Thoughts About Last Night

Lessons from Last Night: The best way to ignore being very cold inside a very old stone building with no heat is to not wear your jacket, pretend you're not cold at all, and keep up a steady pace of drinking. Courvoisier XO is amazing, and the next time I drink it will be at a Jay Z dance party, which I'm convinced exist, I just haven't found them yet. Always wear shoes that click loudly on marble, it makes it less likely you'll fall down. Never use a bic to light your cigar. Hold out petulantly until someone gets you an acceptable light. Industrial ovens make good hobo stoves, as long as you keep your arm above the flame and not in the flame. Everything alcoholic the Greeks make tastes like gasoline. Everybody wants to write but only bartenders really have the time for it. I am going to come up with a fake profession to tell people I am, like Volcanic Paleontologist or professional collector of teacups. We are all extremely scared of the weather, we are like mewing little kittens in the face of this upcoming snowstorm. And because we were scared of the snow, everyone brought really awesome food, plates of starches and meats and green beans. Knut is not only good at talking about liquor and having an awesome name, he's really good at cooking turkeys, also Andrew I think had a hand in it. Best job boys. People will always sing along to Time after Time, especially if its on a piano in a boxing ring.. If you sing Godspell, it will get stuck in my head for the rest of the night and then in the morning I'll end up humming Preeeeeeeparrre Thee the Way of the Lord, and really, is that the last impression you want to leave me with of you? Oh no, instead you're going to sing Rent as we're leaving in the morning. Great. Pear brandy exists and it is delicious. Eggnog and wassail together is actually pretty good too, mixed I mean. At least I thought it was at the time. There is a drink called the Beautiful, which is 50/50 cognac and grand marnier. It is what everyone should order from now on. The best time to eat turkey is at 4am (5am?), with your fingers, at which point he asked me if I was disappointed, standing in this large dark cold kitchen warm with brandy, sleeping bag in the other room, and I was in such the exactly opposite spot of being disappointed, the dead center opposite arc, I still have no idea what he was talking about.

The Secret History of Thanksgiving

The Secret History of Thanksgiving,
As Told Through Traditional Food Preparations.

In the dark and still forests, our ancestors hunted their enemies, the dangerous alien bird mutants, who had come from beyond the moon. Their feathers dripped acid, their eyes burned black holes into our flesh, but our forefathers were brave, and tore apart their extra terrestial flesh and fed it to their dogs and children. Dogs first. The war raged for centuries, as the legions of bird mutants filled the skies like drops of water.

It threatened to go on for millenia more, and would have, except for the brave sacrifice of a young skinny girl, who camouflaged herself in leaves and mushrooms, and infiltrated the aliens secret base nest.

She lived in caves underneath the nest for months, living off root vegetables she pulled from the earth around her. Her skin became orange and tough like their peels. Her teeth crumbled from malnutrition.

Stealthily, every day while the despicable fowl were sleeping, she planted little round bombs, made of clay and butter from the combustible cows of Colorado, under the foundations of the base. It was an arduous mission, she longed for it's completion. One morning, finally, she saw the sign, hidden by her cave entrance.

And that evening, as the sun went down, she crept out of the cave. The alien bird mutants were rousing from their roosts, and she was spotted by a sentry too late, standing victorious by the edge of the dark woods, detonator in hand. Her village watched from the hills, as she hit the button, and blew the monsters back into the sky.

Their red blood rained down for hours.

And turned the rivers and wells to sludge, destroying the villagers' crops.
Famine threatened all of humanity.

But the resourceful mothers gathered the roots under the earth, and fed their families pie until the waters cleared.

And also, maybe lingonberries? The history books are unclear. But tonight we celebrate the actions of one brave little girl, who single-handedly won the war with the Great Mutant Turkey Aliens. We remember you Macy. We will never forget.

Sandwiches! Honey!

So I woke up today with a horrible migraine. I don't normally get migraines (thank you whichever synapse controls that), but every once in a while they hit me and knock me over like a bag of potatoes. The pain in my head I can deal with, and the dizziness, but what really kills me are the smells. Absolutely everything smells terrible to me when I get this way, and then I start the serial vomiting. Two years ago I was in the throes of one of these, but also in training for work, and the girl next to me was chewing grape bubblegum? I ended up running out of the room like five times, before finally just leaving. I had to keep plastic bags in the car with me for the ride home. On the plus side, I am now incredibly adept at driving while throwing up, which seems like something that should come in handy at some point in my life.

I know, why am I discussing stomach nastiness in a post titled Sandwiches? Well, I didn't go anywhere today, and I couldn't eat anything till about an hour ago. When the pain finally went away, I was starving. I hadn't gone to the store recently, so there weren't a lot of options. But I had bread. Anytime you have bread, you are good.

What follows are some very ugly pictures of some very yummy things. On paper plates, yes. DO NOT JUDGE ME.

Peanut butter is something I always forget that I love until I run out of money, and then I'm really fucking thankful I have it in the fridge. Peanut butter is great on bread, crackers, celery, carrots, apples, pets' noses, even melted on ice cream. But my favorite thing is peanut butter and honey on white bread. Crunchy only please. What exactly is the point of that other kind?

THIS IS IMPORTANT: You have to toast the bread with the peanut butter on it already, so it gets all gooey, and then when the honey hits the toast and whole nuts it does this thing in your mouth where it tastes like brittle. Pair this with hot chocolate, and you're all set for watching reruns of the Fresh Prince of Belair and being sort of embarrassed that you know all the words to the theme song. I also had some pecans, so I crumbled those inside. It was so fucking good. All I was missing was celery on the side. I love celery. It's like crunchy water.

However, one peanut butter sandwich was not quite enough, so I scoured around my fridge for something else. As usual, I had about three open jars of pickles, 2 jars of olives (Marty, I've turned into you), lots of bread, jam, marmalade, and some deli turkey which had been in there for about a week. I love turkey sandwiches, but I can't buy it in more than 1/4 pd increments, cause I hate the slimy feeling it gets after two days in the fridge. I know its still good. But that's not the point, right? I end up buying way more salami than I want to because turkey betrays me.

So today I figured out how to get rid of that sliminess...fry it. Fry it in butter, with cumin, salt, pepper, paprika, ginger, ground mustard, garlic. Then pile it on some rye bread, with yellow mustard on one side and a good dollop of honey on the other side. Not only is it fantastic? Your house smells good and you sort of feel like you actually cooked something even though the total effort involved in this is five minutes of standing in the kitchen feeding the cat turkey scraps. It's like a lazy girls Cuban.

I suppose you could add things like tomato and stuff, but those are things that spoil, and therefore have no place in my fridge.

So I'm feeling better, I've been resourceful, I've got some Fred and Ginger movies saved, and Top Chef is tonight. I've also gone around my house and done everything I could to eliminate any smell of any sort, just in case. Cause it sucks to clean the kitty litter when you're vomiting in your mouth. I think I might just start mounting the litter box in the window. I wonder how hard it would be to build something like that?

And apparently I was not the only one trying to use up everything useful in the cupboards today.
Midwestgrrl gives you the pantry rundown.

Alton solves Thanksgiving

My mother refuses to brine the turkey she is cooking.
I cannot convince her otherwise, which means I'm going to have to buy my own turkey. Like, a small one. I'll buy it now and stick it in the freezer for February. However, I wish my mother would watch this.



Also, Alton and I feel the same way about stuffing. I'm okay with dressing. When it gets crispy and such in the oven. Not soggy inside the birds EMPTIED CAVITY.



I have celebrity flutters for Alton. Don't we all? Look how cute his watch is!



I don't know. Maybe I'll just drive through Southern Ohio and try to run a turkey over. I remember those damn turkeys at Lake Hope, gathering next to the cabin at 4am and making more noise than a freight train. I have motivation. I will make a headband out of it's feathers.