From my workplace to my parents' place, door to door:
Total distance - 106.38 miles
Number of cars stranded on the side of the road - 20+
Number of times pulled over to clean off wipers because I could only see through a tiny 1'x1' square of my windshield - 1
Average MPH - 35
Total time - 5 hours
Total time spent getting out of the metro area - 2 hours
Total trip time on a normal day - 2 hours
Bobo showed up enroute to the Chicago area for the holidays. He got to sample some of the city's finer cuisine @ Chez Leon and Yia Yia's. We also watched The Two Towers. All in all, a fun time was had by all (or so I hope).
Sadly, Bobo had to leave already. Come back soon mon!
Until recently, I've shunned the idea of keeping a well-stocked kitchen. I've always gone for more of a "just in time" approach to ingredient acquisition so I know I'm using fresh vegetables, fruits and/or meats in my dishes. Plus, for some odd reason, I sort of enjoy grocery shopping. In the last town I lived in, it was relatively easy to do this: I lived 5 minutes away from a grocery store.
Since I've moved, the nearest safe grocery store is 20+ minutes away by car. I usually end up trying to time my shopping runs with other errands or part of my commute returning from work. This does not make it easy to continue cooking under the previous philosophy.
So...I've now taken to buying stuff that can keep indefinitely or for a good number of weeks - chicken broth, pasta, pie crusts, heavy cream, butter and eggs among others. It's already started to pay off, saving me the trouble of making a run to get broth for braised shanks later this week.
PS I'm sure the more common sense minded of you reading this are probably going "DUH". No arguments here.
Tuesday evening's meal brings of bit of experimentation.
A bit of back story -
A while back, my mother described a rather simple way of roasting acorn squash:
Halve the squash and roast it for 45 minutes @ 375 deg. F. Remove from oven, quarter, adorn with nutmeg; brown sugar; golden raisins + a bit of butter and then stick it in the oven for another 15 minutes.
This is quite the low effort, high payoff sort of meal...ideal for a lighter fall meal. Of course, I choose to go even lazier and not bother with quartering it; the half makes a nice natural bowl shape.
However, today I decided to take roasted acorn squash in a slightly different direction. I kept the core elements of the recipe the same - dried sweet fruit, the roasting time & method - but modified it:
Instead of raisins, I used chopped dates. I combined that together with chopped ginger, black pepper, ground nutmeg and ground cinnamon in a central mound that cooked under the squash half during the initial 45 minute roasting period. Then the covered ingredients were added to the hollowed out center + the touch of butter for the finishing 15.
The end result had the same basic concepts and flavors as the recipe I wiped off my mother, but with a slightly more exotic flavor. I have to say the ginger added a nice edge to it. I think the only thing I might change is possibly adding a little brown sugar after cooking is all done.
Those of you brave enough to try this out, let me know what you think and any other variations that might work out well.
Last Friday, my landline died. I wouldn't have noticed that fact if my TiVo hadn't complained about not being able to dial-in and get guide data. Guess that shows how much I use and pay attention to it.
When it comes to cooking, I find myself turning towards preparing dishes I remember my mother making when I was a child & still living with them: Japanese-style curry with vegetables & beef, sausage & sauerkraut, chicken wings & drumsticks in oyster sauce, bulgogi, kimchibap, mandu, etc. Even though I add my own little touches to some of the dishes (ex. lime juice, red pepper powder & replacing part of the water with red wine in the case of the curry) and the fact that my mother may no longer make some of these dishes, cooking and eating these dishes just brings me home in some way, reminding me of the way the family used to all sit around the table and eat dinner as well talk about our days or other interesting topics. Living alone now, I tend to just eat with some form of entertainment to pass the time: a book, the tv or some music.
Given that, it's probably no surprise why I enjoyed tonight's dish of bibimbap so much. It's another of those childhood dishes that I don't really get much of a chance to have since I can't rely on Chef Mom to make it. I didn't really realize how much missed it until c mentioned it in ye olde blog. The nice thing is that once I want to make it, I can simply call my mother up and ask her how to make something: she's more than willing (and sometimes too willing =) to tell me how to prepare the dish. After grabbing some vegetables (carrots, spinach, bean sprouts, squash) + beef (flank steak bulgogi-style) and preparing them into spoon-sized pieces, I piled generous portions on rice and mixed it in with the traditional house sauce for the dish: gochoojang (red pepper paste), soy sauce and sesame oil. The first spoonful was simply heavenly...I have to make this more often.
Last Saturday, I went in for the monthly haircut and dye job. Feeling a bit dissatisfied with relatively static nature of my haircut over the past year or so, I opted for a new style this time. I eventually reached a decision to go with something rather different - really shaved sides, but leaving everything on top & favoring the left side of my face a bit in terms of length. Choosing a color was rather easy...my stylist went suggested lava, a color that's relatively dark and purplish in ambient light; but glows with a nice rich red color in the sunlight or other suitably direct light. I have to admit that I was a bit shocked when I first saw how it turned out in the mirror, but I've come to like it over the course of the past few days.
However...regardless of how cool the cut is and how remarkably shallow this sounds, but I still feel like I haven't gotten past the Unkempt Dork phase. To be honest, I feel like all this hair experimentation is just faking it to some degree. I first started doing this because it was something I always thought was cool but never got around to earlier because I didn't have the courage, willpower or knowledge to actually try to. And I certainly don't have the wardrobe that would or should go together with a style/color like this. I guess I can always hope and try.
Equilibrium just blew me away. The blend of various dystopian, post-apocalyptic futures with explosive and creatively choreographic action was very very good and well-executed, even if it isn't very original (I'm sure some people will scream *cough*Matrix*cough*).
It's currently playing in very limited release, which does not make sense given how most excellent this film is. So...you might have to travel a while to go see it, but it will be well worth the effort.
St. Louis cannot deal with snow. Last Wednesday made that abundantly clear. The city authorities were woefully unprepared even though the forecast the night before had said that snow will fall. This just added to the stupidity of drivers in general down here. What normally would've been a 40-50 minute commute (higher than the normal 30 since I made a stop at Krispy Kreme on the way) turned into a 2+ hour ordeal. Probably the worst part was waiting on one particular stretch of road, inching my way up 1-2 miles just so I could get onto highway...that took 40 minutes in and of itself. Talk about a waste of a day.
Although, other people had it far worse from what I understand. My manager got in at the exact same time that I did. It just so happened that he left 4 hours early and had the misfortune of going with the morning commute traffic & got rear-ended by someone. He was not a *happy camper* that day.
Also, various people were telling me about SUV scattered left and right. You've got to wonder if these people understand that since they're not driving cars anymore, they shouldn't expect them to stop on the dime like they do.
Monday Truths:
Truth 1 - 2 for 1 drinks at Ruby Tuesdays: evil...no matter how much fun you have with friends. I had such high ambitions to be "productive" this evening and get some more insurance exam studying in. Oh well...guess that's what the rest of the week & the weekend is for.
Truth 2 - There's nothing better than a nice warm soup-based meal post-drinking. When I was living at my old place, I used to hit a Vietnamese restaurant for some pho. Since moving, an equivalent restauarant is further away, require more effort than I'm willing to put forth at that point.
Thankfully, after I got home I motivated myself enough to make something along those lines: manduguk aka wonton soup. Since I made and froze the mandu last week, there was little effort actually required to make the soup - I just droped some into a mixture of soy sauce, chicken broth, black pepper & garlic until cooked through. It was oh so tasty...a perfect meal to finish off the day with.
I've recently come to enjoy the simple 15 minute pleasure that is Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Three parts of a fast food meal, the Aqua Teens, along with everything else in the show, are charmingly crudely animated. Additionally, there are some wacky plots & creatures that just make the show hysterical. Ex. the Mooninites, a pair of criminal creatures ripped directly from Space Invaders that are a bad influence on Meatwad, and MC Pee Pants, a giant spider wearing a shower cap & diapers that tries to lure fans of its rap music to a warehouse so it can drain their brain energies to power a giant drill to open a portal into hell to unleash demons to run its global diet pill pyramid scheme (I kid you not...that's the actual plot!).
Definitely a worthy use of vegging time on a Sunday night if your cable co. is so kind as to provide Cartoon Network.
Whoa. December's already here! How sneaky of it to show up so suddenly while I was contemplating the moving images on a video monitor!
Anyway, T-day weekend is over now so I figure a recap is in order. The story actually starts on Wednesday when a group of people from work went to "Happy Lunch": combination lunch & happy hour, which is excellent regardless of whether or not it's a holiday weekend as long as you can pull it off. Who can resist drinks, pool and mercilessly taunting a co-worker about his inability to shoot deer by suggesting that he might have more luck with Big Buck Hunter?
Thanksgiving itself was pretty good. Went to the parentals' place for the meal and ate too much as usual. The menu was brined turkey, gravy, slightly boiled green beans w/balsamic + olive oil + soy sauce + pepper + sugar + garlic, broiled asparagus, marshmellow-ed sweet potatoes, freshly baked bread, cranberry dressing, a corn-bread sausage stuffing and, of course, PIE. Mmmm...pie. Also got to meet my sister's SO (seems like a nice guy) and to drive my parents new Mazda 6 (sweet ride!). Most imporantly, I got leftovers so I didn't have to cook two meals!
The rest of the weekend involved studying for yet another insurance exam, playing way too much of "The Ur-Quan Masters" and dreading the arrival of Monday + the promise/threat of work it brings. Curse you Monday!
