Category: Cookin’

I’m really bad at it.

Retrobruxist Friday 11/30/12, or Everything Something Nobody

Hey, visually-oriented Bruxistists, what do you think about the link color? I tried purple, but it didn’t pop. My graphic designer suggested hot pink, but it looked a little too Miami Vice for me. Burnt orange? Does it go with the other colors? If not, what does?

The Mexican braised beef that I cooked(!) is delicioso. I’m eating it in lettuce wraps with radishes and cilantro. The only sad thing is there’s all this nom-nom sauce left over, and it’s begging for a big hunk of bread to sop it up. Drinking it would be frowned-upon, right?

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I missed 12% by six-thousandths of a point three years ago. Got it a year later, but what a crock. Getting my National Boards didn’t make me a better teacher. You know what has made me a better teacher? (1) Wanting to become a better teacher, and (2) working with good people who also want to become better teachers. That’s it.

Now I feel kind of trapped by the 12% (#FWP). I can’t move out of my Middle Child Generalist certification area (3rd-6th grades) and keep the salary bump. And I don’t know if I really want to teach Middle Children anymore. Middle Earth Children would be fun.

Adorbz.

I’m certified to teach high school English, but 12%! Ducks, but water. Wah, wah, wah.

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About three times a month, somebody tells me I’ve lost weight, like they did two years ago. And five, ten, and twenty years ago. Now I just say, “Huh. I wouldn’t know. I don’t weigh myself.” They usually try to reassure me that their assessment is correct. Then I just look at them and shrug and look baffled. Then they awkwardly walk away. It’s fun.

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A year ago, I participated in a CrossFit competition against my cousin. Except that the whole thing happened inside my skull because I’m very crazy. She posted on Facebook recently that she’d gotten her first muscle-up…

Yeah. I’m not ever, ever, ever, ever going to be able to do a muscle-up.

And I’m actually OK with that. I was telling a friend recently that I grew up feeling inferior because my elder siblings were smarter than I was. After therapy and transformational seminars and inspirational quote-of-the-day calendars, I decided that was untrue! I had made it up! Empowerment!!1!

But later, I realized, it is true, and that’s OK.

Because the fact is I’m smart enough AND — they’d tell you this too — neither of my siblings could/would get up and host the Monti StorySLAM, and I can/do. I’d love to be intellectually brilliant like my brother and sister, but I have other talents. So it is with my cousin. Nobody’s good at everything, but everybody’s good at something. Or as my buddy Phil said recently, everything something nobody.

OK me, fine also you, both.

Happy Retrobruxist Friday, y’all.

Hodge Podge

I’m too busy tonight to write a post with a — what-do-you-call-it? — a central idea, that’s it. But who needs a central idea anyway?

First, I made oven-braised Mexican beef!!!!

I haven’t exactly tasted it yet, because it’s quarter past eleven and it just got done cooking (not so great on the timing of things yet), but it looks like the picture! And I only had to call my sister with two Cooking for Dumbs questions: (1) How important is a half-teaspoon of fish sauce in a recipe that uses 2.5 lbs of beef? [She said not terribly but that I should’ve just come over because she has some. Of course she does.] (2) It’s not a good idea to leave the oven on while I go to the gym, right? [Right.]

Second, I was this close to calling the cops to report the screaming domestic dispute next door when I looked outside and Durham’s Finest were already there. Nice work, guys!

Third, HOW GREAT IS THE BLOG’S NEW LOOK? Big thanks to Angie at Lime Tiger, who is not only talented but funny and fun to work with, and Phil, to whom I emailed the documentation for the theme and said, “Wah. You do it.” And he did. What a gem, that guy.

Cooking for Dumbs: Bacon-wrapped Dates (Vlog!)

New vlog! I suppose I could’ve put some makeup on, but it was early, and

I haven’t quite opened any of it yet.

Change takes time, people.

Also, yes, those are benzoyl peroxide bleach stains on my shirt. I’m fancy.

P.S. I forgot to mention, so you don’t inadvertently end up in a relationship with the grocery guy, the dates are WITH THE RAISINS.

Cooking for Dumbs: How to Make Lunch

Today you’ll learn how to make All Your Lunches for the Week on Sunday morning.

Step 1: Go to Whole Foods and buy

one of these guys.

Eighteen bucks, and it comes with

health.

Step 2: In a Pyrex dish with a lid, place

one piece of London broil,
some green beans,
and some potatoes.

Cover with lid.

Step 4: Repeat until all ingredients are distributed. As you do,

check out how bad your dogs want some of that beef
but they pretend they’re not about to take you out at the knees for it when you give them a stern look.

Step 3: Divide the health

into containers, using the same method above.

Note: Don’t dress the health. Even the morning of, because

health doesn’t hold up well under vinaigrette.
Voila! You cooked!

Step 4: For Friday’s lunch, you’ll just have to improvise since, while you were cooking, you got hungry from all the lesbian dancing the previous night and ate one of the portions for breakfast.

Cooking for Dumbs: Edible Collard Greens

Simple Collard Greens Recipe with Lots of Pretty Pictures

Ingredients: bunch of collards, 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp olive oil, fresh garlic, salt, lemon juice

Step 1: Think about looking up that collards recipe you think you might have found on Epicurious?, when was it?, maybe a year or two ago. Have confidence that you don’t need to; you remember it.

Step 2:

Fill a pot about twice the size of your head halfway with water.

Step 3:

Cover it with a lid and turn the burner on Hi. That’s the notch above 9.

Step 4:

Using a knife about the size of your forearm, cut the leaves of the collards off the stems.

Step 5:

Stack the leaves in a pile and slice them into 5/8-inch pieces. It’s real important that they’re exactly 5/8 of an inch.

Step 6:

When the water boils, dump the collard greens into the water, and give ’em a lil stir.

Step 7: While they’re boiling for, I don’t know, like, 5 minutes?,

look how cute your dog is being.
Also, dice up some garlic. I prefer to be single forever, so I use three cloves.

Step 8:

Using these guys to pick up the pot, and not your bare hands because you will hurt yourself, drain the collards in the basket of
a salad spinner, and salad-spin the shit out of them.

Step 9:

Put butter and olive oil in the pot over Med heat (that’s between 4 and 6) until it gets all foamy and then the foam starts to subside, but before it gets brown, i.e., don’t go check your Facebook feed while this is happening.

Step 10:

Throw in the collards and garlic and toss around until heated through.

Step 11:

Leave the remaining collards on the counter,
and put the knife in the fridge. With the butter. Wonder where the knife got to.

Step 12:

Salt the crap out of the collards, and sprinkle with lemon juice. Eat them — they’re not terrible.

Step 13:

Remember to put the remaining collards in the fridge where they will wilt for two weeks before you throw them away.

Step 14:

Eat some of this stuff for protein, since you don’t know how to cook meat.

Step 15:

Go to your friend Craig’s house for dinner. He knows how to cook and you’re gonna be really hungry because all you’ve had today was collards and trail mix.

Ducks, But Water

My lack of talent in the kitchen extends beyond the stovetop, over the counter, all the way to the coffee machine. I make coffee that is not good.

At work we have

one of these guys.

Makes a single cup of perfect coffee at a time. I used to use it now and again, in a pinch, but in the last week, the Keurig and I have become besties. (For some reason, I’ve been acting like a child and refusing to get in bed at a reasonable hour, which has made over-caffeination a necessity.)

And now I waaaaaaaaaant one.

There’s even

a red one that would match my kitchen!

Back in January, some girlfriends and I took a road trip up to my childhood home, and we were watching Violet and Redford frolic along the creek. (Stay with me; I’m going to bring it back around to coffee.) When a raft of ducks came around the bend into view, Violet made a beeline at them, charging without a moment’s hesitation into the water. “DUCKS!”

Redford ran at the water fowl, but when his toesies got wet, he backed out and sprinted, frustrated, back and forth along the bank. He always does that. Wants to get at them varmints so bad, but does not enjoy getting wet. I can’t remember who it was, but one of us said, “DUCKS!… but water.” And now we use that phrase when we want something real, real bad, but there’s another thing deterring us.

So, DUCKS!

But water.

That is, KEURIG YUMMY PERFECT COFFEE! But all that plastic.

I consider myself a pretty ecologically conscious person. I recycle everything I’m allowed to. I drive a fuel-efficient car. I catch the first gallon of cold water from the shower in a pitcher to water my plants and fill the dogs’ bowls. If it’s yellow, I let it mellow.

But every time you use a “K cup”, you stab Mother Earth in the ovaries.

And I just don’t know if I can be that guy.

Now is when some of you point out that they make

a reusable filter.

But you’re forgetting that I HAVE A PRETERNATURAL ABILITY TO FUCK UP ALL THINGS KITCHEN-RELATED. That reusable filter requires filling, and despite the fact that I have a brain and measuring spoons, I promise, I WILL FUCK IT UP.

Those K cups are so very, very delicious and perfect.

Ducks, but water.

Bona Fide Southerner

You know, I was born here. In North Cackalacky. I was born here and raised here. My mailing address was a rural route and box number (until high school when they changed it all for 911 purposes…and even then it became Old Highway 421—is there a redder-neck-sounding road?). I went to Carolina. I hated Dook with an appropriate passion.

But I always felt a little like a fraud. My parents were Yankees. I had been to Bulgaria by the time I was six. My family was not Southern Baptist. I’ve still never shot a gun.

So I’m pleased to tell you, I cooked collard greens in pork fat for breakfast this morning.

Where do I go to pick up my ID card?