For a pot-luck doggie party, I made a fake chicken pot pie (had to be vegetarian due to at least one vegetarian being there). The Asian restaurants have fake meats you can buy, and I must say the pot pie with fake chicken was better than with real chicken.
Thrice, have attempted tempura and I am still not very good at it. They turn out good enough to want to eat, but bad enough to be ashamed to show other people.
Spaghetti is simple. It’s wonderful with freshly cooked spinach, mushrooms, and grated sharp cheddar cheese. It works well without meat, but I’ve also used sausage or snail meat. [The Mascot says: Snail meat in spaghetti? That's weird, man.]
This past Sunday, I baked three stuffed quail. It’s the first time I’ve stuffed and baked poultry. [The Mascot says: You finally experienced sticking your finger in an animal's anus. Congrats!] Quail tastes too similar to chicken to want to buy it again, but it was fine. I’m going to do fried quail today, because I accidentally left the other three quail out overnight. Call it defrosting.
You know how they say you end up becoming like your parents? Growing up, my dad liked sardines, and while I tolerated them as a kid, they always seemed kinda weird. But on Saturday? Bought 4 mini-cans of sardines and have already eaten 3 of them.
Falafel with plain yogurt is wonderful, but plain yogurt occupies a very small section in most supermarkets. If it’s there at all.
Today, I have to use up the bananas that were overripe from not finishing them before Thanksgiving weekend. Banana bread sounds just like the way to go.
Somewhat unusual/exotic foods left to use: red rice, frog legs, more snail meat, chicken feet, octopus, plum wine (this stuff is better than grape wines, I think).
November 26th, 2007
4 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
First of all, all of y’all’s comments have been awesome the last few days. Sorry I haven’t gotten around to responding to them, but it’s been very entertaining.
I will be leaving to go on a short business trip tonight, and am unlikely to blog over the weekend. The Mascot will be responsible for making sure nothing blows up until my return. (That includes not CHMOD 777′ing all the files on the server this time, OK Mr. Egg???). [The Mascot says: Yeah, whatever.]
November 15th, 2007
5 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
When I started this blog, I promised I wouldn’t do this. If you read this, you will be subjecting yourself to more personal stories. [EDIT: OK, so this post is brutally long. So sorry. I just cut a few things out to make it look more manageable.]
Seeing as I brought pretty much nothing in the way of furniture when moving, I’m having to restock most everything. The top priority was getting an actual work desk and chair (got both for $50), since I’m telecommuting, and it would have been dreadful joint stiffness otherwise. Setting up everything on boxes and suitcases, while possible, would certainly been an inferior set-up.
So for the past couple weeks the sum of my furniture has been the following:
Work desk (1)
Work chair (1)
Air mattress (2) (contribution from parents)
So eating meals and watching TV have been conducted on the floor, which I don’t even consider an inconvenience. But it would be nice to have a comfy chair with soft cushions, and some other stuff. Especially now my TV watching is up from about a hour a week to maybe 6 hours a week (concentrated on Sundays, consistenting entirely of sports or “educational” channels).
On Saturday, I went to Ikea on multiple people’s recommendations. First of all, it must noted that the length of time it took me to link Ikea’s colors with Sweden’s flag was embarrassingly long. Then again, I am American, so knowing what Sweden’s flag looks like–heck, knowing Sweden’s in Indonesia–probably puts me ahead of the curve.
It’s worth stopping in an Ikea once. I’m sure there’s some variation in them, but this one was pretty big, including a restaurant and kids’ play area. They lay everything out in a huge circle. Think I spent about 3 hours there deciding on the look of furniture, evaluating cost vs quality, and watching Notre Dame get destroyed by Air Force.
They even have some Engrish…one wall contains a world map mural, upon which they mark their locations. Looks like they have 3 or 4 stores in “Tawain”.
Incidentally, there was a very strong possibility of buying a TV stand that was more expensive than my TV. Finding that odious in principle, I made sure that didn’t happen. I ended up going with a cheapo side table and TV stand, decent chair, and splurged (relatively) on the coffee table.
A lot of the furniture you pick up in boxes just before reaching the cashier, and when you’re in the showroom, there’s a tag that indicates which aisle to pick your stuff in. You end up going through their entire store first, which means they can sell you more stuff. They ended up getting about 20% more money out of me in the lighting section. Got a floor lamp (the design was called “Not”, which probably means something else in Swedish). And a blue glowy decoration thing, which was, sadly, more expensive than the Not lamp. But it was nifty, and the number of decorations I own is painfully few anyway. And more energy-saving light bulbs.
Upon picking up the boxes, I made the discovery that I’m capable of carrying 107 pound (48 kg) boxes that contain, say, a coffee table, for short distances.
Upon getting home, I re-discovered that I’m capable of carrying 107 pound (48 kg) boxes that contain, say, a coffee table, for short distances. Unwisely, I tried to carry the coffee table from the car to the apartment–and I was this close to making it–but I dropped it on its corner and ended up shattering the glass sheet for the table top.
The smart thing would have been to think, “OK, this is 107 pounds (48 kg)*; maybe I can open up the box and carry the pieces in a more manageable fashion.”
After cleaning up the glass and assembling all the furniture it came out something like this. Besides the blue glowy decoration thing, I put out a couple of my nicer chess sets (well, my only nice chess sets) in lieu of actual decorations.
The results can be seen in these night pictures, with only the blue glowy decoration thing on. The first picture was taken with a longer exposure and no flash; the second was with flash.
November 12th, 2007
13 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
The best part about Engrish is not simply that it exists, but it destroys the English language in ways that you’d never think of:
“Ustensils” you can almost convince yourself, “Well, that’s just a typo.” I’m not exactly sure how one transmutes “with” into “wight”, a dreadfully uncommon word in English.
Last night, I returned to Hong Kong Food Market to purchase an electric rice cooker. The cashier there was friendly and helpful, although a tad hard to understand since his English was middling. They had several brands, and he recommended the “Tiger” brand as the best. I requested the 10 cup version, and after he put the box on the table, I saw the price tag of $105. “No, this is too expensive,” I laughed, so he offered the 8 cup version which was “only” $99. (Note: It had better be one heck of a rice cooker for me to be paying triple digits for one.) Eventually, I ended up getting a $30 brand, which is closer to what I’d envisioned on spending. We will see how long it lasts before it explodes.
In any case, I couldn’t get the sign hanging by the rice cookers out of my head: “3 days to return all eleclric merchandies”.
November 10th, 2007
9 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
One of several resolutions I’ve had since moving is an increased proportion of home-cooked foods. Last night, I had a hard time deciding what to make (once of the disadvantages of a full refrigerator), and decided to come up with this little experiment.
I’d already had a couple fillets of skin-on trout defrosted. These were quick-fried in an olive oil/vegetable oil combination (non-sensical perhaps, but olive oil’s ’spensive!) The grape sauce was created from a combination of grape juice, soy sauce, vinegar, and something else I think, using corn starch as a thickening agent.
The fillets were served on a bed of brown rice, covered in the grape sauce, and garnished with the remaining green sprigs from a rapidly wilting bundle of cilantro.
The taste was, unfortunately, rather average, and decidedly inferior to the palak paneer that looked like dog excrement.
November 10th, 2007
9 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
Over my first week or so of living in Houston, I’ve lived off a limited variety of foodstuffs procured from Hong Kong Food Market. But now was time to do some serious stocking up on food, and I decided to visit a Fiesta (it’s a Texas thang; you wouldn’t understand. Unless you’ve lived in Texas–specifically Houston, Austin, or Dallas. So maybe that should have been “It’s a Houston, Austin, or Dallas thang…”).
It was a mostly uneventful trip, but after I’d covered the entire store, I realized I’d forgotten to buy some sort of cheese, located at the opposite end. Evading shopping carts, dodging small children, and sidling past store employees, I finally reached the end where a blonde lady who looked to be in her 50’s was looking at the cheeses.
When I got there, she told me to make sure to buy foods only if it was OK with God. As an example, she pointed out the Borden brand of cheese: “Borden” spelled backwards spells “Ned rob”, which I guess meant that Borden mentioned people stealing so I wasn’t supposed to buy it. She pointed to some products in her own cart, like some “Grin and Giggle” bath wash which she was supposed to get because she giggled too much. And there was some VO5 or something she was supposed to buy as a punishment from God. I really don’t remember the details.
As she turned to go, she mentioned I was “very nice and very handsome”, a bit of flattery which will certainly improve my evaluation of her (more than likely, I was one of the few people willing to listen to her). Then she noted my Red Cross T-shirt, and I explained to her about my blood donorship. She warned me that when giving blood, they could inject me with AIDS or something.
I figured I was dealing with someone either paranoid or kinda nutty. Then she asked if I knew that the FBI could install an implant that could make you stop talking if they didn’t want you to. I said I didn’t know about it. She laughed and said she was kidding. So now I’m wondering whether she was just messing with me the entire time. Nonetheless, it was an interesting experience which I feel the richer for.
Oh, yeah, she wished me a Happy Thanksgiving, too. Very well, then. Happy Thanksgiving, ma’am. I hope our paths cross again.
November 8th, 2007
5 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese, Religion
One night last week, I needed to get food supplies, but was still unfamiliar with the area. Figuring there’s got to be something nearby, I drove down Gessner until seeing Hong Kong Food Market. It was a supermarket, so I stopped in.
This was one of the signs at the front door to greet customers:
NO SHIRT
NO SHOES
NO SKATE
NO CAMERA
These we do not allow in store
Naturally, I rushed right in to check it out, forgetting to take off my own shirt and shoes. Who wouldn’t want to shop at a place where everyone’s forced to go topless? Needless to say, I was bitterly disappointed to find out it was merely a case of Engrish and not official store policy.
Yesterday, my friend and I had a chat about supermarkets, contrasting the somewhat ritzy Randall’s vs other places:
A: at randalls there’s never too long a wait and the staff there will actualy help you. and there’s a starbucks and a fireplace and a living room.
Me: Sounds like luxury. Last night, I went to Hong Kong Food Market (ironically, run by Vietnamese). The cashier had a full-blown conversation with someone and did not speak or look at me except to say “Debit or Credit?” I’m kinda afraid to ask for help there, though. They’ll probably misunderstand my English, think I said their code word for “cocaine” or “prostitute”, and send me to the back to get the illicit goods.
A couple of the products:
Kung Fu Ramen! Recommended by your local Shaolin temple! By the way, anyone want some free incandescent light bulbs?
Awesome! A margin of error indicated on the contents! (Yes, this is why I bought this particular brand of tempura.)
November 6th, 2007
20 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
So on Friday night, I finished stuffing my remaining earthly possessions in the car, leaving little room for much of anything. (I suppose the car waged its own protest considering the additional weight.) The Mascot pretty much insisted on tagging along as well. After warning him about the lack of space, he reminded me that he consists solely of a head with some line segments attached and said he’d “fit in somehow”. It was a bad choice, but that’s a story for later.
First, I spent some time with my parents, then grandparents and aunt/uncle/cousin. For lunch on Saturday, my parents and I went to this restaurant called “Food & Thought”. All the food is organic and the fare is healthy (well, the desserts are rich). I had a salmon cake with dill sauce, veggie rice, and juice, plus blueberry cheesecake. Very tasty and fulfilling. And my grandmother gave me several muffin cake thingys, made with peanut butter, nuts, and jam or something. After that, my cuisine went completely downhill.
For some reason, long road trips cause me to get hankerings for foods that I would normally not consider in a normal state of mind. Stopping to fill up my car, I went into the convenience store to get a drink or something, when I saw a hot dog heat lamping machine. For some reason, the hot dogs looked absolutely palatable, so I bought a couple, complete with chili squirted from some machine. Needless to say, they weren’t quite as tasty what my foolish brain insisted they’d be. Fortunately, they were free, because the cashier was completely out of it mentally, forgot to ring them up, and told me not to worry about it when I mentioned it.
Other foods consumed during the drive: Beef jerky (artificially flavored), Jack-in-the-Box something or the other, and Waffle House, including 3 eggs. [The Mascot says: You cannibal!] There was some more garbage foods that I don’t remember.
BTW, there does not seem to be any Southern hospitality left in Alabama. I simply tried to get out as quickly as possible, worried at being queried “Auburn or Alabama?” and answering incorrectly.
Car before packing
Car after packing
Note my impeccable taste in movies: the original Batman and Thundering Mantis
In Mobile, the battleship USS Alabama, which I suppose is a tourist attraction. Did you know the US Navy now has zero battleships in the fleet? I didn’t realize they were that obsolete.
November 1st, 2007
8 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
Well, I have been in Houston since Sunday, and finally have Internet today. There are enough stories to fill several posts, but I have to get the work VPN working now.
To tide you over, here’s the stunning view looking out from my apartment.
October 31st, 2007
13 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
On a normal day at the office, there are 3 to 5 people in our department here. We all have plenty of job security.
Today, it’s just me. On Friday, it’s most often three people. However, the department head will be at a meeting out of the area all day, and the other guy took a vacation day. Furthermore, this morning I had a conference call with programmers from India. So, yeah, this was one of the worst possible days to schedule that.
It took 2 hours for me to solve the programming problem that should have taken 30 minutes, and I managed to look like a complete moron on the phone with a passenger because I couldn’t get information on when a flight left. Plus, we normally send a report in the morning which was obviously delayed, receiving an e-mail about when that was going to be finished. And I think it had some slightly inaccurate information (they will be bugging me pretty soon, methinks.)
Looking at this flight manifest (list of passengers), at the bottom it states that an asterisk by the passenger name “indicates babe in arms”. While there were no passengers denoted with an asterisk this time around, the whole concept should make all of us a little uneasy…
October 26th, 2007
3 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese, Patently Ineffective
