easy to customize (lots of font colors you can define yourself, columns are pretty easy to add), and I recommend the site I got it from. The photo is a sunrise in my backyard from about 2 years ago, right after I got back from Japan and my sleep schedule was super messed up.

What do you think?

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Goodbye terrible food laden with fond childhood memories.

Holy crap, two posts in one day! I haven't done that in years. And the original goal was to blog once a week!

Anyway, back to the title--I can't drink Nestle's Hot Chocolate anymore. Well, it doesn't make me ill like some other foods, and I'd drink it if you served it to me, but I'll probably stop buying it. Lately I've been drinking hot cocoa using this "cocochino" mix from Market Spice, a bulk spice shop in the market (behind the fish throwers) and it's pretty awesome. I think it's a mix of cocoa powder, cinnamon, and almond powder, which might also contain sugar. I would sprinkle it on cereal, if I were into sweet breakfasts. It's that good.

Tonight I tried drinking hot cocoa using the Nestle's mix (must hoard last bits of cocochino), and it's really different. A little salty, and I can still feel the oil coating the insides of my mouth. I wasn't really surprised, considering the first ingredient is sugar, the second ingredient is corn syrup solids, and cocoa comes right before the "less than 2% of the following..." garbage. But it's still kind of a bummer. We always drank hot cocoa when we went camping, melting a giant handful of mini marshmallows was always thrilling, and my mother even packed me a small jar when I moved up here, just so I'd have something to put in my empty pantry. Yes I acknowledge it's silly to be attached to a processed drink mix that comes in 1.73 pound canisters, but it's still disappointing.

(Hey, can you tell I just finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemma? It's funny, ever since I came back from Japan, I've kept an eye on the ingredients. Some foods just make me feel gross, almost ill, after not eating them for three years. But after reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, not only do I feel ill after I eat severely processed foods, I feel guilty. Thanks Michael Pollan.)

And because I like lists, here are the things I can't eat anymore, but kind of miss in that foolish, nostalgic way:

• Fig Newtons
• Triscuits (and I miss triscuits!)
• Pop Tarts
• Kraft Mac n Cheese
• Nestle's Hot Cocoa

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