Monday, November 12, 2007

Stick THAT in your pie-hole.

I am a slow runner it seems.
I have been tagged again, this time to give you ten, yes ten! random facts about the colossal pile of weirdness that is me me me.

I was tagged by the lovely Ms. Freida Bee, whom I adore because she is funny, odd, witty, multi-talented and smart, much like yours truly.

I decided to do this tag around a theme for once, the theme being food and cooking.

So here we go...
Ten glorious oddities and gems to put in the "Who is this Whiskey lady anyways, and what the hell does she know about cooking?" file:


#1)
I'm not as picky about my knives as a lot of "food people" in that I'll use several different brands. That being said, I do have a few favorites.
This knife (plus the matching paring and santoku knives) are my favorites at home. They are from Napa Style- they feel wonderful in my hand, are easy to sharpen, and the stripey wood handles are prettier than a lot of the "nice" knives out there.

For work, my favorites have always been and always will be Global knives. They are razor-sharp, lightweight, well-balanced and very well-designed. All that and they sure are pretty too. Well worth the investment, though they are kind of a bitch to sharpen sometimes.




#2) I hate hate hate eating cookies, muffins, desserts, etc...warm from the oven. Ick. I can't stand when the chocolate chips are still melty. My Mr. regularly burns his tongue on chocolate chip cookies that have literally JUST come out of the oven, which grosses me out completely. The only warm baked good I like is bread. I even like bread pudding cold. Really though, my favorite desserts are usually the ones that are supposed to be cold anyways: custards/creme brulee', mousses, cold tortes, and the like.
I am aware that I may be the only living human being to feel this way.


#3) My favorite sandwich is a good Reuben, no Thousand island.
My love for sauerkraut knows no bounds. Really, my love of cabbage knows no bounds. Cabbage rolls, cabbage soup, cabbage cupcakes...
I am from hearty German stock, and at several points during my early years my mother decided to make sauerkraut at home. you would think that going to school smelling like fermenting feet for weeks at a time would deter my love, but not so much.


#4) I am cooking a pot of black beans right now. Not for dinner (I'm doing Asian tonight), but just to package up and have around as nothing compares to homemade black beans. I do mine with onion, bay leaf, oregano, chipotle, smoked paprika, garlic and salt and pepper. The key is to not add the salt until the beans are already a pretty much cooked through. If you add the salt too early they get kind of crunchy, which is yukky.


#5) When tomatoes are in season (especially heirlooms), I can make a meal of sliced tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and a little salt. There is no more perfect moment than when you first bite into a ripe, flavorful tomato. I should not have written this as the next time I will see a great tomato for less than $5/tomato will be late next July, and this makes me want to cry. Serving mealy, refrigerated tomatoes is a crime and perpetrators should be punished by being force fed pickled pig's feet with a side of rancid egg salad.



#6) My Mom made the best chicken & rice soup with dumplings in the entire universe. She used no recipe, so I have no guide in my quest to re-create it. I have tried several times and it wasn't nearly as good. I guess I don't use enough love. Do you think that partially hydrogenated love-flavored substitute will work? Damn, I miss that soup.


#7) Lately I am obsessed with these protein bars. They are really good, which is odd for protein bars as they normally taste like sawdust wrapped in brown construction paper.
I don't like a lot of starch (and it doesn't like me at all), so a bar of this sort is always a good little fill-in meal/snack. I know it's Frankenfood, but...yeah. I like them, dammit.


#8) I miss working in a restaurant. There, I said it. I know I don't miss a lot of things about it: the hours, the tension, the borderline psychotic/possibly homicidal co-workers and the pay for starters. But I really do miss the hustle, the pushing through a busy night, the prep before dinner service, the commiserating after all was said and done...
I don't know if I entirely miss owning a restaurant, but I do miss being my own boss. As much as my current job rocks, I still liked being the boss of me much more than actually having a boss.
Maybe I'll do it again sometime, maybe I won't- time will tell.


#9) I cannot STAND to hear people chew/eat. I need some sort of background noise or it completely makes me ill. I can't even stand to hear MYSELF chew in a quiet room. Growing up, I couldn't eat cereal with my sister because listening to the slurps and crunches made my skin crawl.
I also can't stand to watch people eat certain foods.

My big #1 hated food to watch people eating is chicken wings. Dear god I can't watch anyone sucking and chewing on those gross little things. We have a friend that will very dramatically and almost pervertedly suck every last bit off the bone whilst eating them. Usually I can't be in the same room while he does this.


#10) Sometimes, occasionally, even I have no idea what the hell I am doing in the kitchen- believe it or not. I tackle complicated recipes and procedures sometimes without having any idea how the hell I'm going to pull it off. the trick is to get a knowledge of the basics and use common sense. It also helps to be confident and ballsy. Usually, if you have no idea what something is, chances are no one else does either. If you run into the unfortunate situation where you are "fudging" things and some arrogant "foodie" cunt tries to call you out on it feel free to stick that person's plate down your pants and rub it around a bit before you plate up their dessert.
Even when your best laid plans fail, I have always said that there is no shame in putting an honest effort in and still fucking it all up. Such is life. It happens.
Move on, get over it and order a damn pizza already.


There you go- I'm going to make dinner now.

Happy eating, my little porcelain bowls of chicken and love stew, happy eating.

26 comments:

nancypearlwannabe said...

This post made me super hungry and it's 9:30 pm. Damn you, WM! But... I take back the damn you if you promise to feed me the next time I am in your area. Which may be never, but just in case.

Whiskeymarie said...

I'll make you whatever you want, NPW. Even chicken wings.

Mariposa said...

We have some things in common...like I have my favorite knives too, and one of them is a ceramic knife bec it stay sharper longer...just don't drop it...lol

Then, I love tomatoes in vinegar and salt too, and lastly, I, is also annoyed with people who makes a sound when they eat/ chew!

:D

-R- said...

Sauerkraut. Ew.

Any suggestions for a great restaurant in St. Paul to take my mom when she visits in a few weeks? My mom loves St. Paul, and I'd like to take her somewhere different.

Lollie said...

1) How do you feel about the ever present Henkel?
2) Really? Cold cinnamon rolls too?
3) Crap - if I knew you were a sauerkraut lover I would have told you to get thee to Top Dog in Berkeley for their kielbasa smothered in sauerkraut. This must be eaten at 2am on the stoop of the apartment building next door. Dee Vine. Ah well - next time you are in Cali.
4) I always want to add beans to my rep, but I never get around to it. Do you have a good dinner casseroley type of bean dish I can keep in the freezer?
5) Thanks, now I am imagining alternating slices of pig's feet and rancid egg salad under springs of basil drizzled with balsamic. *yurk*
6) My earliest memory is Mom making dumpling soup. I don't think I've had it since.
7) I got so excited when I saw my first Lara bar. It made me throw up 2 hours later. Such disappointment.
8) I am obsessed with restauranty reality shows. Are these accurate? Anyone?
9) The chewing is not so much my issue. When I can see what you are chewing, then we're going to have to take it outside. Close your mouth dude!
10) Do you just want to do this to the foodie cunt, or is there a real life story that should be blogged about behind this comment? I'm intrigued...

Christa said...

i thought you might want to know that right now i have just pulled bread from the oven. real bread with real live yeast that i did not have to bring back from the dead.

Butrfly Garden said...

2 - over the weekend I made four (I bought the pre-made-ish kind from my kids' fundraiser) reeses cookies just so I could eat them warm. I actually made two for the man but he didn't want them. His loss.
3 - I'm from Wisconsin. I dig the kraut.

Suze said...

I absolutely hate to hear people eat - especially potato chips. I will leave the room. I had two sisters and a brother share breakfast with me every morning and I would put the cereal box in front of me and hum so I wouldn't have to hear them eat. This of course made them chomp louder. Aargh!!

Flenker said...

For a minute I was worried that you had to become my mortal enemy for not liking desserts fresh from the oven. I was offended by that. But then you totally redeemed yourself with a mouth-watering picture of a Reuben and talk of sauerkraut. You really know how to get a good German boy going. We must be related, not only for the kraut thing, but because I absolutely DETEST hearing people chew their food. It literally makes me lose my appetite. I'm cringing right now just thinking about it.

Fran said...

Well this was an illuminating meme, very illuminating indeed.

I am with you on #5 . Given my propensity for chicken wings we should not share that as a meal.

You can have all the rice pudding in the world, I hate it. But I will fight you for the warm bread.

And I agree about approach when cooking, although you are clearly a professional and I am not.

Thanks for the swell bd comment and the great almost link to Opus, which was perfect.

link is the same in comments as it is in post!

Freida Bee, MD said...

I'm still crying abou the tomatoes...and your beauty.

Some of my most nostalgic memories are from working in a very popular health food restaurant here in Austin. I was omelettes on the weekends. I miss "the zone" on Sundays even if I was hungover, still drunk, or on acid.

oops, did I say I'm about to be a teacher. this blog thing just might blow it for me yet...but then I wouldn't have blog met you, my bloggy dear.

Devilham said...

I miss the resteraunt biz myself, I used to love being able to swear like a sailor in almost any given situation and have no repercussions, hell, more than likely it got you respect. Now I work in an office and it's very trying for me to keep my 'colorful' language and manner in check.

On the other hand I don't miss smelling like lobster guts (sometimes on the line, if I had been prepping let's say about 900 lobsters earlier in the day, my apron would turn from a wet green from the row, to a lobsters signature pink, and get gross crusty and smelly...good times), or having a general sheen of grease on my forearms that were impossible to remove. Oh, and the burning and the cutting of various body parts also gets old as well.

Fuck it, lifes good here....I sit in a chair most of the day! I don't think I sat down once (on the job that is)in my entire 12 years of cooking!

Mommy Lisa said...

OMG! I have the chewing thing! I hate to say it but there are two little beings in my home who have NO IDEA what the phrase, chew with your mouth CLOSED, means. Their mother had them until the die was cast and they are cow-cud chewers. YUCKY!!!!

LittlePea said...

Damn I'm hungry.

I'm so glad to have finally found someone who doesn't like hot from the oven deserts. It is gross. Everyone always gives me a strange look when I say I like my deserts on the chilly side.

CDP said...

Oh, fresh tomatoes. Another reason to miss summer...I can eat 3 of them, sliced and salted (and there's nothing better than a tomato and provolone sandwich with a little mayo and salt on an Italian roll.) And now I know I'm one of at least 2 people who prefer to eat the cookies after they cool. I'm not violently opposed to warm from the oven, they just taste better when they cool and they're not all mushy.

McGone said...

I could never get into the Reuben idea... The Girl is a fan too. That picture doesn't even look remotely appealing to me.

Then again it could be the use of "fermenting feet" as a descriptive that is causing my hangup here.

lizgwiz said...

The first truly great tomato of the summer is always eaten like an apple, standing over the sink, letting the juice run down my chin. Ahhh....

I never understood why anyone would want to fuck up the sauerkrauty and swiss cheesy goodness that is a Reuben with Thousand Island dressing. Blech. Of course, now that I'm a vegetarian I have to be a little more creative with the protein involved, but I still love 'em!

I love cabbage in pretty much all forms. Up to and including kim chee. Yum.

gorillabuns said...

i will throw up if i hear a person chew or smack so, needless to say, my girls have learned to eat properly by ages 2 and 4.

i don't miss working in a restaurant simply because i don't like touching food and people are truly gross in their eating habits.

T said...

You are so completely wrong about the warm cookies thing.

Stefanie said...

I'm with you on the chicken wings thing, but no warm cookies? Love for sauerkraut? Sorry; I don't get that.

Stacey said...

Oh WM...no warm desserts ?

Well I suppose I shouldn't tell you I love warm desserts so much that I have even been known to put the soft chewy store bought cookie /muffin whatever...in the microwave for a few seconds to get that effect.
But yeah agreed on the chewing sound. That's right up there w/nails on a chalkboard.

Stacy said...

Globals, eh? I'm a Shun/Mac girl myself. Our home knives are Chicago, which is to say, shittacular. I have a chinese veg knife that my Dad brought back from Beijing for me. It stays sharp and can cut thru rutabaga/celeraic without whimpering.
Also? Long live the kraut!! I really miss a good reuben. It's tasty with marinated seitan, but just not the same. Anything fermented and cabbagey is amazing and tasty, including kimchi. YUM.
I'm also with you on the eating noises. I'm married to a lip-smacker. 'nuff said.
Drinkies after the holiday? Please say yes? ;)

Katrin said...

Hungry! But we're going out for dinner, so I am sure going to get some fantastic food at an Middle Eastern restaurant, right in the middle of our giant open-air market. Fresh food with lots of spices. Yeah!
I also love tomatoes. They are my favorite veg/fruit. Have a good one!

beret said...

My husband suspects that someday I'll be in jail for murdering someone who was chewing too loudly. I am driven to insanity by chewing noises of any kind.

EmBee said...

In the words of Homer Simpson... Aawwwwwlllgghhh... So hungry now.

As for the noises people make when they're eating... My husband, I love him, but he sort of hums after each bite he takes as he's chewing... He doesn't even know he's doing it and it Makes me INSANE!

Oh and on those tomatoes could you add a slice of mozzarella and fresh basil leaves, oh for the taste of summer!

Amaya said...

Other people's eating drives me nuts too. I feel like such a bitch but sometimes I have to leave the room. It's either that or break their necks.