* People always give me crap for not eating the end piece of bread in a sliced loaf, for putting it back over and over until the loaf is finished and then eating it, but I realized recently it serves a purpose--it keeps the other, rotating end pieces from getting stale. If this makes me sound like Debbie Reynolds in Mother (gawd I hated that movie, but I like this idea), talking about the ice cream safety layer, so be it. It is the Protector Slice. I believe in it.
* I'd never really qualify as a serious foodie, or only fitfully, but I have to say I do not get people always using chocolate chips in place of plain chocolate for cooking such as making truffles. It's just not the same substance as real chocolate--more wax, other things. Not the same. Although I am fond of the Ghiradelli 60% cocoa chips.
This is one trend (higher cocoa content) that I am pretty much enjoying, although really--I'm not macha enough for the newly broadly-available Lindt 85%, never have been. Wish I were, but I start to feel like I'm dosing myself with medicine at that level, I think. Oh my gawd, Lindt's also making 99%! Blimey. 99%. What...is the point of that and not 100%? Where does that 1% take you? This is hilarious; one website issues the following recommendation: "To fully appreciate its flavor and texture, we recommend that you progressively develop your palate through our range of high cocoa content chocolate bars, starting with Excellence 70% cocoa, then 85% and finally 99% cocoa." It's like belladonna addicts in the 19th century.* Was it Erma Bombeck who wrote about the salt syndrome? How she kept buying salt over and over because she knew she was out of it--like six years before? So eventually she had 10,000 boxes of salt, from buying it every time she went shopping? I'm doing that with black beans, and I don't know WHAT's gonna use all these up. Orphanages' worth of soup.
* Okay, how *do* you cook canadianbacon? It looks like ham, but it starts to render when you cook it. Only, you can't render it as far as regular bacon, because then it gets leathery. I guess you grill it more lightly?
(A decent treatment for leftover overdone Canadian Bacon: Two slices sourdough toast, with shavings of melting sharp white cheddar on one side and a slathering of pesto on the other. Sandwich the ODed bacon between and let it soften up for a while, then eat. Yum!)
* I am thrilled to note that I fixed my icemaker today. You know that little restraining bar (looks like) that goes up or down and turns it off or on? It had popped out on one side and I was back to this dangerous sorcerer's-apprentice situation with my icemaker: Constantly churning out cubes that would fly out of the freezer every time I opened the door. More more more more more be careful what you wish for. Anyhow, I 
finally really fixed it and, um, it's exciting. It really is. Okay, I don't think it really is, even with that...action shot. But at least I can go on vacation now. Seriously. Apartment would have filled up with cubes like a cartoon. Hey, maybe that cute Bugs Bunny penguin would come. I LOVE that penguin.* I finally had the Texas chili I've been craving--I made it. Not an onion, bean or piece of garlic in sight. Instead lots and lots of cumin, chili powder, paprika, oregano, some tomato sauce, and three, count em three, kinds of cow. Tons of it. Chuck, stew meat and ground beef (it was the result of miscalculations, but rilly good). I've been eating it on brown rice for a week and it rawked.
* There is something very...oliversachs-y (I thought to myself this a.m.) about cracking eggs. I always have to *think* about what I'm doing. Is *where* you crack the egg where you put the contents? Or do you crack it where you throw the shell? It sounds stupid, but it's a little noninstinctive. Do I crack these eggs into the bowl they were just in? Does anybody but me understand this? It has something to do with protecting eggs, then smashing them open and needing two immediate homes for the precious contents and shells that are now trash. As I was thinking about all this, I cleanly cracked my first egg right into the sink. Doh! Really dumb.* I adore bacon-n-eggs, but I am facing, really, why it is so much better to go to the diner for them. It is NOT a quick/easy dish to make. A very simple breakfast of eggs and bacon requires the kind of humming kitchen most people don't have, with constantly going griddles and dealing with the grease and all that. Just making bacon is one of those things that requires a disproportionate number of pans and amount of time. Makes much more sense to be doing this on a grill you're always scraping down. Same with eggs. It's like how a printing press works better once it's going than when it's starting--the 10,000th printing will be better than the 3rd. It's hard to make good bacon-n-eggs from start in a cold kitchen. Much better as part of a larger day-long egg-n-bacon production, than a one-off.
* I made my favorite tuna salad tonight. Wrote-a-song-about-it-wanna-hear-it-here-it-goes:
- one can of good tuna, the solid kind
- lots of celery
- mayo
- dijon mustard
- poppy seeds
- fresh lemon or lime juice
Drain the tuna. Isn't that a pain? I get so tired of doing that. Water gets all over. Anyhow. Put in bowl and flake up with a fork. Take 3-4 ribs of celery, cut each lengthwise in two, then chop very thinly. Yum. Add to bowl. Shake in poppy seeds and squeeze in the juice from one small lime or lemon. Then put in a tip-of-the-fork-full of mustard and a spoonful of mayo. Stir up, check the consistency, add a little more mayo if necessary. I really like eating this right away, when the celery still has that transitory crunchy extreme thinness. It's great on pumpernickel toast or stoned wheat thins, or straight out of the bowl with a fork.
1 comment:
People. I have been making eggs a la Liz for about three years now, and it has CHANGED MY LIFE. Once I truly understood the need to treat eggs GENTLY AND NOT WHISK THEM HALF TO DEATH like I have seen on so many tv shows in my life (many of them in which making scrambled eggs was a bit of business and not actually a cooking show), my eggs changed forever. Using Liz's method, I now routinely produce soft, fluffy eggs. To extend the wisdom of Liz: yes, heat the pan to the point where when you put the eggs in, you are 30-100 seconds away from cutting the heat entirely. Also, yeah, DO NOT USE CREAM to thin the eggs. I don't know what cream does chemically? But if you want soft fluffy eggs, use water.
Eggs a la Liz rules and have given me many a happy protein megadose when needed.
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