cooking

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Since it’s cooled off a bit and some storms have been rolling through I’ve been busting out with the winter-weather foods. Soups, chili, stews, pumpkin bread, all the good stuff. We’ve been trying to make a big fat Sunday night meal every week – you know, one of those meals that simmers on the stove (or in the oven) all afternoon and you’ve been smelling beefy goodness for a few hours before you know it’s ready? And then you have beefy goodness leftovers for the next couple days? B made an awesome chili about a month ago and then a couple weeks after that I busted out my famous meatloaf. Good fun.

Last month I tested a recipe for Cook’s Illustrated – chocolate cake made with mayo. It was surprisingly good, but I’m still not sure how I feel about putting mayo in a cake. There’s something about that just doesn’t feel right.

We’re headed down to the OC for Thanksgiving, and it should be interesting. It’ll be the first one without mom there, and grandma’s getting too old to be unsupervised in the kitchen (the last time we allowed her to make a couple dishes they came out almost inedible), so I’m taking charge and being the head chef. Except it’s in my dad’s kitchen, and he can’t sit still for more than 30 seconds, and he can’t stand not being in charge, and my sister and her husband are crazy picky eaters, and B and I are food snobs. Should be good times, for sure. Wish us luck.

B: the gift that keeps on..

Now that we are much closer, I have this problem that my Mom is always offering me things she has. Not nice things like antiques and quality hand made furniture, but mostly worthless junk that nobody would really want or need. Case in point, this chair:

Nice enough I guess. She bought it at a garage sale or something and realized that she doesn't have room for it and has now offered it to me several times. I don't want the damn chair, but she thinks that if she can pawn it off on somebody then she won't have to own the fact that she wasted money on something that she can't get rid of.

I always feel guilty telling her I don't want her junk. She has always been a bit of a pack rat, but it is getting worse with age. She has that disease that older people get where they fill their time searching for bargains on crap they don't need. I wish there was something she could do with her time, but she has no interest in doing anything productive, or contributing to society in any way.

I want to give her some real money, and tell her to spend this wasted time searching antique stores and estate sales for the perfect coffee table that we don't have the time to find, but I know she couldn't be trusted not to buy crap.

I am almost done with Atlas Shrugged. I think that book is fucking with my world view. I don't totally agree with her perspective, but it is interesting if a bit simplistic and naive.

Atlas Shrugged was ranked #2 behind Gatsby for the greatest american fiction of the 20th century. Personally, I think it is better than Gatsby which I have never really cared for that much. I think Gatsby was very much about a time and a place which has degraded appreciation over time. This is happening to Atlas Shrugged as well, but I think it is a bit more timeless.

I think that Atlas Shrugged could be written today in much the same way and still be relevant. The weakness of the book in my mind is the tendency to become excessively preachy. Seriously, John Galt needs to shut the F-up after a while. We get it Ayn...move on with the story. She could have cut 150 pages of preachy dialogue and had a much more subtle but effective story. I believe that she made this book so lengthy and the lead in so slow to discourage the sort of people that she preaches as the evil of the world from being tempted to even read the book.

I highly recommend this read recognizing that quite a few people will dislike it for a wide variety of reasons.

when your husband's a superhero...

you've gotta step up.

When he's working full-time (+) and coming home every night to a new house project (attacks on sewage clean-outs, grounding furnace outlets, taking apart toilets, pulling up tackboard, etc) and a grumpy baby and a wife who's having a hell of a time doing the motherhood/working woman dance...

When he takes the 7AM flight up to Seattle on a Saturday to pack up the rest of the stuff that didn't fit in the POD and turn around and make a retarded long drive with a dog and a cat, only to come home to his in-laws visiting for a week...

I had big plans for stepping it up. These plans included painting a room and moving the little one in it so we'd have space for all the stuff he's bringing. These plans were put into motion first thing Saturday morning. Windows were taped, walls were washed, plates were removed. Ceilings were painted. Wall paint was purchased. The little one went to bed and I was ready. All the painting accessories came out, and I ready to stay up all night to get that damn room painted.

And all of a sudden my plans were thwarted. By the evil that is known only as...

Purple.

FRICK! The lilac that I decided on - the nice, light, subtle lilac - turned purple. Way purple. Like you'd walk into the room and you'd say, "damn, that's purple."

At least the ceiling's painted.

B: I fought the law...

and the inlaws won.

They are finally gone today, but leaving us totally exhausted in their wake. A's parents and sister left this morning after a full week of visiting and playing with the baby. It was nice, but we are just wiped out. Sure we have had 4 days short of 8 months to get used to the baby and all, but we just aren't. All it takes is one small thing changing in our routine and we lose all feeling of control on our little world.

The laundry isn't done, we are out of food, and we haven't had a chance to unwind in a week. At least the house is as clean as it gets. We had some cleaners come in and I steamed the rugs and stuff. We still spent a week dealing with disapproving looks about how our child is clearly growing up in a sty.
Fuck it dude....


We dined at Cremant in Seattle on Saturday night. The inlaws baby sat so that we could go fetch us up some french food. It was tasty though the portions were too large. That was the case in Paris also, so I have to believe it is just a restaurant thing. I got my steak medium rare, and it was the rarest medium rare I have ever had. I guess that part was true to the spirit of french cuisine. A had the duck which was good and the onion soup was excellent. They are currently serving a Rhone that is stellar if you like such things.

A and I were thinking we would love to make a movie about us wanting to make a movie about us, but not knowing what the hell to make a movie about. Sort of am Adaptation meets Seinfeld thing with a Woody Allen vibe. We would try to get Wes Andersen to direct. A will be played by Gweneth Paltrow (ala Royal Tannenbamms including the wooden finger cuz why not), and Luke Wilson would play me (I could also go for Hugh Grant [it would be fun to be british in my movie]). Some of you might be in the movie too. Who should play you???