Thursday, July 09, 2009
Living in Muddy Waters' Scary Story
Hey, I've got to go teach today (well tonight too) and I'm all one with the Universe again after having my second round of acupuncture. Who knew sticking needles on the insides of one's fingers could feel so good? So, while I'm working, how about going and visiting Living in Muddy Waters this afternoon? She's currently writing the best story ever. It's very spooky, very scary and has a frustrating level of suspense that will make you obsessively click the link to her site to see if she's continued the story yet. It's divine torture. The story involves a serial killer, dead prostitutes, ghosts, two psychics and I freaking love it. Love it, I tell you. Nothing better than a scary story, especially when it's true.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
The Time My Cousin Tried To Kill Me - Happy Birthday Bella
Today, July 7th is my first cousin and best friend Bella's birthday and to honor her special day I'm going to tell you about the time she tried to kill me. OK, perhaps that is an exaggeration. It wasn't premeditated murder. In a court of law it might not even be considered manslaughter, had the situation come to trial, which thankfully it did not. What happened is that Bella, in her zeal to remain alive, was willing to use me as bait; was willing then to let me die in her place when it came right down to it.
A few years ago, on a beautiful summer day, Bella and I found ourselves in a boat in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of cool people. Both of us, being highly neurotic individuals, did not want the cool people on the boat with us to know that neither of us were as cool as they were. At first things went well. Now I will tell you that both my cousin and I have a deathly terror of the sea. We both enjoy boats just fine when they are piddling down the Intracoastal. We like them even more when they are affixed to a track and gliding through animatronic pirates and dogs wagging keys in their robotic mouths. Both of us were a bit on edge that afternoon, on the big power boat, blazing through the surf, a fan-shaped fountain of spray erupting in our wake.
It was a hot day. Everyone wore bathing suits. I wore my prized pale yellow bikini with monkeys on it, which is now nine years old and needs to go in the garbage. I haven't worn it since this day, but I can't get rid of it for some reason. Where will I ever find a bathing suit with monkeys on it ever again? I keep thinking I'll find a use for it, like maybe one day I'll get into quilting, learn to sew, and make a giant, waterproof throw. A pool throw perhaps, for when the water's cold. Because that could work, right? And it could be patched together with squares from all the pilled-up seats of all my old bathing suits.
But yes, we were all wearing bathing suits and mine was already well past its prime. As I said, it was a really hot summer day. We decided to stop the boat in the middle of the ocean, literally miles from the shoreline, above a thousand feet (at the very least) of opaque blue water, in four foot swells, which didn't look very large from the deck of the forty foot boat until it stopped and then all of a sudden the stomach-roiling rocking began. Internally, I began to panic. A million terrible images bubbled into my mind: seasickness, sharks, man o wars, barracudas, cellulite, drifting to Bimini and perhaps the biggest terrible thing of all - not looking cool around cool people. Half of the cool people wanted to (gulp) jump off the boat and into the water. The other cool people wanted to sit on the boat and have cocktails.
I weighed my options. Bella weighed her options. It is a well known fact that the cool girls are adventurous. They go rock climbing and bungee jumping. They can drive stick and love upside down roller coasters. Cool girls are fearless risk takers. Well, I'm not a fearless risk taker and neither is Bella, in spite of what she'll tell you about how much she loves the Sky Coaster. When it comes to the ocean, both of us are wary. My theory on this is that in a past life we died together in a terrible shipwreck, but who knows. Although we are afraid of the ocean, both of us really wanted to be the cool girls.
Too often I am labeled as the party-pooping pain in the ass who can't have a good time and who is scared of everything. This day, I just didn't want to be that. I wanted to be that bungee jumping, motorcycle riding without a helmet kind of girl for once. I wanted to jump off of that boat into the blue abyss and so did Bella. We had to do it. We had to conquer our fear and save face.
Bella went first because she is a tad braver than I am. Then, because she did it I had absolutely no choice but to hold my breath and jump in. The water was freezing miles from shore. God only knows what sea predators were swimming beside me and beneath me. The water was so dark, there was no way I'd ever know until I was crammed halfway down the maw of a starving Tiger Shark. I was already seeing my own reenactment on a Shark Week documentary about Florida attacks and I hoped they'd at least get a skinny actress to play the dying me flailing around in the red water.
To make matters worse, those four foot swells created eight foot wells. From the boat, the chop only served to make one mildly queasy. From above, the waves didn't look like much. That all changed once you were actually in the water, with nothing to hold onto and nowhere to stand up. I was treading for dear life and so was Bella but I wasn't even thinking about her. Naturally we were with a bunch of boys who thought nothing of any of this and were practically playing Marco Polo while I half drowned.
When I jumped in the water, I was too panicked to realize that the sheer force of my jump, combined with the waves and current, had all conspired to rip my bathing suit bottoms clean off of my body. I only wear tie bottoms, because these, I've concluded squish the hips the least, thereby making one look less fat in them. Somehow both sides of my tie bottoms came untied at once. The current was strong that day. It felt like we'd managed to stop right in the middle of the Gulf Stream itself and now it was quickly carrying away my bikini bottom with the monkeys on it. I was completely bare assed and panicking and going to die in the ocean and they were going to find my body naked from the waist down, in South Carolina, since that was where the Gulf Stream would probably carry me.
I was South of the boat and the current was pulling my bathing suit bottoms toward, but actually past, the boat. Frantically I dog paddled, half naked, my big white ass shining in the sun for everyone on the boat to see quite clearly, to try to catch my bottom half. Everyone on the boat shouted and pointed. Finally, out of breath, I made it to the boat's swim ladder, where I tried to hold on for a second. I thought if I could hold on, maybe I could get stable and maybe the bottoms would float by again and I could lunge out and get them if I could just get one of the long strings. There wasn't a lot of logic in this thinking, but I had just exposed myself to several people and was floundering in a thousand feet of salt water which was violently tossing me around and washing over my head.
At the same time, Bella was having her own crisis. Wrapped up in her own terror, Bella failed to notice my bare ass and saw only my screaming and desperate race to get to the boat ladder. In her mind this could only mean one thing. There was a Great White Shark. We were its appetizer sampler platter, much like the one at the Olive Garden that comes with fried raviolis AND mozzarella sticks. Bella was going to be a Great White's fried ravioli!!!! She was going to die!!!
Bella's mind went blank. Her fight or flight kicked in and she practically flew up out of the water like a sailfish, running across those four foot swells to get back to that boat ladder to climb to safety. She thought of nothing else but her escape from the non-existent shark that she assumed I was screaming about. She didn't see my bathing sut bottoms bobbing away and she entirely missed my gigantic bare ass looming before her on the boat ladder. Bella was in survival mode and I was in her way.
My tiny cousin, who I tower almost a full seven inches over, literally grabbed me by the hair and jerked me back. Then, she slammed both of her hands against my chest, hurling me back into the waves, this time face up, so everyone who had now already seen my behind, could get a nice detailed shot of my crotch. Once I was out of the way, having become Bella's human shield to an imaginary shark, she scrambled up the ladder and back into the boat. That's when she looked down and saw that I was half naked and by now in hysterics.
At this point in the story, the boat's captain had retrieved my bikini bottoms with a gaff hook, and everyone found this wildly amusing. Except me. I was still stuck bare assed in the ocean being laughed at. I had to hang on to the edge of the boat until Bella could come with a beach towel to shield everyone from another gratuitous crotch shot. That did nothing, by the way, to block the view of my ass to the boys who were still in the water.
So much for trying to be the cool girls. The whole ride back in we had to listen to recountings of Bella's mad scramble up the ladder and descriptions of not just my face when I realized my bottoms were off, but also how my butt looked tossed around in the waves. No one knew Bella had such strength in such a little body. No one knew she'd be willing to sacrifice her dear cousin to sharks in order to save her own ass.
Bella it is for stories like these that I love you so much. Happy 29th Birthday!
A few years ago, on a beautiful summer day, Bella and I found ourselves in a boat in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of cool people. Both of us, being highly neurotic individuals, did not want the cool people on the boat with us to know that neither of us were as cool as they were. At first things went well. Now I will tell you that both my cousin and I have a deathly terror of the sea. We both enjoy boats just fine when they are piddling down the Intracoastal. We like them even more when they are affixed to a track and gliding through animatronic pirates and dogs wagging keys in their robotic mouths. Both of us were a bit on edge that afternoon, on the big power boat, blazing through the surf, a fan-shaped fountain of spray erupting in our wake.
It was a hot day. Everyone wore bathing suits. I wore my prized pale yellow bikini with monkeys on it, which is now nine years old and needs to go in the garbage. I haven't worn it since this day, but I can't get rid of it for some reason. Where will I ever find a bathing suit with monkeys on it ever again? I keep thinking I'll find a use for it, like maybe one day I'll get into quilting, learn to sew, and make a giant, waterproof throw. A pool throw perhaps, for when the water's cold. Because that could work, right? And it could be patched together with squares from all the pilled-up seats of all my old bathing suits.
But yes, we were all wearing bathing suits and mine was already well past its prime. As I said, it was a really hot summer day. We decided to stop the boat in the middle of the ocean, literally miles from the shoreline, above a thousand feet (at the very least) of opaque blue water, in four foot swells, which didn't look very large from the deck of the forty foot boat until it stopped and then all of a sudden the stomach-roiling rocking began. Internally, I began to panic. A million terrible images bubbled into my mind: seasickness, sharks, man o wars, barracudas, cellulite, drifting to Bimini and perhaps the biggest terrible thing of all - not looking cool around cool people. Half of the cool people wanted to (gulp) jump off the boat and into the water. The other cool people wanted to sit on the boat and have cocktails.
I weighed my options. Bella weighed her options. It is a well known fact that the cool girls are adventurous. They go rock climbing and bungee jumping. They can drive stick and love upside down roller coasters. Cool girls are fearless risk takers. Well, I'm not a fearless risk taker and neither is Bella, in spite of what she'll tell you about how much she loves the Sky Coaster. When it comes to the ocean, both of us are wary. My theory on this is that in a past life we died together in a terrible shipwreck, but who knows. Although we are afraid of the ocean, both of us really wanted to be the cool girls.
Too often I am labeled as the party-pooping pain in the ass who can't have a good time and who is scared of everything. This day, I just didn't want to be that. I wanted to be that bungee jumping, motorcycle riding without a helmet kind of girl for once. I wanted to jump off of that boat into the blue abyss and so did Bella. We had to do it. We had to conquer our fear and save face.
Bella went first because she is a tad braver than I am. Then, because she did it I had absolutely no choice but to hold my breath and jump in. The water was freezing miles from shore. God only knows what sea predators were swimming beside me and beneath me. The water was so dark, there was no way I'd ever know until I was crammed halfway down the maw of a starving Tiger Shark. I was already seeing my own reenactment on a Shark Week documentary about Florida attacks and I hoped they'd at least get a skinny actress to play the dying me flailing around in the red water.
To make matters worse, those four foot swells created eight foot wells. From the boat, the chop only served to make one mildly queasy. From above, the waves didn't look like much. That all changed once you were actually in the water, with nothing to hold onto and nowhere to stand up. I was treading for dear life and so was Bella but I wasn't even thinking about her. Naturally we were with a bunch of boys who thought nothing of any of this and were practically playing Marco Polo while I half drowned.
When I jumped in the water, I was too panicked to realize that the sheer force of my jump, combined with the waves and current, had all conspired to rip my bathing suit bottoms clean off of my body. I only wear tie bottoms, because these, I've concluded squish the hips the least, thereby making one look less fat in them. Somehow both sides of my tie bottoms came untied at once. The current was strong that day. It felt like we'd managed to stop right in the middle of the Gulf Stream itself and now it was quickly carrying away my bikini bottom with the monkeys on it. I was completely bare assed and panicking and going to die in the ocean and they were going to find my body naked from the waist down, in South Carolina, since that was where the Gulf Stream would probably carry me.
I was South of the boat and the current was pulling my bathing suit bottoms toward, but actually past, the boat. Frantically I dog paddled, half naked, my big white ass shining in the sun for everyone on the boat to see quite clearly, to try to catch my bottom half. Everyone on the boat shouted and pointed. Finally, out of breath, I made it to the boat's swim ladder, where I tried to hold on for a second. I thought if I could hold on, maybe I could get stable and maybe the bottoms would float by again and I could lunge out and get them if I could just get one of the long strings. There wasn't a lot of logic in this thinking, but I had just exposed myself to several people and was floundering in a thousand feet of salt water which was violently tossing me around and washing over my head.
At the same time, Bella was having her own crisis. Wrapped up in her own terror, Bella failed to notice my bare ass and saw only my screaming and desperate race to get to the boat ladder. In her mind this could only mean one thing. There was a Great White Shark. We were its appetizer sampler platter, much like the one at the Olive Garden that comes with fried raviolis AND mozzarella sticks. Bella was going to be a Great White's fried ravioli!!!! She was going to die!!!
Bella's mind went blank. Her fight or flight kicked in and she practically flew up out of the water like a sailfish, running across those four foot swells to get back to that boat ladder to climb to safety. She thought of nothing else but her escape from the non-existent shark that she assumed I was screaming about. She didn't see my bathing sut bottoms bobbing away and she entirely missed my gigantic bare ass looming before her on the boat ladder. Bella was in survival mode and I was in her way.
My tiny cousin, who I tower almost a full seven inches over, literally grabbed me by the hair and jerked me back. Then, she slammed both of her hands against my chest, hurling me back into the waves, this time face up, so everyone who had now already seen my behind, could get a nice detailed shot of my crotch. Once I was out of the way, having become Bella's human shield to an imaginary shark, she scrambled up the ladder and back into the boat. That's when she looked down and saw that I was half naked and by now in hysterics.
At this point in the story, the boat's captain had retrieved my bikini bottoms with a gaff hook, and everyone found this wildly amusing. Except me. I was still stuck bare assed in the ocean being laughed at. I had to hang on to the edge of the boat until Bella could come with a beach towel to shield everyone from another gratuitous crotch shot. That did nothing, by the way, to block the view of my ass to the boys who were still in the water.
So much for trying to be the cool girls. The whole ride back in we had to listen to recountings of Bella's mad scramble up the ladder and descriptions of not just my face when I realized my bottoms were off, but also how my butt looked tossed around in the waves. No one knew Bella had such strength in such a little body. No one knew she'd be willing to sacrifice her dear cousin to sharks in order to save her own ass.
Bella it is for stories like these that I love you so much. Happy 29th Birthday!
Monday, July 06, 2009
My Newly Updated Links
I'd like to direct you to my newly updated links list over in the side bar. Because I am a lazy procrastinator, I've been meaning to do this for at least two years. Something happened today that finally made me sit my ass down and do it, but I don't know what it was. In any event, there are now links to sites I regularly read, be they for cat pictures, possible sightings of Champ (God please let them catch a lake monster), J. Crew outfits, stuff about Japan, recipes that don't suck, good writing, having something interesting to say, cracking me up at least twice or architectural drawings of chicken coops. I'd like to say it's all there, but I guarantee you I forgot someone that I didn't mean to. If I forgot you, please don't have hurt feelings. In another two years I will hopefully remember to include your link. In the meantime, if you know of any other brilliant blogs or places where I can look at recent UFO sightings, leave me a comment and let me know. Almost every single blog on the list is something that someone else told me to check out at some point.
Tomorrow's story contains these elements. Can you guess what it will be about? There's only one person who truly knows the answer to this question, and that is my cousin Bella.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Cats With Mohawks
As I mentioned, we're back staying at my parents' house (bathtub and BBQ!!!) for the summer while they RV around the country. They're having a great time. They've already been to Millpond and Washington DC (where they had a drink with Laura Ingraham of all people, right before she hosted O'Reilly the day after Michael Jackson's demise). From there they went to Aspen, then to Vegas and now they've parked the bus on a bluff in Malibu. Today, they're attending an honest to God celebrity wedding. It just doesn't get any cooler than my parents, I swear. I'm really happy for them having all these adventures and I promise if they have any exciting encounters with famous people that I'll report immediately. But that's not what this post is about. It's about cats with mohawks.When we stay here at Casa dei Sogni, we bring our kitty Canela too. Canela loves having a big airy house to roam around in. When we were here last year, we were often startled, sometimes out of a dead sleep, by Canela howling and hissing like something possessed. It happened almost every day. One day Husband told me there was a black cat with a mohawk outside the back door and that Canela was fighting with it through the glass. This cat, with its fierce hair-do, was Pepper, the neighbor's cat who is lucky and gets to go outside. Pepper is the boss of the street and liked to come over and taunt and tease poor Canela, the unlucky indoor cat, who subsequently grew her own mohawk because she can be fierce and scary too. This went on every single day until we went back to our apartment last fall.
This summer, we wondered if it would happen again; if Pepper could smell Canela here or if she could somehow know Canela had returned. Friday it happened. Once again, the two mohawked cats were throwing themselves against a pane of glass, shrieking like two Tasmanian Devils. And the sick thing about it, was that I was excited. I was all like: "Yes!! Pepper's back! Cat fights!" What the hell is wrong with me that I find this behavior mildly amusing to the point where I guiltily look forward to it? I guess if the cats seemed like they were suffering or if they were harming themselves it would be different, but I swear these two really enjoy talking smack to one another and hitting the glass with their paws. I think it makes them feel like bad asses. Canela sits and waits at the door for Pepper to come and when it seems like they get out of control I open the door and shoo Pepper away. I also toss her the occasional Greenie because she's a cute kitty too. I'm not all evil. Am I?
As Promised, Potato Salad Picture
Here is the finished result of the potato salad I made for the neighbor's BBQ last night. It was quite a hit. I mean, it has bacon in it after all. You know how people get over bacon. I certainly liked it. I can even venture to say that this potato salad is better than the Pioneer Woman's potato salad and I'd like to challenge Pioneer Woman to a friendly, lighthearted little Potato Salad Throwdown, Bobby Flay style. Now don't get me wrong. I've made and thoroughly enjoyed some of her recipes, but not her nasty potato salad. I may not have a fancy camera or the patience to measure my ingredients and take pictures of every single, God forsaken minute step of a recipe, like she does, but I'm telling you people, I can make a better potato salad. So anyone who's made her recipe, make mine and tell me if it's not a million times better. Of course if she'd like to invite me out to her ranch to pick blackberries and make it for her in person like a real throwdown, I'm not saying I wouldn't accept the challenge. You know what I mean? But I think she'd be too scared. I mean, bacon. It has bacon in it.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Kitty Kitty Bang Bang
Canela would like you to know that this Fourth of July nonsense really needs to end immediately and that the fireworks (aka Cat Exploding Devices) are unacceptable and must be stopped at once. Failure to end this holiday will result in regurgitated hairballs on your pillow and dead lizards in your shoes. Until this idiotic Independence Day has ended, Canela will remain under the bed where it's safe, and while you're at it, please also eradicate all vacuum cleaners, hair dryers and blenders from the planet as well.Friday, July 03, 2009
Nasty Assed Recipes - Fourth of July Edition
Having moved back into my parents' house for the summer, as they RV around the country, Husband and I have been invited to the neighbors' home for a Fourth of July BBQ. This couple is a little older than my parents and they are super, super Southern. They are as Southern as it can possibly get and their family is down from Georgia for the holiday. They are really nice people and they asked me to make a potato salad for the potluck. This I can do, except I don't particularly like Southern Potato Salad. The Pioneer Woman recently posted a recipe for it that was so utterly vile that I couldn't even look at pictures of it without the bile rising in my throat. She actually rices her potatoes, which is heinous. Potato salad contains cubes and chunks of slightly al dente potatoes, not freaking mashed potatoes. It's not negotiable.
There is not a single person in my family who can make an edible potato salad. My grandmothers each have their own version. Both are gross. Mommom Jewel's potato salad is at least the correct consistency with the diced potatoes, but then she goes and makes it with Miracle Whip and an ass load of celery seed and it becomes a culinary abomination. Memere Marie's gets worse with the addition of hard boiled eggs, chopped green pepper, big pieces of raw onion, school-bus yellow hot dog mustard and something red that is unidentifiable but may be pimentos. With her you never know. It could very well be maraschino cherries. Even Savta, my dear Slovakian adopted grandmother, who is as far from Southern as one can get, makes her own horrible, Eastern European version of potato salad. This one is the worst, but apparently it's popular from Warsaw to Moscow. In Savta's potato salad, diced potatoes are combined with mayonnaise, the aforementioned hard boiled eggs, diced cooked carrots, canned peas, onions, canned corn (though not always) and occasionally even diced meat which can be tuna fish, chopped salami (kosher of course) or some other horror. This has got to be the grossest potato salad I have ever seen in my life. I would not eat this for a thousand dollars. For real, if you came to me and said you would pay me a thousand dollars cash to eat Savta's potato salad, I wouldn't be able to choke it down. Same goes for Memere Marie's. I think for the money, I might manage Mommom Jewel's, but only if I got half the money up front and had a full pitcher of ice cold, Country Time pink lemonade to wash it down quickly.
The only potato salad I can reasonably handle is German. This is because it has bacon and isn't creamy. I like tart, vinegary and smoky things (like BBQ) so this potato salad makes more sense to me. I learned how to make it when I worked at the hotel where I used to make chicken club sandwiches for Elton John. We served it cold, although I know some German Potato Salad is supposed to be hot. I wish that I could provide you a recipe. Once I longed to have a food blog where I posted original recipes, but quickly I realized that this just isn't possible for me because I don't use recipes when I cook. I just throw stuff together and adjust the ingredients until I get it how I like. I can give you a rough idea of how it's made and if you're industrious you can probably work it out for yourself.
How I Make Potato Salad (but not a recipe)
Take some red, new potatoes and boil them whole until they are slightly tender. You can't overcook them or you'll have a smushy mess. Potato salad MUST NOT BE A SMUSHY MESS. I feel so strongly about this. Cool the potatoes and slice them into rounds or wedges. Let them keep cooling. Then cut up a bunch of bacon into little cubes and saute it. Once it renders some fat, throw in some diced red onion and saute that until the bacon is cooked and the onion is soft. Then throw in some red wine vinegar. This will burn your nose. Stir it around and dissolve all the brown pieces of bacon that stuck on the bottom of the pan. Then sprinkle in some brown sugar and stir that up. You're going for a balance of sweet and sour here. Take this off the stove and let it cool. In a separate bowl mix up some mayo, a pinch of celery seed (do not go crazy with it), grainy mustard and pepper. Whisk it all up until it's smooth. Put the potatoes in another bowl with some minced celery. Pour the bacon vinegar mixture into the mayo mixture and whisk it up. Taste it and see if its how you like. You might want to add more vinegar or sugar to get the balance right. See if it needs salt. It might. Once you get the dressing tasting good, pour it over the potatoes and celery. Then, very gently, with your clean hands, fold the dressing into the potatoes. Do not be rough with this or, again, you will end up with a smushy mess. You want to keep the potatoes in tact. Now you can serve this at room temperature or chill it. Sometimes when it gets cold it tends to stiffen up a little. If it does you can add a little water or vinegar to loosen it up before serving. This isn't supposed to be very creamy though. Don't be ridiculous with the mayo. Once I get off my lazy ass and make mine I'll take a picture so you can see how it looks. I can tell you right now that it looks good. This potato salad is not disgusting. This is not a nasty-assed recipe.
This recipe, however, is. Feeling brave, I decided to do a search on the ever reliable nasty-assed recipe archive that is Cooks.com, for Fourth of July recipes. I think I may have found a winner with this recipe for something called Copper Pennies. It doesn't even sound good. I remember sucking on pennies as a child. Why I did this I don't know. It's a miracle no one ever had to call an ambulance over me swallowing one. I also used to pick scabs and lick the blood and I remember thinking the blood and pennies tasted the same. In this recipe one makes a dressing with a base of cold, canned tomato soup and then pours it over cold, cooked carrots and raw green peppers. This is not ok. Recipes involving cans of tomato soup are never a good sign. Tomato soup reminds me of this date I once had with a guy from Indiana.
My friend and I had met this guys out at a club and had gone to Denny's with them at three in the morning. One of the guys, named Marc with a C, asked me out and I said I'd have dinner with him. I chose a Jamaican restaurant. Marc with a C was not about the Jamaican food. It was too spicy and exotic. He ordered his meal without this and substitute that and put this on the side. Then he made a big fuss about how strange this Jamaican food was. I don't think there's anything exotic in the slightest about Jamaican food. Some of it is spicy hot, but that does not exotic make. I asked Marc with a C what his favorite food was. He said he liked his Mom's Indiana home cooking. I asked which dish.
"Tomato soup, hamburger and rice," he said.
"Which one is your favorite?"
"No, that's one dish."
"How do you make it?"
"You take tomato soup and mix it with some cooked hamburger meat and then you make some Minute Rice and put that in too."
"Is it soup?" I asked.
"No, it's thick. You eat it with a fork."
"Is there anything else in it," I asked, thinking maybe some spices, onions, peppers? Flavor?
"You can put some salt."
Needless to say, Marc with a C and I did not have a second date. He would never have approved of all that hot sauce I keep in my fridge.
But here is the Fourth of July Nasty Assed Recipe 2009 Winner: Fourth of July Copper Pennies.
I did some more research on this recipe, desperately wanting a picture and found a blogger brave enough to actually make it and photograph it. This person used red peppers, which seems to be an improvement over green and the picture of it did not look as gross as I would have imagined. Still though, a can of tomato soup?
What nasty-assed recipes are on your BBQ menus this year?
There is not a single person in my family who can make an edible potato salad. My grandmothers each have their own version. Both are gross. Mommom Jewel's potato salad is at least the correct consistency with the diced potatoes, but then she goes and makes it with Miracle Whip and an ass load of celery seed and it becomes a culinary abomination. Memere Marie's gets worse with the addition of hard boiled eggs, chopped green pepper, big pieces of raw onion, school-bus yellow hot dog mustard and something red that is unidentifiable but may be pimentos. With her you never know. It could very well be maraschino cherries. Even Savta, my dear Slovakian adopted grandmother, who is as far from Southern as one can get, makes her own horrible, Eastern European version of potato salad. This one is the worst, but apparently it's popular from Warsaw to Moscow. In Savta's potato salad, diced potatoes are combined with mayonnaise, the aforementioned hard boiled eggs, diced cooked carrots, canned peas, onions, canned corn (though not always) and occasionally even diced meat which can be tuna fish, chopped salami (kosher of course) or some other horror. This has got to be the grossest potato salad I have ever seen in my life. I would not eat this for a thousand dollars. For real, if you came to me and said you would pay me a thousand dollars cash to eat Savta's potato salad, I wouldn't be able to choke it down. Same goes for Memere Marie's. I think for the money, I might manage Mommom Jewel's, but only if I got half the money up front and had a full pitcher of ice cold, Country Time pink lemonade to wash it down quickly.
The only potato salad I can reasonably handle is German. This is because it has bacon and isn't creamy. I like tart, vinegary and smoky things (like BBQ) so this potato salad makes more sense to me. I learned how to make it when I worked at the hotel where I used to make chicken club sandwiches for Elton John. We served it cold, although I know some German Potato Salad is supposed to be hot. I wish that I could provide you a recipe. Once I longed to have a food blog where I posted original recipes, but quickly I realized that this just isn't possible for me because I don't use recipes when I cook. I just throw stuff together and adjust the ingredients until I get it how I like. I can give you a rough idea of how it's made and if you're industrious you can probably work it out for yourself.
How I Make Potato Salad (but not a recipe)
Take some red, new potatoes and boil them whole until they are slightly tender. You can't overcook them or you'll have a smushy mess. Potato salad MUST NOT BE A SMUSHY MESS. I feel so strongly about this. Cool the potatoes and slice them into rounds or wedges. Let them keep cooling. Then cut up a bunch of bacon into little cubes and saute it. Once it renders some fat, throw in some diced red onion and saute that until the bacon is cooked and the onion is soft. Then throw in some red wine vinegar. This will burn your nose. Stir it around and dissolve all the brown pieces of bacon that stuck on the bottom of the pan. Then sprinkle in some brown sugar and stir that up. You're going for a balance of sweet and sour here. Take this off the stove and let it cool. In a separate bowl mix up some mayo, a pinch of celery seed (do not go crazy with it), grainy mustard and pepper. Whisk it all up until it's smooth. Put the potatoes in another bowl with some minced celery. Pour the bacon vinegar mixture into the mayo mixture and whisk it up. Taste it and see if its how you like. You might want to add more vinegar or sugar to get the balance right. See if it needs salt. It might. Once you get the dressing tasting good, pour it over the potatoes and celery. Then, very gently, with your clean hands, fold the dressing into the potatoes. Do not be rough with this or, again, you will end up with a smushy mess. You want to keep the potatoes in tact. Now you can serve this at room temperature or chill it. Sometimes when it gets cold it tends to stiffen up a little. If it does you can add a little water or vinegar to loosen it up before serving. This isn't supposed to be very creamy though. Don't be ridiculous with the mayo. Once I get off my lazy ass and make mine I'll take a picture so you can see how it looks. I can tell you right now that it looks good. This potato salad is not disgusting. This is not a nasty-assed recipe.
This recipe, however, is. Feeling brave, I decided to do a search on the ever reliable nasty-assed recipe archive that is Cooks.com, for Fourth of July recipes. I think I may have found a winner with this recipe for something called Copper Pennies. It doesn't even sound good. I remember sucking on pennies as a child. Why I did this I don't know. It's a miracle no one ever had to call an ambulance over me swallowing one. I also used to pick scabs and lick the blood and I remember thinking the blood and pennies tasted the same. In this recipe one makes a dressing with a base of cold, canned tomato soup and then pours it over cold, cooked carrots and raw green peppers. This is not ok. Recipes involving cans of tomato soup are never a good sign. Tomato soup reminds me of this date I once had with a guy from Indiana.
My friend and I had met this guys out at a club and had gone to Denny's with them at three in the morning. One of the guys, named Marc with a C, asked me out and I said I'd have dinner with him. I chose a Jamaican restaurant. Marc with a C was not about the Jamaican food. It was too spicy and exotic. He ordered his meal without this and substitute that and put this on the side. Then he made a big fuss about how strange this Jamaican food was. I don't think there's anything exotic in the slightest about Jamaican food. Some of it is spicy hot, but that does not exotic make. I asked Marc with a C what his favorite food was. He said he liked his Mom's Indiana home cooking. I asked which dish.
"Tomato soup, hamburger and rice," he said.
"Which one is your favorite?"
"No, that's one dish."
"How do you make it?"
"You take tomato soup and mix it with some cooked hamburger meat and then you make some Minute Rice and put that in too."
"Is it soup?" I asked.
"No, it's thick. You eat it with a fork."
"Is there anything else in it," I asked, thinking maybe some spices, onions, peppers? Flavor?
"You can put some salt."
Needless to say, Marc with a C and I did not have a second date. He would never have approved of all that hot sauce I keep in my fridge.
But here is the Fourth of July Nasty Assed Recipe 2009 Winner: Fourth of July Copper Pennies.
I did some more research on this recipe, desperately wanting a picture and found a blogger brave enough to actually make it and photograph it. This person used red peppers, which seems to be an improvement over green and the picture of it did not look as gross as I would have imagined. Still though, a can of tomato soup?
What nasty-assed recipes are on your BBQ menus this year?
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Acupuncture Update
Well, I am back from my acupuncture appointment and feeling quite one with the universe here. It was different from what I expected. I found it to hurt a little more than people say it does, but nothing major and nothing I couldn't handle by any means and I felt so so so much better afterwards that I would say a little pinprick is worth it.
I am going to the acupuncturist for relief of the symptoms caused by my autoimmune issues, one of which is bothering me particularly lately. I am also going because my health causes me enormous anxiety and fear which interferes with my daily functioning and creates a vicious cycle where I worry about my health, then because I am worrying I have more symptoms and then I worry more and I can't get out of it. The constant anxiety hurts my spirit and makes me act in ways that just aren't who I am or want to be.
According to the acupunturist, I am blaming myself for my health too much. I am also starving myself and all of my anxiety is caused by my physical problems not the other way around. In other words, I'm not really doing this to myself and I'm not responsible for what ails me. That made me feel a lot better and less guilty. He also said that I am "All About the Liver." Hmmm.
Then I layed on a nice soft table and he stuck needles on the insides of my fingers, my left elbow, both of my feet and somewhere in the middle of my right arm. You can definitely feel the needles going in. It's less than the pain of a shot, so it's no big deal, but you can feel the needles. Once they've been in for a while you can't feel them until they move them. I sat still for a while and he came back and twisted and twirled the needles until it felt like electric shocks were traveling up and down my body, which was not without pain, but also not unpleasant either. My left arm began to ache mildly as well. But then I noticed an absence of the constant annoying mental chatter that torments even in my sleep. It just went away. I stopped worrying. I began to admire a spot on the ceiling. I imagined a big hole cut in the crown of my head (which is what I do when I compose poetry by the way) and a wave of white light rushing in (also what I do when I write poems) and I just felt like everything was going to be ok for once. I felt like I could be in the present instead of my usual five steps ahead of the present because oh my god something terrible might happen five minutes from now and I have to be prepared for it and save everyone from it. And I just felt calm and peaceful in a way that I honestly never have, never once. I have been crying all day long in relief. I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. I'm just relieved and to feel that after never feeling it, is really something.
After I left I cried because I felt so happy and the Royal Poinciana tree looked so pretty and Canela was so soft and I could feel her entire soft body ripple with vibrations when I picked her up and I wasn't thinking about my husband getting into a car accident or the mail getting wet in the storm or fifty things I need to do by tomorrow or how I may have forgotten a deadline. It was all gone. All that nonsense was gone.
So this worked for me. If this is just a placebo I don't care. I feel better.
Just Humor Me
So today promises to be interesting. Right now I'm about to go take a shower so that in a half an hour I can leave to go to my first acupuncture appointment. Here is how I justify the whole thing. Regular doctors haven't been able to do much. I don't mind having needles stuck in me and I like the guys voice. A couple years ago my mother went to him for one session because she wanted to stop smoking. She didn't stick with it because she felt it wasn't the best time for her to stop smoking. I have no idea why that was. But anyway, she made me go with her to her one acupuncture to keep smoking session and I thought it looked fun. Yes, you heard me. It looked fun. Also, Gwyneth Paltrow does it and, as you may recall from last summer's drastic haircut, I will do anything that Gwyneth Paltrow does, within reason. I even like the name Apple. So I called the guy yesterday and made the appointment and he explained that he could hear the pain in my voice. I almost burst into tears. He probably says that to everyone. I bet it's his acupuncturist pick-up line. But still, it worked on me. He could hear the pain in my voice. Clearly the chi flow is dammed up somewhere in my body (knowing me it's in my colon) and needs to be fixed. I figure, if it's stupid or it doesn't work at least I'll have something to write about, right?
Anyway, while I'm at the acupuncturist feeling all Gwynethy, please, please, go to Just Humor Me and read the entire page. I went to just read one post and ended up cracking up and scrolling ever downward, laughing more and more and more. I almost peed on myself when I read the post about the different colored ribbons for different causes. Someone needs to publish that post. Not far behind was the post about fortune cookie fortunes that aren't fortunes. I haven't laughed that hard in forever. And she lives in South Florida!! I had no idea. I have to meet this woman. We need to have lunch, for real.
Anyway, while I'm at the acupuncturist feeling all Gwynethy, please, please, go to Just Humor Me and read the entire page. I went to just read one post and ended up cracking up and scrolling ever downward, laughing more and more and more. I almost peed on myself when I read the post about the different colored ribbons for different causes. Someone needs to publish that post. Not far behind was the post about fortune cookie fortunes that aren't fortunes. I haven't laughed that hard in forever. And she lives in South Florida!! I had no idea. I have to meet this woman. We need to have lunch, for real.
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