Tag: Food

  • ODDS and ENDS: My Head Hurts, (Place Holder), and SOUP!

    (Revved up like a deuce…)

    I didn’t sleep well last night, so I know that’s the main reason, but man, my head hurts. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being barely there and 10 being the worst pain imaginable, I would say I am at a 2. But the pain in behind my left eye, going up the left side of my head and ending at the back of my skull. Usually, when I get pain behind an eye, that is the red flag of a migraine. But like I said, the pain is low and that leads me to believe that this will become a dreaded migraine. In fact, it’s been years since I had one. I used to get migraines a handful of times a year, while normal headaches would happen at least once a week. You might find this hard to believe, but this would happen to me back when I was working a normal 9 to 5 job. I think it had everything to do with stress, and now I don’t live as stressful of a life, but there are still stresses.

    (Place Holder for a good idea)

    You know who loves soup? Me and my wife. You know who hates soup? My kid. You know who is willing to try any food you put in front of them, except soup? That is also my kid. I find this so confusing about her. I’ve asked her often, what is it about soup that you hate? And she just says, I don’t like soup? But she likes ramen. She loves when we make a Japanese hotpot at home. She loves getting pho. But soup. Even a normal basic chicken noodle soup, she hates. And this hatred for soup has been growing. The kid won’t touch a stew, or gumbo. My friend made a really great gazpacho the other day, and she refused to try it. The wife and I are getting a little worried as we are getting closer to Autumn, and we have soup plans. (And I realize how funny and odd that last sentence was.) There’s a clam chowder I want to make, and the wife has her eye on a couple of different French stews that she wants to try. We both found a mushroom soup recipe that we want to try, and I found a video of a Japanese vegetable soup that think would be perfect for a cool Fall lunch. I mean, we are going to move forward with the soup plans, I just really don’t want to leave the kid behind, nor turn her off to the idea of soup for the rest of her life. You know, like how people who ate too much canned tuna as a kid can never have anything with tuna in it, no matter how well prepared it is. I don’t want that to happen to the kid. But… soup. SOUP!

  • ODDS and ENDS: Ravenous Day, Cooking, and Don’t Be an Angry Old Dude

    ODDS and ENDS: Ravenous Day, Cooking, and Don’t Be an Angry Old Dude

    (Sweet Dionysus
    She never really liked us…)

    I was hungry all day yesterday. And I mean all day; morning to night, and then again this morning when I woke up. I remember that back in my twenties this would happen to me often enough to name this affliction – A Ravenous Day. On these days, no matter how much I ate, or how often I ate, I would never feel full or satiated. Yesterday was A Ravenous Day, and I did my best to handle this situation in the healthiest way possible, but fruits and veg wouldn’t cut it. I tried salty, but that wouldn’t end it. I tried sweet, but that seemed to make everything worse. I even tried cold pizza at 2am. Nothing worked. I stayed hydrated, and out of the heat, as if that had something do with it. I am bottomless pit.

    I really love cooking for my family. Even with the kid at camp, and it’s just me and the wife, I want to cook for her. I tried Thai fried rice and spring rolls the other night. I had never done it before, and I thought I should try. The rice turned out well, but my ability at rolling rolls was very much lacking. More practice is needed. It was fun for me to try something new, and in a sense, fail at it. I like the idea that the kid is going to come home from camp, and I will have this new meal for her, and it will be something that she will like. But that feeling, of knowing that I am going to make a food that she likes, that we haven’t made at home before, gives me a feeling of providing for, and taking care of her.

    I refuse to be an angry old dude. Anger will not be my driving emotion. I will not be bitter about how my life has gone. I will be a happy silly old man. I’ve met a few in my life, and I aim to be like them.

  • The Age of Dinner Parties

    The Age of Dinner Parties

    The other day, the kid was asking me and the wife lots of questions of what our life was like before she was born. It’s a fair and very good question, or more accurately, questions that she was asking us. The wife and I were together for nine years before the kid was born, so we had a good amount of time of being a couple before we became a family.

    As I reminisced about our past life, it dawned on me that we had a very unique period of about two years, where we host other couples at our place for dinner parties. And on the flip of that, we were invited over to several couples dinner parties. It was a very specific time of us and all of our friends, as we were entering our thirties, beginning to be established in careers, all in committed relationships, but we weren’t married yet and didn’t have kids. I mean, as soon as people started getting married, kids weren’t far behind, and then some started moving out of the City.

    I still have a Spotify playlist for one of our dinner parties from long ago.

    It was a fun time. Usually we hosted on a Saturday night. The wife, at the time the girlfriend, would come up with the menu and I would shop for it over the week. We’d do some prep on Friday night, and most of that would be the making of the desert. The wife was the chef and I the assistant. My strength was in cutting veggies, and making drinks. The wife did the heavy lifting for the rest of the food. We made a really good team in the kitchen, and by the time the other couple arrived, I only had the entertain for maybe 30 minutes and then we were eating.

    The other side that I miss was the conversation. Most of the time, it always started off the same way. When the guests would arrive, we’d talk about what trains they took to get to our place, and transit in general. Next we’d sit for the meal, and the conversation would move to food; either on cooking or places we’d eaten at recently. By the time desert came around, people had a drink or two, then things got really fun. People would tell stories, or experiences they had, or a friendly debate would occur. It was the moment when we started really getting to know people, who they were, and how they worked.

    I remember that after one particular fun and engaging dinner party, me and the wife high-fived after the guests left because we were so excited and proud of ourselves for hosting such a good evening.

    But things changed, and having an adult evening over at someone’s place, only adults, is a pretty rare thing now. I’m not complaining, because it was a moment of our lives that existed for a very specific time, and place.

    Just hadn’t thought about it in a while.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Lists Lists Lists, Dog Toys, and Lunch

    ODDS and ENDS: Lists Lists Lists, Dog Toys, and Lunch

    (All the things that come to you…)

    (Personally, I disagree with this A.I. created image as it did not incorporate Rodney Dangerfield.)

    It’s that time of year. The time when I get in into my head that over the kid’s Summer Vacation, I am going to get a crap ton of projects accomplished. There is so much work to do on this apartment that I am excited! No! I am THRILLED! Thrilled at the opportunity to get started and make this place feel like a home. Not that it doesn’t feel like a home – But I want it to be a home that smells like fresh paint! And to do this, I need LISTS! Ton’s of them! Some on my phone, some on my computer, some in my head, some in my wife’s head. I want to make a list of my LISTS! This is the only way I can keep track, and validate how I have spent my time this Summer! Ung! This is the season of the LIST! All Hail the List!

    We have had our dog for little over five years now. Besides the occasional peeing on the carpet, the dog has worked out fine. And as a good family who loves their dog, we buy her chew toys, usually around Christmas time, but also randomly throughout the year. As of this moment, the dog has nine chew toys, but really, she has a favorite three that she takes with her. They are her safety blanket. She sleeps with them, will bring them to us when she wants to play, or thinks we’re having a bad day. Like a kid, she’ll leave them in the middle of the floor, and become jealous when we try to pick them up. Oh, and they all smell awful. The odor is so completely vexing that smell the toy before you can place it’s location. Yet, not matter how awful the smell, we cannot throw them out. No, that would destroy the dog’s will to live. We’re not that cruel.

    Ah, lunch; the middle child of meals. Not as important as breakfast, not as flashy as dinner. Lunch, the meal that has to be gotten through – at least that’s how I thought of it when I was working outside of home. I ate often at my desk, scarfing down food because I had something that I needed to work on. Sure there was a business lunch from time to time, or meeting up with a friend, but those were rare. No, working lunch wasn’t full of enjoyment. Even now, in stay-at-home land, lunch is usually leftovers. (Though, my leftovers are pretty good – humble brag here on my cooking.) See, I can make a big breakfast for my family, as well as a big dinner; but when it comes to lunch, I feel the need to produce something to eat as fast as possible. Part of the reason is that I feel like there is something else I need to do, so I can’t put that much time and effort into this meal. Not that this sentiment is true, but it’s how it feels. Maybe lunch is more like Rodney Dangerfield.

  • Recipe Testing on My Very Busy Day

    It wasn’t the recipe’s fault, it was mine. I tried to fit too many things in today, when it was already busy enough. Time management might not be one of my strongest qualities.

    Point being that I am deep into testing a recipe, and I have to go get the kid from school, so this is the best I can do today.

    But here’s the recipe I’m trying out…