A first casualty

This entry is actually for weeks three and four. I cooked the turnips late last week and decided to rock my parsnips tonight. I'm getting the root vegetables out of the way while it's cold enough to roast and broil and make soup. I will save the daikon and watercress for warmer weather.

Both weeks I dragged out a different ignored kitchen gadget. Last week I used the mandolin to slice up the turnips for the gratin. It made very quick work of turnips. Sadly, the vegetable peeler made quick work of the middle finger of my right hand, my soda-can-opening finger, and I'm working sans nail for a while. I worry I may always harbor a deep, subconscious resentment of turnips, treating them worst of all the root vegetables.



On the other hand, I love parsnips. I used a very good recipe for cream of parsnip soup. This recipe called for an immersion blender which I happen to have. Glad I bought all this crap and never used it.



In other news, while I am trying to eat more vegetables, my dogs are trying to get more squirrel in their diets. On Saturday, I went to feed them and Jean-Pierre was nowhere to be found. I have never had to call him more than twice for dinner, so I was worried he was into mischief. I found him patiently waiting out a squirrel in the tree. He came over once to see what I was doing but made his way back to the tree to resume his watch.

Method to the semi-madness

There are two secondary reasons I chose vegetable consumption as a goal this year, in addition to the need to eat more veggies/try new things reasons.

The first reason is my salad-spinner. I started watching food network almost cultishly about 10 years ago. As soon as we had cable that offered it as a network, I started watching. That's back in the good ole days when they still showed cooking shows and everything wasn't a reality/competition/pastry show. Those just get old fast. So, for a few years, I became very immersed in that show-y food culture. I wanted a microplane and a good cast iron skillet and a salad spinner. Salad spinners aren't expensive, but I couldn't bring myself to buy one. Instead, I asked for it as a present.

The first Christmas I asked for it, I didn't get one. Followed by an unfilled birthday wish, another unfulfilled Christmas, and one more birthday. I really should have just gone to bed, bath, and beyond and picked one up, but it suddenly seemed more important than just the salad spinner. It was a test of how much my friends were listening. I began to get defensive about it. I didn't throw dinner parties or the like, so I couldn't do anything subtle and passive-aggressive like serve unwashed arugula for the first course, but I wanted someone, anyone, to give me a damn salad spinner.

So, finally, 3 years after asking, I opened my christmas presents with the hesitation of someone who's known disappointment. Instead, I got three. People finally felt so guilty about the salad spinner debacle that everyone bought me one. Triumph!

Sadly, 6 years later, I've used it maybe ten times and always to wash romaine lettuce. For all of the exotic greens I thought I would be preparing when I asked for it, I've really only graduated one step above iceberg. So, the salad spinner, mocking me on the shelf, was part of the inspiration for the veggie project.

I'll tell the other story another time. The chard went well this week. I sauteed it in olive oil and garlic with salt and pepper, and it's hard to go wrong with that. I served it with some more red potatoes and a mini meatloaf I had made a month ago and frozen. Next week: Turnips. For now, here are some pictures.

I'm determined to get better at this photography thing, too.

Don't let go, Rose

I’m trying to figure out why I’m so pissed about the Avatar/James Cameron thing. I think my issue is that he is continually given awards like best picture for movies that are just pretty. Maybe the academy should create a category called technical director, and James and Sam Raimi can battle it out all day, probably using a lot of CGI. But to me, the best picture should reflect well-rounded characters, plots, themes, and concepts. Titanic is still the only movie to win Best Picture and not be nominated for Best Screenplay. The fact is, James Cameron makes visually stunning movies with very little behind them. Perhaps that is why he is lauded as the filmmaker of this generation. Style and substance have been doing battle forever. Style has been winning handily for the last 10 years. Substance is dying a slow, agonizing death at the hand of the masses.

Are we really going to give best picture to a movie cross-marketed at McDonalds?

Project: Veggies

So, the veggie project got off to a slow start as my attempts to find swiss chard at my area grocery stores was a bust. I think this project will be sending me to whole foods, sunflower, or sprouts for my vegetables. I just don't think I will get 52 weeks of variety at king soopers. So, I swapped out brussels sprouts for this week. Learning in the process that brussels sprouts are named after the city of brussels and, therefore, should have the s on the end of brussels, which should be pronouced. It sounds strange to me, but at least I know. I ended up roasting the brussels sprouts with baby red potatoes, garlic, salt and pepper. It was very tasty, but I'm looking forward to swiss chard next week.

Last night some folks from work tried to go to Lala's on 7th for happy hour. After 40 minutes of drinking wine standing up, we finally agreed to leave. I consider any happy hour where I get one glass of wine and drink it standing up a failure. Boo to you Lala's.

My pictures of the brussels sprouts turned out awful. Food photography should be done during the day.

Project: Veggies

I'm sort of stealing from Leslie's love letters to the city in picking a project to blog about, but I think having a forum and expectations probably extends the life of any project I take on in the new year by at least a month.

So one of my new year's resolutions is to get my 5 a day veggie servings, as recommended by the government. I won't lie, many of these servings will probably be baby carrots, celery, cucumber, and other familiar crudite with dip. But each week, I will prepare one vegetable I've never made before (even if I've eaten them, like beets). I'll try to make 'em pretty and tasty and let everyone know what I think.

I'm starting off easy this month with swiss chard. When the girls at the book club started talking about swiss chard, without me even bringing it up, it felt like veggie fate, karmacorn? No, that's awful. Well, keep you posted.

The resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are the same for everyone; bad habits need to broken and good habits need to be formed. You’d think, after all my years of practice, swapping vice for virtue would be something I’d get better at. The problem, I think, is one of motivation. Moving the pieces around isn’t the hard part. Keeping them there is. Every year I claim this is the year that I keep it all together. And each year I have the evidence that I didn’t. The next year’s resolutions become even more grandiose to compensate for the failure of the year before and pretty soon it’s “discover a diamond mine and marry a movie star.” This year, my first resolution is to forget past failure. The less time I spend dwelling on the person I could have been, the better.

My other resolutions are:

Exercise more and in more ways. Take hikes, go roller skating, get off the treadmill and get out into the world.
Buy a bike and actually use it.
Eat more fruits and vegetables.
Read more non-fiction.
Try new things (restaurants, clubs, movies, events, parties)
Gather the strength to sever ties in unhealthy/stagnant relationships.
Walk the dogs more.
Floss more consistently.
Never open the second bottle of wine no matter how much you want to.
Keep the book club up and running.
Host more dinners.
Cook more meals than you eat out.
Smile at people; be more approachable.
Listen to lots of new music.
Volunteer more.
Eat mussels.
Finish your short stories, don’t just re-edit what you’ve written over and over.
Take up tennis again.

Okay, that’s it. I’ll give this a shot and see where it takes me.

Lazy but hopeful

I need to start writing again. Really writing, not just posting updates to facebook. I’m getting that short attention span that Americans are famous for and find myself unable to read long magazine articles without my eyes jumping off the page from time to time. I blame this on the lack of real writing I have done since I graduated. I don’t regret the mental vacation I’ve taken in the last 7 months. Finishing my BA in 4 years while working full time took a lot out of me, and I was entitled to some down time. Now, I am feeling relatively recovered. It’s time to get back to better pursuits.

Writing more will be one of my new year’s resolutions, along with eating more vegetables and drinking less wine. I probably won’t create terribly quantitative resolutions; they’re too easy to break. Instead my resolutions will be more like guidelines, things to keep in mind when ordering food at a restaurant or deciding to play Gears of War 2 instead of finishing The Elegant Universe. I’m going to spend the rest of this week and all of the week after new year’s solidifying my resolutions and coming up with a plan. My resolutions won’t start on the first. I’m on vacation that whole week and will be as lazy and lowbrow as possible. I’m daring myself to get bored with the crap I’ve been reading and watching and listening to. We’ll see. So maybe, I’m back.

So beautiful

Shame

I've all but abandoned this page for facebook; it's easier. Facebook is like heating a can of soup up on the stove. This is real cooking.

Some of the things I think about or want to write about can't be discussed in 50 words, in the third person. To feel better about it I have to give the backstory, plead my case, and use first person, and I still feel more comfortable in the general anonymity of this page. It makes me feel safer when I choose to discuss some of the illogical rules that govern my life, not quite so judged. Like when I tell people that I always pay for the software I use to pirate media, they think it is strange. It's just the rule. Or another rule, don't say I love you first. I told a friend this rule, and she asked me what I would do if the other person lived by this rule, too. She was implying that my rigidity, my need for control, my trust issues were going to hurt me in the end. Probably, because they already had.

I've got very little experience with being in love. Hmm, this got more painfully confessional than I expected. I'll try again another day.

well, she probably won't talk to me again

Have you ever done something kind of weird, decided to explain your choice, gotten about halfway through your explanation, and realized you would have seemed far less crazy if you hadn’t tried to justify your decision?

Just happened to me in the bathroom on my floor.  I actually used the phrase buffer-stall.  I’m pretty horrified.  Sorry, lady.