Food

I like Andrew's idea of benefiting from community wisdom, so here's a little something I've been working on.

Chicken for Getting Laid

1 boneless chicken thigh, skin on
10-20 (1/4 cup?) good quality large raisins
1 finely chopped clove garlic
2 pinches black pepper
1 pinch sea salt (or kosher, or probably just salt would be fine too)
1 large pinch rosemary
olive oil

Coat 1/3 of the bottom of a cold, nonheated frypan with olive oil.
Add salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary and sorta spread it all around
Turn the burner on as low as it will go without getting snuffed by a light breeze.
Wait a while
When there are bubbles around most of the rosemary needles, turn up the heat and add the chicken in skin up. Move it around a bit to get good coverage.
Let the chicken crackle and pop for about 5 minutes, then turn down the heat and cover for 12 -15 minutes or so.
Remove the cover, inhale deeply.
The chicken skin should have changed color by now to a few shades darker than it started.
Turn up the heat again and flip the chicken, moving it around for coverage.
Once things are happily cooking, add the raisins in around the chicken.
Cook for a few minutes, then flip each raisin over. This is much less difficult than it sounds: the bottom of each raisin has been cooking and absorbing moisture, and is therefore convex, while the top side is still mostly flat. A light touch should be all that's necessary to flip them.
Give it a few more minutes, more if you like crunchier raisins, then depan, giving everything a little while to drip.

I find this goes great with white wine and potatoes. Spinach or brussels sprouts are just icing. The skin is crisp, the meat is moist and flavorful, and the raisins are caramelly and delicious. I know there are people with actual culinary skill reading this, and I'm very interested in your ideas, but please remember that I'm fairly useless at real cooking. I'm looking more for simple corrections on the order of "12 minutes covered is too long, there'll be too much juice at the end" than "toss the chicken, and before it lands deglaze the pan with French (not Italian) cognac".

I ate the chicken before I remembered to take a picture of it, so here's some duck soup I had the other day at Sasashu, to which I'm contractually obligated to bring any overseas guests.

Anyway, any thoughts?

Vote, again

Which one do you like more? Why? What do you prefer? I normally do not show color version of black and white conversions to anyone (except Jessie and Jeremy, actually), but I've recieved enough questioning comments that I'm appealing to the larger community.

What do you like, and why? Also, the answer "Please stop wasting our time, this sucks" is also appropriate and expected.

A:



B:

The things you find out...

...from Facebook, no less. Our 10 year high school reunion is apparently June 28th. Witness me not going, but still... how interesting, right? My bday was already making me feel old, now i feel freakin' ancient.

Andrew was there: proof

Zab, Rick and Penny saved me from the certainty of drinking quietly and throwing things at the radio during the Sox game, and instead I drank socially and threw invective around with my faux Boston accent (just to amuse Rick).

Here's Penny, hamming it up, not a care to the mild smear of ham and (insert orange pureed vegetable here)

White House Proof

Happy April Birthdays!

I know there are at least 3 of you out there. And to the rest -- I don't know when your birthdays are (except you Rick) -- Happy Unbirthday to you!

Andrew pointed out that I haven't posted recently, so here I am, rectifying the situation. What is it about springtime that suddenly my weekends are jam-packed? It happens every spring, yet always seems to catch me by surprise. And when you're busy, time flies by!

Of course, there's no turning down fun stuff or opportunities to enjoy the beautiful weather! Last Saturday, Rick, Penny, and I met up with Andrew in DC. We took a brief tour of the Air and Space Museum to see the National Treasures Exhibit before it closed, met up with another friend for a late lunch, and then took a tour of the White House's South Lawn gardens. Then we got stuck in traffic, finally arriving home much later than planned and completely exhausted.

It was the first time I'd been to the White House. It was definitely strange to see it in person after seeing it so many times on television -- and so close up! The details aren't noticeable on TV. The grounds seemed much larger (except the Rose Garden), and the house much smaller. The view from the President's bedroom window must be amazing! [Of course, that led me to thinking about how weird it would be to get (want!) a job that required you and your family to move into your office (well, the office building, at least). The whole thing is just a huge invasion of privacy from the campaign, to the constant media coverage, right down to the house crawling with people, and Secret Service dogging your every move. I could never do it!] In any case, I hope you're all enjoying the springtime as much as I am!

I'm a little nutcase

So, i was driving back to work from my lunch break today, when a long and winding progression of thoughts led me to singing "I'm a little teapot." (You see what happens when i forget to turn the radio on.) Apparently someone in my brain decided that it should be modernized, because by the time i got back to work i had most of the new version of "I'm a little laptop." Presented here for your amusement, though more time and effort would surely have produced better. It is in 2 verses, as the laptop requested a rebuttal. I know... the same thing happens when i get started on limericks. Sing!

I’ve a little laptop, light and thin
I think it hates me, I cannot win
I tell it print… print… PRINT! – repeat;
It tells me to press control-alt-delete.

*

I’m a little laptop, thin and light
I have no malice, I have no spite
If you cannot work me, and you’re stuck –
Here’s a teapot, you’ll have more luck.

Smoke free

At Ari's request:

山手線で今週ずっとやっている英語ＣＭだけど、今日はなんだかかなり気になった。
「This is a smoke free restaurant.」
「Ｓｍｏｋｅ　ｆｒｅｅって、ｓｍｏｋｅの煙とｆｒｅｅの自由で喫煙と考えられるけど、本当は禁煙との意味ですよ！」との風に書いてありました。

見ると、腹が立ちました。「その英語がナイ！！」
そのままなら、文保的にいうと間違っているけど、ｓｍｏｋｅが動詞で吸うと、ｆｒｅｅが自由で思える通りに喫煙との意味です。自由の生活が大事で「Live free or die」とかの間違っているけどよく見える表現みたいです。

で、「禁煙」はどう書けばいいですか？

正しい書き方は「ｓｍｏｋｅ－ｆｒｅｅ　ｒｅｓｔａｕｒａｎｔ」となります。名詞の前に関係している二つの言葉が形容詞になるためにハイフンで繋がる必要があります。煙と自由ではなく、煙*が*無いとの意味になります。

確かに間違っていても「smoke free restaurant」と書いてあったら間違いなく「禁煙」とのつもりだし、屹度アメリカでその書き方にしている店は何個もあると思うし、先の説明で別にいいじゃないと思えるけど。

折角英語の学校のＣＭだったら正しい英語を教えてくれないとその学校はどうかと思いますね。

オヤジ、細かい！

Do Not Ever Travel With Me

... ever.

I'll leave the good stuff to Jessie, but needless to say, I am the airline version of black cat walking under a latter after breaking a mirror and calling your mother dirty names. Translation: I am bad travel luck.

Now, I have enough screwed up travel stories to fill a small tome. (cue some sarcastic note about my travelogues) But this last trip takes the cake.

+ Our flight from Boston to London was a Flight Attendant's retirement party. Instead of sleeping, I got to listen to a bunch of 50+ FA's bitch about pay, vacation, benefits, and laugh about all the different people they have screwed across the globe.

+ We went through the sparkly new Terminal 5 at Heathrow the same day they lost 15,000 bags. Thankfully, our bags were not lost, but my life nearly was when I had to dissaseemble my entire camera kit (bodies, lenses, film, clothing, flashes, tripod, filters, a whole pile of crap) and have each item swabbed in case I was a terrorist with camera-shapped, optically-perfect plastic explosive.

+ Our return from Milan to London was cancelled. We were rebooked on Swiss, and then told in the airport lounge (which, by virtue of my frequent travelling, I have access to for free), that 'British Airways has washed it's hands of me' and asked to leave the lounge.

+ A man passed out, cold, fell to the floor and caused a minor panic on our Zurich to Boston flight.

+ Swiss Airlines lost one of Jessie's bags

+ We got "extra special" inspection of our bags by the USDA, who delicately searched through all of our stuff and looking for a bottle of meat sauce to confirm, as we said, that it did not contain beef or any other banned items (like monkey)

+ This morning, after they closed the doors on our flight and pushed back from the gate (from Boston to Richmond), a man on our flight had a panic attack and was removed, on a stretcher, from our airplane.

The vacation? An absolute fucking blast. Perfection. But, that's Jessie's thunder, because she put 6 months of hard work into planning it. Me? I'm just gonna bitch about the airlines.

Losing my place

Today on the train platform another fast walker and I were headed for the same space. He pushed me, and I pushed back. He pushed harder, and I pushed back much harder. If at first I had spun, or even just waited, we both would have been much happier.