I Hate Bra Shopping

I hate bra shopping.
Let me make that perfectly clear. I hate bra shopping.
For me, it's never a trip to the frilly Woman Cave, caressing all that satin and elastic and hardware. It's torture. They don't fit, they're expensive, and I'd rather just go without one.
But I can't, having a fantastic figure as I do.
Cranky had a discount coupon for the local discount store. He wanted a new pair of sneakers. He goes out every morning for his coffee socializing, and he thought he'd just swing by the store.
"Anything I could get you?" he thoughtfully asked.
"Yes, get me a bra," I whispered. It was a joke, sorta, but I really did want him to come home with a perfect bra for me. Like that could ever happen. You ever go bra shopping? I hate bra shopping. It's never perfect.
Cranky didn't get any shoes, but he actually went into the lingerie department (there was nobody else there, so he didn't feel too furtive) and rummaged around for my size. Ohjeez, I forgot to tell him I prefer underwire. And none of that foam "shaping" stuff.
OMG, Cranky came home with TWO bras, one pink and one white. The saleswoman bantered with him, saying it would not be possible to fit a bra for an absent female. He said it was really just a joke, and we would return them if they were wrong.
Amazingly, they fit very well. Somehow, even the shoulder straps were adjusted perfectly for my frame. I just put one on, and... it worked.
I sent him back to get his shoes. They're very good!
Cranky is elated.

Christmas Stocking Goodie

You know what this is? (I know, lots of quizzes about articles of clothing.)
No, it's not a sock! It WAS a sock, but now it's the cover for my Kindle. Good fit, cozy... I'm going to attach a button and loop closure on the other side.
Oh, yes, I did. I did say "my Kindle."
Cranky got one for Christmas, and he reads it so much, I can't get a minute of battery time. So when Amazon knocked $50 off the price, I got one of my own.
Naturally, I predicted that Amazon was selling off stock because they would be coming out with a new model. And naturally, I was right. Their new Kindle, due in time for holiday gifting, will have sound, color, and a touch screen. I mean, it's practically an iPad, at half the price.
I know. Amazon forces its employees to work in an overheated warehouse in Pennsylvania. Maybe they'll get that fixed.

And Sometimes Vanity Prevails

Looks like chef pants, doesn't it? Well, before the chili pepper and goldfish and cupcake chef pants got so popular. I mean the old checkered kind.
There was a time back in the '90s when I was so self-absorbed about cooking, I found myself wanting a chef's jacket. Nothing outrageous, just a white double-breasted deal. I even checked them out in catalogs, but sanity prevailed. When would I ever wear the thing? Certainly not for company. And I do just fine in an apron, so it would be a shame to dirty it up in the humble duty of spaghetti sauce. Yeah, sanity prevailed.
This was all before blogging. I didn't know about other "normal" people's obsessions. I just thought I was the smartest foodist in town. I read all the right magazines, I shopped for the best equipment, I knew where to buy ingredients.
I would be the first to admit I'm not an ambitious cook. I would also admit that sometimes supper is Doritos and cottage cheese.
Then food blogs arose! I didn't get in on it as early as some of my favorite writers, but by early 2005 I was yapping my mouth about what I eat, on the Internet. I actually thought I had something to say. In some cases, maybe I did. What a great outlet for the self-absorbed.
But the good thing was reading the other blogs. Ones that could really teach you something, and could entertain. Fabulous photography, too.
There are middlebrow blogs, as well, some of them very popular. I don't think any of us are in competition with one another (except maybe for ad revenue).
I look at some of my early posts, and I see that I was a bit avant-garde on some topics. I was into Sandor Katz and fermentation before most of you, believe me. I was growing my own vegetable garden before that became the hot, hipster DIY fad. But that sounds competitive, and I don't mean it that way.
I'm just saying I actually did have something to say. And I've never made a penny off it.
But with the boom of intelligent food blogs (some of them now idle, sadly), I began to question my own showoffiness. Who wants to hear about an egg I scrambled, even if I am the best egg scrambler in the world? (I could tell you how. Maybe I will someday.)
Those checkered pants in the photo? They're pajamas.

Fake, Good, Southern Food

I am open to suggestion. Talk about food, and I will find a way to incorporate our conversation into an upcoming meal.
Here's a fun example. Not long ago, a blog pal was mulling over the idea of cornmeal mush. She was certain she'd never eaten any, and decided it probably tasted nasty. I told her it was lovely, actually. American polenta. And if you make extra, you can spread some in a dish, about half an inch deep, chill overnight, and the next morning you'll cut delicate slabs out to fry gently in butter. Maple syrup!
This is true; it's a valid childhood memory of mine, and it's good. We really did call it cornmeal mush, by the way. We didn't have a fancier name for it. And now I wanted some.
Meanwhile, another blog pal has been spending the summer in the land of her heritage, the American South. She wanted shrimp and grits for her birthday supper, and that's what she got. I think. I know she got shrimp and grits sometime on her visit.
I didn't know shrimp and grits was a "dish." I like shrimp and I like grits, but this is a "together" item. Some cooks even have you stir the cooked shrimp into the grits (blech!). And now I wanted some of that.
Cranky and I did what Cranky and I do: we proceeded without a recipe. We're good at a tasty, almost Creole, preparation of shrimp in oil, garlic and herbs. That would go on top of the grits. But there were no grits. Cornmeal mush to the rescue. (You genuine Southerners may scold me here.)
To round things out, we fried up some okra. We've always had success with our cornmeal coating, but Cranky, for some reason, followed a recipe. Pow-la Deeeeeeen! Y'all let us dah-yown! The batter didn't stick. At all. Ah well.

I'm Game

I'd been noticing a few people Tweeting about a book they liked. I downloaded a free sample, and I liked it! So I bought The Hunger Games.
Oops. Turns out the book those people were talking about was Ender's Game (you can see how I was confused), so I downloaded a free sample, and I liked it too!
But I read The Hunger Games first.
Ohmagah, I was consumed by it. I couldn't put it down, as they say. It's a page-turner, as they say.
I felt guilty for my single-minded behavior, like the Jane Fonda character in Barefoot in the Park who can't come out of the honeymoon suite. Cannot. There's good stuff in there, and the rest of the world can just bloody well wait.
Now, here's the thing. The Hunger Games is a young adult, science fiction story with a female protagonist. SO not my genre. And guaranteed to keep boys from reading any of it. (It's a trilogy; I devoured all three books.)
Well, as we speak, Cranky, a mature male reader whose favorite works are nonfiction war history stuff, is slurping up volume number two. Now will you believe me that it's addictive?
Some of you probably already know about it. It's become so huge, the book is translated into a million languages, a movie is due out in 2012, and someone wrote a cookbook based on the foods mentioned in the stories.
Let me lapse back into being a food blogger: The foods mentioned in the stories are either simple and acceptable (lamb stew with plums), kinda weird (chicken with orange cream sauce), or downright inedible (fish stew so slippery and horrific, it takes three swallows to get one mouthful down). So I probably wouldn't buy the cookbook, but I think it's clever of someone to have written it.
Also, there's wild game in The Hunger Games, but that's a coincidence. The "games" are something else, indeed.
Oh, right, I haven't told you what the trilogy is about. You can look it up yourself if you want. Just know that I accidentally downloaded it without a clue, and I was absorbed.
I'm finally out of that honeymoon suite, but I think I'm going to start Ender's Game next.

You Think I'm Talking About 9/11 Today?

You'd be wrong.

It's Like Homework, Every Day

As some of you may know, I've grown weary of the soshul nitwurgs. I've made many, many friends here and on Twitter and Facebook, but the longer I follow some of those people, the more I feel I'm headed into divorce court. Irreconcilable differences.
The other day, a blogger I follow on Twitter asked her readers what meal we were planning for 9/11. There is no 9/11 feast! It is not a holiday! She disgusted me, and since she has turned me off with previous rantings, I guess it's no big deal to unfollow her. Sorry, sweetheart, things just didn't work out.
On my end, I have watched the increasing absence of replies to my tweets and Facebook comments. I guess people got exasperated with me and yanked me from their network. My feelings are hurt, but maybe we weren't a good fit, and... sorry, sweetheart.
It can get dire and nasty, too. One blogger reports that her enemy list is so vicious, they have created shadow blogs, parodying everything she writes. I think that's really mean. Fortunately, I'm not famous enough for that kind of mistreatment.
Most of my encounters with commenters and tweeps and FB friends have been very nice. But I'd like to talk about more than "what I ate." I'm sick of writing about food every day, even though I almost always have a topic, because I almost always eat. Again, though, I want to be cautious. I like to write, but I don't reveal too much of myself. Or bore you.
So I'll just put out some questions. Are you tired of this medium? Are you sorry about the name you gave your blog? (I still like mine.) Are you embarrassed by the nickname you gave yourself? (Yes.) Do you sense a dwindling in the power of blogging? (I know, it's dead as a doornail, but it'll never go away.)
Talk to me. If I feel a little less shy, maybe I'll tell you about my first day at school. Or the three years in a row I was required to take Home Ec. (Yeah, we might be talking about food.)

Food?

I know! I threaten to quit food blogging, and then the greatest dish comes out of my kitchen.
It's totally faux, phony, fabricated. And it tasted just like it was supposed to! Odd, considering that I've never tasted it before.
You are looking at a bowl of dashi broth, heightened a bit with a spoonful of miso and a squirt of shoyu. In this brown deliciousness, cook some mung bean noodles, those stringy transparent things. Add chopped scallion and cubes of tofu. This looks like a little too much tofu (it was).
That's it. That's all. Simple as pie, especially if you use liquid dashi concentrate.
I couldn't believe how good it was, and how filling. And it's practically health food.
This is going into heavy rotation.

Fauvism Friday

This painting was left on the front porch, in rather good condition. Which puts the kibosh on any speculation that the trove of squiggles that continues to emerge at my house (this is the third) might be old.
It's new, say I, and it looks decidedly different from the first two. But does that mean it's by a different artist?
The brush strokes are thinner and more colors are used. Still, there are those same dots, which also characterized the first two paintings.
I think it looks like a galloping swarm of sperm bunnies. (Yes, I studied art appreciation!) I think it's very, very good, if I do say so... Ah, well, never mind.
Cranky can't wait to get these framed and hung around the house. He's serious.
And... I should tell you that I saw Cranky dabbling with one of those cheap pixel "art" apps the other day. All I can say is I know he didn't produce this piece. This piece is a master, um, uh, piece.