Epic Monkey Dreams
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Last night I was one spoonful away from eating monkey brain soup. Apparently me eating it was a test of courageousness and honor. If I were to pass the test, I’d be well on my way to becoming a hero or sorts, capable of defeating even my worst enemies (who, by the way, I’ve never even met). So late last night there I sat next to my brother, Daniel, both of us with big 1/2 gallon sized bowls of monkey brain soup staring us in the face, wondering what we’d gotten ourselves in to.
Let’s rewind about 4 hours. Daniel and I were hauled more-or-less against our will by a dozen people to a bizarre underground house/kitchen/restaurant place. I say ‘more-or-less’ because a part of me was rather curious as to where they were taking us in such a hurry. When we arrived, we entered what looked like a mud hut, but we immediately took a long flight of stairs downward to a large dining area. The furniture was a healthy balance between my old university’s chemistry lab, an urban Swedish home, and a Victorian ranch house. Wow. Someone call the decorator.
We sat on posh wooden chairs that had maybe 3 inches padding; they weren’t especially comfortable, and the backs arched a little too far inward to make me want to sit back. Forced etiquette I guess. The metal ‘laboratory’ table was a little too tall for me, but perfect for Daniel. Touching it chilled my fingers, and resting my arms on it was out of the question. Our chef and waitress (who eerily reminded me of the evil witch in Snow White) first brought us out a dainty salad topped with croutons and finely sliced cucumbers. The salad looked so normal, it was out of place.
Welcome to My World
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One of the true delights about having a blog is that I can write whatever I want, and you can decide to read (or not read) whatever you want. When I began “The Cooking Dish” I wanted to blog solely about cooking and my escapades in the kitchen, which I enjoy and I hope you enjoy. Now that I’ve been blogging since March 2009, I’ve made some great new friends and even more enemies–nah, just kidding about that enemies part; XOXO, I love you all–and I’ve realized that as fun as blogging about food is, I really want to share with you a lot more about my life than my cupboard, cutting boards, and sauté pans. I want to make The Cooking Dish more personalized, fun, and well-rounded than just recipes, and so I’ve created the “Chris in Real Life” category where you can find all sorts of bizarre things from my life outside the kitchen, monkey brains included. Of course, my main focus will always be cooking, but I hope you’ll excuse and even welcome my occasional indulgence to share other parts of my life with you.
Ginger Tea for a Sore Throat
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I’ve debated calling this recipe “Schroeder’s Ginger Tea” (and finally decided to do it) because I’ll be playing Schroeder in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” and it’s mostly singing. This typically wouldn’t be an issue, but my throat is still very sore and is still recovering from a long bout with bronchitis. With help of this ginger tea, though, I’ve finally given that dirty ol’ bronchitis the T.K.O. and am well on my way to a healthy, normal throat. I tried a lot of different remedies to help sooth my throat: lozenges, throat massages, a sea hag named Ursula (bad idea), etc., but nothing has come close to helping out more than drinking some warm ginger tea twice a day, and especially before singing. No more frogs, finally. (It’ll also help to keep yourself way hydrated by drinking maybe 2 liters of water each day. Your sore throat likes to stay hydrated.)
2nd Annual QA Christmas Candy Party
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Excuse me for a second while I fill you in on the my latest happenings and not-so-adventurous adventures, then we’ll get to the real stuff.
It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to sit and down and work on The Cooking Dish, which is unfortunate because I have some delicious foods I’ve been wanting to post. Unexpectedly, however, I now have 4 to 5 days to work on it, if I’m up to it. For the past two weeks I’ve been fighting off a cough and intermittent fevers, and I finally thought I was getting better… BUT I woke up last night at 2:00 a.m. with a sever chest pain which kept me up for the rest of the night. Straight away this morning I contacted the family doctor and after a visit to the office left with a note saying, “stay home from work, you’ve got bronchitis and other junk” and some prescriptions to fill. Oh joy. I’m personally not a fan of involuntarily taking time off from work, but I don’t want to infect my co-workers either (you guys can thank me later–when I get back to the office).
So, without going into many more details, I’m stuck here at home and at the same time, trying to keep my distance from my overly-cute kids so they don’t get sick. That’s nearly impossible.
Well, thanks for listening to the rant… on with the show.
As of last year (2008), we started a new tradition in my department at work: The Annual QA CCP (Quality Assurance Christmas Candy Party). Although next year, we’re thinking of taking on a P at the beginning so it’ll be the QA PCCP (Pajama Christmas Candy Party).
Since my mom has been teaching my siblings and I how to make Christmas candy since we were only little squirts (just tall enough to burn our fingers on the stove top), and my brother and I work in the same department, there’s twice the trouble-making at the CCP. These CCPs have usually lasted an exhausting 6+ hours, but they’re always loads of fun.
Video: How to Make No-Knead Bread
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It’s snowing like crazy right now, which for some reason instantly put me in the mood to bake some great fresh bread. I love the aroma of fresh bread and biting through a crispy crust when it’s fresh out of the oven. Mmmmm. But alas, I’m still working on access to my old pictures (…click here if you must know…), and I’m at work on lunch break. So instead, I’ve been searching for an excellent bread-making video to post on The Cooking Dish (and to break this non-recipe dry spell). I came across this YouTube video posted by the New York Times featuring the Sullivan Street Bakery’s head baker, Jim Lahey, who apparently can make a mean loaf of bread. I’d love to spend a day in his bakery learning to bake.
Jim uses 5 basic ingredients to whip up a simple loaf of bread with amazing taste. He says, “[It's] a truly minimalist breadmaking technique that allows people to make excellent bread at home with very little effort. The method is surprisingly simple — I think a 4-year-old could master it — and the results are fantastic.”
Never Do What I Did…
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So, I consider myself to be a fairly tech savvy when it comes to computers and such. I’m not the world’s greatest genius, but I’m not a bumbling idiot either (although after this week, I’m going to have to reconsider on the latter). Here’s the scoop.
This week I decided it was finally time to do a clean install of Snow Leopard on my iMac, and so I did. My computer was running super slow, bogged down by all the extraneous programs and junk it’s collected over these past 4 years or so. It’s now running super fast and all spiffy and sleek. But I’ve now found two problems, which for some really aren’t problems, but for me they are:
Problem 1) Snow Leopard and Adobe CS2 are not compatible. Oops. Guess I should have looked into this one before doing a new install.
Problem 2) Aperture 1.5x isn’t compatible with Snow Leopard either.
