If you eat puffy Cheetos and M&Ms together, it tastes like s’mores.
Category: Food
Embarrassingly, I only found out via the Checkerboard Nightmare forums that, not too far from here, a cookie dough truck overturned and popped open in Jefferson County.
Good Part: Now, I have fuel for dreams that involve me scooping my way through literally tons of cookie dough.
Bad Part: Alas, the brave souls involved in that cleanup operation will probably never be able to stand licking the bowl again.
Caitlan was here over the weekend, and I wasn’t a very good host, but it was good to hang out with her again. I’d like to say we went to the circus and fought ninjas, but actually we mostly did homework. We did have some bright spots, though, including Caitlan’s cooking of the first fried green tomatoes I’ve actually liked, and Caitlan’s assistance of Ian and me in our attempt to buy wedding clothes–a grueling journey that involved going to one store, then going to another store right next to it. Okay, it wasn’t actually grueling. It’s harder to find dress shirts with French cuffs than you’d think, though.
Caitlan is doing very well at Georgetown, on track to go to Oxford (Oxford!) for a couple of years, like I never got to do. In fact, she’s already been once, though only for a week. I instructed her over the weekend on the fact that, if she does go and gets the accompanying degree, she’s allowed to trump basically any argument against her by saying “Ah ah! Oxford.” It is also street legal to respond to any attempt at countering this trump with a back-handed slap.
Homestarloween!
Xorph has now been immortalized in (blasphemy and) ink, pixels, three dee, cookie dough, human flesh, hot glass (still can’t believe that), and now, thanks to Maria, a pumpakin. I have the greatest fans ever! There should be a grant for this kind of thing.
Maria’s been making fun of me for this, which makes me want to discount it just on principle, but the fact is I’ve been a cookie fiend lately. I’ve produced, what, four batches? In a little over two weeks? (Where one batch is approximately thirty-two cookies?) We keep having to make trips to the store for more butter and morsels.
No, I haven’t eaten them all myself–it’s been Everybody From Centre Visits Me One Last Time Week, so I’ve been practically forcing them into a lot of mouths. I am a mother, after all; one of my primal instincts is to feed.
I’ve still eaten a lot, and it’s starting to show, but man they just keep turning out really good! It’s only the recipe from the back of the Toll House bag, but then it’s the chocolate chip cookie. Besides metadesserting, how much can you improve on the basic design?
Things I Have Made Now:
- Chocolate chip cookies. From scratch.
- Sweet and sour chicken, finally, which turned out unfairly good.
- Real waffles! With our waffle maker!
Actually, all my attempts at cooking so far have turned out really well; I’m just waiting for something horrible to happen, like the time Audrey and I made noodles without boiling water. I guess I could also set the kitchen on fire, which won’t be hard if I keep forgetting to turn the oven off. Remind me to turn the oven off!
Sumana recommended weeks ago that I read “In the Beginning was the Command Line,” a very long essay by Neal Stephenson about operating systems and Disney World and nuclear weapons. I’d heard of it before, and I like Stephenson a lot, although his direct-address form is so clear and dry that I spend a lot of time wondering if he’s making fun of me.
Anyway, today I got bored at work, and I read it (213k of plain text; I was very bored), and it got me all excited and I went home and dug out my reject iMac and now, a few hours of downloading later, I’m watching it brainwash itself with Yellow Dog Linux. This is way too easy. I want it to hit a snag now, so I won’t be won over.
You hear me? I won’t be won over!
I don’t know why I have such a grudge against Linux. Maybe it’s because my first experience with it was being thrown into the cold water of a bad implementation of Debian–a hacker’s imp, done by my hacker of a first professor, running chill and unfriendly in the basement that was the old Centre CS lab. (The new lab was still in the basement, it just ran Red Hat instead. I was shocked to realize Linux could do 24-bit color.)
Or maybe it’s just because I’ve been using Windows for such a long time, and I hate admitting I was wrong. Bleagh. Oh well.
The install’s 18% done, and I think I’m going to crash soon and let it run while I sleep. In the morning I should just about have a Linux box, as is only fitting for my first day of CS grad school.
The only problem now, really, is figuring out what I’m going to use it for. I’ve got my desktop publishing and image processing pretty well taken care of on this old warhorse (my PII), so I didn’t install any of that, but do I try to set up a friendly ftp server? Learn to write Xwindows apps? Run a MUD? Suggestions are welcome.
Pork-barrel entry-end tagalongs: I baked my first batch of chocolate chip cookies from scratch this evening, waiting for Yellow Dog to download. And they’re GOOD! I’ve been strutting around all night thanks to that. Also, The Devil’s Dictionary does in fact have an RSS feed, and its author, a Mr. Kn____, is apparently some kind of referral-log ninja. And I owe Maria big for letting me download and burn like a gig and a half of computer-geek stuff on her shiny new laptop, since my CD burner is still dead. Thanks, Maria! Get a blog!
I got a new toaster oven this weekend, and I’m a little afraid of it. I am a huge fan of toaster ovens, which are both cuter and more wieldy than your typical harvest-gold Kenmore stove. Also, they actually allow you to SEE if your toast is getting overdone, which is plus ten points. (Why don’t they make toasters with glass sides? [Because the constant fluctuation in temperature would cause them to explode, showering you with glass.] Well still!)
Yet this toaster oven has me awed and a little frightened. My past experience with toaster ovens has been with old, comfy appliances, the kind that can dial all the way up to REDUCE TO CARBON and only achieve a kind of mild browning. My new toaster oven (suggestions on a name, anyone?), though, is a mite more enthusiastic. It’s the young, brash Loose Cannon from the buddy cop movie. It hits dark brown before the dial is even on medium, and I’m too scared to try the darkest setting on anything edible. I bet it could burst into flames.
| Maria: | ACK! Brendan, your toast has burst into flames! |
| Brendan: | Oh no! Crap, get the extinguisher! |
| Maria: | There’s no time! You’re going to have to throw it out the window! |
| Brendan: | Aww MAN! (grabs oven mitts, shoulders aside balcony door and tosses toaster oven off with a smoky plume) |
| Maria: | Where’d it go? |
| Brendan: | I think it– |
| Maria: | BRENDAN! You hit and killed that elderly philanthropist! |
| Toaster Oven: | HA HA HA HU-MANS |
Seriously, I do like it. It makes nachos and pot pies well, and those essential functions will serve it admirably. I was also going to buy this neat little eight-dollar Target waffle-maker; I abandoned the idea since the oven maxed out my toaster budget, but then Maria bought it anyway. This nearly doubles my breakfast-cooking options. If I learn to bake granola, I’ll be a breakfast bandit!
| Maria: | No, toaster oven, don’t! It’s too dangerous! |
| Toaster Oven: | IT IS OVER FOR YOU, BREAKFAST BAN-DIT |
| Brendan: | You’ll never take me alive, buddy coppers! |
| (hail of gunfire, and the smell of burned fingers) |
Did you know you can make nachos in a pie pan?
Last night, DC and I were fortunate enough to host an exCentriate dinner party, and I was an adventurous cook! I made fajitas in the absolute minimum possible time: dinner plans were made at 1500 hours, and we ate at 2030. That included biking to the store, buying everything, making the marinade and pico de gallo from scratch, allowing said marinade and pico to refrigerate, setting up the table with the extra leaf and Foreman-grilling the steaks. I can’t claim to have done it alone, as DC helped with shopping and Alison actually fried the vegetables, but I’m still really proud. I mixed and matched ingredients from different recipes, and I even added ideas of my own (strawberries in the pico and Crazy Salt in the marinade).
And the amazing thing is it all turned out really good. We all ate until we couldn’t move; the only things left over were tortillas and pico, because the recipe I used made WAY too much (but now I get to eat fresh salsa on my nachos for a week). Afterwards we sat and talked about Centre people forever, the way Centre people always do, and Alison told stories and we played with Lucy (from The Yellow Dar) and it was really, really good to see them all again.
Jon said last night that it feels like it’s been a very long time since we graduated, and it does feel that way, even though it hasn’t yet been two months. We’ve all changed. For one thing, I’m suddenly this person who loves to cook, even as I’m still stumbling through things like the difference between pan- and stir-frying. Maria and I are making sweet and sour chicken later tonight, and I’m looking forward to it as much as I would to a game of Halo. Am I the same at all?
Well, yes, or I wouldn’t miss them so much again. I lived with Jon and Amanda for almost three years, really, and even though I love my new Louisville life, that’s not something I’ve easily let go.