Problems with the end of the world....

Well, by now, we all know the world is supposed to end tomorrow, right?  Well, there's just a few problems there.  Shall we examine them?

(1) The end of the world will come about by some cosmic alignment.  Well, if this theory were true, it would've been mostly true for the last several years because we can only detect these things within plus or minus a few percent.  Worry as much about tomorrow as you did about two years ago, or as much as you will two years in the future.  If it actually mattered, we'd be able to detect it better, so you're better off sleeping without worry.

(2) Nibiru, Planet X, etc...  Well, if a planet-sized object were to really come close to the Earth, it would be pretty awesome from a scientific standpoint.  Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for you, this does not appear to be the case.  Any time soon.  Sorry. I know. It sucks for all of us.

(3) Mega-volcano erupts!!  I don't know enough personally to put your fears at ease (honestly I still tremble a little when I think about it), but I'm assured by everyone I know close to the situation who really knows what's up that we have nothing to worry about.  That was my last chance to be a doomsday conspirator, so now I'm pretty done.  Maybe the world will end tomorrow, but probably, most likely, not.

(4) Black death v. 2.0.  Okay, this could happen.  I've been told that the latest cool way for kids to show their superiority is to lick their palm and then push it against another kids nose.  Then lick that same palm, and push it against another kid's nose.  I don't even know what to say about this.  However, should the black death v. 2.0 show up at our door, we'll all know pretty soon.  The kids are doing their best to make that one happen.

(5) Other small disasters.  Keep in mind that a million small things could happen tomorrow.  I could egg you on by saying that, "and the government doesn't want you to put two and two together!!"  but that would be pretty stupid.  The worst thing would be that something big happens tomorrow, and then you put more weight on the nonesense than it merits.  Try to stay rationale, that's all I ask.

I know it's a tall order when the kids are licking their palms and then planting them on other kids noses.  Seriously.  What's got into them?

I demand a plan....

Others are demanding a plan to help prevent gun violence tragedies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0pQSeCd8VM

I've decided to demand my own plan to curb drunk driving tragedies.  One difference between others' plea for a plan and my plan is that I actually have one:  insurance rebates to drivers who voluntarily install a breathalyzer ignition interlock device.

If you're a safe driver who never comes anywhere close to driving under the influence, this is a great plan for you - you will have extra money to spend on other things, like a new iPad or something.

If you're one of those people who occasionally wonders whether you're actually okay to drive legally or not, this is a great plan for you - your car will tell you when you're okay to drive and not let you screw up and make a potentially lethal decision that could kill other people.

If you're a parent giving an old family beater to a kid going off to college, this plan is for you - you might not know whether little Johnny is getting completely trashed and hooking up with a bunch of loose women at a  party, but you will know for certain that little Johnny isn't showing off to his new loose lady friends that he met at that party by driving your car too fast down the freeway with a cold beer in the console.  Hopefully Johnny's new friends will be kind enough to make him some chicken soup the next morning when he has a massive hang-over.

If you're one of those people who keeps a bottle of "driving whiskey" in the glove box, this plan is also for you.  You should stop.  You should permanently relocate your "driving whiskey" to the kitchen.  You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.  You can keep drinking as much as you want to, but you know as well as anyone else that you shouldn't do it while behind the wheel of a 2-ton projectile.  The plan is voluntary, so you can continue drinking your illegal driving whiskey if you choose to.  However, you'll have extra money to supplement your "staying at home watching Ancient Aliens" kitchen whiskey if you decide to participate, and have much less risk of killing innocent kids.

There are ways around this plan - you can have a sober friend blow for you, for example.  However, why on Earth your sober friend would make out with your car and then not drive you home is beyond me.  Any friend willing to blow your car for you is a good enough friend to make sure you drink plenty of water and stay a few extra hours, call you a cab, offer you a place to crash, or drive you home.

Anyway, so there's the plan.  It's a tangible, real-world solution to a real-world problem that could save a bunch of innocent lives every year.  It's not rocket science, it's not gun control, it's completely voluntary, and it will do nothing to prevent crazed people from committing horrific murderous acts.  It doesn't solve the primary problem people are focused on right now, but it does solve a problem, and it helps make the world a tiny bit safer for us and our children.

Comment if you like this idea.  Your comment can be as simple as an anonymous, "Yes, do it."  If I get 10 comments, I will commit to making this happen.

Something a little more light-hearted

So, if you've been following the news at all lately, you're probably aware that this is not the happiest of all possible times in this country (nor in China).

In an effort to lighten it up a little bit, I'd like to draw your attention away from all that and to another thing that's been in the news lately:

Armageddon!!!

Basically, this word comes from the plain of Meggido, which according to the New Testament book of Revelations will be the battle ground of the true end of the world when Jesus Christ will come back and battle evil in a (kind of) final showdown that will be quite horrific indeed.  Plagues, blood running several feet deep, etc....  I say "kind of" final because John says that after this Christ will set up a kingdom and rule for a thousand years.  I'm not entirely sure what is supposed to happen after this millennial kingdom, but I'm guessing we'll have some more plagues or something.  (Keeping is light-hearted here.  Maybe in the future I'll do a post all about the Christian version of Armageddon, but for now....)

But I don't even want to talk about that right now.  I only bring it up because it's Armageddon all the time on the mis-named History channel right now, except when they take breaks for another wonderful historical topic: Ancient Aliens.  I actually am a fan of this show, believe it or not.  It goes around to really interesting archaeological ruins, tells you how these amazing structures were created, then, just for fun, imagines all kinds of crazy ways that aliens must have been involved.  As long as you look at it like that and don't take the alien thing seriously, it's a fun way to learn a lot about some really intriguing ancient civilizations.

Anyway, the History channel got back in touch with its roots in one episode and looked at the fun concept of "what if aliens and Hitler were in cahoots?"  Honestly, I could write a whole three-page blog post just about this....  (and you know what?  I will, right after this one.)  One point of evidence given cracked me up, and I have to relate this story....

Werhner von Braun

Werhner von Braun started off as a rocket scientist in Nazi Germany.  It's often been joked that the only reason the US got to the moon before the Russians was because we got the better German rocket scientists after WWII....  Werhner von Braun was one of ours.  Let's not get into too many details there, you can look him up on Wikipedia if you are really curious.  Let's just say he was possibly the best rocket scientist in history.

Werhner von Braun definitely had a sense of humor.  I tried for all of 30 seconds to find a few humorous anecdotes to illustrate this, but gave that up in the interest of finishing my train of thought here.  This blog would be a lot better if I would do a little research, I've often thought, and you're probably thinking that right now too!  (...now I'm thinking about trains....)  However, I think the depiction of him in the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon  displays his goodnatured and kind of geeky sense of humor in a very real and human way.

With that minor bit of background, I'd like to share a little story.  In 1970, an ancient astronaut theorist Rt. Rev. Alan Greenfield was examining UFO files at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.  He was stunned when he sees the famous rocket scientist Werhner von Braun, and he tries to make conversation with him: "How did you develop that much technology so fast?"  Apparently Werhner von Braun takes a look down at the files Rev. Greenfield was poring over, and says, "We had help from them."

Take home message

Sorry, but I can't stop laughing.  That's just hilarious, and it displays Wehrner von Braun's quick wit and wry sense of humor better than any other anecdote I could've found for you.  The message I take home from that is even if you're the best rocket scientist in history, it always helps to not take yourself too seriously.  Also, next time I'm out making small talk with someone who seems impressionable, after I talk about my work as an astrobiologist, I might glance around as if to look for potential eavesdroppers, lower my voice, and say, "You know, I shouldn't tell you this, but would there really be a field of astrobiology if we didn't have some alien biology to study?"  Then I'll finish my drink and walk away.  Hopefully I'll be able to keep a straight face until I get to the ladies room.....  :-)

Stay positive my friends, and tell me, how will you interject a little humor into your life?

Still reeling

I'm not a parent.

Apparently that is important if you wish to discuss the Newtown tragedy.

Believe it or not, but I've talked to a few people since Friday, and apparently the defining factor in how your point of view will be considered is whether you are a parent or not.

If you are a parent, I am so incredibly sorry.  I know that ever since you first heard the news images of what life would be like right now had you happened to live in Newtown and send your little boy or girl to Sandy Brook have been playing through your head night and day.  You probably can't keep the nightmares at bay, and you're probably freaking your kid out just a little bit with how much you just want to hold them.

Please go hold them!  Tell them how much you love them.  Make them the center of the world.  They deserve it everyday, and you deserve the liberty to make it so right now.

We, as rational adults, owe it to them to make the world a better place for them to inherit.  It's too soon to call the parents out of their cocoon, so let's non-parents do our best here.  Note that here I'm assuming I'm not talking to residents of Newtown but the people of say Boston, Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Providence, Houston, etc...  If you live in Newtown, you have your own private hell to go through, and having been through a private hell once that was made public in a small town (because let's face it, no tragedy is private in a small town), I know the best thing I can do is open my arms, take several steps back, and just let you know you are loved and they are remembered.

Let's take a few steps back.  The people of Newtown, especially the parents of the little babies who were murdered, deserve the privacy to mourn without us watching them.  Mourning means different things to different people, and no one should have their mourning broadcast on public TV.  People act pretty crazy when in mourning, and the mundane ones will be seen running out into the front yard with their pajamas on screaming his name and tearing out their hair or quietly drowning in a half-bottle of whiskey in the back yard.

Give them privacy, folks.  Look away.  When CNN offers you footage of their mourning just a click away, refuse to click the link.  Don't go there.  Try to think how you would feel if it were your baby, your brother, your sister, your niece, your nephew, and the reporters were hounding you, your parents, your family, for a good soundbyte.  I heard that a church in Newtown had to have volunteers escort grieving families to their cars after a vigil to help protect them from the press, and that there were 20 members of the press for every resident in that town right now.  That's probably not true, but it's probably not all that far from the truth.

We can't do that much from where we sit.  We can send money, but that won't bring back the babies.  We can empathize and change policy and hope that we prevent something.  The best thing we can do right now is just open our arms, take several steps back, and let them know they are loved and they are remembered.

People and tragedies

Today two very horrific acts happened in elementary schools on nearly opposite sides of the globe.

In Connecticut, a 20-year-old male with a gun killed 26 people, 22 of them children (as of latest reports)

In China, a 36-year-old male with a knife wounded 22 children (as of latest reports).

In both countries, the children were supposedly at a safe place - school.  The entire globe should take at least a few moments to grieve over these tragedies.

I know I have.

While the rest of the world takes a look at these tragedies from the perspective of "what makes these tragedies different is the fact that in one children died and in the other they were seriously wounded but survived" with side notes of "and what does that mean for gun control," I'd like to look at it from another, slightly skewed, possibly too politically-incorrect too-soon point of view.

Let me preface this with the statement that I lost my brother in a horrific car accident when he was merely 17 years old, and perhaps that's why I choose to "go there" right now.

It's altogether way too interesting how individual people and the general populace internalize the tragic loss or near-loss of life by others.  Individual deaths of young people and children occur all around us all the time.  People, our youth, children, our future, they die all the time.  It's always a tragedy when a life is cut short.  However, it seems like it only really hits home to all of us when it's a lot of lives cut short at one time. It's always bothered me that we choose, collectively, to ignore small, common tragedies, because they are small and common, and instead choose to empathize, get freaked out about, and attempt policy change because of large uncommon tragedies.

Because my family suffered a small, common tragedy, and statistics show that you are much more likely for your baby to die in a car accident than in a school shooting, it seems to me that it would benefit us all greatly more from better road safety than more stringent gun control.  Obviously both are needed, but as long as we're looking at tragedy influencing policy, let's not stop at a gun control discussion but also look at the other things that are killing our youth in much greater numbers than random shootings by crazed people.

While we're looking at road safety, let's look at drunk driving.  While the Freakonomics crew showed in their Super Freakonomics sequel that drunk walking kills more drunk people than drunk driving does, they also freely proclaimed that drunk walking does not typically kill innocent passerby while drunk driving not only can but all too often does.  It's been demonstrated time and time again in jurisdiction after jurisdiction that harsher punishments, stricter sentencing, etc... do not serve as adequate deterrents against driving drunk.  It appears that people who are too drunk to drive are also too drunk to conduct a simple cost-benefit analysis on the whole "getting home from the bar" thing, no matter how high the cost could be from not simply calling a cab.  A simple, but effective, deterrent from driving drunk would be for insurance companies to voluntarily reduce rates, potentially for only a small "at-risk" demographic, for insurees who chose to voluntarily install an ignition interlock device in all their insured vehicles.

For those of you unfamiliar with IIDs, these are apparently unwieldy but very simple things that hook into your car and require you to conduct a breathalyzer test before the car will start.  I've never even seen one, but once I heard about them I knew they were a pretty great idea.  My friends and I fall into two rough categories: those who think they can have up until they "start to feel it" and still drive, and those who rigorously adhere to the strictest measures of "I can have one beer then wait three hours and then drive," rule.    Life would be a lot easier (and a lot safer) for everyone if our cars just told us when we should go drink some water and dance for another hour before hitting the road.

Anyway, all I wanted to do tonight was remind people that small tragedies occur all the time, and that we should remember to try to prevent them as we also try to find ways to prevent the large tragedies like what occurred today.  Both types of tragedies are horrific to those that experience them, but apparently the larger public only recognizes large-scale, uncommon tragedies.  I'd like it a lot more if we could recognize and prevent more than just the uncommon ones.

My heart goes out to all who experienced tragedy today, particularly to those in China and Connecticut who have an unfortunate thing in common today: that nearly two dozen of our children in each place were either hurt or lost entirely to a madman.

Happiness

I'm a huge fan of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner and their Freakonomics exploits.  I enjoy them so much that I chose to play their lectures today while I was attempting to clear out two years of clutter from my desk.

Anyway, while listening to one of their lectures, I heard something.  It caught my ear enough to cause me to stand up, walk over to the computer, hit pause, rewind, and actually listen to something I'd already heard.

Anyone who grew up with the internet will understand why this means I was really intrigued.

It turns out they have a collaborator who did some studies over the last couple of decades that observed that as women have earned more and have gotten more power in the workplace, their general happiness seems to be declining.  They were at a loss for explanation.

Well, let me explain.

Once upon a time, we were all relatively egalitarian hunter gatherers.  The introduction of agriculture meant that agrarian societies could house more people on less land, and thus take land from hunter gatherers.  Agriculture also meant that your best means of survival was to produce as many offspring as possible to help cultivate the land and fend off hunter gatherers.  It's a simplification, but a fair one, to say that we have been living in this mindset since then, and that the primary role of the female of the species since the invention of agriculture has been to rear the young to survive in this world.  If the household's primary currency is able-bodied people, then the role of child-rearing is essential to the survival of the family unit and the tribe.  Additionally, when the tribe got large enough to require state-level institutions to survive, it would make little sense for already-taxed-to-the-brim females to take up that role when there are plenty of males around to do the job.

I think I know why female happiness is declining despite increased earnings and power.  It's because we're expected to do it all.  We wanted real jobs, and we got them.  However, we still have the remnants of our past demanding internally and externally that we be good at mothering, housekeeping, and nailing down a real job.  Our husbands could always come home from work guilt-free and ask for a dry martini and a foot massage because they had "worked so hard."  Anything we did was just "cute."

I want a wife.

"Use the 'wrong' hand" to cut calorie intake...

So, I was at the supermarket this afternoon to pick up yeast.  It's a long story, really, to include all the details as to why I needed bread yeast, but it all started the day before Thanksgiving.

Here's the short version.

I decided to try a stuffing recipe again to see if anything had changed between last year and this year and maybe, miraculously, someone in the house had suddenly developed an affinity for this holiday classic.  I needed bread for this.  The bread at the store was expensive and I actually enjoy making bread, so I decided to just make bread when I got home.  I had two packets of yeast left, so I made a quick whole-wheat bread with one of them using unbleached whole wheat flour, a few Tbsp of honey, a few tsp of salt, and a few cups of flour.  It came together in less than 2 hours, because I'm good like that.  (It's a super-secret recipe shared on the back of one packet of every 3-pack of FastRise Dry Active Yeast....)

Anyway, half the loaf disappeared about 20 minutes after the loaf came out of the oven.  With compliments.  So I made another loaf with my last packet of yeast yesterday morning, while the rest of the family was loafing around in bed.... hahahahaha I made a funny.  The entire loaf disappeared before Tina (or maybe Ted) the turkey even went in the oven!

Today we went for a hike together.  At one point, I warned that if the rest of the family didn't behave, I'd make another loaf of bread.  To understand why this was met with cries of protestation rather than joy, please understand that others in this family are trying to lose weight and didn't particularly like the prospect of scents of fresh-baked temptation wafting through the house.  In order to have the ammunition on-hand to make good on my threat, I needed more yeast.

Hence the trip to the supermarket.  While I was waiting in line, I saw Ree Drummond (the Pioneer Woman from Oklahoma who makes fabulous food, photographs it, and posts all this on her blog, and now has a show on the Food Network... jealous am I?  Enough to talk like Yoda I am....) on the cover of a magazine.  I rarely purchase normal-people magazines, usually only on a splurge (like "shopping therapy," which is usually used on trips to OSH for new plants), so this was actually a big deal.

While slowly poring through the magazine I hit on a side article, only maybe 100 words long, that is the point of this post.  The title?

Tempted by treats?

Use the "wrong" hand

The idea of the blurb is that if you use your less-dominant hand to eat finger-foods, you'll eat less of them because "Eating with your clumsier hand forces you to slow down."

I thought about this, and it sounds accurate.  I mean, at one point I was clumsy enough with chopsticks to make them an adequate weight-loss tool.  That doesn't work anymore.  Let's just say I learn pretty quickly when my stomach is involved.  If I had to only eat with chopsticks with my less-dominant hand, I'd lose about 10 pounds in one meal just out of sheer sweat from a mix of frustration and determination!  

I started to pay attention to how I eat finger foods, and I noticed something.  If it's a pure finger food, like fingers touch food, and not a thing where fingers touch wrapper or toothpick, I always use my less-dominant hand.  I tried reaching for something as simple as an olive with my dominant hand, and it just felt weird.  Weird enough that my brain rebelled and said, "NO!  We grab that with the OTHER hand!"

When I took out my contacts tonight, I realized why that is.  I eat a lot of very spicy food.  I take out and put in my contacts with my dominant hand.  Therefore, touching food directly with the dominant hand could contaminate it with hot spice and lead to the pain I experienced this evening.  My brain has somehow figured this out without me noticing it, and only touches food with the left hand now.

This is the opposite to the culture in India, where you only touch clean things like food with the right hand and dirty things like the lavatory with the left.  I suppose we have things like Purell to thank for freeing us from that custom and enable the opposite routine I now have.

So, anyway, FYI, the correct strategy for me is to eat things that require tools with the left hand and finger foods with the right.  If I do this, I'll always pause first to check, "Is that worth the embarrassment of trying to use a toothpick with the wrong hand?" or "Is that worth the potential pain of taking out contacts with chili-laden fingertips?" before proceeding....

Stay hungry!

Happiness...

Happiness is...

• Waking up "early" at 8:30 AM on Thanksgiving and cleaning the apartment before anyone else wakes up.
• Kneading bread while drinking fresh coffee in the morning light in the view of the mountains.
• 
• Asparagus with lemon and poached egg for late breakfast / appetizer
• 

Having a full day off from normal life just to cook and enjoy these pleasures....

I am thankful for Thanksgiving.  And a million other things, but right now?  I'm most thankful for Thanksgiving:

I'm even thankful that the other palate got to spend it with "the Godfather," which ranks as one of my most hated movies of all time... because he did the laundry and ironed my shirts while I hid out in the kitchen!  :-)

We went roller blading and spent a good amount of time together anyway.  He says the Godfather is all about family anyway.  A good, family movie.

Yeah.

Right.

Turkeypocalypse.....

Thanksgiving....

Turkey....

Apocalypse....

In my kitchen?!?!

Not this year!

Surprisingly enough, my kitchen survived Turkeypocalypse, or Thanksgiving, without any major damage this year, as did all personnel manning said kitchen!  I do believe this is the first time, out of 6 attempts, where we have successfully pulled off a Thanksgiving without the kitchen look like WWIII hit it.  Let's do a quick tour, just so I can brag on how wonderfully successful we were at Turkeypocalypse, ahem, I mean Thanksgiving, this year:

For one, at the end of the day, instead of looking at the 16 lb turkey we bought because it was such a good deal and saying, "It was only $0.50 a lb, we can trash the rest of that heap and still come out ahead," we actually picked the carcass clean and sorted the goods....  We wound up with 3 bins: one for clean meat (tacos and sandwiches), one for soup, and one for stock.  There's a first for everything, folks, and this was a BIG first for us!

As an aside, poor dear Tina Turkey (who started off as Ted before we thought about it and figured out our turkey was probably a she rather than a he) did not get out much.  She really could've done with a little healthy exercise.  There was all together too much fat on that animal.

Anyway, back to photographic evidence that this year, we go to bed after Thanksgiving with merely a packed fridge and not a packed fridge and a ton of clean-up  left....

This is the little breakfast table in the kitchen.  See how clean and uncluttered it is!  All that's on it is our cornucopia of fruits and veggies to last us through the week, a pepper grinder, a cheese grater (that's out because I promised an "egg pie" (real men don't eat quiche) if some cheddar were grated and the other palate wanted to make sure he knew where said grater was), and a fish bowl, because Alpha the Betta died today and I'm letting the tank dry out on the table before putting it into storage.

The island under the sun / moon is back to its usual state....  I don't know exactly why there's a Christmas ribbon on the water tank, but there is and has been for a good long while and sometimes you just clean and don't ask too many questions.

That may look cluttered to an uncultured eye, but to me that's the best organization I've seen of this space since, well, three weeks ago.  In detail:  the water bottle is where it should be in the kitchen - easy for me to grab should I get parched, the knob to the garlic roaster easily accessible should the other palate in the household have a chance to glue it back where it should be, the salt close to the stove, the tea kettle ready to rock and roll, the olive oil bottle right where it should be, the steamer above the microwave so I won't lose it somewhere in the cabinetry and be unable to find it, the coffee pot cleaned and loaded up set to start itself up automatically tomorrow at 8AM....  and two beer bottles and a kitchen rag I just noticed.  We haven't had beer in quite sometime, so those bottles must have been there so long as to have become part of the scenery.  That's a tad disturbing!  Which reminds me that I still need to bottle that IPA from many moons ago.

This may also look like another cluttered photograph, but I love the clean white sink in the lower left corner.  Yum.  What this image indicates is industry!  The dishrack is full so we had to pull out a kitchen towel for spill-over clean dishes.  Not only that, but it's by no means my typical, "We have time to kill, so go do a bunch of dishes," shot, it's only a few dishes!

I have many, many things to be thankful for today, and one of the big ones in this family is the lack of Turkeypocalypse in the kitchen tonight.  

A word from the other palate:  Another thing we have to be thankful for tonight is fresh baked bread.....

... On the topic of which, he swears the reason we have only 1/4 a loaf left right now is because of the sneaky raccoons coming back for seconds.  I think I'll happen to bake another loaf tomorrow and see if those raccoons come back for thirds.

Darn raccoons, stealing my corn, tomatoes, and sweet pepppers, now my bread?!  Ha ha ha....

Stay hungry, and a better post on Turkeypocalypse, ahem, Thanksgiving, soon!

Meals on a Budget - Pre Thanksgiving Edition!

Thanksgiving

My favorite holiday ever!  It's a time for abundance, and unfortunately too many people go hungry on this day.  I challenge you to be frugal with your own feast this year, and donate the surplus of what you'd normally spend to those less fortunate.

In the spirit of the "Meals on a Budget" theme on this blog, I'll share how we experience abundance on a less-than-abundant budget.  As a teaser, I'll just say we did ALL of our shopping both for Thanksgiving and for the rest of next week (since leftovers will feature predominantly next week) today and walked out of the (multiple) stores with less than $75 of groceries.  The image above?  Oh, that's just all the stuff I couldn't find a spot for in the fridge afterwards....  :-)  Yes, those oranges are huge.

The plan:

First, I'll share the menu complete with recipes and ingredient costs.  I'll toss in some tips on how to keep costs down in this post, as well.  Then, I'll show photographs of the pre-game prep, since everyone knows you start cooking the day before Thanksgiving.  I'll show photographs as I walk you through our game-day prep, and then the "spread" which will really be individual photographs of each dish because for us, Thanksgiving is an all-day food fest, not a single sit-down meal.  Finally, if I'm not too lazy and comatose from all the food, I'll show you how we used the leftovers throughout the week.

The menu:

1. Asparagus with lemon and a poached egg:  As unconventional as this dish sounds, I tried it one year on a whim and it has become the staple first course of the day.  This dish is served typically at around 10AM in our house, consistent with its high-class breakfast-y appeal.  Unfortunately, this is not the correct season for asparagus, so it's not the cheapest most frugal way to go, but it is tradition now.
2. Antipasti (nuts, olives, and cheese):  This is more conventional, and while costly it is tradition and I have some tips for keeping the cost down some.  I put these out at around 11AM when we are starting to get munchy again.
3. Salad:  One year I tried a simple arugula salad dressed simply with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt.  It was astounding.  Again, not the cheapest most frugal dish, but definitely tradition and just wonderful in its simplicity.  I serve this at around noon.
4. Turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce:  This is not only tradition, but probably the cheapest route at Thanksgiving due to the multiple promotions available, especially if you are smart with your choices and willing to do a little extra prep-work yourself.  This will go out at around 1 or 2 PM.
5. Potatoes and green beans:  Due to a sale of 10 lbs of russets for $1, we'll be mashing potatoes ourselves rather than buying them freeze-dried.  Additionally, due to a lack of desire for traditional green bean casserole, I'll be making long beans with a mushroom cream sauce.  Yum!  (And cheaper than buying all those cans.)  We'll move to this course after the turkey has digested, maybe 3 or 4 PM.
6. Desert:  I had a special request for pumpkin bread this year, so that is what desert will be!
7. Bread:  I made bread tonight in prep for stuffing tomorrow - if you like artisinal fresh breads (and who doesn't?), it is definitely cheaper to bake your own.  If you're happy with Wonderbread, and I know plenty of people who are, it can be cheaper to buy pre-fabbed.  However, after the bread came out of the oven fresh, a little raccoon got into the kitchen and ate half the loaf, so I'll be showing you a super-fast way to make really good bread tomorrow.  That darn raccoon!

Itemized costs:

Note:  Costs are prorated for feeding 8 people at your feast)

Asparagus with poached egg ($10.30, or $1.29 / person)

1. Asparagus, about 1/4 lb per person ($3.99 / lb, from Sprouts, or roughly $8 total)
2. Eggs, 1-2 per person ($3.39 / 18, from Super King, or roughly $2.25 total)
3. Lemon juice ($0.05 per lemon, from Super King)
4. Salt, pepper (nearly free)
5. Olive oil, 1 Tbsp (nearly free if you buy bulk)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil with a small handful of salt added.  Snap the ends off the asparagus, and add the ends to your frozen veggie stock hoard.  Toss the asparagus in the boiling water, let the water return to a boil for about 1 min.  Remove the asparagus from the water and immediately plunge into ice water.  Return the water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet while poaching eggs one at a time.  If you don't know how to poach an egg, don't worry, I'll teach you later, or you can look it up on youtube.  Saute asparagus in olive oil for 1-2 min until reheated thoroughly.  Serve by placing the asparagus all lined up the same way in a small clump with one or two poached eggs on top.  Sprinkle liberally with lemon juice, add salt and pepper to taste.

Antipasti ($22.72 / 8 people, or $2.84 / person)

1. Nuts:  I buy these whole, still in the shell.  It's more fun to eat them if you have to crack them and pick them yourself, and cheaper because a really large bowl of nuts in the shell is a lot less nuts than a large bowl of shelled nuts, and your guests don't plow through them as quickly.  ($3.99 / lb, Sprouts)
2. Olives:  I confess, I actually buy some of these the most expensive way possible: from the deli counter at Von's.  However, I supplement these with pickles and olives purchased bulk.  This makes for a mid-level cost but highly-abundant-appearing appetizer.  ($8.99 / lb, Von's) 
3. Cheese:  Nothing appears more decadent than a plain wooden cutting board laden with multiple types of cheese.  Nothing could be more expensive than buying 5 normal-sized blocks of cheese for $5-$10 each.  However, at Ralph's you can buy small "sampler" portions of cheese for $1-2 each, making this high-end-looking appetizer much easier on your check book.  ($9.74 for about 1.5 lb cheese, 5 varieties, Ralph's)

Salad ($5.04 / 8 people, or $0.63 / person)

This salad could be made with any lettuce that happens to be cheap, but gosh darn it, it's Thanksgiving and I wanted my arugula.  I could've made this with red and green lettuce from Super King for less than a dollar total, but hey.

1. Arugula, about 1 lb for 8 people ($4.99 / lb, Sprouts)
2. Lemon juice ($0.05 / lemon, Super King)
3. Salt, pepper, olive oil (nearly free in bulk)

Toss arugula with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste.  (Super simple!!)

Turkey ($8.80 total, or $0.55 / person given that each person really should only eat 1 lb of turkey, leaving you 8 lbs leftovers)

Ahh, turkey.  Let's start with some tips.  First of all, in case you haven't noticed, all your local mainstream chains are running really good deals on Turkey with offers like, "Spend $50, get a free turkey!" and the like.  I would recommend you get a flier from each store in your area, and spend maybe 15-20 minutes going through them in detail to find out which offers you the truly best deal.  If you already know you're going to spend $50 on items from a store offering a free turkey, by all means go for it.  Our best deal was "spend $15, get a 12-16 lb turkey for $8."  Or something like that.  So we stocked up on their store-brand diet soda, which was also on sale, and other items they sold exclusively or more cheaply than Super King or Sprouts.  This is one area of the Thanksgiving meal where you'll probably get your best deal at a higher-end, more "mainstream" store than a local ethnic-foods market.

1. Turkey (16 lbs / $8, Von's)
2. 1 G chicken stock (homemade from chicken bones saved from whole roasted chickens, nearly free)
3. 1 head of garlic ($1.49 / lb, Super King, or $0.10 for the recipe)
4. 1 piece of ginger ($0.05)
5. 1.5 tsp allspice berries (nearly free in bulk)
6. 1 Tbsp black peppercorn (nearly free in bulk)
7. 1 c salt (nearly free in bulk)
8. 1/4 c brown sugar (nearly free in bulk)
9. 1 apple ($0.20, Super King)
10. 1 lemon ($0.05 / lemon, Super King)
11. 1 cinnamon stick ($0.05 in bulk, Concord Produce)
12. 5 fresh sage leaves ($0.35, Super King)

Make a brine by boiling 1 G chicken or veggie stock with garlic, ginger, allspice, peppercorn, salt, and brown sugar.  Once the salt and sugar has dissolved, boil a further 5-10 minutes.  Add a bunch of ice to chill the brine to the point where it won't cook the turkey.  Add the thawed turkey (with innards removed) to the brine, and add water to cover.  Stick in the fridge for 1-2 days.  Wash the turkey and pat dry, then stuff with everything that's left.  Roast as normal.

Stuffing ($3.32 total, or $0.42 / person)

The stuffing I will make this year is inspired by the Food Network, a desire to continue to try new stuffing recipes until I find one I actually like, the overall agenda of "Meals on a Budget," and my adherence to Weight Watchers that says vegetables are "free."  Therefore, I'm trying a stuffing based on homemade bread,  homemade chicken stock, and roasted vegetables.  I'm not entirely sure how this is going to work out yet, so here's my general plan....  subject to change, of course!

1. 2 loaves homemade bread (Assuming a bunch of stuff considering I bought my flour a long time ago and can't go back to receipts to make this calculation, which would be challenging anyway because I don't know how much flour I actually use on two loaves of bread, let's say about $0.60.)
2. 1/2 lb carrots, peeled, rough-chopped ($0.20, Super King)
3. 1 lb turnips, peeled, rough-chopped ($0.79, Super King)
4. 1 lb yams, peeled, rough-chopped ($0.19, Super King)
5. 1 lb onions, peeled, some rough-chopped, 1/2 c diced ($0.40, Super King)
6. 1 lb acorn squash, peeled, rough-chopped ($0.79, Super King)
7. 2 stalks celery, diced ($0.10, Super King)
8. Chicken stock (homemade, nearly free)
9. 1-2 eggs (~$0.25, Super King)

As you can see, I'm being overly ambitious here in how many veggies I can cram into a single recipe for stuffing.  We'll see how this turns out....  Anyway, the idea is to roast the veggies until golden in an oven set to 425, maybe half an hour?  Then I'll mix those with toasted, cubed homemade bread, as much as I have left after the raccoon in the kitchen is done with his thievery.  I'll beat an egg, mix that with the chicken stock, and pour that over everything.  I'll probably also add some herbs or something.  This I'll bake with the turkey for half an hour, covered, and then a further half an hour, uncovered.  Maybe I'll like stuffing this year!  Probably not, however.  As you can see, this recipe is, as yet, a work in progress.

Cranberry Sauce ($3 total, or $0.38 / person)

I hope homemade cranberry sauce is cheaper than buying from a can, but even if it's not, I'd still make it from scratch.  I never liked the canned stuff enough to eat it, but I love the homemade stuff way too much.  This recipe is straight from Alton Brown of the Food Network, but I'm using Splenda 1 for 1 instead of honey.....

1. 4 c fresh cranberries ($2.50, Von's.  Super King didn't have any!)
2. 1/4 c orange juice (free, because I had to buy this when Tim was sick and neither of us drink OJ when we are well)
3. 1/4 c cranberry juice (pure, not a cocktail, $4.49 for a large amount, but I'll really only ever use the 1/4 c for this recipe....  anyway, let's say $0.50)
4. 1 c Splenda (you should use honey, but I have a huge bag of Splenda hanging out and I don't mind trying it this year to help curb caloric intake, so we'll say "free" because that bag of Splenda's been hanging around without much to do for years now)

Boil juices and Splenda together for 5 minutes, making sure the Splenda dissolves.  Add cranberries, simmer for less than 15 minutes - anything over will destroy the natural pectins and result in a runny sauce.  Put it in the fridge overnight.....  Hopefully yum!!

Mashed Potatoes ($0.25 total, or $0.03 per person)

I'm getting really tired of writing right now....  so let's assume you know how to make mashed potatoes.  All that are going into mine are:

1. Russet potatoes (about $.25 worth given that the 10 lb sack was only $1)
2. Seasonings

Sure, the seasonings cost something, but they're like butter and dehydrated milk and garlic powder and stuff I just can't bring myself to care about right now.  They're mashed russets.  They're pretty darn cheap unless you do something crazy like add shaved truffle and gold powder or something.

Long Beans with Mushroom Cream Sauce  ($5.02 total, or $0.63 per person)

I happen to love green bean casserole.  Really love it.  However, if you think about it, at around $2 per can, you're looking at $6 for what, a canned casserole?  We can do better, and maybe cheaper.  Let's find out!

1. 2 lbs long beans ($1.89, Super King)
2. 6 oz mushrooms ($1.49, Super King)
3. 2 Tbsp butter ($0.10, Super King)
4. 2 cloves garlic (almost free, Super King)
5. 5 sage leaves ($0.35, Super King)
6. 1 c heavy cream ($1, Super King)
7. 1/2 leek, chopped ($0.19, Super King)

Saute garlic, sage, and mushrooms in butter until softened.  Pour in cream, heat slowly.  Stir in leek and blanched long beans.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Pumpkin Bread ($3.37 total, or $0.42 per person)

I got this recipe from my mother-in-law because the other palate in the household positively loves this bread. It's rather cute, actually, and I must say the recipe does make a darn good bread.  I hope she doesn't mind me sharing her secrets here, on the internet....  :-)  If you do mind, I'm sorry, Mom!  Let me know and I'll take this down ASAP!

1. 3 eggs ($0.57, Super King)
2. 1.5 c sugar (who knows?!  Let's say $0.20 as a generous estimate)
3. 1.5 c canned pumpkin (let's just say $2 for argument's sake)
4. 1 c + 2 Tbsp oil (Again, who knows?!  Let's be generous again and estimate $0.20)
5. 1.5 tsp vanilla (Jeez, if you use imitation it's nearly free)
6. 2.25 c flour (Let's say $0.30)
7. 1.5 tsp baking soda (Hmm, maybe $0.05?)
8. 1.5 tsp baking powder (Also maybe $0.05)
9. 1.5 tsp salt (nearly free)
10. 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon (nearly free)
11. 0.25 tsp cloves (nearly free)
12. 0.25 tsp ground ginger (nearly free)
13. 0.25 tsp ground nutmeg (nearly free)

Mix it all up, divide into two greased and floured pans, bake at 350 for 1 hr.  Easy peasy, and not too expensive!  Yay!

Total costs:

Let's go through the costs of serving 8 people:

1. Asparagus appetizer / brunch:  $10.30
2. Antipasti:  $22.72
3. Salad:  $5.04
4. Turkey: $4.40  (for 8 people, remember we bought a turkey big enough to serve 16)
5. Stuffing:  $3.32
6. Cranberry sauce:  $3.00
7. Potatoes:  $0.25
8. Green beans with mushroom cream sauce:  $5.02
9. Pumpkin bread:  $3.37

That's $57.42 total, or $7.18 per person.  That probably sounds like a lot, but let's remember a few things here: (1) the way I've laid out the menu above, you're feeding your guests at a steady pace throughout the day, giving them a sense of abundance throughout for only $7.18 per person, and (2) divided among a normal 3 meals, that would be about $2.39 per person per meal, which we all would be happy with.  Additionally, we included high-end appetizers including olives, fine cheeses, and higher-end greens.  If we were to merely substitute the higher-end olive and cheese plate and with canned olives and a block of  cheddar, we'd drop our $57.42 total down to $42.69 total.  Remove the arugula and substitute a cheaper green, and we're down to $37.69 total.  Of course, we could also replace the asparagus appetizer with a creative grilled eggplant appetizer (eggplant is currently 3 for a dollar at Super King), and shave a further $7 off the costs, down to $30.69 total.  At this point, considering that the menu is intended to feed people for an entire day, we're down to $1.27 per person per meal, which is almost as good as Jack in the Box can do....  but we're eating a lot better with a better sense of abundance than we would off a dollar menu.

Epilogue

For me, separated from a bulk of my family at Thanksgiving, the holiday is now about having the day off to cook really good food in a way I never have an excuse to throughout the rest of the year.  It's all about the sense of abundance and thankfulness and joy that comes with  one day of the year to not worry so much about the cost of extravagant recipes and just enjoy cooking, eating, and being with the other palate in the house.  Too many people do not get to experience that, so if you choose to choose wisely in your purchasing this Thanksgiving, please remember those less fortunate than you who have no choice.

Stay hungry, my friends!

Closet archaeology: Jeans

SO......

As some of you who read this blog may have been able to figure out, I recently joined Weight Watchers.  It's been 5 weeks and I've lost 10 pounds!

This may not seem like a lot if you watch Biggest Loser, so I thought I'd share what that means in terms of something more tangible:  pants.

If you're like me, your closet is kind of an archaeological record.  On the bottom of the shelves, in the back of drawers, and on the far left of the closet are things that were last worn, oh, perhaps around the turn of the Permian era.  On the top, in the front, and on the far right are things that were last worn, oh, yesterday?  Last week?

Anyway, when I joined WW, I had about 25 pairs of jeans and only two pairs that fit.  A little snugly.  Not that good for my psyche.

After the first week, both pairs fit great and I was really happy.

After the second week, one pair of jeans was starting to get a little loose...  and I was oh, so happy, so happy, when a special pair of capri's fit.  I'd picked them up a while back on sale thinking, "I always drop a few pounds over the summer, these will fit great then!"  They finally fit me!  I wore them.

After the third week, I realized I could pull that looser pair of my two favorite jeans off without unbuttoning them.  Because I love that pair of jeans, I decided to pack it away in a box instead of donating them immediately.  Who knows, I may get pregnant someday and gain a few pounds back, and then I'll be happy to have a comfortable pair of favorite jeans.

After the 4th week, I realized that I could fit back into three pairs of jeans I hadn't worn in over six months.  I wore them to work that week.

Today, I realized that one of those three pairs that I discovered finally fit me again last week is now so loose I can pull them off without unbuttoning them!  I was fine with that, I never really liked those jeans anyway.  I put them into the same box with the first pair.

Then, I decided to try on all my pants.  If I'm going to be changing pants sizes so rapidly in comparison to my collection, I want to wear everything that fits me right now before I have to pack it back away.

On a happy note, I was able to divide my closet into things that fit me right now (lots of "new" clothes, yay!), things that I should try on again next week (a sizeable stack of soon-to-be-"new" clothes, yay!), and a stack of things that I should wait to try on again until the other stack gets smaller (a sizeable stack of clothes I'm determined to have as "new" things again, yay!).

However, there's a poignant end to this story.  Those super-cute capris I mentioned earlier?  Now they are ridiculously too big.  I only got to wear them once.  I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry about that.

Stay hungry, but in moderation!

Odd things about brains.....

A case study of one brain...

Mine!

Brains are very odd organs, in my humble opinion.  They are tasked with receiving a ton of information from our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and I don't even know how many different nerve cells from our fingertips to our toes to all those places inside us like our stomachs and lungs and hearts and kidneys and...  After they receive all that information, they are required to prioritize that information and then make decisions about what to do with that information, and then control the immensely complex beings that we are.

Take for example, a brain faced with this information: your bladder is informing your brain that it's about 90% full, your eyes are informing it that there's a large rock on the trail that you need to navigate over effectively, a friend is requiring you to carry on a conversation about her troubles with her boy-almost-friend, your stomach is reminding your brain that it hasn't been filled with anything more than a banana in an hour and a half, your left big toe is informing it that it is developing quite a large blister now, thank you very much, your skin is reminding it of the benefits of sunscreen, your legs are reminding your brain (and your lungs) that this would be a lot easier if you could get off the couch for a longer sprint than to the refrigerator during a commercial break more often, and your ears tell it that something rustled in the brush off to the left, maybe 3 feet ahead of where you are now.

SOMEHOW, your brain ignores all the other information for a couple of milliseconds and focuses on the rustling, just to make sure that the thing that rustled was something small and potentially edible and not something small and venomous or something large with quite large teeth, but SOMEHOW it still picks up enough of the other information to keep you from falling over the rock, emptying your bladder, or even missing a beat of your oblivious friend's boy-almost-friend's issues.

During this incident, you were probably also parallel processing what's for dinner tonight and that you should brine that chicken when you get home so it builds some flavor and doesn't completely dry out in the oven, probably at your mouth's and stomach's suggestions.

Brains are weird, man.

Brains are SO GOOD at not only processing information as it comes in real time, but at the same time storing, recalling, and processing information that came in earlier.  It's hard to believe that we humans have such a complex information processing, storage, and control organ that we could ever get bored.  I mean, seriously.  You're doing some mundane task like dishes by hand.  All the real-time information hitting your senses and leaving your brain as controls just to carry out that simplistic task would overrun the processing power of a really good computer.  Throw in Taylor Swift's latest album blasting on an iPad nearby, recalling the to-do-list for tomorrow, carrying on a conversation with a significant other doing dishes with you, and you'd easily over-run the processing power of many of the best super-computers.

Brains are really weird, man.

And yet, quite often, we still perceive our miraculous organic super computing brains as being somehow deficient.  I started off this post intending to tell you all about how my brain has failed me over the years, and somehow wound up marveling at all the ways it hasn't failed me.  That's a brain for you.  You can't always tell where it's going to take you....

But seriously.  I once lost my keys in the fridge, because I had hooked them onto my finger while carrying groceries and when I dropped the bags of refrigerated goods in the fridge, the keys came off with them, to be forgotten until they were next needed.  It took forever to find the car keys, and now my darling husband always asks me if I've checked the fridge anytime I lose anything.  

I learned right from left really early on.  My mother tells me that I had it down by the time I was two years old.  At some later point, however, I either got it wrong or someone gave me false information, so I got confused, and I've second and third and fourth guessed right and left directions ever since.  It's one of those things where I know I got it wrong once, so I have to double and triple and quadruple check every time I try to orient things as right or left.  That act of multiple checks and second-guessing means I actually get it wrong about 30% of the time, and only get it right with only a few second's notice maybe 10% of the time.  I learned R and S stereochemistry notation for complex organic molecules much later in life, and I've never had an experience of being wrong with that notation, so my darling husband, who makes fun of me for losing things like keys in the fridge, now gives me driving directions in R and S language rather and right and left.

Another thing my brain does poorly is tell time on an analog clock without the numbers.  I can never remember which way is clockwise unless the numbers are there.  I have trouble telling time on an analog clock even when the numbers are there, in the sense that it takes me a good 5-10 seconds of true attention time to figure it out.  I attribute this to a "goofy" wristwatch I wore for many years early on that ran backwards.  I learned to tell time from an analog device that runs opposite to convention, and now when I look at a "normal" timepiece, I psych myself out as to whether I'm reading it correctly or in reverse, and I cannot for the life of me figure out which direction is correct without the numbers there to help me along.  We have a large clock in the living room that has Roman numerals at the 3, 6, 9, and 12 positions.  This is the worst clock ever for me, because it combines my second-guessing at which direction the clock is supposed to run with my second-guessing at my ability to interpret Roman numerals correctly.  Honestly, I'd do better if it were inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs.  That clock is pure decoration, in my opinion, and I tell time from the digital cable box display.

You know when you're learning vectors and you must use the right hand rule?  It turns out that using the wrong hand and not being able to easily tell clockwise from counterclockwise is not a good thing.

However, my brain is weird in other completely useless ways.  I can remember a phone number I had when I was 6 years old, but I can't remember correctly what I did the night before my flight home for Thanksgiving in 2000.  The flight left at 6AM, so I would need to be up and ready to leave the dorm at 3AM, which means in undergrad time that you just stay up all night.  I have detailed and vivid memories of watching Trainspotting (a horrible, graphic, and quite memorable film, mind you) with my roommate Heather.  We ate Ben and Jerry's ice cream that we got from the student center just before they closed at midnight, then at around 1AM went up a floor to steal Jimmie's guitar and hide it in Heather's bed.

The only problem with that memory is that it is wrong on all counts.  The flight home details were correct, but I watched "10 Things I Hate About You" with a guy who was not my roommate, Ben and Jerry were not involved, and Jimmie's guitar was safe that night.  I have this information corroborated by Heather, the guy, and Jimmie.  Ben and Jerry were not harmed in the making of this incident.

Why on Earth would my brain fabricate a completely fictional account of an innocuous evening, complete with vivid memories of ice cream and a disturbing movie?  This isn't something I remembered decades later, either, I was informed of the falsification of my memory of this event within a year.  

I've also had encounters recently with really well-trained chemists (like CalTech PhD scientists) where they've forgotten not only basic chemistry but really basic chemical principles that should've been learned in high school.  I have it on record that these people have never made less than a B in a course.  How does this happen?  Why do brains fail us?  But even more relevant, "Why do brains succeed so well for us?"

Brains are really weird, man.

Really, that's all I can say.  My brain does so much for me, stores so much information, and controls my extremities so well that I can actually type this faster than I could speak it.  I challenge you to spend 10 minutes to really think about how your brain works today.  I further challenge you to post what you find as a comment.  After all the really embarrassing things I've posted about my own brain, there's absolutely no reason to feel any shame about yours.

Stay hungry, my friends!

Unusual protiens

I think a fair number of us can classify a number of proteins as being things "Momma never made," ranging from frog legs to squirrel brains to chicken hearts.

I wish I could help.

I have some particularly ornery turtles in the living room right now, and I'm all up for demonstrating how to cook turtle right now.

Souffle

I pride myself on being a good home cook.....

But I've never made a souffle....

In fact...

I've never even tasted a souffle!

I know what one should look like, because I do have a TV and a computer and the internet.  I have verbal descriptions online and from very few menus at restaurants to explain what a souffle should taste, look, and feel like.  However, I have NO CLUE what I'm doing when it comes to a souffle.

If I want to be a good home cook, I'm already there.  I know that.  I'm not being cocky or anything, I just happen to know I make good food.  It's not hard to be a good home cook, though, you don't have to know exotic techniques, you just have to be able to combine flavors, season things well, and generally not undercook things or burn them.  (Well, you can do both from time to time as long as you keep a pan hot to cook things further and a cheese grater on hand to grate off the burnt parts.)  It requires a little attention to detail, and paying attention to things like temperatures and times and things, but let's be honest, it's not HARD.  Otherwise a vast majority of us would not be using our mothers and grandmothers as the high standards that we hold all other cooks and chefs to when sampling new cuisine.  If it were easy, you'd rarely hear the words, "yes, that's good, but it's not like Mom used to make," or "it's good but it's not Grandma's apple pie, or X or Y or Z."  Instead, it's easy enough that enough of our matriarchs mastered the art well enough that almost everyone in our population utters those words quite often.  Or at least thinks them quite often.

Who's mother or grandmother regularly prepared a souffle?  If Julia Child had any children, perhaps they could make that claim.  For the rest of us....  we're left out here thinking WTF?!  What is a souffle and how do I cook one?!

Well, I can't tell you.  I just realized tonight that I have no clue, and it alarms me.  I can make you a hollandaise, which I hear is challenging but I've only had problems when dinner was delayed by more than an hour.....  I can do a steak anywhere from rare to well done with reasonable skill, but I obviously do better with a rare steak with 15 minutes notice than with a rare steak with 15 minutes notice then a 2 hr delay....

I must learn to cook a souffle.  My competitive spirit demands that I must master that skill.

When I take that plunge, I PROMISE to keep you updated with photos.

Stay hungry!

What to do with a whole chicken?

Congratulations, due to a $0.99 per pound or better sale at your recent market, you are now the proud owner of a whole, semi or mostly-frozen chicken!  It probably looks like this:

So what do you do with this lump of supposed chicken flesh?

Well, first, let me disclaimer here a little - I was too busy this morning to take photos, and part of this happened without me, and when I got home, we were all too hungry to worry about photography....  I'm no Pioneer Woman here.

But truly first?  You fully defrost it.  In the refridgerator or in cold water.  It will take hours to days, so this is meal you have to plan ahead for.  Defrosting any quicker risks cooking the bird (in a microwave) or exposing yourself and your loved ones to salmonella (on the countertop while you're at work all day).

Second-first?  (hahaha, that is so silly, second-first....)  You brine that sucker.  The typical recipe for a brine is about 1 cup of kosher salt per enough liquids to cover your chicken.  I find that IF I'm going to start the brine before I go to work, I should add a little over half a cup of regular granulated salt to a cup or two of water, a full head of garlic sliced lengthwise (if I can get garlic cheap enough for this to only cost me a few cents), and some whole peppercorn and some dried or even fresh chilis.  This is totally negotiable, add, subtract, and substitute as fits your family.  Today we did a little over half a cup of regular salt, a head of garlic, a Tbsp of whole peppercorn, and a dash of cayenne.  We boiled all that in a cup and a half of water for a few minutes, then let cool for a few, then added ice.  We removed the bits from the chicken cavities (neck and liver and kidneys and heart), washed the whole thing, then stuck it in a gallon freezer bag.  To this we added the chilled brine solution.  We sealed that up in one bag, then stuck it inside another bag to help mitigate salmonella leaks down into the fresh produce, and left it until we got home from work.

A note here:  secondary containment is critical when working with potential food-poisoning items.  Anything that can carry a pathogenic bacteria (poultry in particular, pork and beef also but less so) should be first put into containment and then into a "secondary" container in case your first line of defense sprains a leak.  This is most painful when you get raw contaminated chicken juice into something you typically serve raw, don't notice it, and give your entire family food poisoning, but more poignantly so when you do notice it and it's the raspberries you bought for $5 a quarter-pint out of season, were really looking forward to serving at a special birthday breakfast brunch, and now must toss.  It's easy enough to double-bag it or put it in a bowl or pan, so just do it.

Baking is straightforward:  Put the chicken on something to collect the drips and stick it in the oven at 400 F until the internal temp is around 160 F or so.  Nothing special.  You don't need a special pan (although they sell these both as permanent additions to your kitchen and as disposables), you can just put aluminum foil down.

When it's cooked enough, pull it out of the oven and let it sit for about 1/4 of the total cooking time.  If you had to cook it for an hour, let it sit for 15 minutes.  You may think this is ridiculous and that you're hungry and it smells so good and Gosh Darn It you've earned it, but patience, young padawan.  If you carve it now, you'll lose all the good juices and flavor to the ether, but if you wait just a few more minutes, your bird will be heaven.

Eventually, you get to carve it.  There are right and wrong ways to do this.  You can look them up on the internet.  I trust you to get it right.  For a 2-4 lb bird, every person in the family (2-4 people) should get a 3-6 oz serving of breast meat.  Normal American serving sizes are more like an entire breast per person, and maybe a drumstick as a second helping before desert.  Go figure.

After dinner, someone gets the pleasure of the age-old pass-time of "chicken picking."  I know people who pride themselves on being the most efficient chicken pickers in the county.  This is the fun, messy, grubby sport of digging into a roasted chicken that has cooled off and been mostly picked-over by the family for scraps of meat.  You might think this is wasted time, obviously if it were good meat someone would've taken it....  BUT YOU'D BE WRONG!!  There's a fair bit of good meat left on a chicken that has been carved and served that can be salvaged by someone willing to get their hands dirty picking a chicken carcass.  Here's a photo of our haul:

In the middle is the chicken carcass.  I'm planning to make chicken noodle soup out of this soon, so I wasn't too careful in getting every ounce of meat off, as you can see.  On the left is the dark meat that I pulled off the legs and thighs.  On the right is the white meat that I pulled off the breast.  The wings, it seems, no one likes around here but me, so they wind up in the soup-stock bin in the middle.

The middle (carcass) bin goes into the freezer.  I will pull it out when I have time and energy to stew a chicken stock.  The left-hand dark meat goes into lighter future dishes that need the extra fat.  The right-hand light meat goes into lunch tomorrow and etc.... where light, healthy proteins are desirable.

What am I missing?  Oh yes, the neck and giblets.  These go straight into a saute pan and when fully cooked into the "carcass" bin in the freezer.  You can make a pate out of chicken livers, and I hear you can do amazing things with thinly sliced fried chicken hearts.... but you know what?  I don't really want to be a part of that.  In my house we use every part of the buffalo, and I'm perfectly fine if that "use" is "making a good stock."  I'll never lose a day's sleep because I didn't do more with a chicken gizzard.....

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some good pics on what you can do with all that leftover meat.

Until, stay hungry!

Shoes... or the virtues of understanding your own feet

The other day while checking myself in the mirror for stray hairs before going into the cleanroom, I noticed that I was standing only on the outer edges of my feet.  I was curious as to whether this was a momentary thing or a typical thing for me.  It seemed weird, anyway, so I wanted to observe it in detail.

When I got home, I looked at all my shoes, and they are all worn more on the outside edge than anywhere else.  When I went for a run yesterday, I noticed that my big toe was curling up over my next toe, consistent with the stance I observed prior.  Curious as to whether this is a good, bad, or indifferent thing, I did what any good person would do and looked it up on the internet!

Apparently this is called supination.  The opposite movement (putting too much weight on the inside of the foot) is called pronation.  Apparently it is much more common for hyperpronantion to occur than for hypersupination (hyper just meaning over or too much).  Both supination and pronation are natural parts of the gait cycle, apparently: http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/sport-injuries/foot-heel-pain/supination

Hypersupination is quite rare, apparently.  However, it causes a susceptibility to some of the things I am susceptible to, including ankle sprains and plantar fascitis.  Apparently, the best thing to do if you have this as part of your life is to buy shoes that support your arches and attempt to even out your gait to "neutral," neither hypersupination nor hyperpronation.

I've always known I need good arch support or else my feet and ankles hurt....  and you probably knew this already if you've got a similar gait.  So this post is just... well.... a look at a topic most of us rarely think about unless they are in pain:  our feet.

On a side note, I bought a pair of heels recently that are uber comfy most of the time, but if I wear them for more than a day at a time, my left ankle decides it just doesn't want to be on planet Earth anymore and lets me know loudly (both by the noises it makes, which other people can hear, and by the pain it inflicts).  The heels have no arch support and are all-together terrible shoes apart from being quite cute.  It makes me wonder why our society has deemed heels an appropriate method for women to demonstrate their status....

Further digression:  I recently saw a painting of a French aristocrat, may have even been royalty, I wasn't paying much attention, where the man in question had on heels and pantyhose and was showing off his shapely legs from beneath his stately fur robe.  The other palate in the house and I wondered at how times have changed and why norms of beauty have trans-morphed across centuries and miles of oceans.... and I really think its because we used to pride our royalty on being practically useless (why should a King be capable of chopping wood?) and our women on being practically useless (you let your females wear clothing?!).  Okay, that last reference was Farengi from Star Trek, but you get the point.  It used to be a mark of honor that we had so much wealth that we could support some people (royalty first, then women when we got rich enough) that those people had nothing physically demanding enough to do that they could actually wear hose and heels, and we've somehow inherited that ideal of wealth-demonstration for our females in an age when women are so much more than pretty things we display as markers of our wealth.  I say, if Bobak can sport a mohawk, then women can wear flats if they darn well please.  I stand behind that by wearing flats most days.

Feet are important, keep them healthy and happy and you will also be healthy and happy!

Good eating my friends, and keep wondering!

The danger of obsessions.....

I have many interests, and I can categorize them in a few basic classes:

1. Life-long interests - those few rare topics that have lit me up for as long as I can remember and probably always will, i.e. good career choices.  (Like water, can't be without it for more than a few days)
2. Long-term interests - the things I'm always interested in, but go through occasional periods where I'm less interested in them because of other exciting things.  (Like food and shelter, you can typically do without these for a little bit, but ignore them too long and pain and suffering ensues.)
3. Short-term interests - things I'm really interested in right now and maybe for a few years, but overall not something up there with 1 and 2...  (i.e. clothing, social structures, etc...  all the things that make life tolerable but not something essential for actual survival)
4. Passing obsessions - things I'm passionate about right this second but have nothing at all to do with real life and add no value except to entertain those around me as they marvel at "why on Earth does do they even care?"....

Why this post?

I've been caught up the last week or so in a Titanic obsession.  I forget why I thought of it last week, but I did, mostly in terms of the big James Cameron movie.  It was probably one of those trains of thought I occasionally have: "Oh, hydrothermal vents!"  "Now I'm thinking of Kevin Hand's documentary on them."  "Didn't he do that one with James Cameron?  Oh, maybe... maybe not, I'll have to look it up on line."  "Oh yeah!  James Cameron did that Titanic movie."  "I watched that movie twice in the theatre."  "Remember that guy you watched it with?  Didn't he die of cancer?  Why don't we youtube the theme song, I'm sure it will bring back the memories."  "Huh, I wonder what the movie would be like if I saw it again as an adult."  "Wow, it's completely different now!!"  "What train of thought got me here again?"  "Now I'm thinking about trains...."

Anyway, I started thinking about the Titanic, and yes, its a #4 passing obsession, but it fits right up there with all my other passing obsessions like tornadoes in LA and space shuttles hydroplaning down the LA river and tsunamis in Manhattan and all those other big box-office-hit disaster-movie special effects.  Let's face it, the movie Titanic had some pretty cool disaster-movie special effects.  I'm a junkie for them.

I'm also a junkie for end-of-these-peoples times responses to major disasters.  I can't explain that one, but it just fascinates me the way various people respond to dire calamity that endangers not only their own life but of everyone around them at the moment.  The real Titanic and the movie version are both good at filling that need for information.

However, take any of these passing obsessions too far, and you'll invariably wind up with an Asylum flick on youtube on your laptop perched on top of the (unplugged, for safety's sake!) toaster oven while doing dishes and wishing you could change the movie but can't because your hands are wet.....

I can't remember the name of the first Faith Films disaster movie I saw, but it was something about 2012.  It was actually okay.  The Princess of Mars left me wondering for hours why I had put it on because I had boxes and boxes of dishes to unpack and wash and couldn't turn it off.  I actually tricked myself into watching it twice, because my hubby and I have the same netflix account and I thought he had watched it, so I turned it on again....  and was sad.

Tonight it's Titanic II.  I remember thinking when I saw the title, "What, you can't make a sequel to the Titanic, the boat sinks and 2/3 of the people die!"  Train of thought: "Well, it's on Netflix, has ONE whopping star, how bad can it be?"

Really bad.

But also really good!  It combines unrealistic ice bergs with unrealistic tsunamis with a CG modernized replica of the Titanic (complete with CG submarine-esque lifeboats), how bad can it be?  Pretty badly enjoyable!  I just wish I didn't have to sit through really bad second-rate soap-opera-esque acting, dialogue, and "plot movement" to get to the good parts.

Go get some popcorn, and I wish you good eating...  even if you can't watch a space shuttle hydroplane down the LA river a la "The Core" tonight.  Which you could do, if you weren't so busy watching Titanic II.

Blah, I wanted a story line.

Tomatillos, thiols, and perception of stink....

So today I went for a nice, long run (wanted to earn up enough points for a glass of wine or two tonight), came home, and started making a green tomatillo salsa for enchiladas a la Guy Fieri on the Food Network.

Tomatillos, man....  They are so so so good cooked and especially in salsa verde, but fresh they STINK!!!  I got so concerned about the lavatory-esque odor coming from them that I began to look it up online to see if they'd gone bad.  Seriously, smelled like poo.  The the other palate in the house came home and told me I was crazy, they smelled a little but not bad and not overly strong.

Well, I did my internet search, and found:

"Truth be told tomatillos stink.  Literally.  The paper husk smells like rotting dirty socks."
http://mykidseatsquid.com/2010/04/103/


There's a comment:  "I thought this would be good, but when you eat it tastes like a stink bug smells.  It's the tomatillos...." on this recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/tomatillo-guacamole/

So, based on these various sources, it sounds like tomatillos are kind of like durian.  Durian are a wonderfully tropical custardy fruit that many people say smells alternatively like dirty socks or a lavatory or something disgusting.  I can't smell that on them at all, only tropical goodness.  The odor in durians is due to a chemical called a "thiol."  These chemicals are what make natural gas smell (methane has no odor so they add the thiol as a harmless warning odor), skunks stink, and durian smell.  It looks for all the world like sensitivity to thiols is genetic, as neither my dad nor I find them unpleasant at all, and have to experience them at high concentration before we even notice they are there.  This has led to a few mishaps around the laboratory.... another post for another time.

Obviously, it can't be thiols that are making tomatillos stink, if so there would be a lot more press on malodorous tomatillos.  (And the other palate in the house would've been knocked out the door by the stench if I could smell them at all....)  Therefore, in my mind, at least, it must be due to some other scent chemical that people with a genetic insensitivity to thiols learn to notice to warn us away from things like poop and dirty, rotten socks.  It's possible that people who can smell those nasty thiols compounds never really learn to pick up the compounds I associate with nasty things simply because they never have to - those molecules that I find nasty are always masked to other people by the blast to the olfactory from the thiols.

Anyway, I would be interested in hearing other interpretations of the data I present.... as one random scientist to another....  :-)

Good (non-malodorous) eating!

Latin American Night... an unfinished photodocumentary

Continuing our tour across the world, tonight was....

Latin American Night

For this meal, we had chayote squash from Brazil, burro bananas from Panama, steak in the Argentinian style  (no seasonings except salt and pepper), an avocado from Mexico, and... well, a malbec from Mendoza, Argentina.  We also had a slivered jicama appetizer and potatoes, because the other palate had eaten nothing but a couple apples all day and needed food NOW.

Clockwise from left:  burro bananas, chayote squash, 12 oz beef (defrosting, right), and avocado (center).

The malbec, jicama, and potatoes are not pictured because they weren't part of the initial meal plan and I got too busy once the other palate got home to continue photographing.  I'm a terrible food blogger - I can never remember to take photographs once I have a hungry audience in the house, whether that's me or another person.

Anyway, as usual, let's survey the damage first.

Costs:

Bananas: 0.38

Squash: 0.50

Steak:  2.07

Avocado: 0.69

Jicama: 0.22

Potatoes:  0.14

If you don't count the negligible costs of salt and the tsp of olive oil that went into this meal, the total for two people was $3.94 or $1.97 a meal.  We also have to leave out the wine, but hey, you can't buy wine with food stamps anyway so it's not really cheating (as we know, there are people on food stamps who still drink alcoholic beverages, they just buy these from their "splurge" budget and not from their food stamps budget, just as we are doing here).  This is double the dollar a meal budget on food stamps, but we are talking about a multi-course meal with steak.  At some point I'll blog about the food stamps challenge in enough detail to convince you that splurging tonight with steak still fits into the overall budget of a food stamps diet.

As for WW points plus, we lose about 5 points to 4 oz lean beef, a further 2 to half a potato, a further 2 to plenty of avocado, and let's count an extra 1 for oil.  Everything else was "free."  I'm being over-generous here in my estimates of potato, avocado, and oil points, but the steak wasn't that lean, so it probably all evens out in the end.  The total for dinner then is 10 points plus, which isn't bad given this was a Friday night multi-course splurge meal and all.

In summary:  $1.97 and 10 PPV for the meal.  Worth it?  I'd say yes, but only as a once-a-week pleasure.

Protocol:

Let's be clear here.  I'd never prepared chayote squash nor burro bananas before tonight.  This was an experiment, but I know I'm a decent cook so I went for it.  I looked up hints on what to do for both online, and it basically looked like chayote squash you can treat like any other summer squash (i.e. in my mind, anyway, you grill it dry then drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt and spices), and burro bananas hold together well enough for cooked preparations like frying (i.e. in my mind, anyway, you grill it).  

First, let's address the chayote squash.  I'd read that they have one big seed in the middle.  I didn't know whether this was like an avocado seed or like a typical zuchinni seed, so I cut the chayote carefully around the perimeter and twisted it like it was an avocado.  I wound up with this:

That in the middle is half the seed, which sheared right in half when I twisted the squash.  It has roughly the same texture as the rest of the squash, which is rather like the flesh of a very firm cucumber and smells odd.  My husband variably compared the aroma to pumpkin bread and horses, even when cooked.  It's not unpleasant, but definitely odd, and probably why these inexpensive foodstuffs are not a mainstay in American kitchens.  I decided at that point that the seed must be just as edible as the rest of the squash, and chopped it up without thinking about the seed again.

Anyway, we grilled slices of the squash, then drizzled in a bit of olive oil, sprinkled them with salt, and ate them like chips.  They were crisp and firm like a fresh cucumber, even after being well-cooked, and the flavor was not wrong for a comparison to cucumber.  In fact, they were close enough to cucumber that the other palate in the household broke out a tupperware of tzatziki dressing I had made a few days earlier to dip them in.  All in all a good experiment, one I would recommend every person undertake, but unless they are cheaper than typical summer squashes, I'll stick to zuchinni.  Maybe.  Once I tried putting a sliver of avocado on top of a slice of chayote, I was pretty hooked.  The flavor combo and mix of crisp and creamy was so amazing that I'll definitely do the chayote again, just to see what I can do with this new ingredient.  Perhaps treating it like a zuchinni substitute was incorrect and I'll learn with time what the best way is to prepare this interesting new ingredient actually is.

Next are the burro bananas.  I read online that I should slice them thin and fry them.  When I peeled the first one, which for all intents and purposes looks like a short, fat relative of the standard Chiquita banana or a ripe plantain, it looked like a normal banana, tasted like a normal banana, but I was impressed with how well it held together with handling both pre and post peeling.  A light-bulb went off in my head, "Ah, we don't cook normal bananas because they'd turn to mush upon heating!  This banana obviously can stand up to the heat!  Now I wonder what it will taste like grilled?!"

Well, here's the answer: heaven.  They got nicely browned on the outside, and formed a tough (by banana standards) coat around the perimeter.  This served to keep the tasty, sweet, creamy mush on the inside in one place.  The tough perimeter was actually no tougher than say a typical banana.  In other words, despite my language here, these were like little banana cream filled packages of goodness, and the crust was just a really good sweet and savory slightly chewy skin that lent the perfect contrast of texture and flavor to the super sweet and creamy interior.

At one point the other palate suggested that the only thing missing from the burro bananas hot off the grill was ice cream, and I immediately started fantasizing about the perfect banana split.  I've never really liked banana splits, I've always just eaten a couple bites of ice cream and been done, but a banana split with hot grilled burro bananas, the ice cream getting soft and melty where it hits the hot banana, the creamy goodness of the grilled banana....  suddenly I understood the attraction, that's all I'm saying.

The rest of the meal was pretty standard.  Sliced jicama as an appetizer, avocado as side dish, appetizer, and garnish, and of course, the steak.  By the time we got to the steak, we were pretty full on everything else, and it wasn't even appreciated as much as back when we'd have 4x the quantity of steak per person.  The other palate only ate half his, and I offered to cook it with eggs in the morning and he was like, "Why would we have steak for breakfast?  I'll take this to work as lunch on Monday."  We're talking about 4 oz scrap steak, here, people.

As an aside, when I went out into the world, I left a home where beef was such a staple that we ate it with every meal.  It was considered dog food if the steak was too fatty or bony to be easy to eat, because the meat was as close to free as you can get (and that poor dog isn't quite too fat to run yet, obviously he needs more meat).  It's a very different world I live in now.  

I'm so blessed to have experienced such abundance in my life.  I never go hungry, I am never wanting for variety, and I can almost always find something new at the market to bring home, look up on the internet, and try.  Rarely am I unpleasantly surprised, and sometimes I find a new "staple meal" to add to the weekly rotation.  I know the hubby is already looking forward to the next "Greek night" as he calls it when I make the Mediterranean tour, and I'm looking forward to his "Mexican night."  

He still talks about burdock root from our Asia food tour wistfully, so I know that one will be making a visit soon. The only reason I haven't brought it back out is that it does require a fair bit of prep work what with peeling, soaking, etc..., so it's a special occasion food.  And honestly, I liked it a lot, but not enough to do all that work on a daily basis!  If we're going to bring in another "blast from the past" I'd prefer to bring in bitter melon again.  It was easy and relatively tasty.  Cactus is on sale right now, maybe next you'll be honored with photos of me pulling catcus splinters out of my fingers.  I've done that one a few times, and honestly?  Cactus is a LOT of work.  I can't imagine any reason you'd eat that unless you had to, or unless you were just in love with it.  It's like eating turtles.  I can't imagine why you'd do it unless you had to or if you were one of an odd few who just really loved it.

Well, sorry to leave you with the image of cactus turtle soup in your head, but good eats to all, and to all a good night!