Wreckless Cooking While Under the Influence of a Stupid Teen Novel

So before you can understand the depths of my sadness you must understand two facts: 1) I once read that the kitchen sink is filled with more germs than a toilet. Since then I've been petrified of anything that touches the sink. 2) I hate to waste food. Wasting food has been ingrained in me as the worst kind of evil.
    So every morning I make shakes for me and my roommate for breakfast. These shakes sometimes can be hard to blend if I add too many berries. This morning's shakes were a killer. I spent half the time mixing it by hand to get all the berries to the bottom and it took me twice as long to make. I was running late for church and I was trying to put everything back when I knocked my cup into the sink. "Noooo!" I screamed. I had no other quick breakfast food to bring with me and I didn't know what to do. I saw the shake in the sink and I thought, "scoop or not to scoop" I had this argument in my head between oh-the-money and oh-the-germs. I got a spoon and scooped the top section off the surface and dumped it into my shake. I then poured a little of Julie's shake into mine and warned her that she needed to have a little extra food with her breakfast. I tried not to think of the germs as I made my way to church. Julie keeps the sink impeccably clean, so it's probably just my own ocd that makes me freak out.
    This evening I made chicken and rice soup for dinner. Once everything's prepped it's mostly just stirring, so I brought in a chair and my book. Once my mise en place was set up with seasonings, I just stirred and read. And then my book got really good. You see, Anna just realized that she was in love with St.Clair and she just got back to Paris and she wasn't sure if they could maintain their friendship now that she was aware of her feelings and he bought her a banana charm and it was so sweet...and then I needed to add the seasonings. So I opened up the bottle of thyme and started to shake as I continued to read. The bottle felt strangely empty and I realized the thyme bottle is my only spice bottle that has no shaker lid, just an open top.

   I gasped as I looked at the entire contents of my thyme bottle floating on the surface of my boiling soup. I grabbed a spoon and scooped out as much as I could and laughed at myself. I always have a problem with underseasoning, I guess I would not have that problem today. The soup turned out pretty good, but I guess I need to pay better attention when I cook. Apparently I can no longer read and cook at the same time. The soup turned out fine but I now need to buy some more thyme...if I could have thyme in a bottle, I would put a shaker spout on it.

I need to focus better when I cook

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love holidays and traditions and food and lists. Also, I think Thanksgiving sometimes gets the short end of the stick as far as holidays go. So I decided to give Thanksgiving a bit of a shout out by making my top ten for this year's Thanksgiving.

10. The food was awesome! Yes, I know, food is not the center of the celebration (or shouldn't be) but it kind of is. Why did the pilgrims celebrate the first Thanksgiving? Because they had food when they thought they were going to starve to death. Because they survived a year (with the help of the native Americans) when they thought they would not. At my house, there is no fear of starvation. I do mean to brag when I say that my mom is the best cook ever. She makes the best everything. This year there was a great fear that the burden would fall on other shoulders, but thankfully, Mom came through and the food was wonderful.

9. My mom was healthy...ish. On Thanksgiving eve, I showed up to do some day before prep with Mom only to find that she was suffering from an allergic reaction to something. Dad comforted her all night as she really suffered (it was pretty horrible). Dann and I set the table and started cooking with plans to take over the big stuff in the morning. Yet, the next day Mom was up and at 'em. She was the least stressed I've ever seen her and we still had wonderful food. Plus, she was not miserable.

8. Other people really helped a lot. Because of Mom not feeling well, everyone else pitched in and helped big time. Many hands make light work (or at least lighter). It made for a really wonderful time with my brothers, sister-in-law, and dad all helping me and Mom make everything. I don't even know who cleaned up (I took a nap), but it was really nice to have so many people helping.

7. I learned a new game. My brother, Dann, brought a new game called Dominion. I was pretty sure I would be forced to play and then just bear with it, but it was awesome. I think we will have another round at Christmas time. I lost every game but one and I still love it. Don't ask me to explain it, because it's too hard to explain and it sounds even dorkier than it really is.

6. The Post family came over. Our Thanksgiving included several members of the Post clan and they were a welcome addition. They are family and they also bring really good food :) It was a great time.

5. The night ended with me snuggling with Michael first and then Maddie and Natalie. Maddie and I finally fell asleep on the couch together. It was a pretty great ending.

4. Cooking with my mom. I love cooking with my mom. She's so good at it and I feel so empowered when I work with her. Even though there were lots of helpers, there was a time in the morning where it was just us. She and I made up a stuffing recipe and it was just fabulous (my favorite stuffing yet). I just love spending time with her in her kitchen...have you seen her kitchen? Who wouldn't have a great time in it?

3. Not shopping on black Friday. For the past few years Uncle Dave and I have gone shopping on black Friday. We have a great time, because he's so awesome, but I also spend money on things I don't need, feel sleepy and hungry and unshowered and generally blah by the end of the day. I decided not to go this year and actually sleep in and shower today. Erin took my place (and she is now the reigning 'best granddaughter') and I am a little sad I missed out on some fun, but I think it was the right choice.

2. Michael said the best thing. Dann was taking apart the presentation turkey (the one that is beautiful and sits on the table that we use for leftovers) and taking out what mom had put in it: apples, onions, rosemary, thyme. As he took out each item, he said it out loud. Then Michael said, "Is that what the turkey ate?"

1. Singing with CC. Every year, after the meal, aunt Nancy and I sing Christmas songs and pick out what we're going to sing for the Christmas Eve service. We then convince Mom to sing too and it's so pretty. We sing harmonies that make us shiver. I love singing with my family!

So I had a really wonderful Thanksgiving. I thought I'd end with a question and answer session I had with Maddie and Michael.
Me: Who are we thankful to on Thanksgiving?
Michael: God.
Me: And what are we thankful for?
Maddie: Everything God provides.

That about sums it up.

Grocery shopping: Day 1 of new foods

So now that I've invested in this whole food adventure, I had to shop for food that I could actually eat. I have three favorite stores in my life. These are places that bring me joy even as I drive past them. In reverse order they are :
3)Barnes and Noble
2)Ann Taylor Loft
1) VONS

That's right. I love VONS more than the LOFT. Really. I love the checkers, especially Doris and Charlie. I love the flowers and produce and seeing people I know. I love that I can buy food and cleaning supplies and deodorant and videos all at the same place. Rick, my favorite neighborhood homeless man, and I have our best interactions there.

But now I cannot go to VONS. I must go to places farther away with checkers who don't know me and with aisles that I don't have memorized. It is Trader Joe's, which is an exceptional store that I do love to go to on Sundays and also Whole Foods which is featured on "Top Chef" so it has to be cool.

One of my favorite shows is "What Not to Wear". It's a show about people who don't dress well who are then given a set of rules by fashion experts which they must follow on their first day of shopping alone. Halfway through the shopping trip I realized that this is what it must feel like to be one of those shoppers. I would pick up a box and ask myself, "does this have wheat? gluten? corn?" and sometimes I would have no idea if it was ok or not.

I was able to come up with alternatives for a couple of my favorite food choices, including the idea for a mac and cheese made out of raw cheese (non-pasteurized). I just needed to find raw cream and some macaroni that was gluten free. Both of which I did not find at Trader Joe's. We did find a lot there and some other benefits included:
1) friendly workers
2) really great and inexspensive flowers
3) lots of options for our newly restricted diet
4) some prices that were comparable to what we were used to

We went to Whole Foods next to pick up some things on our list: a specific brand of lunch meat, raw milk, raw cream, gluten free pasta, and maybe some more cheese. The place is sure beautiful. It is spacious and fancy and has prices to match. I found the prettiest mushrooms I've ever seen that were also $29 a pound (which I did not buy).

We found the raw milk and cream and almost died from shock and the prices. They did come in a glass bottle and the cream was so beautiful looking. I felt like a cow named Bessie, wandering the English countryside, had relinquished this milk to a nice, lanky farmer straight into this jar. So beautiful. And now I can make ice cream and whipped cream and mac and cheese...except that one pint of the stuff is $11.99!!! So I think that the cream needed for ice cream would be basically $36. That would be some ice cream. Maybe I should just buy a cow, does that fit in our housing rules? The milk was good and did taste a little like grass as the surfer dude in front of us in line mentioned...what kind of grass did he mean?



I cooked two meals today from our newly acquired food. The first was a tangerine chicken on a bed of whole brown rice with a side of green beans. The second was steak fajitas with my own fajita seasoning, black beans, two kinds of cheddar cheese, tomatoes, and carmelized onions, on a brown rice tortilla. I did kind of miss the sour cream and the tortilla's should have been heated so they could fold better, but all in all, not too bad.




I did also go to a wedding today where I had to search each little table to try to find things I could eat. I ended up with a plate of berries, snap peas, and a tomato and olive. It was good, but I really wanted one of those little quiches or some sherbet punch! Cake is easy for me to resist, so that wasn't a problem.

So here are the lessons I've learned today:
1) I have a newfound respect for anyone who has dieted. It is stinking hard to do and I've only been doing it for a day!
2) I will not be restricted in my creativity in some ways. Yes, I must read labels now and be more aware of what I'm putting in my body. So although I did think that some sugar in the beans would taste pretty good and I resisted and couldn't try that, I have a whole new field of ingredients to work with and understand.
3) Eating healthy is exspensive.
4) 38 pills a day is a whole lot
5) I'm hungry more often, but maybe that's because my body is actually able to digest the food I'm eating.

I'm excited about breakfast. We'll see how the shakes go tomorrow.

Building my BBQ

Growing up, my cousins received a lot of Legos. We would play legos all the time. My favorite was when they would get a brand new lego set and we played "Lego school". Of course, I made them play school because I was the overbearing, teacher obsessed older cousin. Each level of the Lego construction was considered a grade and we would complete each level together.

Little did I know how helpful those strange diagrams with no words would be. Today I finally purchased the propane gas tank for my mini BBQ my parents bought for me two Christmas' ago. I invited my friend Dana over for steaks (which I haven't made since I moved out) and opened the BBQ to get started.

Out poured this large series of baggies and metal pieces, complete with a novel sized instruction manuel. I wasn't prepared for construction, but I followed along each step carefully and just like Lego school, I graduated from each step to the next. It only took me about twenty minutes to put together and I was pretty proud.

I then preheated the stove, didn't blow anything up, and even cooked some pretty good steaks. I'm excited to start BBQing again. The one problem is that this makes me even more anxious for summer as I dream of what I will BBQ next: perhaps bananas with chocolate chips inside...

My Parents are Awesome!

You know how things that you are surrounded by every day just start to fade into the background? I have a neighbor upstairs whose pipe we can hear as he drains his shower. I don't pay any attention to it anymore. Yet when I had guests over, I was suddenly aware of how loud it was. Even now I have a fan blowing on my recently flooded kitchen wall and I have to remind myself that it's there.

This is how it is with my parents. They have been amazing for so long that I have grown numb to how insanely great they are. Not that I take them for granted, no I am thankful for them every day. It's just that I no longer take a step back and think of how strange they are. My mother has severe pain in her body from various ailments. Her back aches, her hip goes out of joint, her arthritis and gout flair up at inconvenient times, and she's an insomniac. My mother just put on a nine course meal for 40 or so people. She carefully crafted dishes like an amazing mozzarella and roasted red bell pepper rollade, shredded chicken on a bed of harvest cous cous and cream, slow roasted lamb on a bed of creamed root vegetables, and pumpkin rolls garnished with a pumpkin caramel glaze. She did this with an oven that barely works and a full time job (good thing she has insomnia!).

My father supports my mother in her crazy food ventures. He samples and edits flavors, he diligently shops for just the right ingredients, he made all of the place cards, led the carolling afterward, took photos, encouraged conversations, set-up, cleaned-up, served the food, and helped forged the bonds between the hodgepodge of kids that are in the youth group.

I need to take a step back and look at these two people. Who does this? What a legacy I have in my life of sacrificial love and using your talents to their fullest. Now, I know that I have a tendency to go over the top like my mom and I hope that I can balance so that insomnia doesn't rule over me, but if I did half the things my parents have done I would be a good servant indeed. They give of their time and energy freely and joyfully - and they're just plain good at it.

So as I dream of the leftovers and take off my heals to rest for the evening, I'll think of my mom and dad and then get back on my feet and make cookies until 2am - because that's what we Dempsey's do!