brigid | Entries tagged with food

The first tamales I ever had were from a jar.

Hormel makes these jarred tamales that are like... extruded tubes wrapped in paper instead of corn husks and packed tightly in a grease-flecked red fluid.

I fucking loved them.

They come in a can now and the last time I had them was a decade or more ago and they weren't the same but they still hit that one special craving for nostalgia food.

Today my husband got tamales from a guy on the corner, some red and some green, and damn if the red ones don't taste just like I remember the Hormel tamales tasting.

Wild.

Especially since the Hormel ones are beef and these are chicken.

The sauce is just... it's exactly how I remember it tasting.

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I’m a white woman, and I wear yoga pants. I don’t actually do yoga, but I wear the pants. Sure, sure, I try to explain it away as a medical need. I have a skin condition and if I wear certain fabrics or things that are tight or rub I form abscesses. I’m not joking, btw, this is a real thing that really happens and the best part about being a Stay At Home Parent is wearing pyjama pants more than I wear “real” pants. Oh, and the whole seeing my child grow up first hand thing. But mainly doing something simple (wear soft, loose, cotton pants) that reduces the amount of searing pain and risk of infection in my life.

Anyway.

I’m a white woman, and I wear yoga pants, and I love a lot of things that white women in yoga pants love. Nutella? I’m down! Salted caramel? Put it in my mouth. Wreaths? Bitch please, I love wreaths. Fall? I could write sestinas to the glory of fall, mainly because it’s a welcome break from summers so hot I pray for death and winters so cold I pray for death. Yay fall! Crisp leaves! A snap to the air! Apples! A reasonable electric/gas bill from not having to cool/heat the air! Decorative gourds! Halloween! Etc.

But do you know what one big white woman in yoga pants thing I don’t love?

Pumpkin spice.

Pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin spice cookies, pumpkin spice bread, pumpkin spice M&Ms, pumpkin spice caramel filled chocolate truffles, pumpkin spice candles and air fresheners and scented oils.

I like pumpkin pie alright and I make a pumpkin cheese cake that’s so good I will fight someone over it.

But regular old pumpkin spice whatevers?

Pretty gross, and make me kind of gag.

I got a pumpkin spice donut and ate it only out of a sense of obligation and a desire to not waste a dollar. It was pretty icky.

I think part of it might be the seasoning mix. Too much allspice, maybe? Cheap ginger? My own pumpkin spice mixture includes fresh grated nutmeg and cardamom.

Or it might be that pumpkin spice things tend to be cloyingly sweet.

And also they just taste gross.

But thanks to PEER PRESSURE I keep trying the FOOD OF MY PEOPLE and it keeps grossing me out, man.

I also don’t like mayonnaise, or cream-cheese-based dips.

I may have to turn in my white-woman-in-yoga-pants card.

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The first time I had Nutella was in 1993. My mom’s best friend had moved to Australia a few years earlier and super expensive trans-atlantic phone calls once a year and letters written in cramped writing on both sides of onion skin paper and sent airmail just weren’t enough. So she used my graduating from 8th grade as an excuse to fly the both of us out to visit them. Happy graduation, let’s go to Oz! I’m not complaining, mind. It was an incredible trip. I fell in love hard with Melbourne, and it’s the one place in my life I’ve ever felt homesick for, which is weird considering I was only there for about 3 weeks. But man, I loved it so much. We stayed with our family friends and I tried Nutella for the first time. We’d been sending them care packages for years of stuff like graham crackers and Oreos and Captain Crunch and some other stuff they couldn’t get over there (coffee that wasn’t instant? lasagne noodles that you had to boil first? I forget what else.) and they’d send us Vegemite. After our return they sent Nutella as well, something you couldn’t get (or couldn’t get easily?) in the States.

OF COURSE I shared this with my friends.

They thought I was crazy.

Putting CHOCOLATE on BREAD? How ridiculous is that! No wonder you’re such a fat fatty! These FOOLS who enjoyed chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip muffins, chocolate croissants, white and yellow cake with chocolate frosting, pound cake with chocolate ganache, chocolate bread pudding, etc could not FATHOM putting CHOCOLATE (and hazelnut) on BREAD. Ewwww, gross! I made them eat it, because that’s the kind of friend I am, and they all saw how amazing it was and liked it. And for years, Nutella was a staple in my cupboard.

Now it’s super popular and you can pick it up in almost every grocery store and there’s weird ads for it on television and in magazines where it sounds like it’s health food (it’s chocolate, people. chocolate. tasty, not healthy.) and there’s a million recipes and memes about Nutella online. You can find it pretty much everywhere… except my kitchen.

Why?

Because of Nesko.

I married a man who’s allergic to hazelnut. He’s also allergic to chestnuts and brazil nuts.

How allergic is he? I’ll tell you. Years ago, I worked at Fannie May and part of the job requirement was to be familiar with the product. I was sampling the new deluxe truffles (which were INCREDIBLE) and one of them was a hazelnut mousse filling (AMAZING). HOURS after I tried one single truffle with hazelnut Nesko came in to buy some Advent calendars for his cousin’s kids and I gave him a little kiss and his lips started tingling and got a little swollen.

Despite his allergic reactions (swelling, vomiting when he eats chestnuts) he continues to eat stuff with hazelnuts in it unless I remind him not to. His reasoning is that the allergic reaction isn’t THAT bad and hazelnuts taste good. My reasoning is that each exposure ups the chance his allergy will get worse, so stop making bad decisions you fool. So we don’t keep Nutella in the house.

Recently, some peanut butter companies have tried to jump on the Nutella bandwagon and put out their own chocolate spreads. Every time I see them I scrutinize them for hazelnut. Peanuts, after all, are tasty and they are peanut butter companies. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to use peanuts instead of hazelnuts in their java chocolate caramel whatever spreads? But no, they all cram hazelnuts in there.

Then I found these little single-serve packs by Jif. They’re one of the

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I was going to invite a bunch of people over for New Year’s Eve but then I started feeling sick so only invited one person, then spent New Year’s Eve Day huddled under a blanket on the couch shivering and coughing and watching an “Adventure Time” marathon on tv instead of cleaning up. I briefly considered canceling with the one friend I invited, but I’m glad I didn’t.

My fever ultimately broke, due to the power of rum or friendship or because the virus was running its course, WHO CAN SAY. I made glorious pizza and said friend brought over clearance chocolates and cookies, and we sat around and had fun with Niko and then Nesko put him to bed and she read him 2 stories, and then the three of us adults sat around and talked a bit more and then put on the “Highlander” movie, which friend had never seen although she’s a fan of the TV show.

So basically, I rung in the New Year in the perfect way: with my family and a good, fun friend; with great pizza and rum and coke; with the Highlander. 17 year old me would be pleased with how my life turned out.

One of my resolutions for the upcoming year is to invite people over more often. Since this year we managed to put a ceiling in the bathroom, paint the bathroom, and paint most of the kitchen (still need to paint the trim in the kitchen and some other rooms and paint the built-in china cabinet in the kitchen hall), our place looks less like a hellhole. I really like having people over to watch movies or play games (or both). So I resolve to have people over once a month for movies OR for board games, and maybe try to also have people over once a month for RPG purposes. This will involve 1) keeping on top of household chores/cleaning and 2) not getting sick all the time.

Another resolution is to NAIL bread making, other than Challah. For whatever reason I can make a KICK ASS Challah loaf but non-enriched bread (where “enriched” means “eggs and milk” not “vitamins and fiber”) is still extremely meh. Since there’s a lot of people in my life who don’t/can’t eat eggs or milk, and since breads made without them are also cheaper, I’m going to keep working at it. Once I get a white bread down I’ll work on whole wheat, and then rye. One of my biggest challenges here is a cold kitchen affecting rise time, I think. So I need to just go ahead and let the dough proof for literally 2-3 times what the recipe calls for. Oh, and I’m also going to perfect caramel sauce and fudge sauce.

How was YOUR New Year’s festivities? Are you making any resolutions? How likely are you to stick to them? My dad routinely rotates 2 resolutions: 1) to eat more pie 2) to eat less pie. It seems to work well for him. I’m making a bunch of smaller resolutions on a tiny scale, weekly and monthly things that are more about establishing good habits than changing my entire life.

ah mah glob! happy lumpin new year brah!

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Nesko and I went out to eat yesterday. Our 2.5 year old son was with us, because baby sitters cost the moon and we rarely see him as it is, so we just drag him with us wherever we go no matter who that annoys. People that it annoys include:

him
us
everyone around us

Haha, fun!

One of the places we went was Chili’s, which is air conditioned and has a kid’s menu and salads larger than my head. Sometimes, you see, I want to eat a salad because salads, when made right, taste good. I mean, blah blah healthy whatever¹. But I always feel weird about ordering, and eating, a salad in public. You see, I am a woman and women are judged constantly for everything, including what they put in their mouths. Further, I’m a fat woman, so am subject to extra scrutiny (and a salad is pretty much the only approved thing I can put in my mouth other than water) and extra judgement.

Thanks for ruining salads for me, society. See also: yoghurt, cottage cheese, carrots.

So we’re sitting at our table and Niko has his array of trains spread out all around him, ignoring his chicken, while Nesko eats a big juicy steak and I plow through my salad. And my glass of water ². And how typical is that? The man gets a steak, the woman gets a salad.

And part of me, you know, wanted to be all EFFFFFF THIIIISSSSSSSSSSS and order a slab of meat as well because I enjoy meat, honestly I do, and I enjoy loaded mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. But just as I won’t let society dictate to me that I should order a salad when I want meat, I won’t let raw rebellion dictate that I order meat when I want a leafy salad that has a huge amount of avocado on it³ ⁴.

But I’m tired of navigating a world where everything I do– what I eat, what I wear, what I read, what I play, what I listen to, what I make money doing, what I do with my uterus, etc– is scrutinized and judged and criticized by external forces. I want to eat my salad, whether that be a literal or metaphoric salad, and enjoy it, and not worry about what other people are thinking. I don’t eat salad because I am good, or it is good, or there is any concrete moral value associated with salad. I eat salad because sometimes I want salad. Sometimes a salad is just a salad.

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I was startled, once, to read a study claiming that people who ate more salads ate more vegetables. I wasn’t stunned because it didn’t make sense, I was stunned because duh. It’s like saying people who eat vegetables eat more vegetables. ↩
I ordered water instead of coke or something because drinks at a restaurant are expensive, and I was on toddler wrangling duty and didn’t think I’d get to actually enjoy my drink. I was right. I only drank a few sips of water, occupied as I was with picking up trains, crayons, and other things that had been cast to the floor and shoveling salad into my gaping maw. ↩
Seriously, there was like 1 1/2 avocados on that salad. That is a lot of avocado. I’m not complaining, mind. ↩
Also: the salad had bacon on it. Salads with bacon are pretty awesome. ↩

Happy Birthday to me!

To celebrate, yesterday, I made brownies, and Nesko got me a knife sharpener that was on clearance at Target, because he was tired of hearing me rail at the heavens about how our (sort of) expensive knives are crappy and dull and don’t so much slice things as mangle them terribly.

Today is going to be an especially great day because yesterday? I did every single chore on my chore list, including making dinner and cleaning up after. And I did it while my gall bladder was busy punching me in retribution for drinking a Shamrock Shake. I need to seriously reconsider ever eating food ever again.

If you are interested, this is what is on my list for daily chores:

Make the bed

Clean off dining room table (this helps keep mail and junk from accumulating)

Sweep dining room floor

Pick up toys in living room

Clear all dishes, clothing, etc from living room

Pick up toys/tidy Niko’s room (he is really too young to help, because “picking up” is too close to “fill and spill”)

Remove all dishes from office

Remove all clothes & towels from office (sometimes one of us will take a shower, then chill in front of the computer while her hair dries a bit)

Wash all dishes (yes! all of them!)

Clean kitchen sink

Clean stove top

Clean kitchen counters

Sweep kitchen floor

It seems like a lot when it’s all typed out, but most of it’s pretty basic easy stuff. And a lot of what I do every day automatically isn’t on the list, like making sure there’s no clothing in the bathroom or on the bedroom floor, or making sure all shoes are on the shoe rack. I also don’t have a designated laundry day because we have a washer and dryer so it’s pretty convenient to do it whenever.

On top of the daily stuff, I also have stuff that gets done once a week.
Monday is cleaning the bathroom and also mopping the kitchen floor, for instance. Tuesday is dusting and sweeping Niko’s room; Wednesday I dust and sweep in the bedroom and change the bed linens; Thursday is dusting and vacuuming in the living room and looking over the sales circulars to make a grocery list and meal plan for the next week; Friday is dusting and cleaning mopping the Dining Room, and grocery shopping. This leaves Saturday and Sunday pretty open for relaxing, doing home improvement, or doing big jobs like cleaning windows.

In an ideal world, Nesko does all the dusting and sweeping and vacuuming. I’m allergic to dust and have (poorly controlled) asthma, so sweeping and dusting are very unhealthy for me. As unhealthy as letting all that dust lie around? The jury’s out on that one. I’m not as poorly off as one friend of mine who physically leaves the house when her husband cleans to avoid having an asthma attack, but yeah. In reality, I wind up doing the dusting and sweeping and vacuuming and try really hard to remember to use my inhaler and keep taking my allergy medication to try and keep allergy symptoms to a minimum.

I keep my list of chores on the fridge, and I cross stuff off when I finish it. This helps me feel a sense of accomplishment, and also helps me be mindful of stuff I don’t do one day so I can be sure of doing it the next. With the exception of dishes, I don’t really stress over not doing every single thing every single day. The world won’t come to a crashing halt if the dining room table has some mail and dirty cups sitting on it over night. Leaving dishes in the sink, though, really makes mornings more difficult.

One thing I want to improve on is meal planning. I do a lot of from-scratch cooking, and have a lot of cook books and recipe magazines. But despite my abundance of potential meal ideas I tend to make the same stuff over and over (chicken soup, beef stew, chili, oven fries, roasted cauliflower, lasagna, pasta bake in general, 40 cloves of garlic and a chicken, mashed potatoes, split pea soup, black beans and sausage, macaroni and cheese made with a roux, buffalo pulled chicken) or wuss out and toss some tater tots and dinosaur shaped chicken in the oven while saying TWO TEARS IN A BUCKET. When Nesko was working from 2pm till 10pm every day that was a lot easier to manage. We had a hot lunch together every single day, plotted out ahead of time, and he had leftovers for dinner at work. It was time saving and super economical! Now his schedule is scattered and he works at different times over the week, and we aren’t home together as often for meals. So it’s like “ehhhhh…. it’s me and the kid, chicken nuggets it is.”

I’m thinking of putting together a binder with a meal plan for the week with space for notes and a shopping list with all the recipes for that week behind the list, and go-to recipes (annotated!) behind THAT and organized by category. I need to find an appropriate binder, though.

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I wanted pizza for dinner. I’ll be frank, here. Pizza is my go-to food. I would have to eat a LOT of pizza for a LONG period of time to get tired of pizza. It does not take much pizza for me to literally get sick of pizza, however. As much as I enjoy pizza, I’m lactose intolerant AND have problems digesting more than a small amount of meat, so pizza with, say, cheese and pepperoni or sausage? Wow, that can potentially cause some problems. Oh, onions and garlic also make me sick if I eat more than X amount, and X varies. So basically my most favorite food in the entire world frequently causes me SEARING AGONY AND PRAYERS FOR DEATH.

Welcome to the State Of My Guts post, I guess.

Anyway, I was slightly concerned for a while that I had a problem with a wheat allergy or sensitivity, or celiac or something, because I frequently get sick when I eat pizza and not being able to eat wheat specifically or gluten generally is like a big nightmare for me. But then I realized that I’d eaten a quantity of (home made) (blueberry) muffins today and was fine. So flour is not the problem.

So I walked around my kitchen a little bit, looked in the freezer (no pizza) (I knew there was no pizza and looked anyway, hope springs eternal, ok?), looked in the cabinets, looked in the sink (for what? I don’t know. I just looked.), looked in the freezer again, and then made a sandwich. I had some chili cheese fritos on the side, and now they are all gone.

I really want some more chili cheese fritos.

I think my body is trying to kill me.

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Tamales
Confessions from a White Woman In Yoga Pants
Nutella
ah mah glob! happy lumpin new year brah!
Steak vs Salad
Ch…ch…ch…CHORES
What do you want to eat for dinner?

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Entries tagged with food

Tamales

Confessions from a White Woman In Yoga Pants

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Nutella

ah mah glob! happy lumpin new year brah!

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Steak vs Salad

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Ch…ch…ch…CHORES

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