Fit to be fried

Well, my first day as a personal trainer at the hardcore, unnamed gym was today. I didn't train anybody, but instead got to watch lengthy videos about sexual harassment narrated by a woman with eyebrows just like this only more severe and less sexy. She seemed VERY concerned about about such harassing scenarios as calling a spreadsheet "retarded" or asking someone if all the numbers on the new finance report are "kosher." Then we had to talk about some of the scenarios. In one, there was a man asking this wildly, offensively unattractive woman named Jane if he could take her on a date, to which she replied "no". He then asked her again and told her she had lovely hair. Our instructor posed the question "What's wrong here?" I showed my infinite maturity by not saying "Looks like Jane needs to get laaaaaaaid!" and trying to high-five my classmates.

After I had learned a valuable lesson from the harassment video (lesson: don't ask Jane on a date. She's an uptight beeatch) I got my little trainer shirt and nametag and went to an entirely different gym to do more paperwork. Fun day overall. Tomorrow I actually have to start training people, which is great in theory, except for that I don't know how to train. I asked how it's done and was told "just help them out and tell them your own personal tricks that have helped you become fit." Okaaaay....it will take me 3 minutes to deliver my personal 3-step plan for weight loss ( 1. take bupropion, 2. run marathons, 3. eat shitloads of sugar-free jello). What do I do with the other 52 minutes they're paying me for? The answer, apparently, is to find out how fat they are and then make them do pushups and walk on a treadmill. Schweeeeeet. In all seriousness, I work better under pressure, and may magically remember some of the things I learned in the full hour I spent studying before taking my exam to get certified. Plus the gym folk are lovely, and in better shape than I, and can probably help me to get in better shape, so that'll be great.

I think the first step in my training will be the lesson "do as I say, not as I do." This is what I had for dinner tonight: It was a hearty slab of chicken-fried steak, made from grass-fed beef I picked up at the local WhoFo that was doused in buttermilk and crumbled ciabatta crumbs. Fresh baby spinach wilted in carmelized onions, garlic, and crispy prosciutto cotto made up the vegetable portion of the event, and a thick, buttery mound of mashed potatoes rounded it out. Sure, we ate fruit salad with a multitude of rainbow colors alongside it, but I don't think it could do much to offset the deep-fried goodness of the chicken-fried steak.

I followed up with sugar-free jello, because I am a personal trainer, and as such an expert, I dictate that sugar-free jello melts calories.

A rootin' tootin' crappy place

Every fall, college campuses are positively teeming with pert teenage girls, all of them wearing inappropriately short shorts and skirts, somehow sensing that the freshman 15 is going to put a stop to that VERY QUICKLY. Make hay while the sun shines, right? And every fall, thousands of teenage boys make their ways to those same college campuses, frantically trying to make connections with upper classmen, who usually have homes where they can crush Keystone Light cans against their foreheads in the ultimate display of indigent machismo. The dangerous bit comes when the two meet, usually at a party in one of those houses. You know the ones, right? Where the floor is so sticky that it feels like it's been mopped with Gorilla Glue, and with Bob Marley posters on the walls and two cracked bongs in the sink. Both the girls and the boys end up completely inebriated, and the girls end up sleeping with boys who have been around the block a time or two, and a week after this party, they experience itching and burning. They've gotten a fierce case of PUFFY TACO.

Hahahahaha, I'm kidding of course! Because "Puffy Taco" is not an STD, as you would rightly assume. No, it is the ACTUAL NAME of San Antonio's signature dish!!

What. The. F*CK.

And that is one of the litany of reasons I have chosen Texas to be the final country that has pissed me off recently. "But waiiit," you snivel, "Texas is a staaaaate!" Yeah, well, not if they can help it. Texas has been famously trying to secede for the past 100 years, and frankly I'm not sure who's stopping them. So I will give the people what they want and treat them as a sovereign nation. Thereby my choice is legitimate, and you can step off, mmmkay?

How has Texas pissed me off recently? Hmmm...well, I guess the correct question is how has Texas NOT pissed me off recently. And there is only ONE answer to that question, and that answer is: There aren't as many wasps as there are in Colorado.

You may think that's a silly reason, but you don't know my paralyzing fear of wasps and other flying stingers. In Colorado I had to actively hide from them, sometimes shrieking and crazy-dancing across a crowded park to escape them. When I moved to Texas, I was concerned that I would be attacked by killer bees. They have those here, you know. But nay! Instead I have seen a smattering of honeybees here and there (which I love, from a very wide berth. I love honey. I give the bees their space. I buy Haagen-Dasz to support them.), and more than a few bumblebees, which are not at all threatening, and kind of remind me of chunky, winged Ralph Wiggums. "Mrs Krabappel, I stung a flower and my butt fell off." Not a killer bee in sight, thus far.

What I HAVE seen in Texas is:
--rampant fire ants
--cockroaches
--spiders the size of Aragog from Harry Potter
--UFIs (Unidentified Flying Insects)
--Double-wide grocery carts and an incredibly high rate of obesity
--Stray dogs running in packs
--Texans
--Sarah Palin bumper stickers
--a "heat index" which is like windchill, but way, way shittier
--attack chickens
--Dress Barn (this is an actual place)
--Ticks the size of hummingbirds who latch on to my puppy and bite him before his Advantix can kill them, leaving bite marks on his tiny puppy body that develop into raw, oozing hot spots
--termites
--visible humidity
--and a host of other unpleasant shit, including the fact that it has been over 100 degrees fahrenheit for the past several WEEKS. Ugh.

I have found some things in Texas that are nice enough:
--a few new friends
--cool, ethnic grocery stores
--cheap housing (also cheaply made)
--really nice employees

The employees are astonishingly nice here. The Terminix guy, the maintenance guy, the lawnmower guy, the main gardener guy, the maids, the carpenter are all extraordinarily friendly and nice. Oh, and everyone who works at either of the two gyms I use (I just got a job as a personal trainer/nutrition advisor at a pretty hardcore gym, but I'm keeping my old backup gym because the people are so sweet).

Oh, and Seaworld used to have free beer, but they canceled that this year. Sad news.

See how I'm offering a fair and balanced perspective?? I'm such a kind, well-adjusted soul.

And my kind, well-adjusted soul actually bit the bullet and made puffy tacos for dinner tonight, just to bring something authentically Texan to the table, without rehashing my recipes of chile and BBQ. And we can figure out if Texans have it so good that they'd want to succeed from the United States, which is an important scientific question.

I've seen the puffy taco Throwdown with Bobby Flay. It was held right here, in San Antonio! What they do is take masa, make raw tortillas, and then instead of baking them on a comal, they FRY them. Frying them from a raw state means that they puff up like a pita, and then you use some tongs to make a dent in the center and scalding your hand, usually. Great, right? Except for that adds countless calories and 50% extra labor to the taco shells. But I did it. For you, and for science.

Then you make a taco filling and some condiments. Now, I was willing to fry the shells, but I drew the line at a traditional ground beef filling, guacamole, and sour cream. My arteries can only handle so much at one time. I made a filling out of ground turkey, onions, tomatoes, garlic, cumin, and extra-hot chili powder. And then I made a slaw with a dressing of buttermilk, yogurt, cilantro, lime, apple, honey, and roasted peanut oil. Sounds crazy, but it was really, really good, and it served the purpose of cutting through the spice of the filling and the grease of the fried taco shell. Then I added some crumbled cotija cheese for salty texture.



The end result was fair. I don't like puffy tacos, it should be said. I had them once in a restaurant down here, and I thought they were greasy and soggy and coated my mouth in an unappealing layer of oil. These were better, with less oil and coating factor, but still not my favorite thing. Chris really liked them, though, so maybe they're just man-food. This concludes my review series of countries that have pissed me off recently. We have looked at North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, China, and Texas. What we've concluded is that North Korea is a pit, Iran has great food, Venezuela is whatever, Chinese soup is cool, and Texas is way too hot. You are welcome.

Running with Sizzres

I know, I know...you're tired of my tirades against foreign dignitaries, aren't you? Well, here's some great news for you! Yesterday's dinner was not against a specific dignitary so much as it was against an entire government's failure to behave in a way I find appropriate. The Chinese government. And also, it relates to North Korea, who is still pissing me off. A lot. But not so much that I'm willing to eat more of their food just yet. I need a few weeks to press that memory way, way down into the depths of my subconscious (along with other repressable memories, like finding midget porn in a friend's nightstand *shiver*)

Where was I? Oh yes, North Korea. They're still acting like a pack of juvenile delinquents with nuclear weapons. Every day they do something else that pisses me off. Most recently, it was the hacking of the US government computers. Chris and I had a talk about it, which I made note of for your perusal:
K:

China needs to control North Korea better. They’re causing trouble A-GAIN. They hacked into the US computer system.

C:

If the US can’t secure its computers against hacking from North Korea…I mean, they’ve got like 7 hamsters and a light bulb running an Apple IIe in a cave.

K:

Or just an Easy Bake Oven with numbers drawn on it in Sharpie. “Hold on! The light’s on inside! It’s thinking!”

C:

Or they just send Kim Jong Il to the bathroom and then really quickly type “US COMPUTERS HACKED” as his screensaver and then when he comes back in he’ll see it and be like “I did it!” and they’ll tell him he did because he’s a genius.

K:

But seriously…

That's the kind of nonsense that goes on in our household all the time. It's the result of putting two self-congratulatory people in one house, knowing that the only person they like better than themselves is one another. It gets worse when my brother is around, because then those conversations go on for 20 minutes at a time, each of us constantly trying to one-up the previous comment.

I am serious, though, about China needing to control their little lapdog before it jumps off of the plastic-covered couch and starts biting another unsuspecting neighborhood child. If they're so BFF with the little weasels, then they should be the ones who have the most influence, right? China provides almost all of North Korea's economic and food aid, and single-handedly supports their weak-ass economy. So when we all get together and agree that there should be some kind of punishment for North Korea's misbehavior, i.e. taking their nuclear toys away, China should support the punishment it's agreed to, and not be the parent who's like "well, okay. As long as you're sorry and don't do it again." It's BULL SHIT.

So that's why China is pissing me off. Grow some backbone, already! And I feel bad for being so angry at them, on account of how much I appreciate the moves they're taking toward the electric car and greening their country up and loaning the United States trillions of dollars to correct how generally effed up our country has become. I think all of those things are great. I couldn't be more thrilled that they've decided to become an economic pally with us, instead of just stagnating in their own roguery, hoping that a Marxist spaceship will come down from the sky and give them bazillions of dollars. Good for you, China!

But think about this: If they allow North Korea to keep acting like ballbags, eventually somebody is going to do something drastic. Here, I'm picturing McCain and Palin on a festively decorated porch in Alaska, letting their spawn light the fuses of nuclear missiles with color-changey sparklers while they watch, drinking red, white, and blue daquiries and talking about how made-up dinosaurs really are.
And when that happens, it's highly likely that the United States will enter a real war and spend even more money and never be able to pay them back for the loans. At least, that's my logic.

But the real question is this: does Chinese cuisine have the spark and excitement necessary to motivate them to act? Does it...sizzre?

Typical American renditions of Chinese cuisine are approximately negative 4 on an authenticity scale of 1-10. It's baaaaaad. But growing up, we went to a Chinese restaurant that I felt was pretty authentic. It's called Wan's and it's in Aurora, CO. It was a special weekend treat for our family, when my brother was a toddler and I was in primary school. My dad would always get szechuan beef, my mom always got kung pao or cashew chicken, and my brother and I always got some sort of stir-fried beef, which we'd only eat the meat out of, leaving the vegetables for my dad. Before we got our entrees, though, we always got a bowl of sizzling rice soup. It was delicious and fun and exciting, and my mom always found a mushroom in it and gave it to my toddler brother saying "Erik, are you missing something?" and then he'd reflexively grab his junk and look concerned. Hilarity.

So when I wanted to make something really Chinese, that's where I went for inspiration, and decided to make sizzling rice soup. I just love to hear it sizzle. I even video-taped it for you, so you could PERSONALLY hear it sizzle.

The effect is achieved by cooking rice, then baking it until it's dry, then deep frying it, and then placing it directly from the fryer into a boiling hot bowl of soup. The soup is made from chicken stock, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, and (in this case) pork. The veggies involved were baby bok choi, carrots, green onions, and water chestnuts. The soup was flavorful and light, but what really hits it home is the rice, which is chewy and tender and crunchy all at once. I honestly felt like I'd traveled back in time and was sitting in the restaurant with my parents. It made me a little teary-eyed. I miss my dad, and not just because he let me ransack most of the meat off of his plate.

With such a warm and comforting meal, you'd think that the Chinese would have a reason to be complacent and laissez faire about North Korea. But you'd be wrong, because there's plenty of spark and excitement. For God's sake, it SIZZRES.

I go, then Hugo

This next country that has pissed me off recently was kind of a toss-up, and I'll explain why in a moment. The bottom line is that Chris and I ate Venezuelan food tonight. And Hugo Chavez really does piss me off, just not for the reasons you'd think.

I don't care that his country calls itself a democracy, even though the only two parties are "socialist" and "communist," which I feel are basically the same thing. If they've looked around the globe and thought to themselves "Those Western assholes have so much nice stuff and freedom, it's gross. We'd prefer to model ourselves after such stunningly successful nations as North Korea and Cuba," then I support that. I'm not McCarthy, and even though I feel like communism is like the kid sitting alone in the corner of the playground eating twigs and waiting for smaller children to come by so it can trip them, I like the idea that there are different ideas out there. Only how come the communist countries always turn out to be such jerks?

I don't care if he said George W. was the devil, because I pretty much said the same thing on numerous occasions. As a matter of fact, sometimes I'll be wrestling with a particularly stubborn jar lid, and I'll call it the devil. It's just a figure of speech...unless you're referring to George W. in which case it's a valid argument.

I don't even care that he has a giant fat head, and his lips are the same color as his facial skin, which is gross and makes him look a lot like an underground mole who has popped up from a hole in the ground and become possessed with the power of speech. Hell, I don't have to kiss him.

No, what really pisses me off about Hugo Chavez (and he's sadly tied to Venezuela) is his ego. He threw out ambassadors from the US, in a move that clearly said "if you don't play my way, you can't come to my birthday party." He called Obama a "poor ignoramus" and gave him a socialist tract like some sort of door-to-door doomsday religious zealot. He said that he would play the "oil card" hard against the US, which is sort of like the ugly chick playing hard to get, since they're not even in our top three oil sources....all in all, he's just a total weiner. And then I read the following sentence, while researching Venezuelan cuisine: Besides the main ingredients like yucca, corn, beans and bananas some people even eat turtles, tapirs, monkeys, birds and deep fried ants. Fuckin YUCK, alright. I know there are plenty of countries that consume bugs like we consume high-fructose corn syrup, and that's fine, but let's not list DEEP FRIED ANTS as one of the national cuisines. Ugh.

I decided to go for the gold and make their national dish, Pabellón criollo. Actually, that's false. Initially I intended on going for the silver and making arepas, which are little corn pitas that are stuffed with whatever. I liked the idea of having a very clearly defined cultural cuisine that I could go willy-nilly on the fillings and nobody could say anything bad about it. I felt free, I felt light, I felt airy...and then I felt like I had to put my metaphorical underpants back on, because no grocery store anywhere around here sells the main ingredient to make arepas--P.A.N. That's what it's called, most commonly. Also harina precocada, since it's basically just a pre-cooked masa (cornmeal flour). The grocery store had masa harina coming out the bajango, but no sign of P.A.N. anywhere, including the bodega I drummed up the courage to enter. With one side of my facial muscles completely flaccid from waaaay to much novocaine (thanks, dental profession, for once again making me fear you!).

So that's how I came to the executive decision to make the national dish. This, my loves, is the national dish It's got quite a few components. First, flank steak, braised, shredded, then simmered in sofrito, which is a combination of red and green bell peppers, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Then garlicky rice. Then black beans mashed up and simmered in the broth left from braising the meat. Then fried plantains. It's meant to look EXACTLY LIKE the Venezuelan national flag!

Clearly looks nothing like the Venezuelan flag

A fun fact about this national dish is that during Lent, they make it using fish. An even more fun fact is that during Lent, they also make it using Capybaras. The reasoning behind this is that during the 1700s, the Vatican declared Capybara to be fish.

Clearly not a fish

No pope since then has disagreed. I'd love to be a kid in THAT science class "Let's apply taxonomy to the capybara! Kingdom? That's right, Billy. Capybara belong to the kingdom of Jesus. Phylum? That's right, Jessica. Capybara belong to the phylum of God's creatures. Class? No, Tommy. That's incorrect. Capybara belong to the class of FISH." This is a make or break moment for Tommy. Either he can say "yeah, FISH!" and belong to the group and carry little homemade dioramas depicting abortion at the next protest, or he can call bullshit and say "it has legs. And it's walking. On land." And then he'll be a sinner.

Regardless of this slight bout of absurdity, the food turned out to be pretty awesome. I mean, sure, rice and beans are just fillers. But the beans simmered in the concentrated stock were better than most, and the meat/sofrito was mouthwatering and juicy and all good things. Lots of work to prepare, but worth it. And I'm not a fanboy of plantains, but I guess they were okay, just kind of hanging out at the top of the plate. The only thing I noticed is that there weren't really any vegetables in sight. Starches, sure. Especially after I added some gorditas (close enough to arepas to count). Proteins? All over the place. But vegetables? Not so much. Which leads me to my main contention, which is that Hugo Chavez is constipated. Which means he's allowed to be angry. So go ahead and rail against the US, Mr. Chavez. I understand completely. And you'll understand when I ignore your socialist tract and give you some Dulcolax liqui-gels, right?

Ahmadiniglad I didn't say banana?

So...Korea...clip that noise. After thinking long and hard about how much I loathed last nights' supper, and after trying unsuccessfully to find powdered corn cobs with which I might produce the delicious North Korean bounty (of husk dust and sadness), I decided to take the blog in a different direction. Instead of writing about North Korea each day this week, I am instead going to take you on a week-long culinary journey through several different countries that have pissed me off recently.

Yesterday's country was North Korea. North Korea really, really pisses me off. And their food is gag-making.

Today's country is Iran, and is brought to you by the letter "گل" and the number "۳"

And man, has Iran pissed me off lately. Their political system is completely jacked up, with an angry mustachioed president yelling to and fro about exterminating Israel, while a strange cleric stands like a hologram in the background wearing a cloak and hood and facemask that alters his voice...wait, that's Darth Vader. But Ali Khamenei is similar. Both definitely Siths. Anyway, he gets to stand in the background and call the shots and yell at people for being unholy. At least, that's how I picture it.

Now recently I will concede that ol' Mahmoud has been minding his 'p's and 'q's a little bit better. He's at least been "dialoguing" with Obama, even if it's at a very rudimentary level ("Okay, Mahmoud. I hear what you're saying. Now here are some crayons, I want you to draw us a picture of your feelings"). And I appreciate the effort. Allah only knows what Darth Khamenei has been doing while these fun therapy sessions have been taking place.

But then all of a sudden it's election day and all hell breaks loose. I'm not sure who's at fault here. It could be that the election was rigged, it could be that there are still more stuffy old folk than young, YouTube-posting Iranian hipsters making it to the elections. Either way, I'm a touch jihadified (new-farsi for "pissed off") that the opposition leader decided to incite riots, and also approaching annoyed that Ahmadinner and Khemenewanaleia decided to put the literal smack down on their people.

The saving grace of this whole thing is that I think it's HILARIOUS that the young Iranians are using such mediums as Twitter to express their displeasure. HA. Young people like technology, and I'm hoping that western-style access will prove an adequate bribe for good behavior in coming years.

The question here, though, is do Iranians have any right to be angry? Does their cuisine warrant the kind of fist-throwing tantrums that can be caused by North Korean cuisine? We shall see...

I had to do some research, which consisted of me traveling across town and across visible economic...striations to a middle-eastern mart called "Ali-Baba Market." Strangely my Honda had this pre-programmed into its nav system. I pulled up and went inside and noticed immediately that the happy hubbub had given way to a new, quiet-but-quick undercurrent of murmuring. I looked around at the men in their Western-style clothes and the women in their tunics and head scarves and realized that perhaps they were less than thrilled with my running shorts (which are admittedly obscenely short, but that's only for comfort and ease of movement). Dammit. Oh well, nothing I could do to fix it.

Then I had a field day looking through the aisles. It was just like Asia-mart, only there were way more unfamiliar groceries to peruse. I am getting a lot more comfortable with Asian groceries, and am starting to recognize them more and more as I incorporate them into my foods. But middle-eastern? Whole new ballgame. I picked up a few interesting little tidbits, realized I was being followed suspiciously by an angry looking man with dark circles around his eyes, then ran to the front and paid as quickly as possible. I was super-polite and avoided eye contact, and I didn't say "Hey beard guy! Are these little brown wheat-looking balls Iranian or some other variety of middle-eastern? I can't read your squiggle letters."

At home, I came up with a three-stage meal of very Iranian dishes.

First--Salad Shirazi

-Salad shirazi is damned good. It's just thinly sliced cucumbers, sweet grape tomatoes, a small sweet onion, lime juice, olive oil, s&p, and dried mint. Yes, dried. It's what they use. It's all tossed together for an hour or two to marinate, then served as is. And it's hella-tasty.

Second--Polow

-As best I can tell polow is the same thing as pilaf. Or what we translated to pilaf, being dumb Americans. It's got a fairly involved cooking method, though, which makes a golden and delicious crust at the bottom of the pan. This crust (called a tadig or tadiq) is then served overtop the pilaf like a little lid. It's fought over by Iranian guests as being the most delectable part of the meal. Ours turned out perfectly, and rested on a bed of saffron-scented rice, studded with golden raisins and pistachios. It was a big tadiq (that's what SHE said), though, so we didn't have to fight.

Third--Kebab Koobideh
-This is your basic beef/lamb kebab. It's flavored with garlic, turmeric, onions, and bound with an egg. Under the broiler for a few minutes, since our gas grill makes an ominous hissing noise when turned on, and it came out incredibly tender and delicious.

So here's my thought for Iran--You people have NO BUSINESS being so unruly. Your food is incredible and you get to put saffron in everything. Stop bickering, and just make some extra batches of polow so everyone gets a tadiq, a-ight? Damn.

Now it all makes sense...

North Korea has been really pissing me off lately, with Kim Jong Il's absurd shenanigans and them shooting missiles for the 4th of July (AGAIN) and their websites condemning the United States for trying to "invade" all the time. It's enough to make me want to fly over there, walk up to his palace or whatever, and reach down and slap him. Just a straight pimp-slap. I actually fantasize about this.

I'm proud of Obama for how he's handled him; as a grade-school bully. I would not have been so mature. And we all know that McCain would already be involved in a nuclear war with them had he won the presidency, so that makes me even more grateful for the current US approach, which appears to be make nice with Russia, make nice with China, let them handle his petulant acts of aggression.

But because I've been thinking about it so much, I decided I'd research the recluse country a little more. First I read all of the propaganda websites from the DPRK (the self-titled Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea...Democratic?). The basic gist of all of the websites I saw were that a) the United States is the devil and are trying to invade them, like, constantly and b) Kim Jong Il is like a real-life Chuck Norris. There are government claims that he can golf 18 rounds getting all holes-in-one. And that when he was born there were three rainbows (originating from his ass, I presume). It's seriously wack.

What's even more wackadocious is how freakin' SAD the situation is for the people in North Korea. They're completely stuck, without any hope of leaving the country, since all of the borders are guarded against exactly that. They aren't allowed to fish the waters of the coast, since all of the fish belong to Kim Jong Il. They aren't allowed to own vehicles, period. Only the gov'ment can own vehicles. They aren't given any food. Correction, they aren't given any food that is edible by people. Instead, they're given a product of ground corn to make into "meals". I don't mean cornmeal, but like the entire corn, husks and cob and all. And they harvest the grass from the ground to eat. But the problem with these foodstuffs is that North Koreans don't have four stomachs (with the possible exception of Kim Jong Norris) and can't digest the stuff. So they're in constant gassy pain and hungry and nobody's allowed to help them. It's horrifying.

I wondered what they would consider their "national cuisine," if they had one. After careful research, the apparent answer is "nothing." They honestly don't have any kind of resource out there to tell us about their food. There's plenty of info on Korean food, but it's all derived from the south. There are North Korean restaurants, but not many, and not really translatable into English that I can read. So, after hours of research, I came upon only one or two usable recipes. I made one last night, for your viewing pleasure. It's called "Japchae" and is basically stir-fried noodles and assorted Korean vegetables. And I think they eat it in the South, too, but at least this one had some reference to North Korean eats.

In this bowl are mung bean thread noodles, chinese cabbage, mung bean sprouts, daikon (a type of enormous parsnip-looking radish), carrots, mustard greens, and celery chunks. I topped the bowls with a touch of bulgogi (Korean BBQ beef), even though they don't really do that so much in North Korea as they do in South. I mean, I didn't want Chris to revolt. And they're seasoned with soy, sesame, and Korean chili paste. A big, hearty bowl of...

Crap. As Chris put it, "I can see their perspective a little more. I mean, a week of this and I'd be like 'fuck it. Let's go nuke some stuff' and that'd be the end of it." He's a wise man, that Chris.

The problem wasn't so much that it was all one-note flavors and semi-wilted vegetables. Nor was it the abundance of products from the mung bean; a bean that has the least appetizing name I've heard in a while. No, it was the preparation of the bean threads themselves. I use them in Thai cooking, and I like them. They have a chewy texture and a clean flavor. I love them in spring rolls, and I enjoy them in a fresh Thai salad. They're easy to prepare, too. I soak them in cold water for an hour, drain, rinse, and serve. The problem with these is that in Korean recipes, they soak them in boiling hot water for 15 minutes to "soften" them. This practice leaves them soft. And that softness translates into gelatinous, gummy, slippery, see-through strands of bean mucous. Disgusting. I actually found myself rooting around in my bowl for pieces of cabbage and bean sprouts, after devouring the delicious bulgogi. Then the bowl of gunk sat on the table while Chris and I looked pitifully at each other, until he had the ambition necessary to go get the pint of Ben and Jerry's Half-Baked out of the freezer. And then we ate it all, and felt guilty for subbing ice cream for dinner.

I had originally planned to do a week long series on North Korean food, but I just don't think I can stomach it. So I'll do some kind of Korean dish each day, and I'll keep you posted on the Kimchi that I made and is currently fermenting on top of my fridge. I've never tried Kimchi, and I'm a touch terrified, but I'm a brave girl, so I'll do it. As for you, Kim Jong Il, don't think this is an excuse for what a giant asshole you've been. We all know you import delicious cuisines from across the globe and wash them down with fine cognac. This just further exemplifies your assholery.

Fourth of Douche-ly

When, when, when will I learn that 3-Olives cherry vodka is not meant to be downed like Propel Fitness Water after a 10 mile run? When? There has never, to my knowledge, been a circumstance under which my consumption of a shot of said vodka has been limited to a single shot. It always leads to more shots. Because it's so delicious and goes down so easy (ha!) and it leaves your mouth tasting all deliciously cherryfied. Actually, the media doesn't want you to know this, but that line in Katie Perry's song was initially "I kissed a girl and I liked it, the taste of her cherry vodka," but they were worried that simultaneously marketing alcohol AND casual lesbianism to juveniles would provoke ire in the religious right.

Anyway, 3-Olives made an appearance at our Fourth of July fete, and lead to a number of fun interactions, like me announcing "I weighed 114 pounds when I was pregnant!" despite never having a) weighed 114 pounds or b) done so while carrying a human life. Or an adult allergist from Chris's clinic getting so slopped up that she had to call her parents to come get her, and the parents telling Chris "Hey! Thanks for taking care of my kid!" in a sarcastic and sort of unpleasant way. Yeah...your "kid" is a medical specialist in her late thirties. Maybe she can take care of herself? She was fine, though, and we all had lots of fun.

Lots of food, too. We smoked a whole pork shoulder, two full racks of ribs, and had this spread laid out to accompany.

There was the traditional white-trash-but-totally-delicious Jell-O salad with cream cheese layer and pretzel crust (a dessert I'm inordinately fond of), a giant skillet of jalapeno cornbread with honey butter, fresh melons, a corn salsa made with fresh corn, roasted-then-smoked poblano peppers, black beans, fresh tomatoes, a touch of lime juice, and cotija cheese (crumbly, salty goodness) served with tortilla scoops, and a buttery tart shell filled with lime cheesecake and fresh berries (pictured above). Pretty as can be, and gets across the major 4th of July message--"Amuurcaaa, fuck yeah!" The design would have been equally at home on an Amish Quilt, or on the backside of Betsy Ross's more risque underpants.

What's that you say? That I missed an element from the photo of the full table? Oh! You must mean the demonic Jell-O shots from Hell. You see, Kraft Foods--in its infinite wisdom--released two new flavors of Jell-O for the holidays: margarita and strawberry daquiri. And then they said it was for non-alcoholic use. Riiiiiiiiight. Honestly, Kraft. Who do you think you're dealing with? So they became tequila and rum bombs that tasted fresh and fruity but sneaked around behind you to get you drunk and make you say stupid things when nobody was looking.

Kristen brought over an orzo caprese salad that I forgot to take a picture of, but it was really, really good and will be making a comeback on here soon. I think we didn't manage to locate any fireworks, despite our neighbors telling us we could see them from our deck. Suck. Oh well, I wouldn't have known them if I saw them.