I didn't do this, but it rules: "Cook Your Comics"

http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/category/lifestyle/cook-your-comics/

Hey, look who's app allows links!!! That's right, we're super-fancy now.

And speaking of super-something, this link provides helpful recipes and tips for cooking an elaborate Thanksgiving meal that's inspired by superhero comics.

Disclosure: I don't know this writer socially, but Rachel Stevens is my friend and she does write for Women Write About Comics. I don't actually think that this constitutes a conflict of interest or anything, though. I'm mostly just using this disclaimer as an opportunity to brag about knowing Rachel, because she's awesome, and you should read her stuff, because she knows a lot about Transformers comic books.

You should also read the stuff that I actually linked to here, too.

Paneer cheese is no replacement for whipped cream, when served with pie

In good news, I still have a little pie left, and it's still delicious.

Everything else is bad news.

I think I've figured out the rules of my own vegetarianism?

Okay, so for right now, this is what I have:

1. I go 100% vegetarian about 95% of the time. That means pectin candy instead of gelatin candy, puddings from scratch instead of gelatin-based pudding from a box, and also grilled cheese sandwiches or whatever, instead of steak.

2. That was not a confusing use of percentages.

3. I am currently trying to cut down my dairy consumption, and I do my best within my budget to buy locally produced dairy, and lower-cruelty eggs. So, caged-free eggs at the least, and eggs from folks' pet chickens at best.

4. Death comes to all life, and minimal-cruelty slaughtering practices matter. Even when I'm not buying meat, I still want to encourage the best possible practices be applied when animals are harvested for their meat. I also come from a rural background, and I respect well-run, minimal-cruelty farms very much.

5. I will sometimes break my vegetarian prohibition of the consumption of meat, for culturally important occasions, although I still prefer to fill up on meatless dishes. 

For example, one of my cousins is from Oaxaca, Mexico, and he works in a restaurant, and he prepared chicken mole tamales for the family and friends on Día de los Muertos this year, and you'd better believe that while I filled up on the homemade black bean soup that he similarly prepared from scratch (he is a badass!), I also ate a tamale, because of course I did. I will also, a couple of times a year, eat a burger from Dick's Drive-In, because they take good care of their employees, and I consider that to also be a higher-good thing. This is higher-good kinda stuff, right here.

6. While I try to stay within close proximity to vegetarian sources of protein, if my blood sugar is dropping, I might eat meat if a meat eater offers some of their food to me.

7. I also taste meat dishes when I'm cooking for omnivores, which is especially important because from what I've observed, my husband reports feeling uncomfortable if he goes meatless for longer than about 18 hours at a time. 

8. I don't really know what to think about eating fish. I definitely have a strong taboo against eating cephalopods, because they're too much like cats. (Google that.) I'm originally from a very small island in the Pacific, just a little bit off of the coast of Washington State, way north of Seattle. So I respect fishermen. But right now I don't fish, because killing fish wigs me out. And I haven't eaten fish for a while, because I just haven't wanted to. I still eat mollosks when my family prepares them. My dad has an excellent technique for grilling oysters, and they're too much of a tradition to take lightly.

9. Tofu is genuinely fun, according to me. I also grew up eating tofu, prepared in ways adapted from the recipes of the American South, so it's a sentimental comfort food for me.

10. I don't have a prohibition against eating foods that were prepared alongside meat. For example, I love it when my husband makes breaded and fried cubes of extra-firm tofu for me while he's making breaded, fried chicken for himself. It's REALLY GOOD.

PIE DISCOVERY! 5 OUT OF 5!!!!!!

I FIGURED IT THE FUCK OUT!!!!!!! This, my fifth post about the same fucking pie, is the conclusion of the story about this pie. I think.

The pie was undercooked. I gave it another hour or do at 425F, and the peaches are now squishy instead of crunchy, and the whole thing looks WAY more like a pie than it did the first time that I took it out of the oven.

It also expanded and got way bigger, so eating two undercooked slices was a pretty crucial step in the process, because otherwise the thing would have kept boiling over into a soufflé-like science fair syrup volcano. Next time, I'll use 2lbs of peaches instead of the 3lbs advised by the recipe.

I feel a little sick. I'm not gonna lie about that. Eating a hearty sample of undercooked peach pie made with underripe peach slices is not the road to health, as far as I reckon. But I did it. I SURVIVED.

And this is the goddamned pie I deserve, for taking this hero's journey:

Thankee mightily, for joinin' me on this adventure, Reader. It's been quite a ride! A ride with lots of naps happening in the middle. My kind of ride.

FOUR PARTER!!!!! HOW BIG CAN I MAKE THIS STORY?!?!?

The crust was also undercooked, except for the pretty past if the top crust. So I think that the problem is one of the pie just being undercooked.

Gonna try to put it back in the oven. I will keep eating pie to test how done it is.

This may become a five or six-part writing extravaganza! 

Last post felt incomplete? Pie feels incomplete.

So, doing a meandering three-parter about not really thinking it through, during a pie experience, is exactly what I want for my food writing today. I have recently discovered my writing formula, and I've decided to experiment with it a little.

As for PIES, though...I don't think that I will ever cook "partially thawed" peaches straight into a pie like that again. Next time, I'm going to try cooking those fuckers into gooey pie filling in a pot on the stovetop before even putting them into the pie crust. These peaches are even a little crunchy.

I'm eating my second slice of pie, mind you. I may even eat a third, in a few hours. Who knows? So it's not BAD-bad. It's just...the pie did not reach its full potential.

Also, I am eating it off of a plate with raw flour on it, which just HAS to be a bad idea. *guitar solo*

The pie is just okay.

It's photogenic, though! Like, godDAMN, that's a photogenic pie.

But the peaches aren't mushy, they're still firm, and some of them occasionally have little bits of peach pit stuck to them.

The apple pie from earlier this week was one that I just kinda winged, but I had way more control over the fruit, and I feel like it came out better.

This pie isn't BAD...but I feel like starting with fresh, definitely ripe peaches that I cut carefully myself would end up producing a way, WAY better pie than this.

I still plan to eat a lot of it, though.

Even better pie today

So I made a pie a few days ago. Then I didn't want to bother with pie crust, so I made an attempted crumble with frozen cherries. I didn't use thickening starch, though, because I wanted to see what would happen. The result was some weird oatmeal cookies fused to the top of a cherry soup. Good flavor, but not what it was supposed to be.

(THE CRUMBLE WAS ALMOST PERFECT!!!!! But I didn't use any thickening starch. Oh man.)

()

I decided that today, I'd use a recipe as faithfully as I could, instead of just winging it again. I haven't really done the recipe thing before. At least not this week.

This is the pie recipe that I used today:

http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/peach-pie/e09fbe68-5291-4642-aa1e-4686fcf17c4e

...Regular readers should remember that I have some technical whatevers with making hyperlinks in my app. But a simple copy-paste will let you follow the link. Sorry for the inconvenience! 

Except that really, should I be sorry for that inconvenience? 

This is not a blog about doing a good job. There are lots of food blogs about appearing competent. THIS, on the other hand, is a blog about surviving mild failure, and about the occasional moments of success that still happen when the ratio of fail to non-fail is heavily skewed towards the "fail" side. Yes! Embrace the process! Embrace and cherish your mortality! Life finds a way...INTO YOUR FACE!!!!!

So.

This is the pie that I just took out of the oven. I wrote "PiE" on it. How cute! I find it cute. I'm my own audience. My audience thinks it's cute, because I am that audience. I am 100% of that audience, and that means that this pie received a 100% approval eating from its target audience.

YEAH, I WIN AT THIS ACTIVITY!!!!!!!!!!

I can't yet speak to the quality of the frozen peaches that I used, but as far as I know, they're the most wild wildcard in it...assuming that the cooking time was still correct, even though the peaches were only kinda-sorta thawed when it went into the oven...

Okay, this is too much stress. I'm going to take a nap.

I made other food too! Lasagna, also beans. I didn't make cottage cheese, though.

Here is a recipe that I was loosely inspired by:

http://www.marthastewart.com/338978/rich-artichoke-and-mushroom-lasagna

I forgot about most of the seasonings, and I used sautéed zucchini and fresh spinach instead of artichoke hearts, but I made the fuck out of the béchamel sauce. Like, that shit turned out GREAT. The rest? The rest of the lasagna needs salt, so it is pictured with salt.

The beans are cannellini beans, roasted with homemade garlic butter. I made the garlic butter by literally just putting two whole cloves of garlic in a mini blender with butter and olive oil. It was so spicy that when a clump dropped onto the floor and my cat licked it, he made an "eech" sound and sprinted away like he was frightened.

The cottage cheese is just cottage cheese, but it's 4% milkfat and Darigold, which is a local brand. So it's pretty fucking good.

Pie. I ate the pie.

It tastes like cheap store bought pie crust and baked apples. So...I like it. I am eating while I type. 

The sea salt flakes on the top of the crust (I stood up and looked at the kitchen) were definitely a good idea. I just realized that I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THE EXISTANCE OF CINNAMON! But who cares?

Featuring, our sweet couch and my husband's cook feet:

Pie? Maybe.

Okay, so it baked at 425F for about 50 mins, and the internet says that it has to cool for two hours before I can eat it. So I have no data to reliably measure the quality of the pie with yet. It looks a little crappy and sad, but I'm still very impatient and I want to eat the whole thing RIGHT NOW. But I cannot, because I still have over an hour to wait. Dammit.

Those freckles look like a rash.

Pie? We'll see.

I just made an apple pie. It is in the oven. I tried something I haven't done before, with the filling, by layering thin slices of apple in a series of flat spirals. I then topped the apples with flour, brown sugar, and butter. 

I forgot to add salt before putting on the top crust, so I sprinkled some chunky(?) salt, like...uh...those medium-sized salt crystal flakes? You have to know what I mean. It's not, like, regular table salt. It's fancy table salt. It came in a little tube jar with, like, a spice grinder built in. Anyway.

I sprinkled those salt pieces and some raw sugar crystals on the top of the pie crust, which also had some room-temperature butter smeared across it, because why not?

The pie is now in the oven. I don't know how it will turn out, but I DO know that I like sitting down again. So I have that going for me.

Actual (But Still Lazy) Peaches and Cream Oatmeal

I am literally doing this right now.

Canned peaches might count as cheating, but who cares! There are actual peaches, there is actual cream, and I used old-fashioned dried oats instead of quick oats.

Mark Bittman once said that dry, old-fashioned oats become edible after soaking in liquid for ten minutes. I've done that a few times and have found it to be true, at least according to my own digestive system, which is totally fine with the practice. 

This time, I used boiling water and it worked really well. So take THAT, corn syrup lower fiber instant stuff! You aren't the only option anymore for people who want oatmeal but don't want to clean up afterward. (Apart from the dirty bowl and spoon, and apart from putting the ingredients away again. But other than that!)

Chicken salad made with freakin' love

MY APP MADE THE TEXT TINY!!! AARGH!!!

Because my partner is not vegetarian, I woke up before 6am and made a truly badass chicken salad to fill sandwiches with, to send to work with him. (He's in the home stretch for Never Alone, which is a video game that my husband works on.)

My sandwich goal was to create something suitably complex and creamy without using mustard, Johnny's seasoning salt, Penzeys Ozark seasoning mix, Old Bay, or Worcestershire sauce, because I use those pretty much every time. Instead, I chopped some celery seeds and cumin seeds, sprinkled in some lemon olive oil, used diced pickles, horseradish powder, powdered paprika (which rhymes with Caprica)...I put a lot of seasoning stuff in the mayonnaise base and it's really freakin' good. Made with freakin' love, is what's what.

Tillamook smoked white cheddar slices are included, for use as a sandwich topping OR as a side dish. Some little, diced cubes of that cheese are stirred into the chicken salad, too. Not enough to taste overtly, but enough to just make the flavor a little more interesting. When tasting the chicken salad once I was done, each sample tasted slightly different than the sample before it, so I'm confident that every bite of the sandwich that it will become will be unique, and that each bite will compliment, rather than simply mimic, the bites prior to the bite taken. It will tell a story. A story of "oh, hey, that's in there, too!"

Onion Eyes...I look at you and I can't disguise...

I got...onion eyes. I feel the "magic" between you:

And I:

I got...onion eyes. 

I got...okay, I think that's all the Eric Carmen parody I have in me right now. I'm making soup and my eyes burn like a bitch, and instead of prepping the potatoes and squash I ran to the bathroom where there's good lighting, to stand in front of the curtain and take a selfie. For fuck's sake. Some kinda practical. Sheesh. That's what my eyes look like right now. I guess the onion was a little old?

I actually did it! Chicken-style, tofu-salad sandwiches.

I did it! I finally froze a box of shelf-stable tofu, and then thawed it again before cooking with it. After it was thawed, I put it into a baking dish, just chopping it into slightly smaller blocks of tofu, so the whole pan was filled up. Then, I roasted it with a little canola oil and some Penzeys Ozark Seasoning at 375F for 30mins.

I roasted some chicken in a different pan for my spouse.

Once the timer went beep, I took everything out. The tofu had the same consistency as that rubbery stuff that chicken juice cooks into. A lot meatier than it gets when cooked that way without the freeze/thaw pre-treatment. Flavor's about the same, but it's tofu. It's supposed to taste like tofu.

Now, one of the comfort foods my mom makes is breaded and fried tofu slices, served in sandwiches with tomato slices, mayo, and worstechire sauce. I've told you about that before, haven't I?

Anyway.

I was planning to do something proper with this tofu, like, I don't know what. Serve it in the cup of an athletics trophy or something. But instead, before rational thinking could talk me out of it, I mixed it up with mayonnaise and Old Bay seasoning, and used it like a sandwich spread. Slathered (yes, fucking "slathered," shut up, my food words are still timely and relevant and topical) (huhhuh, it's a topping) the sandwich spread on some Dave's Killer Bread, put a couple slices of dill pickle in there, and ate it. And then I made another sandwich like that, and I ate it. I'm on my third consecutive sandwich, and I'm starting to slow down a little. But that's to be expected. I have a head cold, and my physical stamina is lacking.

Anyway. I can't say for sure whether I'll still like this style of sandwich once I get my sense of smell back, but in the meanwhile, here are some photos of the stuff I'm eating right now:

IF YOU BELIEVE IT CAN, THIS CAN LOOK LIKE A PHOTO OF CHICKEN SALAD

This bread is fucking awesome. It's sweet but doesn't kill the taste of savory foods, and the texture is chewy without being dense. I should have been buying this stuff all along!

HERE IS MY SANDWICH! I AM HOLDING OPEN THE SANDWICH FOR THE CAMERA! IT IS A BEAUTUFUL SANDWICH!

Not Pictured: PROPER donuts

Waffle donuts! What could go wrong?

Waffle donuts IS what went wrong. They were all mealy and not crunchy and while they were at least 12 hours old when we are them, I can't help but infer that they were probably pretty gross when they were fresh, too.

We got them from the Safeway grocery store on Roosevelt, in Seattle, just south of Lake City Way.

We also picked up store brand French bread, and true to their style, it was like eating whatever the fuck angels eat when they celebrate. It was like eating the limbs of lesser angels, who lost their lives in combat? I'm...no...wait...pretend I didn't say that. It was fucking awful.

And so were the donuts.

Less awful, but still.

Not Pictured: Donuts

I forgot that I'm someone who takes pictures of food until waaaay too late to actually show you these donuts. Here is the box:

It's blurry, but that's how it goes. I was busy helping some friends move.

I HIGHLY recommend going to the Donut Factory in Lynnwood, WA. The "Crobar"--their take on cronuts--is exactly what a donut croissant sounded like, when I first heard about cronuts. It's also the first cronut I've ever eaten, so, so far, so good.

Minor Vegetarian Fail: "Meat" crumbles and refried beans

Okay, so this story isn't very exciting, and it isn't going to be very useful, because I forgot the name of the faux-meat crumbles that I was eating here. I bought them in a grocery store.

But whatever it was, the crumbles were okay, but the beans and cheese taste better without fake meat. Refried beans are delicious. They are amazing. You see that cilantro there? Because that's cilantro. Not pictured visibly is lime juice, but there's lime juice on there. 

The beans are, and I'm ashamed as I write this, but the beans are a little bit too good. That is because I have been rebelling against the nonfat vegetarian refried beans of my childhood, and I've been eating traditional refried beans. With lard, my mom says? Whatever they are, they're cheating. I am cheating when I eat them. But I haven't actually mowed on down, on land animal muscle tissue in a pretty long time, so there's that.

Bonus Points:

I have a portable candy station, to facilitate graduate school homework. Unfortunately, eating makes me sleepy, and I have so much reading and editing left to do!!! Woe is me. 

'Merica: Dipping a grilled cheese sandwich in Trader Joe's store brand palak paneer

Y'ever been eating a grilled cheese sandwich and thought, "I wish that I was dipping this into some puréed spinach curry," but been unable to?

Or, y'ever been eating palak paneer and been like, "this is good, but even though it's a cheese dish already, I wish that it was piggy-backing on top of another cheese dish" and held onto that thought?

Well, I figured it out, and I stand by the decision. I would stand by it, but hot-goddamn, I just ate a lot of carbs (the carbs in the photos) and I want to pass out.

Microwaved right in the frozen food packaging. Awwww yeaaaah.

Look at this olive bread!

There are Whole Foods grocery stores all over the place out here.

LOOK AT THIS BREAD THAT I'M EATING!!!!!

The whole thing is 840 calories, which is a lot of food, but it's not SOOOOO calorie dense that I can't just shrug it off and go, "it was a meal; I ate a meal" if I eat the whole thing today.

The bread was shaped like a cool squiggle, but you can't really tell that from the photo.

Mixed feelings about being good at food.

Okay, I am eating this:

From our garden shed, which has a view of this:

As you can tell by the bright, sunny weather, it's mid-July out here in Seattle.

Now, in the photo of our garden, you can see the very same kale and broccoli plants that I'm eating, in the photo of my plate.

Look, most of the food is now gone:

This meal is nutritious, it tastes good, and is almost as homemade as possible. 

The fried polenta cakes were sliced from one of those pantry-stable loaves at Trader Joe's. The butter I used was the Kroger store-brand from Fred Meyer. The fork was store-bought. The plate was store-bought. The vinegar I used on the brown-butter polenta and the lemon olive oil used as a finisher on the brown butter broccoli was from that Pike Place run I wrote (boring to read, thrilling to live) about about a week ago. Bam:

And the kale salad had Trader Joe's store brand cilantro dressing massaged into it, and also the Parmesan cheese was from somewhere, too. I don't have any dairy animals, and I don't make my own cheese. I buy cheese.

But the kale and broccoli came from some seeds that my husband and I planted in the garden boxes that my husband and I (mostly him, because I was doing homework all spring) built earlier this year, on a raised yard area that my husband and I, several friends, and our landlord all built together last summer. WE BUILT THAT SHIT FROM SEEDS!!!!!!

Besides that, the food I'm eating was also a home-cooked meal that I prepared, and it doesn't suck. It's still simply made, it's still vegetarian, and it's still greasy. (Not that I think vegetarian meals suck, but the ones I prepare often are, especially to carnivorous palates.) So my own standards were met. But I set my youthful dedication to being kinda icky aside, and gave this a real shot. And the shot landed where it needed to, and the whole thing was lovely.

Any time that something youthful is set aside, I get this horrid little ticking clock feeling inside myself, like my cells are decaying, and I only have a finite number of years as an organism, and I may never have children because my health is quite bad and also because I really love taking very effective contraception (it's awesome), and, and, and even if I live a vivid life of love, adventure, laughter, and social connection, that I too will die. Oh, the sadness. I am the first person ever, who ever lived, to have such precious feelings about my own unique, special mortality. 

(*belch*)

But really, the "running out of time" anxiety I'm feeling is about 87% just that it's Sunday afternoon, and the grad school assignments that were due at 5pm on Friday still aren't done. I have a note, I always have a note, and I can get freshened-up doctor's notes at any time. 

I'm usually whiz-bang at school-stuff, but I'm not yet at the "Eureka!" stage. I'm stuck in the "I reek-a" stage, which is laaaaammmmeeeeee. Ugh. 

I probably say this all the time, but I wish that I still lived in the sweet bubble of clock-obliviousness in which I spent my intoxicated, dropout teens, before sobering up and upgrading to the higher-brow high of academia. Except that I was still a virgin, and I didn't have a driver's license, I didn't know how to fill out a job application, and I threw a lot of tantrums that I now deeply regret. So, I guess I should probably shut up about it, because adolescence sucks. 

Adolescence is, at best, like a shitty version of retirement. Entirely too few memories, not enough personal autonomy, and typically a deficit of shuffleboard. Typically. Whereas being a really old, retired person is (probably?) way cooler on every level.

UGH, NOW I WANT TO BE REALLY, REALLY OLD. Like, Ruth Gordon in Harold and Maude old. Or Ruth Gordon in Every Which Way But Loose old. I could make old look so cool! So, fuck. Homework. Fuck. Gotta get to second-not-shitty-childhood already. Gotta keep pushing. Gotta get there. Gotta get old. Gotta just get my young adulthood over and done with. Winnebago Warrior, brave as old John Wayne, feed Doritoes to the bears, tell your graaaaand son who's the boss!

I am aging too fast, and I am not aging fast enough.

Uh...gotta think of a good way to end this...uh...

Huhhuhhuh I just "saw" some caulk. Huhhuhhuh "caulk."

These ain't your granny's Granny Smith Apples

Either there's something wrong with these apples, or there's something wrong with me, but they taste mild and delicious when they're supposed to be punishingly sour. 

Like, I don't even know anymore, man.

Eggs & Brains! (Bad Brains)

As is often the case, it is now time to play loud Bad Brains in the kitchen while frying eggs.

Not pictured in this photo: eggs.

Guest Blogger AJ Apelian! "turducken scramble cheese balls in: amazon.com has way too much power."

(lindsay, i am purposely gonna not capitalize so don't fix that, okay? it's  just a style thing i have super become attached to. also it'd be totes kewl if you could italicize where i do. i know how big of a pain in the ass this is with blogspot if the copy paste don't pick up on it. but it is super important! also also i'll send pictures and they are hecka labeled. also also also hi hello i am demanding)

[Editor's note from Lindsay to AJ: I totally did that! Hello! Hello! I am an editor now! - Ed.]

[Editor's note from Lindsay to the readers: Hello to you as well! Here are some screenshots from AJ's Twitter, because not only is he a real person, and not only is he a real person who lives, like, right over there and is fun to pal around with, but he is also a writer, and, yay! Writers who hang out with writers! In his http://www.campcounseling.com/ thing (I know, my app doesn't "do" links), he wrote about wearing Bugles on his hands like claws, and that's as good as the use of the English language gets, in my opinion. I am still hoarding an original copy of one of his film school screenplays, too, because I'm cool--and by "cool" I mean "well-intended, but douchey"-- like that. - Ed.]

[This makes me want to actually do some baked potato ice cream, just to make up for it. Okay...LINDSAY OUT!!! *drops whatever editors use for microphones* - Ed.]

TITLE: turducken scramble cheese balls in: amazon.com has way too much power. 

[PICTURE 1 HERE, EDITOR'S NOT-RUDE-TO-THE-ARTICLE NOTE TO SELF - Ed.]

my day began in a confused haze. i know, i know. it sounds like am beginning a weird detective narrative, and while i like to pretend everything i do is hard-boiled, two-fisted, and pulse pounding, this haze was mostly due to having a lot of really weird dreams over the course of the night. 

these dreams -- you know the kind. they aren't illogical; in fact they are sort of mundane. there's no real sense of urgency. they are heavily populated, for sure. maybe you're in a bustling city or some kind of touristy, but usually sleepy town. point is, there is life, but it has little to no interest in you. 

maybe there's an aim to the dream. there might even be symbolism; it just doesn't seem quite too interested in making itself known. so you just bustle around. sure, things aren't quite right. you're relatively  sure a fifteen dollar sky gondola doesn't exist anywhere near you, but whatever.  you don't have to board. 

then, you wake up to a text message at seven o'clock in the morning on a sunday stating that amazon.com has a package for you at some "hub" that you can go pick up. or, at least, i woke up to this. naturally, instead of going back to sleep like a sane person would since a. i don't drive, and b. anyone who gets dressed to catch some buses -- am i the only one who thinks the plural of "bus" should have more than one "s?" -- in order to pick up some action figures at seven in the morning instead of waiting might just be actually be deranged, i decided to investigate. 

neither the amazon site nor the usps site could really tell me what the hell this hub was, or where it was located. it was not a local post office. it was just a thing somewhere in seattle. 

i scuttled outside and checked my mailbox. all i saw was a bunch of cars parked in front of the box. i got super pissed because who does that? i don't care if it is a sunday and physical mail is about as current as gallagher, we live in the age where no one wants to talk to anyone face to face, so packages are everywhere! also, it's a dick move in general. my blood sufficently angried up, and my head bobbing up and down under extreme fatigue, i checked my mail box.

it was totally empty, so i went back to sleep because getting mad turns me into a mega-garfield and it was way too early for lasagna, and though i'm relatively sure time stopped working the way it was supposed to, i knew that no way was it monday.  

...

i promise this will be about food at some point. please don't ian malcolm "dinosaurs at the dinosaur park" me.  it really will. look, here's the ingredients i used to make food! and no, it doesn't hurt my case that food isn't an after thought to this that i took the ingredients picture well after cooking, as indicated by the already cooked turkey and the complete lack of mozzarella in the mozzarella tub!

[PICTURE 2 HERE - Ed.]

the genesis of this idea came about when i had those new doritos loaded abominations from a 7-11. i was on day three of a hangover (or so i thought. turned out to be phase ii of a massive migraine attack, but i digress, because of course i digress), and i'd left work early because of it. taking into account that this had been a week full of verifiably impossibly bad decisions, some kind of cheese product crusted in dorito crumbs then deep-fried seemed downright scholarly. i'm not going to relay that experience to you, because i'm a good friend, but it got me thinking: what other twists could you put on the cheese ball?

cooking them today came from the very real fact it was going to be very hot, i live in a studio apartment, and i want to do as little cooking as possible. on saturday, i ordered a bunch of gyros in the mornings that i ate all day. i had leftover mozzarella fresca, a little over a pound of turkey tenderloin defrosting, and a really good idea: i'd cook the turkey up in some duck fat, shred the meat, scramble some chicken eggs in there (thus the turducken), then cover the cheese balls in the mixture.  meat and cheese dishes can be made in huge batches, then picked at all day and always taste good, in my experience, so i made a bunch.

i'm not gonna tell you how to season your turkey meat , i mean, if you wanna make these things, but the onion/worchestershire sauce/garlic mixture was to marinate beforehand, and i consider that essential. i also marinate literally everything i plan on cooking because i have a problem. speaking of essential, even though it is unsweetened, there still is that almond milk "this is like if milk was candy" taste, and that sweetness  mixes with the saltiness and the nip of vinegar in the worcestershire so nicely, so i'd use it most definitely.

now, duck fat, i guess we gotta talk about that, huh? it is not a common ingredient, and it might seem a little snooty since that jar is french as can be. but, nah, it's just a third option in cooking fats! still skeptical? 

okay, now, hear me out:

in one corner, you got your vegetable oils. they make everything taste all comfortable and fresh and are unobtrusive. they are the house at the end of the block that has always been there. you've never been inside, you've never really seen who lives there, but it definitely makes your block your block. in another corner, you have your butters. these are rich and inviting and hearty. they are the house you grew up in, they are grounded and feel substantial. but, here comes duck fat. it's healthier than butter and it tastes like it died to make your meal better.

...

fuck it. let's be honest. i was never gonna commit to that metaphor when all i had in my head before even starting was "it makes your dish taste like delicious martyrdom." so, use duck fat because that is a really cool turn of phrase. also, we gotta get back to the mysterious amazon text.

yeah, i bet you thought i wasn't going to come back around to that, didn't you? oh ye of little faith...

so, i wake up fourish hours after the original message, and apparently i missed a text from amazon that my package was in transit, to be delivered today. by the united states postal service. i am just baffled, because mail doesn't come on sundays! i was already confused about everything earlier, but now i legitimately don't  know what reality even is. i do a little digging and apparently has enough influence that the only thing the usps delivers on sundays is amazon packages. that is unsettling. i thought the drones were bad, but that is worse. they are making people work on their day off! that is the shittiest thing you can do to a person, amazon!

in order to better assist my mail carrier, who is totally a lady my age, i go see if i can will the car from in front of my mailbox away with pure hatred.

...

okay, aside time (yes, again)

at what age does it click that, yes, of course people your age will have jobs that can be actual careers? i am almost thirty, and any time i see someone around my age with a respectable job, i am thrown for a loop. people my age do this? this can happen? where did i go wrong? 

...

yeah, let's not get any more existential than that, because i used going outside as an excuse to buy an energy drink that tastes like iced tea and to check my mailbox for toys i ordered. which, naturally, hadn't arrived. 

the cooking went smoothly, but as you can see from the picture, keeping these guys in shape is a fool's errand. i guess i could've breaded and fried these bad boys, but it was way too hot. also, within minutes of finishing, my package arrived, and i had these guys to play with!

[PICTURE 3 HERE -Ed.]

[PICTURE 4 HERE - Ed.]

[PICTURE 5 HERE - Ed.]

i used about 20 oz of tenderloin and four eggs, and though the egg rehydrated the turkey and added an extra dimension to the flavor profile, i probably should've used more. it ended up acting more as a binding agent which was a plus for the cheese ball, but there was so much left over mixture that having more egg could've turned it a plain scramble. that or i could've cooked it in batches instead of all in one pan, but with the heat, i wanted it done as quickly as possible. i guess i'm gonna mix the leftovers with mayo and make sandwiches out of when i run out of cheeseballs and have just the crumbly turkey and egg salad to deal with.

Hn

i probably could just eat the rest with a spoon (it tastes super good), but i'd just have this in the back of my head the whole time.

[THE LAST PICTURE HERE - Ed.]

and really, if anyone from the film predator thought less of me, i just would not be able to function. XD

Pike a Place Market sells groceries.

Guess what's in Seattle? Pike Place Market!

Guess what has produce vendors like a farmer's market, and is kind of a farmer's market, but not really, and is also in downtown Seattle?!? Pike Place Market!!!

Guess what I didn't take any pictures of, when I decided to go grocery shopping while running errands downtown?!?!? Pike Place Market!!!!!!!!

I went to three produce vendors and two non-produce food vendors, and one not-food-and-also-not-in-Pike-Place-Market vendor today.

LOOK AT THIS FOOD!!!!!!!!

I bought a small glass of the pear apple cider at Martin Family Orchards, and it was very, very good, so I intend to buy a big ole jug of it at the University District farmer's market. They were sold out of the jugs of pear apple cider at Pike Place market today. It was pretty sweet and thick, so a good sweet-tooth drink, and it also tasted really like it was literally cider. Like, pressed fruit and whatnot. A little heavy to chug as liberally as water, but exactly right for rehydrating while quenching a sugar craving.

I also bought cherries while I was there, and it was a good decision.

Right next to the Martin Family Orchards booth was the booth for Sidhu Farms, a place with blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Both vendors were clearly friends, so I ate a blackberry sample, was really confused because there was no sour in the flavor, ate a raspberry sample, and was even more confused by the same absence of sour. So I bought raspberries. I would have purchased the blackberries, too, but wild blackberry picking is kind of a "thing" that my husband and I do. Also, because I really don't think I could have eaten more berries than what I'd already purchased. Seriously, though. I've already eaten the raspberries featured in the photograph above, and I took that picture MAYBE five minutes ago.

I'm a little worried about the fruit-binge that I'm on while writing this, to be honest, but not worried enough to stop eating. Yet.

I went to the indoor part of Pike Place, with the intention of buying some low-acidity salad dressing for more kale salad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, "kale." But for all its recent pretension, kale is also relatively hard to botch or kill, and it grows into abundance easily, so it's a very practical thing to grow in a backyard vegetable garden. Plus, "superfood," blah blah blah, shut up.

But on my hunt for salad dressing, I walked past Sosio's Fruit & Produce, because one of the crew there was handing out free peach slices. From that moment on, I impulse-shopped until my backpack was full. I bought five peaches, which the vendor picked out and labeled for me: three for "eat now" and two less-ripe ones for "eat later." (Just like the bag in the photo!) 

I also bought potatoes, little yellow onions, celery, green onions, bunched carrots, zucchini, and I don't remember what else. Garlic! I bought garlic. And a beefsteak tomato, which is a very fancy type of tomato, and good for sandwiches. But while I'm also pointing out things that happened during my grocery run, I must point out that the person at Sosio's who rang up my purchase also helped pack all the produce safely into my backpack, while guaranteeing that nothing would squish in my backpack. He was right! I walked about a mile or two with everything in my bag, and even the raspberries survived the trip intact.

Ummmmmm, I also bought a baguette and some challa bread at...I have no idea. Shit! The name of the bakery isn't on the bags. Sorry about that. But I'm sure that if you just go to all the bread shops that are across the street from the produce part of Pike Place Market--towards 1st Ave, but one more block downhill--you'll probably find a lot of bread. I can't imagine that any of it would be not-awesome.

When I remember the name, though, I'll tell you. 

Anyway, then I bought some oil and vinegar at Truffle Cafe (not actually a cafe) as a treat for myself, and also a Bad Brains musical CD at Singles Going Steady, also as a treat for myself.

And then I went home, and it was a long-ass walk to/from various bus stops, with a very heavy backpack on my back (I was also carrying textbooks in it), but I made it home with nothing squished or crushed in transit, and here we are. 

Here we are.

BREAD!

Photograph inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe.