Archive for category Food
How a book gets written
Okay, so this isn’t, like, step-by-step instructions detailing how I go about concocting all the words that eventually make up draft zero of a new novel. I mean, if you really want to read about that, I’ll be happy to give you a big bulleted list that’ll mostly be alternating points of weeping into the bottom of a coffee cup and basting myself in shame. But I suppose that might be interesting.
But, um, that’ll be a long post. So sorry, no time now. After the draft is finished, I swear.
Evidence of my continued existence
I swear I’m not dead. I just had to do some traveling this week. I spent two more wonderful days in lovely Wallingford, Connecticut. But I’m happy to say that by the time this post is publish, I’ll be at 29,000 feet or something, winging my way home after a brief stopover in Charlotte, North Carolina. Then again, can you really say you’ve been in and/or to a place if you’ve only spent a few hours in their airport?
Now that I really consider it, I think maybe not. I mean, I didn’t even have any pulled pork or sweet tea while I was here. Oh sure, I thought about hiking all over the terminal in search of some, but I hardly think the citizens of Charlotte would want me to judge their prowess at barbecuing pork butt by airport terminal kiosk purveyor.
Gone Puddin’
I know, we haven’t talked in a while. It’s, like, I haven’t been around for the past few days or something.
Well, actually, it’s not like that at all. It’s exactly that. I haven’t been. Around, that is. I’ve been in Connecticut. Yes, that state in New England. Because I had to do [redacted].
Truth be told, I’ll probably be playing catch-up with pretty much everything for the rest of the week. Because that’s what happens when you go spend 2+ days somewhere else doing the stuff you don’t usually do.
In a perfect world, of course, there’d be, I dunno, stuff elves that came out when you were gone to take care of the stuff you couldn’t take care of like usual. You know, like the Grimm Brothers’ Cobbler Elves from that fairy tale, but more modern. They’d maybe write a blog post for you, keep you up to date on facebook and twitter, post a few Instagrams (no selfies, duh) , and make sure your daily workload gets done for you while you’re away. File your Status and TPS Reports and whatnot, maybe fill out your timecard. What-have-you.
Then again, it seems like I just described a muggle version of a “house elf” from Harry Potter. No one wants to make poor Dobby tweet for them. And the last thing I want is Dobby trying to keep my daily writing quota caught up for OTHER THING. The whole book would be about socks.
Which is fine, I guess, if you’re into socks. But maybe not this book.
Weekend Debate: Ranch vs Blue Cheese (Buffalo Wing Edition)
Posted by Jason in Blog, Food, Humor, Weekend Debate on April 26, 2013
Last November when I did NaNo, I temporarily put the wildly mildly popular “Weekend Debate” feature here on the blog on hiatus. Because, well, time, you know? The thing is – and this will likely come as a surprise – it’s actually more difficult to fit in my daily writing quota during the weekends than it is during the week. I suppose that’s because we, at least, tend to push most things that need doing and aren’t four-alarm, hide-yo-children-hide-yo-wife, get-out-the-rain-slicks-and-the-rowboat-type of emergency events back onto the calendar days labeled Saturday and Sunday.
Case in point, I’ll likely be up earlier tomorrow morning than I usually am during the work week. There’s mulching and lawn work and…and…and, well, trust me, you don’t want to hear all the gory details. It’ll just make you tired. And headachey. And probably hateful. At least, that’s what it does to me.
Suffice it to say that I have much to do this weekend. And by checking out the rest of April and May, the next next five weeks are booked solid already and will only get solid-ier.
Which, you know, isn’t really a word, but I’m going with it.
Brownies: The New Cupcake
While I was off pretending that I can play hockey Sunday night, the Puddinette, for no reason other than because She. Is. Awesome, made a pan of brownies from scratch.
I’m going to say that again, because it’s important, she made brownies from scratch.
Which means they had actual cocoa and actual eggs and actual flour as opposed to some heavily processed equivalents and a health dose of the magic of modern chemistry.
Five things I learned pre-celebrating my 40th trip around the sun
As you undoubtedly gathered from Friday’s post about, well, I don’t know, reflux and other somewhat loosely related ramblings, I’ll be turning 40 this week. Actually, tomorrow, to be specific about it.
Woohoo, indeed. I’ve got party hats all picked out already. I intend to mark the occasion with a Cub Scout meeting and my daughter’s cheerleading practice.
Because, yes, I rock that hard.
In the case when celebrating something can’t conveniently be done the day itself (see above), normally I’d schedule a celebratory outing for a date after the actual event. You know, just to make sure the Earth didn’t end first in a fiery, brimstony, cataclysmic rain of meteors the size of the average Kardashian ego home. Because then I’d feel bad for having celebrated something I didn’t actually accomplish.
Just when or how I would feel bad about it, considering that world would have ended and all, is, uh, not important right now. But I’m sure I’d still find some way to feel guilty about it. Metaphysically or whatever.
But, as we all know, next weekend there will be reveling a-plenty for St. Patrick’s Day. Now, as I’ve said, I lurves me some St. Patrick’s Day, but I also consider it one of the two larger “Amateur Hours” on the calendar. You know, when millions of people who lead otherwise normal, productive lives spend hours in the middle of a perfect good day consuming drinks with odd names they’d never even think about on a “normal” day. That’s usually followed by the only real competitive event of such days: Vomiting Upon Whatever or Whomever Happens To Be Nearby.
This is (almost) 40
I should probably be clear, right off the bat, that this “This is 40″ post is, somewhat surprisingly, not about the motion picture This is 40.
Certainly, I have little doubt I’ll get around to doing 100 words on the film eventually, since that kind of adult romantic comedy makes up 90% of the movies the Puddinette and I watch together.
Nonetheless, we’re not talking about that today. Today we’re talking about my age. In four short days, I’m going to turn 40 years old. That kind of seems like a big deal to me. I mean, 30 was, you know whatever. At 30, you still have pretty much no idea what you’re doing with your life, except probably not going to clubs anymore because, damn, the kids are making those places louder and louder and more and more crowded. There are plenty of 30 year-olds still making questionable long-term life choices and acting like fools.
But 40? Forty, man, is officially middle-aged. Forty means you should probably have most of your shit together. Forty is about time to go pick out that ridiculously irresponsible and impractical red sports car that’s so little you have to wedge yourself and your 1920′s-era paperboy-style cap into it with a can of WD-40 and a shoehorn.
Weekend Debate: Sauerkraut and other beloved foods of ill-repute
I don’t know what does it. Perhaps it’s so ingrained in my three-quarters German blood that there’s just no avoiding it for long. Or maybe it was triggered by the knowledge that Bockfest, Cincinnati’s spring festival devoted to the all things Bock, goat, sausage, and, well, German, is currently in full swing just a few miles north of my house. Maybe it’s just because I’m a glutton for punishment. Whatever does it, it happens at least once a year. I’m overcome with the urge to buy a big sloppy piece of meat and braise it to within an inch of its life in beer, onions, vinegar, and apple cider with a sprinkling of caraway seeds and a luscious, sour heap of sauerkraut.
Yes, I said sauerkraut. Don’t give me that look. Seriously, didn’t anyone ever tell you not to make faces like that or you might get stuck that way? And, yes, it is too good. It’s yummy and tart and crisp and just ever-so-slightly-sweet (they way I make, it is) and…and…and I don’t know, full of vitamins and antioxidants* or unicorn glitter something.
A Tale of Two Potato Chips
It’s apparently a repeating pattern in my life that something that starts innocently is ultimately destined to end up hovering around the patently ridiculous.
For instance, tell me after just having a baby that “it’s really cool being a parent”, and somehow I’ll deduce that if that’s true of only one kid imagine the benefit of having a whole horde of your very own! Which is how, ten years later, I’m having dinner nightly with four-fifths of a basketball team.
Or, if you mention to me one day that you had the best ever pot stickers last night, twelve hours later I’m likely to be face down in the lo mein pan at the Grand Dragon Buffet, sweating hot and sour soup and with my pockets stuffed full of egg rolls* and mei fun noodles (which aren’t half as fun as they sound). Read the rest of this entry »
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