Latest Pics of the Kids

The kids posing in some homemade sweaters made by a friend of the family. I gave them both haircuts yesterday, so they don't look so much like dirty hippies. Smiling dirty hippies.

The kids are getting much better at playing together now. This usually consists of Noah chasing Lexi around, but she loves him almost as much as he loves her. Except when she's using him as a stepstool. Or he's getting drool all over her.

Good times.

Wherein I make cooking my bitch...

So a lot of my recent experiences with cooking have been negative, I must admit. But I'm here to tell you that the past two nights in a row I've managed to turn it around and make something that I was not only proud of, but that actually tasted alright too. Turns out the secret is ------

Casseroles!

Well, don't let me get too over-excited all at once. I know I've messed up casseroles too, so I won't say I've mastered them, but these two dishes turned out well.

1. Chicken casserole. This one didn't make me proud because it was fancy or anything. I got the recipe off the Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup can. Though I did give it a twist by adding some french cut green beans. I sort of melded the Campbell's recipe with a green bean casserole recipe on the back of the Safeway Beans can.

Ingredients : Chicken, Cream of Mushroom Soup (a Smith family tradition, by the way), 3/4 can of green beans, Salt, Pepper. Bake for 30 minutes, then add a little cheese and some french fried onions and you're good to go. Now that I think about it, not only was it my idea to add the green beans, I also added the salt and pepper and cheese. Campbell's must really want your dinner to turn out poorly if all they ask for is soup and chicken. That means I actually improvised, and won! Shiiittttttt yeah!

2. Beef Bourguignon. Ok, this one I'm pretty proud of. It was also in a casserole book, but it is more stew-like to me. Basically involves a bunch of half-decent ingredients (opposite of #1, above) that you cook on the stove top, then bake in the oven for 2 hours. Except that scenario wouldn't work out with my schedule today because I was minding the kids, so I went from the stove top to the slow cooker instead.

I just looked up beef bourguignon on Wikipedia and realized that my recipe was kind of boring compared to the traditional method of cooking, but I think I still got the idea correct. The main ingredient I had a problem with was the bouquet garni. The cookbook said you could find this at most grocery stores and I was looking amongst the spices, but after looking at a picture of it that I googled, I see this isn't something that comes in a bottle. It's basically a few different herbs tied together and tossed into the pot, then taken out before eating, like bay leaves. Oh well, now I know for next time.

Anyhoo, the main point to take away is that I cooked two things that turned out well. Maybe not exactly gourmet cooking, but it was nice to have them taste at least as well as I was expecting, if not better. What I really need to focus on now is side dishes. I usually get so carried away with one major recipe that by the time it's finished and ready to eat I realize I've forgotten to make anything to go with it. Apparently potato chips are not a side dish, though they do fill the rest of the plate quite nicely.

Going to California

Heading off on vacation for a week, so don't expect any updates. As if...

Brushes With Fame

Have you ever run across a famous person? I always hear others talking about star sightings they've had, but it never seems to happen to me. And with good reason...I don't expect to ever meet anybody I know, so I'm never really taking stock of those around me. I have had a couple of incidents, which I will now relate (in chronological order):

1. Billy Barty - This one I'm not even really sure about. I remember meeting a dwarf when I was a kid, and I think it was this guy.

2. Spider Man - Also as a kid. We went to the mall in Seattle where Spider Man was appearing at the local Nordstroms to sign autographed posters and take pictures. I was mega-excited, and I asked him some silly question, like does he sleep in a web-hammock. He was really nice but I think I got scared and wanted to leave really suddenly.

3. Dennis Rodman/Carmen Electra - I was at a casino in Vegas during a college weekend getaway and everybody was moving to the side to let someone through, and it happened to be these two. Rodman had the leopard-print hairdo at the time and everybody was whispering his name. I'm glad they did or I wouldn't have recognized them.

4. Matt Damon/Bob Vila/Barbara Bush - These three supposedly shopped at the store I worked at in Boston, but I never saw any of them. Well, I saw the lady that was supposedly Barbara Bush, but I thought it was just some Grandma. Bob Vila bought a pan scrubber, and Matt Damon was eating lunch around the corner from the store. I walked along the sidewalk and saw some guy in a baseball hat, so I like to believe it was him.

That's pretty much it. My goal for 2008 is going to be to look for more famous people.

Rube

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The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

http://baconsalt.com/

I mean, seriously, what's better than bacon? Ham n' cheese mebbe, but otherwise not much.

The Score So Far:

Mark:2

Food Disasters: 43

I forgot to mention that with my Rachael Ray disaster, I also made an appetizing dish that was part of the recipe. Crostini topped with Manchego cheese that's been mixed with parsley and chopped roasted red pepper. Slice a baguette, broil the pieces for about 10 minutes until slightly brown, then mix together the ingredients in a bowl and put them on the browned toast. Then stick back in the broiler for another 5 minutes until melted. The cheese is pretty important, as I tried it again last night with Parmesan (that store didn't have Manchego) and the cheese was overpowered by the parsley.

Now a smarter man than myself would say, "Hmm, the recipe that only contained 4 ingredients turned out well, whereas the recipe with 11 ingredients was shit, what's going on here?". And that smarter man would have a point. I have no use for the smarter man. The Mrs. pretty much made that same point last week. I have a couple reasons for not wanting to use simple recipes.

1. I can still muck up a simple recipe. I know that if you follow the recipe exactly and are careful it should turn out fine, but I can still mess it up somehow.

2. If I mess up a simple recipe, I don't really have any excuse. If I mess up a complicated recipe, I can blame any number of factors--the instructions were unclear, my store didn't have the correct ingredients, or my usual excuse, I drank too much whiskey while cooking and everything just kind of fell apart.

3. On that one day where everything just comes together just right and I make the most heavenly morsels that you've ever eaten, then I'll be even prouder because it wasn't the easy recipe.

Don't bother pointing out how stupid my thinking is on this point...a smarter man (or Mrs.) has already told me. Anyway, thanks for reading, and if you ever want a homecooked meal, let her know.

Rachael Ray

I whipped up a dish from my new Rachael Ray cookbook last night. I'm not sure whether I love that woman or loathe her. My opinion seems to ping-pong back and forth depending on what day it is. Lately she's been bugging me by being everywhere at once, but because the Mrs. bought me a RR cookbook for my birthday, I felt like I should put it to use. So I picked out a soup recipe that had mostly ingredients that I like, though one that I don't (cooked spinach).

So I start by browning a 1/2 pound of chorizo. In the recipe it says I should quarter the chorizo lengthwise, then make thin slices from these. I don't know what chorizo she uses, but I couldn't cut that shit for all the tea in China. It didn't cut, it pulled apart into chunks. So instead of nice slices of chorizo it looked more like mashed brown stuff. This wasn't a good sign, though I later learned it's about the taste it adds to the dish, not necessarily the substance.

Then I cut up an onion and some garlic and cook it up. Then defrost the frozen spinach, add it to the onions and garlic, and puree the bastard in a blender. Our blender sucks the big one. It didn't puree anything but the bottom 1/5 of the mixture, so I had to stir, then puree. Repeat, oh, 10 times.

Put all this back in the pot, add some chicken broth, add some bite-sized chicken chunks, and let those cook in the soup. The result is baby-poo. With chicken.

Seriously, had she told me at the beginning that it was going to look like green baby crap, I probably would've just made grilled cheese and tomato soup. Mandy had already been home sick throwing up all day, but she gamely ate a few bites for me. I had to drink a beer first before I could try some. Luckily the accompaniment of crostini with manchego cheese mixed with parsley and roasted red peppers provided something solid to help the green shit go down.

I did take the leftovers to work today and ate while I read a book. This way I didn't have to look at what I was eating. And you wanna know something? It was pretty good! Even the spinach added to the dish, which is the least it could do, after giving it the sickly green finish. I know what you're thinking, couldn't you have left the spinach out? No, because one of the reasons I can't cook is because I often make detours from the main recipes and these turn out horribly, so I'm trying very hard to actually follow the instructions. But I think if I had just used a little less spinach and maybe some more broth the results would've been much more satisfying.

I don't think I'll make that again though.

Happy Birthday...

to my sister, Stephanie. She's not that old, but still two years older than I. She thinks she hasn't accomplished much in her life, but everybody who knows her begs to differ. Love you sis!

Designer Clothing and Idaho

Part of the awesomeness of my job is that I get to dress up each day for work. Dressing up might be a stretch, at least as far as imagining me not looking like a schmuck, but I have to wear button-down shirts and tuck them in, which definitely counts as dressing up in my book.

Lately I've been wondering about the fashion designers who create the looks I wear. The funny thing is, I don't really know who they are. I'm not talking about the Tommy Hilfigers, Hugo Bosses and Calvin Kleins...I'm wondering who David Taylor is, Van Heusen, and Hagar. You never see them on the style channel, never read about them in magazines or hear about their awesome fashion shows in Paris and Milan. But obviously they're real names of people who design clothes, aren't they?

And what's with these ultra-conservative types who rail against homosexuality then get caught in toilet stalls with their pants around their ankles? Jesus isn't going to save those guys.

The Historian and Kids

So I just got finished with a long ass book called The Historian. It's kind of about Dracula. It's about 860 pages about a historian who doesn't believe in Dracula but finds enough clues that the bad dude himself may be alive that he searches for him all over Europe, then maybe 40 pages of action that actually involve Dracula. That is not a good ratio, my friend. That's a lot of buildup, maybe a little too much background history, you might say. How about half the book is about the historian searching for Dracula, then the other half is Dracula beating his ass. Or maybe 1/3 is him not believing in Dracula, then 1/3 is him searching for Dracula, then 1/3 him getting beat down by Dracula. Except for like 1/16th at the very very end where he kills Dracula.

By the way, he does end up killing Dracula at the end. Or so you think...

Lexi can now climb over her baby gates. She just hops right over. Except for the one that's in the doorway of her room. I think she can do it but chooses not to when we're not looking, so she can spring it on us one day like when she learned to climb out of her crib. I expect I'll be getting out of the shower and she'll just be standing in our room, like, "Hey Dad, what's up?".

Tonight I was laying in bed with her for a few minutes and she was telling me what Joey says at Daycare. I couldn't understand her though, it was like, "Joey says fooboomafoo". I said, "Foomoobafoo?" and she said, "No, fooboomafoo". I tried again, "Foomoobafoo?" And she leaned over and pushed my head down onto the pillow and said, "Shut your eyes Daddy". Apparently I only get one try to understand what she's saying.

Bioshock and Tuna Fish

I've been playing a new game that came out this past week, Bioshock. It's gotten a lot of press lately and the first reviews were very positive. I'm normally not a fan of the genre that this game is in, but I played it for a few hours last night and it was really pretty awesome. It's kind of a first person shooter, but there's enough action mixed with puzzle type elements that it makes for a great game.

The graphics are great, especially the water. From the outset of the game, where you've survived a plane crash and you're swimming in the ocean near the downed jet and have to swim towards land, you're immersed in a gorgeous world that just takes over. The whole world they've created just draws you in and is done in such a great style that it kept me playing much longer than I normally would have for this type of game.

Anyway, the tuna fish thing...just found a great recipe the other day for tuna sandwiches without mayo...using lime juice, cilantro and scallions, it was a nice, light summery type of sandwich and hit the spot (though there was too a little too much cilantro).

If green means 25 mph then count me out...

I've never been in a Prius or other hybrid car. I rarely even notice them on the street. But this week I've had three (3 in one week!) encounters with the almighty Prius, all of them being almost exactly the same (only the colors were different).

Encounter one: I'm leaving the parking structure at work, last in a line of about 5 cars. When we get to the bottom I realize the lead car is a Prius going 10 miles an hour. I'm not needing to speed through parking structures, but even after we got out of the garage he continued at the same pace for about three more blocks. Worse yet was his license plate, "Oommpph". That's the sound his car made as he tried to get it into second gear to go the speed limit I guess.

Second encounter: Almost the same as the first, but this time I got from the parking structure to the street, and as soon as I turned onto the street, there was a Prius ahead of me going about 25 miles an hour (speed limit is 35 there). This guy apparently lives near me because I ended up following him nearly a mile, him going under the speed limit the whole time (though I suspect he sped up as soon as I turned onto my street).

Third encounter: Just driving down the street again, this time nowhere near work, and I get stuck behind another Prius owner that drives about 27 mph on a road that's 40. This is typical on this street, because the speed limit sign is hidden behind a tree so people never know that they can go quicker than this, but because this was my third slow Prius encounter in a week, I didn't give that little bastard the benefit of the doubt.

So what's the problem here? Do Prius owners just drive slow, or can the cars themselves not accelerate quickly? I don't really mind a leisurely pace now and again, but this just seemed too bizarre that each time it was a Prius.

Gyro mess

So I tried this great new recipe in Cook's Illustrated for homemade Gyros. At least it looked like a great recipe, until I followed it and it tasted like crap.

This is apparently where my lack of cooking skill tends to show itself most readily -- when I try to cook something.

Lex and I went to the grocery store and found all the ingredients. Lemon, garlic, onion, fresh herbs, ground lamb. All the stuff I wouldn't normally be able to fit in the cart because the Hot Pockets are taking up all the space, but since I was just getting stuff for this one recipe, I had no excuse.

Followed the recipe exactly. I do this to prove that it's not the recipe's fault, it's my own, when things don't turn out.

So I had to make a paste of all the ingredients, then add the paste to the ground lamb. Then form little balls (no jokes please), squish them into patties, and cook them in oil for a few minutes. They formed the requisite hard shell on each side, so with all systems go, I assembled the gyros: Tzatsiki, shredded lettus, Tomatoz and the homemade lamb patties.

Ugh. I had to thank the Mrs. for finishing hers. I ended up eating one and a half, but only because I was so hungry from making them. The patties were soggy in the middle and this totally ruined the gyros. Is it really just too much to ask for a restaurant that makes good gyros so I don't have to try making my own?

And to think that last week I wanted to try making Beef Wellington. Looks like I'm back to beans and weenies. Those I can't screw up.

Never Trust a Hippie

So I got my haircut today. I went to the same place I've been going for about 6 months now. I don't go often, once every 4-6 weeks. Each time I've had somebody different cut it, except for today, it was the same woman that cut it last month.

I thought she looked familiar, but I wasn't totally sure, so I didn't say anything right off. She started asking me how I liked it cut and I told her, but she seemed kind of strange about it. Last time she totally got it and I didn't have to go into as much detail. This is one reason I thought it was a different woman. I told her I wanted the sides shaved, like with clippers, and she said, "You mean bald?". Uh -- no, dumbshit, just short.

Once she started going though I totally knew it was the same person. I knew because she's a total stoner. She was like, "Man, I hate driving, it's like everybody's just got to share the road man." Meanwhile I've got my glasses in my lap so I can't actually see what she's doing to me. Maybe she is shaving me bald and I wouldn't notice. I did notice a lot of gray hair falling away.

She's really nice though, even if she is a hippie. She didn't wash my hair because she was the only one working and there was another guy waiting in line, but she did give me a little neck massage while wiping away the stray hair clippings from my neck, so I gave her a good tip.

I'll be back hippie chick. Hope you remember me next time.

Mail carriers aren't morning people

So I've always wondered who gets their mail in the morning. Only once in my life have I lived in a place where I got my mail before noon, and even then it occasionally arrived at 11.

I've always lumped mailmen in with paper carriers who get up early in the morning to start their deliveries. I don't think they're sorting their own mail, so what's the holdup? Is it proximity to the post office that determines what time you get your delivery? I have to admit, I've never tried living next to the post office so I haven't tested this.

In Seattle we were on the last part of the route, so we didn't get our mail until after 5 pm, sometimes 6 or 7 even. Here in Portland it's about 2.30. I see mail trucks driving around all day, so what's going on here? Are they stopping by the coffee shop to get enough caffeine in them so they can go deliver all the mail between 12 and 5?

And UPS guys aren't any different. I'm waiting on a package right now (which is what go me thinking about this topic). It's noon, and I'm leaving for work in 30 minutes, and I'm sure the package won't be here before I leave. Not that it's a big deal, just strange that I never seem to get early deliveries.

Another mystery of life...

Now we're cooking with gas...

Cooks are in these days, my mom-in-law said today. She's right, we're watching cooking shows left and right. Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, Rachel Ray (not much but sometimes I watch her). It's enough to make me wish I knew how to cook.

I can follow a recipe for the most part, but to be honest, even if I were to follow it to a T, it never turns out well. Which usually means that I end up winging it. This involves adding more salt and pepper and usually more cheese as well. If it's not a dish that calls for cheese then I might just add a little cheese, and if it has cheese in the recipe then I might just add a variety of cheeses to give it more cheesy goodness.

Now, I've had a couple successes in my life. In fact I had two in one week last month, I can't even remember what it was, but probably had something to do with pork chops and cheese. I find pork chops difficult to mess up. I think I made home-made mashed potatoes and some kind of green vegetable as well. Or maybe it was squash. Funny enough, being a picky eater as I am, I like a lot of vegetables that turn most people off.

One of my problems is that I love to drink when I'm cooking. I find cooking to be kind of like gambling in that I never know whether it's going to turn out well or not, so if I drink while cooking, then 1) I have an excuse for why it turned out poorly, and 2) the food is going to taste better if I'm a bit tipsy.

I just have to remember not to grate the cheese when I'm drunk. That always leads to trouble.

Movies

Now that I'm getting over being sick I'm going to post more. That was my Sick Time Resolution.

We watched 'Running With Scissors' last night. It made me sick it was so bad. I was puking and crapping my pants with righteous indignation for having wasted time of my life watching it. Don't watch it if you don't want to puke and/or crap your pants. It's a shame as I remember slightly the book being decent.

Tonight I watched Munich on HBO. I watched 2/3 of it at least, because I didn't realize it's a 3 hour movie. probably could've easily been boiled down to 2 hours, but the 2/3 of it I watched were pretty good and did not make me any sicker. In fact they probably helped dispel my sickness of the night before, because at this moment I'm feeling a little better now.

Sick Goals

Why is it that whenever I get sick I feel like it's time to renew my New Years Resolutions? It's like, I'm lying in bed, feeling horrible for whatever reason. Maybe the spicy chicken wings made me puke, maybe I got the stomach flu from the kids, whatever...but my mind automatically starts thinking, "If I weren't feeling so bad I'd be getting a lot of stuff done right now".

Which is absolute crap, I know, because if I weren't feeling so bad I'd probably be lying in bed, wishing I were sick so I could stay home.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my own father and all other fathers out there.

My own fathers day started last night with Lexi throwing up in her bed. We cleaned it up and let her sleep in our room, and she's probably thrown up about 10-15 times since then.

It's really horrible to have to watch her do that over and over again. Though now she seems to be pretty good at it and isn't surprised when it happens. And we got her a big red bowl to use, which she seems to like. Maybe I should paint a bulls-eye on the bottom of the bowl.