In it’s greater wisdom, or possibly as the result of a new marketing consultant – and if you’ve ever watched Slings & Arrows you’re going to be tempted to ask if they’re named Froghammer – the Sci-Fi network has rebranded itself as SyFy. It’s pronounced the same as Sci-Fi. It has the same line up of shows as Sci-Fi. It makes the same mind-bogglingly bad movie-of-the-week movies as Sci-Fi. But now, they’re called SyFy.
If I see one more Dunkin’ Donuts ad for iced coffee to “cool you off during those hot summer days”, or get another email from Anthropologie suggesting “sultry colors for spicy days”, or have to watch another episode of Barefoot Contessa where she picnics outside in the sunshine I may snap and do something drastic. Like move to England in search of the sun, it looks lovely and sunny at Wimbledon.
In which baby showers are had, the cause of the recent bad weather is determined, and the limitations of etch-a-sketch are discovered . . . .
The baby shower was a success. It wasn’t outside, since while Saturday dawned sunny and beautiful and the temperature rose to the heady heights of the mid-70s, we paid for it on Sunday with endless drizzle and temperatures that were back in the low 60s. We are all, I’m afraid, paying the price for my vanity. I was the one that bought the white sundress three weeks ago in the expectation that it might be summer soon and I would be able to wear cute little sundresses to work. Louisa May Alcott is rolling over in her grave. Read the rest of this entry »
Spanish Omelet
6 Tbsp olive oil
1.5 lb (Yukon gold) potatoes
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
11 eggs*
Peel and quarter the potatoes, and then slice into ¼” slices. Slice the onion thinly and add to the potatoes. Toss with 4 Tbsp olive oil and ½ tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper. Read the rest of this entry »
Mild panic is my default state for party planning. We’re throwing a baby shower for a friend this weekend and I’ve been planning the menu for the past three weeks. It’s not that it takes three weeks to plan a menu for ten people, but that’s when I sent out the invitations and therefore that’s when I started obsessing about it. On the downside I’ve revised the menu about once a day for the past three weeks. On the upside, I’ve only made one grocery shopping list, and I’ve mostly refrained from writing my ‘To Do’ list for Saturday more than once. In fairness, when I redo my ‘To Do’ lists multiple times at least once is because even I can’t always read my handwriting. This just means I would never be invited to be part of a medieval scriptorium, not that I’m completely OCD. Read the rest of this entry »
I was idly flipping channels a couple of Sundays ago and ran across Sandra Lee’s new show on the Food Network. It’s called “Sandra’s Money Saving Meals”, and I paused to watch it. It’s indicative of the current financial environment that this kind of show has a place on the Food Network, and given her upbringing Sandra Lee brings a certain amount of authority to the show that I suspect other Food Network Chefs would lack, so I was curious about what it was like.
In the end I was torn between deeply amused and somewhat disturbed by the show. On the one hand, it’s entertaining because Sandra Lee has branded herself on the Food Network with the prescription of 70% store bought/30% homemade. But of course that costs money, so on the budget show she cooks everything from scratch. There isn’t a single instance of store bought sauces or mixes, because it is cheaper to use real ingredients (it also tastes better, but that’s a separate issue). On the other hand, I was concerned by the sheer lack of vegetables being presented. In the five shows, and 33 recipes that have aired so far only three recipes have involved vegetables (five if you decide to count spaghetti sauce as a vegetable, which granted I do all the time but acknowledge isn’t really a vegetable). Read the rest of this entry »
It was my 10 year college Reunion this past weekend. I didn’t end up going for a variety of reasons that aren’t even remotely interesting, but it has made me terribly nostalgic for college. All things considered the food at Bryn Mawr was really pretty good. Oddly enough exactly the same food a mile down the road at Haverford was terrible. This can clearly be attributed to the distressing presence of testosterone on their campus, or possibly it was because they had one dining hall to feed 1200 students and we had three and a half.
The problem is that when you have 1200 women who’ve spent four years being taught to think critically about everything – Foucault, Bede, Virgil, Nietzsche – it starts to spill over into other parts of life. You’ll be innocently watching something on TV – Dawson’s Creek perhaps, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer – and all of a sudden you find yourself tilting your head sideways, narrowing your eyes slightly, and commenting on the post colonialist imagery of Ethan Allen commercials, or the negative gender expectations in Friendly’s ads, and of course the food in the dining halls. Read the rest of this entry »
I had something different that I was going to write this week, about Whole Foods and comment cards, and how they’re both similar and dissimilar to the napkin notes we used to leave for Dining Services in college. But, it stubbornly refuses to come to a graceful conclusion, so instead I give you a random collection of grievances and observations, and other food related things I read on a regular basis.
Things I fail to understand –
- The entire concept of Tofu Wellington with shitake “bacon” (air quotes not actually mine, but well deserved nonetheless).
- People who scratch themselves in public. I’m not talking about a discrete rub along your thigh, or leaning down to get at that mosquito bite on your ankle. I’m talking hand down the front of your sweatpants for a solid five minute scratch in the middle of the grocery store. I stood in the longer checkout line even though I was in a hurry just so that I wouldn’t have to touch anything that he might have touched after his luxurious personal grooming session in the baking goods aisle. Read the rest of this entry »
There are a lot of things to miss about living in Europe.
There’s the fact that in France and Italy even in the most run down bar with the sketchiest clientele, you are still guaranteed a good cup of coffee.
There’s the fact that even in Heathrow’s dingiest terminal at 6am (Terminal 4 – the one you fly out of to get to Malta – if you’re curious) you can still get an excellent fry up and tea made with boiling water poured over tea in the pot and then brought to the table. The sequence is important, because it’s in contrast to the dire American habit of bringing you a cup of microwaved water with a tea bag sitting next to it. You cannot achieve a good cup of tea this way, and one of the reasons that our favorite diner is our favorite diner is because they understand this. Also, they make really excellent sweet potato pancakes. Read the rest of this entry »
The things that I can and can’t find in my local grocery store never cease to bemuse me. I went in search of frozen pearl onions this week because peeling fresh pearl onions is for the birds. I did not anticipate that this would become a quest and would turn out to be the most complicated part of making Coq au Vin. I blithely assumed that every grocery store would have 12 oz bags of frozen pearl onions. Oh how wrong I was.
