If you want to know how to keep a webmaster from getting anything done, deny her access to her email and her web browser. After a few tumultuous minutes of foaming at the mouth, she will subside into quiet, trailing whimpers while she waits for the pain to stop.
I've been meaning to ask this question for a couple of years, and just have never gotten around to it:
Is Ro-Tel just a Southern thing? Are we the only people who have access to this instant creator of college food cheese dip? Or is this goodness available for all?
While talking with a friend a couple of weeks ago, I suggested that an easy way to contribute food to a gathering would be to do Ro-Tel cheese dip. He had no idea what I was talking about, so I explained: it's one can of Ro-Tel, juice and all, combined with one small block of Velveeta cheese (cubed) and then heated and stirred until the cheese melts and everything suddenly looks like cheese dip.
It's simple, really. I think the can only contains diced tomatoes, diced chiles, and the juice they both came in. Oh, and I'm sure salt and some sort of nitrate and then many chemicals whose name lengths are inversely proportional to how much of the chemical is contained in the finished product, but eassentially it's canned tomatoes and chiles, with a tiny touch of heroin. (For the freshness and flavor, you see.)
Ro-Tel cheese dip is ubiquitous down here. It's the party food that even college-aged males know how to make. It's the food you make when you've only got ten bucks to pacify fifteen friends over the course of a movie. You make the dip, you tell someone to bring chips, and remind everyone to BYOB and you're set.
I have to admit that I don't even know another way to make cheese dip (though Misty does, and hers is awesome). I wonder what people unschooled in the goodness of this stuff manage to make cheese dip with?
Could be worse. You'd better hope I don't have to try installing again. Otherwise I'll have to find something else to write about, and that just won't end well for anyone.
]]>I relish the challenge. The act of making a packlist soothes my latent OCD. Lists are my friend, my talisman against unpreparedness. I tease some of my friends that they have faith, while I have double-checking; there is less teasing in that statement than some of them may suppose.
I always wonder, upon leaving, if I truly locked that door.
In those two weeks I'll cover the gamut of my life's experience: dragon*con staff meeting, raucous party with friends, urban hiking in Atlanta, beachcombing, workouts, and dress-up dinners out. It's feasible by borrowing washer and dryer time from a couple of friends, and through careful choice of clothing; I find myself incredibly grateful that I invested in wardrobe basics.
My anticipation sharpened itself to knifepoint last night when I closed my eyes, bleary from a persistent headache, and found myself imagining the surf.
It draws me, with a call I am barely able to comprehend, much less explain.
* * * * *
Wednesday nights see us elsewhere and our kitchen unused, so I took advantage of tonight's free kitchen space to make a batch of stock. Chefs would likely turn up their noses at this concoction, for it's a bastardized child of multiple recipes, but it was difficult to turn down the seriously-discounted pork neck bones. A slow roast in the oven with a spare onion, then an equally slow simmer with peppercorns, bay leaves, and dried mushrooms, gave me something that provided a lovely, glorious stink to the house.
It's cooling in the refrigerator right now. I've missed having stocks in my kitchen, but perhaps not so much so as Jeff, who looked up from his plate the other night and pointed to the chicken dish I'd made and said, "This sauce is GOOD."
I bought the pork neck bones the next day.
My hope is to get a few batches of stock made as the various bones come available in local stores. I'll need to alternate working on those with working on making reductions for the batches of pie I'll want for dragon*con.
I'll miss having access to my ingredient stash while I'm away. As several people here can attest, I'm accustomed to cooking for crashspace, and have periodically done so for about thirteen years now. In addition to my clothes, most of my trips find me slipping a few essential cooking supplies in my bag between my socks and my skirts.
Few people would consider a well-sharpened chef's knife or a sealed packet of bay leaves as essential to a trip's success as the perfect black skirt or the shoes that match everything, but they've never seen me conjure a dinner out of an unfamiliar, unstocked kitchen, either.
I have a reputation to uphold. Killer shoes always seem to be involved, but dinner doesn't hurt, either.
]]>I have a sweater to finish knitting for Saturday—if I'm diligent, I will finish tonight.
]]>I have a sweater to finish knitting for Saturday—if I'm diligent, I will finish tonight.
I am alternately excited and utterly terrified. Friends are flying in for this, for crying out loud. People are driving multiple hours each way. All this, for the promise of … something.
I'm not sure what it is we look for in parties like these. A chance to connect, to at last BE the in-crowd. How comforting it is to be a nerd in a party full of nerds; a party full of people who aren't ashamed to admit that yeah, quite a few of us went to grad school, and yeah, some of us have doctorates and kids, but we also know killer dirty jokes and toasts and blackmail on everyone else who will be there—and oh yeah, don't get us started on the games until everyone's had their two-drink-minimum.
So, excitement. All these friends, so many of them so much like family, all together in one house for one whirlwind weekend. All these friends, in the end trusting that I've got my domesticat game on, and that there will be the killer food and drink that—yes, I know, they aren't expecting, but they certainly are damn well hoping for.
Molasses spice cookies. Oatmeal cookies. Gingerpeople. Saturday morning pancakes and chocolate chip cookies. For the first time, a fully-stocked bar. Music. Christmas lights. Homemade salsa.
If we're lucky, I'll append "devil's food cake" to that list tonight.
The first arrivals pull in at midnight tonight. Tomorrow afternoon, I harvest another set in Birmingham. The locals will show up after work with food and games in hand, and the Atlanta folks will trickle in as they finish the drive.
By Saturday morning, this place that I have fussed over, tidying and prepping, will be full to the rafters with my kind of people.
Geeks.
Don't be surprised if I vanish until next Wednesday. The last guestfriendgeek doesn't go home until Tuesday.
Here's to a weekend to remember: the Pan-Holiday Extravaganza. Cheers!
]]>In the past couple of years I've come to appreciate the goodness of an off-the-cuff pan sauce. A bit of stock, a bit of wine, some aromatics, and then a bit of thickening agent (either some kind of fat, or arrowroot starch dissolved in water) for a good mouthfeel. Reduce, plate, eat.
All well and good, except for that first ingredient - the stock. The standard way of making it drove me absolutely batty: freezing/saving trimmings (bones, etc.) until you've got enough for a big batch, then plunking them into a lot of water in the large honkin' stockpot, along with whatever various aromatics (peppercorns, bay leaves, carrots, onions, etc.) I had on hand, and simmering for ages upon end until the bones give up their lovely useful flavors to the water.
]]>In the past couple of years I've come to appreciate the goodness of an off-the-cuff pan sauce. A bit of stock, a bit of wine, some aromatics, and then a bit of thickening agent (either some kind of fat, or arrowroot starch dissolved in water) for a good mouthfeel. Reduce, plate, eat.
All well and good, except for that first ingredient - the stock. The standard way of making it drove me absolutely batty: freezing/saving trimmings (bones, etc.) until you've got enough for a big batch, then plunking them into a lot of water in the large honkin' stockpot, along with whatever various aromatics (peppercorns, bay leaves, carrots, onions, etc.) I had on hand, and simmering for ages upon end until the bones give up their lovely useful flavors to the water.
But wait! There's more! Then you get to strain it off, cool it down in the fridge, scoop off the fat and then - yep! - slowly reduce it down on the stove until that couple of quarts of liquid is simmered down into a thick, viscous substance that's far more easily stored in our little freezer.
You know what? That's lovely, but that's such a crock. I don't know anyone outside of a restaurant kitchen that does that sort of thing. Ever. I only did it on my particularly insane brain days (as opposed to the garden-variety insane brain days, which around here are generally days that aren't the 29th of never).
It took me a while before I began to draw a connection between Large Honking Stockpot and Large Honking Crockpot, and then I felt really stupid. Wait a second. You mean I already had a device in my kitchen specifically designed for long, slow simmering?
Boy, I am an idiot, aren't I?
See, I'd been trying to think of how I'd deal with all the chicken bones I've been generating lately. I despise paying more for a cut of meat than I absolutely have to, especially since I have an excellent knife set and am capable of doing small-scale butchering in my own kitchen.
It's far cheaper to buy a whole chicken if you've got the time to dissect it yourself: there are only two of us in the house, so a $4 hen gets us enough parts for three meals ... but leaves a carcass left over at the end. Since I knew the carcass had flavor and use, it bothered me intensely to throw it away, unused. I am not vegetarian, but I do recognize that meat comes from an animal that was once alive, and the absolute least I can do is make the utmost use of what I have received.
It's about respecting what you eat. Responsible carnivorism, or something along those lines.
* * * * *
(As with all my recipes, this one's good for those of you who don't like exact recipes.)
carcass of one chicken - use the skin and bones, but skip the internal organs
1 onion, unpeeled
1-2 carrots, unpeeled
whole peppercorns (white, black, green, whatever. use what you have.)
bay leaves. A few. Depends on how strong yours are.
Preheat oven to, oh, about 400° or so.
Dissect the chicken carcass down using stout shears. You'll want to break the back/rib cage area down into a few pieces, so that it'll better fit the crockpot.
Quarter the onion. Cut off the root end, but you don't have to peel it. Just break it down into slightly smaller pieces, but don't worry about making them small or perfect. Same with the carrot. Get it into chunks. Roast the bones, onion, and carrot for an hour, hour and a half, something like that. What you're looking for is a nice golden brown; getting the flavor from that browning reaction is far more important than whether or not it's been exactly 60-90 minutes.
Have the crockpot ready. I usually toss in a couple of bay leaves and about ten peppercorns. More or less, depending on your taste.
Once the bones are done, dump the mess into the crockpot. Take a bit of water and scrape the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Dump all that into the crockpot too - it's tasty goodness waiting to happen. Add enough water to the crockpot to cover the bones and go most of the way to the top of the crockpot. Cover, turn it to low, and here's my favorite part:
Ignore it. For at least twelve hours. I've let it go as long as 24. I suspect the stock gets better if you let it cook longer, but I don't know that. Twelve is usually more along the lines of what I do, though.
When you're ready to move on, have a mixing bowl and a strainer handy. Strain the stock into the bowl. Discard the solids and thank the chicken; its duty is done. Drop some ice cubes into the stock to help it cool down. Cover it, and stick it in the fridge. (I usually get about a quart and a half of stock, but as previously stated, I own a Large Honkin' Crockpot.)
When it's cooled down, the fat will have risen to the top. Scoop off the fat with a spatula, then deposit the chicken jello into a pot on the stove. Simmer it down as far as you like, then put into little ziploc bags and freeze.
(Or, as Jeff asked me one time, why do you simmer it down when that doesn't change the flavor? Answer: because we have limited freezer space, and it's much easier to store one cup of highly concentrated stock than it is to store a quart and a half of fully diluted stock.)
You'll want to pay attention to your stock volume, both before and after, so that you'll know how much concentrated stock you'd need to make a cup of regular-strength broth. Since I can't predict the size of your crockpot nor how far you'll want to boil your stock down, I'll leave this measurement up to you.
That's it. Really. The only thing you'll want to keep in mind is that your stock is (mostly) fat-free and completely salt-free, so it's going to taste pretty flat and bland in its reconstituted state. It's not a finished product - it's an ingredient for making other dishes happy. It's still not the least time-consuming recipe ever, but it's far easier than the standard method, and seems to generate thoroughly palatable results.
]]>I should mention that you can do the same thing with any other meat bits - seafood, fowl, etc. You can also do the same with larger animals - pork, beef, etc. - but since the bones are likely to be much larger, you'll need to give them more time to roast. Says she who is simmering down beef stock on her stove as she writes this entry.
It had to get done, not because it was a chore but because I had promised, and it was my own fault that I'd stayed up late with friends the night before, talking and playing games instead of shouldering responsibility and purchasing habañeros and peppers for food-making.
Thanks to Jody, I understand the dance well. Salsa in a minimum of time is an art of juggling the oven and prepping things in the right order. Turn the oven to broil, and while it heats, drain the beans and corn and add them to the container. While the peppers roast, start chopping ingredients in order of pungency. Once the peppers are out, and cooled, peel and seed them, chop them, and then chop the onions, garlic, and hot peppers.
Sometimes I think that the part of my brain that has forgotten how to waltz has simply retrained itself to the steps of the kitchen dance.
Later that afternoon, we coalesced into a laughing, near-shouting herd at the location of Kat and Sean's shower. I watched much of the proceedings through a minor haze of sleep deprivation and was reminded yet again that underneath the drudgery of a lot of ceremonial wedding preparations lies a true excitement, a wish for well-being. Marriage is only the legal announcement of a life transition that has already happened; much of the rest is the way for friends and family to make such a major life change flow as simply as possible. Our desire to see those we love live in comfort and happiness sometimes comes in the corporeal form of towels and sheets.
We closed off the shower with plans to reconvene in two separate groups for the evening. The men opted for barbecuing and movie-watching at Geof's, while the women opted for Thai and movie-watching at Misty and Stephen's. No strippers, no outrageous plans of town-painting. Just gatherings of friends, made unusual only by segregation of sex.
I went home, desperate for even an hour's nap, and lay down on the guest bed, trying to ignore the fact that I'd forgotten to buy cat food on the way back from the shower. I was still annoyed with myself for putting one too many habañeros in the salsa - and doing so before putting my contacts in, thus guaranteeing I'd be wearing glasses for a few days. I thought that I would not sleep, given that I only had an hour and a half to rest, and when I awakened, I thought that it had not been enough.
For a few minutes, I sat in the computer room, wondering if I should bow out of the night's festivities. I breathed deeply, stretched, trying to shake the sluggishness of sleep away. I yawned, petted the cat, and decided that some life events trumped sleep.
The fog of sleep began to lift as I got in the car; by the time I reached the freeway I realized I was actually happy to be where I was going. I was the last to arrive at the restaurant, and received my share of teasing for being slightly late. Bowing out wouldn't have been an option; if I hadn't shown up in another five minutes, they were going to take turns wardialing my home number until I answered the phone or showed up at the restaurant.
Even I can take a hint.
I balanced native Thai heat against Thai iced tea and came out even. We talked of spouses and marriages and everything less consequential, and when it came time to pay and leave, I excused myself to make a few stops on the way home.
Nobody had asked for libations to be brought to Misty and Stephen's, but I thought perhaps that if some arrived, they wouldn't be turned down. I showed up, late and last, at Misty's with a bottle of vanilla Stoli in my hand; happiness was pronounced when Misty showed us the stack of regular, vanilla, and cherry Cokes that she had just placed in the fridge.
We had our drinks with a side of movie and we laughed, a little more loudly, a little more freely, as women are wont to do when only in the company of other women.
I drove the eight-tenths of a mile back to my house a bit more slowly and with a bit more care than usual, since I'd had a bit of alcohol that evening. The early-September air held the first cool blush of fall, a welcome relief after the sweating damp of August heat.
A few fireflies flicked their cool, yellow-green light along the sides of the road on my way home, their sudden-flash moments of brightness followed by long, slow fades back to darkness. Fragile little summer creatures, their appearance heralds the beginning of another sticky Southern summer, and their disappearance points to the sweaters of fall, and the marriage of two friends in a few weeks' time.
Group photo, first row, left to right: me, Ashley, Jessica.
Second row, left to right: Sarah, Sean's sister Amy, Misty, and Kat.
Silly photo: Jason demonstrating that yes, a dead body could be fit into Kat's new cedar chest.
Current music: Coldplay, Parachutes]]>
It had to get done, not because it was a chore but because I had promised, and it was my own fault that I'd stayed up late with friends the night before, talking and playing games instead of shouldering responsibility and purchasing habañeros and peppers for food-making.
Thanks to Jody, I understand the dance well. Salsa in a minimum of time is an art of juggling the oven and prepping things in the right order. Turn the oven to broil, and while it heats, drain the beans and corn and add them to the container. While the peppers roast, start chopping ingredients in order of pungency. Once the peppers are out, and cooled, peel and seed them, chop them, and then chop the onions, garlic, and hot peppers.
Sometimes I think that the part of my brain that has forgotten how to waltz has simply retrained itself to the steps of the kitchen dance.
Later that afternoon, we coalesced into a laughing, near-shouting herd at the location of Kat and Sean's shower. I watched much of the proceedings through a minor haze of sleep deprivation and was reminded yet again that underneath the drudgery of a lot of ceremonial wedding preparations lies a true excitement, a wish for well-being. Marriage is only the legal announcement of a life transition that has already happened; much of the rest is the way for friends and family to make such a major life change flow as simply as possible. Our desire to see those we love live in comfort and happiness sometimes comes in the corporeal form of towels and sheets.
We closed off the shower with plans to reconvene in two separate groups for the evening. The men opted for barbecuing and movie-watching at Geof's, while the women opted for Thai and movie-watching at Misty and Stephen's. No strippers, no outrageous plans of town-painting. Just gatherings of friends, made unusual only by segregation of sex.
I went home, desperate for even an hour's nap, and lay down on the guest bed, trying to ignore the fact that I'd forgotten to buy cat food on the way back from the shower. I was still annoyed with myself for putting one too many habañeros in the salsa - and doing so before putting my contacts in, thus guaranteeing I'd be wearing glasses for a few days. I thought that I would not sleep, given that I only had an hour and a half to rest, and when I awakened, I thought that it had not been enough.
For a few minutes, I sat in the computer room, wondering if I should bow out of the night's festivities. I breathed deeply, stretched, trying to shake the sluggishness of sleep away. I yawned, petted the cat, and decided that some life events trumped sleep.
The fog of sleep began to lift as I got in the car; by the time I reached the freeway I realized I was actually happy to be where I was going. I was the last to arrive at the restaurant, and received my share of teasing for being slightly late. Bowing out wouldn't have been an option; if I hadn't shown up in another five minutes, they were going to take turns wardialing my home number until I answered the phone or showed up at the restaurant.
Even I can take a hint.
I balanced native Thai heat against Thai iced tea and came out even. We talked of spouses and marriages and everything less consequential, and when it came time to pay and leave, I excused myself to make a few stops on the way home.
Nobody had asked for libations to be brought to Misty and Stephen's, but I thought perhaps that if some arrived, they wouldn't be turned down. I showed up, late and last, at Misty's with a bottle of vanilla Stoli in my hand; happiness was pronounced when Misty showed us the stack of regular, vanilla, and cherry Cokes that she had just placed in the fridge.
We had our drinks with a side of movie and we laughed, a little more loudly, a little more freely, as women are wont to do when only in the company of other women.
I drove the eight-tenths of a mile back to my house a bit more slowly and with a bit more care than usual, since I'd had a bit of alcohol that evening. The early-September air held the first cool blush of fall, a welcome relief after the sweating damp of August heat.
A few fireflies flicked their cool, yellow-green light along the sides of the road on my way home, their sudden-flash moments of brightness followed by long, slow fades back to darkness. Fragile little summer creatures, their appearance heralds the beginning of another sticky Southern summer, and their disappearance points to the sweaters of fall, and the marriage of two friends in a few weeks' time.
Group photo, first row, left to right: me, Ashley, Jessica.
Second row, left to right: Sarah, Sean's sister Amy, Misty, and Kat.
Silly photo: Jason demonstrating that yes, a dead body could be fit into Kat's new cedar chest.
Current music: Coldplay, Parachutes]]>
I'm still waiting on Penzeys to be certified as an Official Domestic Crack dealer; their periodic catalogue is ostensibly about spices but more about blatant culinary seduction. Anyone who doesn't believe me has never opened up the catalogue to the 'cinnamon' page, read about the four different types of cinnamon they carry, and found him-/her-self openly lusting over the descriptions of each spice and its origin.
Eventually you catch yourself referring to your spices by their country of origin. Fellow spiceheads can sit together in a kitchen, trying to remember if the cinnamon they each have in their kitchens is from Ceylon, China, or Vietnam. Discussions like this ensue:
]]>I'm still waiting on Penzeys to be certified as an Official Domestic Crack dealer; their periodic catalogue is ostensibly about spices but more about blatant culinary seduction. Anyone who doesn't believe me has never opened up the catalogue to the 'cinnamon' page, read about the four different types of cinnamon they carry, and found him-/her-self openly lusting over the descriptions of each spice and its origin.
Eventually you catch yourself referring to your spices by their country of origin. Fellow spiceheads can sit together in a kitchen, trying to remember if the cinnamon they each have in their kitchens is from Ceylon, China, or Vietnam. Discussions like this ensue:
"Which one is it that's really different?"
"I think it's the Ceylon. It doesn't really have a bite. It's almost floral."
"So which one's the really strong one?"
"The Vietnamese cinnamon. That stuff packs a wallop. I've got some at the house, if you want to try it."
...and no one even thinks twice about it, because it's an incredibly normal conversation.
The window I'm currently typing in is ostensibly the current Penzeys order for three households. It's going to be rather large order, even by group-ordering standards, and I plan on taking at least a half hour after the box arrives to savor sniffing the packages. I'll open my spice bags immediately, but won't open the ones going to other houses; the person who paid for the order should get the rush of opening the bags for the first time.
I asked Jessica if she'd be interested in getting in on the order, but she said that she still didn't cook much, and wasn't much familiarized with spices. "Oooh," I thought. "Potential convert."
How to explain to someone who hasn't dabbled in such heady things before? Curry powder, for instance; how does one manage a Friday night desperation dinner without curry powder? "Curry powder," in English, translates to "instant food." Wave it over anything, and it becomes not just edible, but tasty, with virtually no work. Here's the formula:
Curry powder + plain yogurt + water + $meat == food.
Simple as that, really. Instant food. A couple of tablespoons of the curry powder of your choice (they're as different and individual as colors - everyone has a favorite, and no two are alike), meat (bone-in or boneless, whole parts or cubed), about half a cup of plain yogurt, and enough water to mostly cover the meat....apply low heat for an hour or so and you have virtually effort-free food.
All you have to do is order once, and the Domestic Crack Catalogue makes its way to your mailbox several times a year. Then you bring it in your house and it taunts you from your coffee table. Time passes, and you find yourself leafing through it and thinking "Kala jeera? I don't know what the hell it is but I have to have it. I'll make something out of it."
I was good this time. I only have five ingredients on this order's list, but two of them see heavy use in my kitchen. I need to replace them soon, before I run out and am in a world of Friday night hurt. After all, who wants to try to do serious, detailed cooking on a Friday night?
Not me.
]]>