No tomatoes, please

Seriously, I think I love the band Cake more than I love actual cake. They pretty much make me jerk around in dorky ways which I would call “dancing” but others might call a “seizure.” Also, I remember one time, when I was like, 10, my older cousin totally played Cake in the car and was like, “Shhh! Don’t tell your mom there are dirty words in it!” And I remember feeling so scandalous that they said shit. She also used to take me to get Frappuccinos because she was all cool and grown up and 16 and drank coffee. And I hated them and she would always drink mine. Ahh, I thought she was so cool and she always acted so put out by me and I was so jealous of her because everyone thought she was so smart and perfect. Then she got kicked out of college… ahhh, cake.

I do like angel food cake sometimes. And every once in a while I get raging cravings for plain chocolate cake without icing. Other than that, I’d totes rather have souffle for my birthday. Or like, shoes or something.

Listen! Eat some cake while you do, if you’re so inclined…

Location: Student Union, UNC, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Time: 2:11 p.m.

wtf: The dude next to me is eating a sweet potato. In May. That’s all he’s eating. And he’s acting as if it is completely and utterly normal to be eating a baked sweet potato for lunch.

Yeah, this as nothing to do with food. But I can’t get back to the important things in life until I tackle this first.

OK. So, since I moved to the Chapel on the Hill permanently, I was hoping that I would write in my blog on a regular-enough basis for it to be entertaining. Unfortunately, I have been caught up in this horrible cabin fever/lack of motivation/horrible depression/even more horrible anxiety/low self-esteem spiral, and have had no motivation to do anything but sleep late, watch Maury and take naps while simultaneously trying not to cry all day and remember to take the dog out so the doesn’t piss on my rug.

Yeah, I’m crazy. But only a little. And it comes in waves. Unfortunately, a bad wave was coming and I attempted to stave it off by taking the semester off and going home to Charlotte to rest and recoup, but then my life kind of completely imploded and changed in crazy ways that would leave most people a trembling bundle of nerves and tears.

So, in an attempt to make myself feel better and not sabotage my relationship with anxiety and craziness, I’m gonna pull myself up by my damn Birkenstock flip-flop straps and be happy. I’m not gonna let this bullshit win and ruin my life. And the first thing I’m gonna go is make a list of reasons why I am totally awesome and deserving of amazing, wonderful lovely things and happiness and feelings and LOVE. This will stay here for me to look at and add on to periodically. If you have any other ideas, let me know. So here goes:

• I love that I put together my ikea queen-sized bed in 45 freakin minutes with only a screwdriver and picture-only instructions. And that I can put together any desk, table, bookcase or chair you put in front of me.
• I love that I look good with no make-up and in jeans and a v-neck t-shirt, but when I decide to do it up right and wear make-up for a special occasion, I look so super bangin’ and beautiful that it blows everyone away.
• I love that I have awesome taste in movies and can thoughtfully dissect and discuss any movie I see. And put it on paper for money, bitches.
• I love that I can bake cakes, rolls, bread, souffles, pies, baklavas and myriad other fancy pastries and also scramble an egg or boil pasta and cook pretty much anything I feel like without fear of failure (if only I could extend that to other aspects of my life).
• I love that I can actually truly succeed at anything I set my mind to. The problem is setting my mind to something besides wallowing in sadness.
• I love my ass. Not gonna lie, it’s really amazing. And no one believes me until they get a nice good look and I wear my yoga pants, and they’re like, damn. I also love my eyes, my lips, my hair, my ears, my calves, my feet and my little lady stomach pooch. Yeah, I like it. It means I’m soft and lady-like. And awesome.
• I love that I can answer at least half of the questions on Jeopardy! every night without even really paying attention.
• I love that I can totally rap along to Kanye West songs and do a not terrible job. Seriously, I totally got “Gold Digger.”
• I love that I can do shots of whiskey like a dude and not complain about it.
• I love that I know how to knit and iron and do dishes and hang a picture and use a drill and check my oil.
• I love that I can knock out an awesome 10-page paper the night before it’s due, and that I can help friends do the same thing.
• I love that I obsessively buy books. I love that I’m surrounded by books that I love or would love, if I ever got around to reading them.
• I love that I can do the Monday crossword in about 15 minutes. And that I can get at least some of the clues on the Sunday crossword.
• I love that I know a lot about clothes and shoes and purses and cars and feminism.
• I love that I can sing opera.
• I love that I loathe “Grey’s Anatomy,” like “Sex and the City,” and love “How It’s Made.”
• I love that I don’t complain about how fat I am around others or feel the need to eat a salad (or worse, nothing) in front of a dude.
• I love that I’m horribly clumsy and drop things and cut myself and poke myself in the eye, and that I can walk in high heels.
• I love that I love anything on VH1 Classic that has anything to do with heavy metal.
• I love that I’ve never done anything more hardcore than alcohol and a few puffs of a clove cigarette. (But I still love you if you do other stuff. Just don’t make me do it.)
• I love that I’m not high maintenance and that I can just hang, or chill, or be cool.
• I love that I could probably still beat you with a stick (or large piece of metal, either way) even though I haven’t fenced in years.
• I love that I can make really awesome pool shots.
• I love that I can string words together in an awesome manner that lend a gravity to my thoughts and feelings that others find humorous and interesting and can relate to.
• I love that I can use big words. And would probably win at Scrabble if I weren’t playing my mom. Or if it didn’t make me want to claw my eyeballs out.
• I love that I’m completely awkward and can’t dance at all, but I’m totally willing to let you teach me anyway.
• I love my sense of humor. I love that I make people laugh, heartily and in large numbers. I love that I can parlay my horrible awkwardness into funny, and that I’m cool with people laughing at me. As long as I’m laughing too.

Ok, whew, that’s a lot to love. Hopefully this can get me through. Hopefully anyone out there loves these things too!

So, apparently, Gordom Ramsay is even gettin in on the whole quick meal craze. Here’s a really interesting story I found on slate.com about his new quick cookbook. It brings up some interesting points about how the recipes completely don’t translate over to American palettes (blood sausage in less than half an hour, anyone? yum), and how American armchair cooks won’t even bother trying the recipes anyway, opting to instead look at all those purty pictures and drool. I don’t do the whole recipe thing, and though I have some cookbooks, I really don’t care about looking at pretty pictures.

Can I just say though, that as long as there are plenty of pictures of Ramsay, I might be in the market for a new cookbook. Seriously, I know this dude is kind of a total douche bag, but look at the man! He’s beautiful. And on the show on BBC where he transforms failing restaurants in a week, there’s always a lovely shot of him with his shirt off while he’s changing into his chef’s jacket.

Even though he’s super mean, I really like that he encourages people that he really believes in, and even though he’s definitely got the tough love going on, you know when he’s nice to you that he really means it and that it means more to the person to have impressed someone with such impossibly high standards. Also, he’s super hot. The fact that he curses like a sailor only makes him more attractive.

So, cookbook. Warm blood sausage in 30 minutes? No. Gordon Ramsay for half an hour? Yes, please.

Man, I think I just realized the completely obscene amount of food blogs that exist on this here interweb. I mean, I’ve always known there were a lot of people out there writing about their food exploits, but it’s suddenly just hit me that there about, oh, 6 million Web sites out there with recipes and ridiculous pictures, and people commenting about how gorgeous the photography is, and how much they want to make that dish.

Today I plucked up the courage to again visit delicious:days, the crazy food Web site of a lady in Munich who makes beautiful Web sites and beautiful food that she takes beautiful pictures of. Honestly, this lady makes me feel like a complete failure, what with her “50 Coolest Websites” award from Time magazine and her BOOK DEAL and her really cool, easily navigable site. Damnit. Not that I’m expecting to be that awesome right out of the gate, mind you, but honestly, I feel like I could never get there.

Then, I kinda realized that I don’t really want my Web site to be like hers, because that’s not really even what I’m going for. I mean, I’m not out there to give recipes with crazy close-ups of the corner of whatever artfully disheveled dish I’ve made. Honestly, I rarely, if ever, use recipes, and only for crazy things that I know I can’t just wing, like bearnaise sauce or candy-souffle-cake or something. So why would I be kinda hypocritical and totally untrue to myself by putting a blog out there that consists of mostly recipes? I wouldn’t, which is why I’m not going to.

I’m really attempting to do a little more than that here, and though I have yet to really settle into what I’m trying to do, I’m working on it, and hopefully soon I can make it there when I stop being a lazyass and feeling bad because I don’t take beautiful pictures of amazing dishes. Can I just say that cropping and resizing pictures in Photoshop is a total pain in the ass, especially if I’m trying to do like, 10 of them, and trying to crop out the blurry part when all I really want to do is write. But I do the pictures because I like to have something more to look at, and I’d like to think that they are endearingly terrible in a funny way. Maybe?

Unlike most food bloggers out there, who have other careers first, and just happen to write about the stuff they make for dinner, I’m a writer. That’s what I am. That’s what I want to do with my life. And writing about food makes me just about as happy as cooking and eating. I want to have crazy food adventures and explore the crazy and not-so-crazy stuff that people stick in their mouths. I want to delve into more than just writing down a recipe, and, above all, I want to be funny. And recipes are just not funny. I’m sorry, it’s a truth. I think they tried recipes a few years ago on SNL, but it didn’t go over so well. Will Ferrell kept tryin’ to improv and just throw crap in willy nilly, and the dishes just never came out right.

So, OK, I’m going to stop feeling bad about myself because I don’t make these ridiculous dishes randomly for dinner and take ridiculous pictures, because I’m way more than that, and it’s gonna be awesome. I always knew that Rachael Ray was so obscenely famous, not because she can cook, or is cute or funny or is some sort of culinary genius, it’s because she had a hell of a gimmick and she milked that baby all the way to the bank and up Oprah’s ass. So, I guess I need a gimmick. Hot and funny. Ooh! And being a picky eater. We’ll go with that one. Yeeeah.

This weekend I went to Trader Joe’s for the second time in my life, but actually shopped there for the first time ever. The first time I went, it was right after the one in Charlotte had opened (and broken fire code), and it was a friggin zoo, and my mom and I were so freaked out by the sheer amount of hippie overwhelmingness that we just kind of ran away and wrote it off as a weird store filled with generic-brand organic food.

For those not in the know, which, apparently, was just my mother and I until this weekend, Trader Joe’s is basically a private-label grocery store that sells organic and interesting foods for super cheap.

But alas, I gave it another try. I went in with an open mind and a basket, and I shopped. I looked around at everything, and I bought too much. I even got some of the infamous “three buck Chuck,” (chardonnay and shiraz) and it was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I kind of drank most of the bottle of chardonnay and was then unable to attend a rockin’ show that I wanted to go to. Almost kind of worth it, though.

Everything we have eaten from there has been surprisingly good, and of really good quality, and it was super cheap too! The best thing ever in the world that they sell are these 1-pound bags of frozen shrimp that are huge (16-20/pound) for like, $7 per bag. Though I thought the shrimp would be tough or otherwise completely fail to meet my expectations in some way, they defrosted really quickly and were so tender and beautiful, it made me really happy that I didn’t pay much for them. I kinda feel like I got away with something there.

So, anyhow, the other night, I used the shrimp to make a super delicious dish with some frozen artichoke tortellini we also bought. I basically just cooked the pasta, and in the time it took to cook it (7 minutes), I sauteed up a bunch of garlic, quickly sauteed the shrimp and finished it all off with some white wine and lemon juice and bam, done.

It took less than 10 minutes, seriously, and probably cost less than $15 altogether, and it was really really good. We also made a killer chicken curry last night and made some frozen naan from Trader Joe’s too. Like, srsly, it was awesome. I think there’s one in New York thank Odin.

Related:

Trader Joe’s [Web site] 

They like curry so much, they’re even starting a chain of Indian food restaurants. Not the British people as a whole, of course. I mean, just some of them. How many millions of dollars do you bet that the people starting the chain are not Indian? Just a thought…

Though some people are admittedly pissed, I’m not sure how I feel about this. I mean, I’d probably eat there if I lived in Britain, at least once. For me, Indian restaurants are so hit and miss, if the food is good to begin with, the uniformity would be refreshing.

I love Indian food. I mean, no joke, I super love it. They have Indian food at the dining hall twice a week, and when I lived on campus, I ate it every day they offered it. Twice a week. All semester. And it was just as glorious every week. As long as they have some Tikka Masala action or some lentils or even chickpeas, I’m so there.

As much as I abhor sub-par chain restaurants, I’m not sure I can get behind this. The best part about family-run Indian restaurants is that they’re all different. Even the worst Indian restaurants are still infinitely more delicious than any meal I’ve ever had at Chili’s or Macaroni Grill.

Related:

Can curry chain stand the heat?: [bbc.co.uk]

Picture Credit: [King of Curries]

 Ya know what I really hate? When people pronounce Bojangles like it would be in Spanish. If If I have to hear one more frat-boy douche nozzle be like, “Hey dudes, let’s get some ‘Bo-han-gless’,” I might have to do some face-punchin’.   

So yep, when I went to New York, I made a stop by the infamous Gray’s Papaya. Well, more stumbled upon it and squealed with delight. I’ve seen this place all over the TV, and it’s famous for its lovely grilled beef hot dogs. Who needs a damn sidewalk hot dog when you can have the delicious hot dog with the snappy casing and the toasted bun and the spicy deli mustard? God, I didn’t even need any dang chili on it. They were so good and hot and beautiful, I wanted to cry. Maybe I was just really hungry.

I got this weird “Coconut Champagne” with it, and it kind of tasted like rotten pina coladas with chunks of coconut, so I threw that out, went and got a coke at the bodega right outside and walked down the street in sweet sweet hot dog contentment.

[Related] Gray’s Papaya 2090 Broadway and 72nd St. (Manhattan)

Huzzah! Today marks the arrival of my lovely new mattress! Now I don’t have to sleep on the floor anymore. I’m still eagerly awaiting the arrival of my slick Ikea bed which is sure to be a bitch and a half to put together, but will still be pretty awesome.

Seriously though, speaking of beds, I’m not sure what got me started on this tangent, but as I was deliriously driving back to Chapel Hill from Charlotte in the throes of a fever I began to think about sex + food. I think the tenuous connection in my head made more sense at the time, but I haven’t been able to stop pondering the appeal of such a thing. Now, as much as I love food, and as much as I love, uh, the idea of being sexy, I feel like those are two things that I do not want to mix.

What is undeniably sexy though, is cooking with someone or having someone cook for you. I would say that it is the best kind of foreplay (I imagine…), especially if the food is yummy. But the thought of taking the food with you to the afterward times is when I get an icky feeling. It’s kind of like that scene in 9 1/2 Weeks when Mickey Rourke is all feeding stuff to Kim Basinger and she’s all blindfolded, and he freakin feeds her a jalapeno, and she’s freaking out, and he’s all, “haha I’m abusive,” and she’s all, “gah! I’m gonna die! Let’s do it.” But I digress.

Anywho, I was truly racking my brain, trying to think of foods that are actually suitable to take into the bedroom, but I can’t think of any that don’t disgust me. There are the usual suspects, such as whipped cream and chocolate sauce, of course, but lo! The terrifying sheet-ruining, hair-sticking prospects of such things are too much for me to bear. Also, I’ve seen edible underwear, and I can’t think of a thing I’d want to eat less. You could pretty much just wrap a fruit-by-the-foot around your parts and it would probably taste better and be less likely to pull all your teeth out.

So, maybe, ice, I guess? I read in Cosmo once that that’s sexy, yeah? I might be able to get behind that one, since ice is just frozen water, and water never really hurt anyone (except that girl that was on Maury who was allergic to water. True story).

Also another pet peeve of mine is when people (ahem guys) call food sexy. There was some dude on Top Chef who used to call his dishes sexy all the time, and I just found that so obnoxious for some reason. Don’t get me wrong, food is super sexy, but it’s kind of just like if you were describing yourself, if you have to tell people you’re sexy, you probably aren’t.

Also, least sexy food = olives with stones. Nothing is less attractive than spitting out a giant olive pit into your hand or trying to spit it into something else and missing. Lame.

That is all for now. Hope I didn’t gross you out too much.