my brother’s birthday is today. he is my favorite brother (my only brother, mwa ha) and i wish that i could hang out with him and his awesome and hilarious family more often.
here is a crown (king for a day!) and a beer for you.
love, your seester.
it’s taking some getting used to, when someone means what they say all the time. and you’re used to there being underlying meanings and unspoken feelings and all of that. how weird is it that i don’t understand plain english?
last night i came home from work, made dinner, and promptly fell asleep on the couch. i woke up at 9:30, crawled into bed, and passed out again until 8:30 this morning. is this what being 36 is like? did some switch flip and make me the sleepiest person in the world? because that is going to throw a wrench into my plans for the next few weeks.
so it’s been a while. i hope our time apart hasn’t been too painful. i’ve missed you.
it’s been an interesting few weeks, both personally and professionally. most of you who read this know about the personal stuff. it’s been pretty great. the professional stuff… has been pretty awesome.
but there has been something missing. something i couldn’t put my finger on until tonight.
i haven’t been cooking. and i need it.
sure, i cooked for the bris and the wedding. that was hardcore, intense cooking. but i haven’t stood in my kitchen, stirring a sauce, not worrying about whether or not i was going to get finished in time. i haven’t chopped up a tomato or an onion without my mind wandering to the next thing i need to do.
tonight i made 3 kinds of ice cream and 2 sauces for my birthday on sunday. there’s nothing i like more than making sauces. i love the moment when a sauce crosses that line from just liquid to sauce. when it all comes together into a silky emulsion, glossy and smooth and thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. (one of my favorite cooking terms is “nappé,” which is when the sauce coats the back of the spoon and is thick enough that a line drawn through it on the spoon stays and doesn’t pool back together. i love that word. nappé. like nap. naps. i love naps.)
anyway.
so tonight i remembered how important it is for me to cook for pleasure. even if it’s something as simple as roasting a pepper or sauteing some onions.
but the cooking for other people was kind of awesome. especially when those people freak out about your food and ask you to make a particular thing again as soon as possible, like these dates. i have been known to have a problem with dates–they were offered to me in lieu of candy at my aunt hortense and uncle argus’s house–and when you’re 4? they are decidedly NOT candy. but now? salty, sweet, and spicy, these are like candy with the added goodness of meat (my two favorite food groups!).
chorizo-stuffed dates with bacon
3 links fresh chorizo
1 tablespoon olive oil
20 jumbo medjool dates
10 slices bacon, cut in half crosswise
heat oven to 400F.
remove the chorizo from the casings. heat oil over medium heat until hot. crumble the chorizo into the pan and cook, stirring, until the chorizo is cooked through, about 3 minutes. drain chorizo thoroughly while pitting dates.
cut a lengthwise slit in each date and remove the pit.
open a date like a book and spoon about a teaspoon of chorizo onto one half. close the date over the chorizo. wrap with a half piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick. repeat with remaining ingredients.
bake until bacon is crisp and browned, about 10 minutes. eat warm or at room temperature.
friday is july 4, which is by and large my least favorite holiday of the year. now, i know some people don’t like it because they feel like it’s celebrating ideals that they feel have been long lost. others think it’s just an excuse for barbecues and drinking lots of beer. but neither of those are my main reason for shunning independence day. no, i have a singular reason for my avoidance: fireworks make me sad.
i just don’t like them. admittedly, i think some of them are pretty. l know it’s downright un-american not to like ‘em (nearly as bad as not wearing a flag pin!). i just… don’t. i don’t like the william tell overture. i don’t like sitting with my neck craned for that long. i don’t like the booms and the rat-tat-tats. and worst of all, i don’t like how lonely they make me feel. july 4, for some reason, is a day i feel incredibly lonely. this is regardless of whether i’m with someone or not–the day is always tinged with a sadness, a wistfulness, for me that i can’t shake until july 5. last year i did everything i could to avoid it: i traveled to dallas to see alf and her family. i spent most of the day in transit, then i met a newish baby. the airline lost my luggage, so i spent the evening calling them to find out when my bags were coming. but you know what? it was the best july 4 i’ve had since i was a little kid at possum kingdom lake. this year i am staying in the city, so no chance of lost luggage, but i’m spending it with someone who is also not so into the festivities. so, fingers crossed that i will have racked up 2 good independence days come july 5.
**the MOVIE independence day, however, is awesome and my #2 all-time favorite. i am hoping the ID marathon on tbs or usa or fx or sci-fi or whatever channel starts SOONZ.
when a bullet exited someone’s skull in slow-motion within the first 5 minutes, I was a little concerned that this “ultraviolent” movie was going to be a little much for me. I don’t deal well with super-graphic cartoony violence (”Sin City” almost killed me), and I wasn’t so much looking forward to spending the next 2 hours of my life seeing exit wound after exit wound.
I needn’t have worried. While there is certainly violence, it is set in such a ridiculous premise, and discussed with such ridiculous dialogue, that the violence just seemed silly. Weavers? Really? And what’s with the meat fabrication plant upstairs? And does Morgan Freeman or Terence Stamp ever turn down work? I kept waiting for Samuel L. Jackson or Nicolas Cage to wander onscreen, because they too seem to really enjoy being in the worst movies ever. (Remember when Nic Cage was in a good movie every once in a while? Do you think he ever just stares at his Oscar and weeps?)
All in all, this movie was so bad that it went all the way round the spectrum to awesome. Any movie that combines weaving, peanut butter, and thousand-year-old secret fraternities? Gets two strenuous thumbs-ups from me.
