happy easter, or why do we get asparagus pee?

(I know it's a delayed reaction, but forgive me, I was busy having mushy feelings.)

You know how you can't smell your house? Or, if you can, it's only for that first second you walk through the door, or after you've been away from home for a long time?

Well, for me, at Easter, my parents' house smells like asparagus pee. Because every year, Easter is the first family get together where asparagus is in season, and every year, I eat my body weight in it. And I'm not the only Surgeon who does so. Both my mother and my aunt provided long, green, crunchy-to-mushy stalks of buttery, salty luxury* at family gatherings last weekend.

As far as I'm concerned, the Easter bunny could hide blanched asparagus around the house and I'd be just as excited to find it as I would peanut butter chocolate eggs. (As long as it wasn't covered in cat hair, which, at my parents' house, would be a feat to pull off.) (No offense, Mom.)

But back to the pee.

My sister and I wondered for the longest time if it was just us (meaning just our family) that got asparagus pee. Feared that we were smelly-peed freaks. Then she got married, and found out that her husband got it, too. I asked my friends and dates, and sure enough, they all had it, too. (I found out one boyfriend got it when he peed in the shower -- p.u.!) We began to wonder if asparagus pee was the opposite of that weirdo science experiment in fifth grade, where you either tasted the nasty, bitter, icky, putrid chemical (me) or not (far too many others for me to feel comfortable).

To quell our worried minds, I did a little research, and found this:

"This question has baffled scientists for over half a century. In 1956, British researchers divided the population into two categories: excretors (those whose urine smells after they eat asparagus) and nonexcretors (asparagus eaters who remain odor free). Since there’s no documentation of the asparagus-pee phenomenon before the 1700s, about the time farmers began using sulfur to fertilize soil, this and subsequent studies hypothesized that a particular gene allows people to process a sulfur-containing compound in asparagus (most likely asparagusic acid). The theory was that if you have that gene, your pee won’t stink. However, they were relying on the test subjects’ own reports and weren’t considering the subjects’ ability to smell.

In 1980, Israeli researchers performed a similar experiment but asked the nonexcretors to smell the excretors’ urine. Shockingly, they found that everyone’s urine smells after eating asparagus; it’s just that some people can’t smell it. So they, too, divided the world into two camps: perceivers and nonperceivers." (from http://www.chow.com/stories/10415)

So there you have it, folks. Hap-pee Easter!

*Asparagus is a little too expensive for my regular budget, especially at Steve's C-Town (Town Town).

on singleness and chocolate

A vegan chocolate cake recipe that is surprisingly good:

1 1/2 cups of flour

3/4 cups of sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon of baking soda

3 Tablespoons of cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon vinegar

1 cup water

Mix them all together and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

(I bring this up because the odds are good that you have all these ingredients at home, sitting there waiting for you. And you don't need any of the fancy ones, like butter, eggs, milk, pudding, etc. I'm just saying that, in a pinch, this satisfies one's need for chocolate.)

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I would like men to come with manuals. (Ha! MAN-uals!) They think we're confusing, but if we're confusing, it's only because they're bewildering.

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Names I never want to scream in passion in the heat of the moment:

Harold

Howard

Norman

Walter

Horace

Herman

Mohammed

Luigi

Jesus

Big Papa

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One problem with being single and living alone is that if you buy a bag of chocolate chips, accidentally open them, and then proceed to eat the entire bag, you have no one else to blame but yourself. Nobody came along and ate "just a handful." Sure, you may have dropped one or two, but not three hundred calories' worth.

Nope, you (and you alone) ate that whole bag. (It's amazing, though, how they can cram such a small bag full of 1400 chips -- knowing that each one only has one calorie...)

on chickens and eggs (but mostly eggs)

I've been a vegetarian for over a year now, so if there's one thing I know how eat, it's eggs. A major source of protein in my diet, these small ovules are delicious, nutritious, and constantly available in refrigerators near you. (And, of course, when I say "you," I mean "me.")

So when a suitor sent me a link on how to cook the perfect boiled egg (telling me, strangely, that the article made him think of me), I figured it had to be funny or particularly well written (since the topic was less than scintillating). Because it's really not hard to boil eggs. To quote a GEENYUS, "it's not rocket surgery."

Sadly, the article did not rock my world. (No offense J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.) I thought it would suggest hard boiling eggs with rocket fuel or in the microwave or something new-fangled and exciting. Instead, it merely proposed not bringing the water to a boil when hard boiling eggs, providing lots of attractive scientific method to prove the goodness of this idea. So, even though it seemed painfully counter intuitive, I was willing to try J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's method. (Because, realistically, I liked the suitor and thought it would give us something to talk about.)

I have had the worst week of hard boiled eggs in my life.

The method of hard boiling the eggs proposed by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt did not get my eggs cooked all the way through. So while the yolk is less dry and more appealing, THE WHITES ARE GOOPY.

Nobody likes goopy whites. Nobody. Homeless people scoff at goopy whites, and even Sally Struthers' starving children are skeptical. Chickens will drown themselves in a rainstorm before claiming to have produced a goopy-whited egg. So needless to say, I've been miserable.

The other problem is that the shells stick to the whites. And to a hungry girl in the middle of the afternoon, there is little more frustrating than taking an item of food that is a mere two cubic inches and trying to peel away a fraction of a millimeter of that food, only to have about a cubic inch of food stuck to the peelings.

I am not pleased, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. Not pleased at all.

(And things didn't work out with the suitor, either.)

I blame summer

My brain is turning somewhat to mush. I blame summer.

But that's neither here nor there. Look at what you can do on Facebook!

Hooray! I love to poke fanny!

And now that you know what you CAN do, here are some things you can't do in the state of New Jersey:

1. Throw a bad pickle in the streets of Trenton
2. Be a cat and not wear a bell to alert the birds of your whereabouts in Cresskill
3. Frown in Bernards Township

Who knew?

And you probably CAN eat this, but why would you, ever??
Caffeinated Beef Jerky! (Run!!!!)

And, as Fernando said this afternoon, "I think I've caused enough dumb for one day."

baby, it's snurshy outside

Snurshy [sner-shee] –adjective, snursh⋅i⋅er, snursh⋅i⋅est. Of or pertaining to the rainy, slushy, snowy, sleety mix falling from the sky today. At one point the snowflakes were so big we thought it was raining meatballs with alfredo sauce.

In an effort of self-diversion (I recently ended a nascent relationship and I feel, well, snurshy) I bring you the following:

1. The foley artists for Titanic, Poseidon Adventure and The Abyss have forsaken those movies and taken up residence in my microwave. For some reason, when the rotating plate goes around and around, the creaking/whining/creepy soundtrack it emits causes the rats and roaches to all head for the hills and my neighbors start lowering liferafts.

It's odd.

2. I've seen too much homeless butt today. More in numbers and square footage than I care to discuss.

3. I did my first improv show in about eight years tonight and I have to say, it felt pretty good! Unfortunately, I asked too much of my deodorant (having gone to the gym beforehand) so perhaps it didn't smell quite as good as it looked.

4. So, after a whole day of eating mostly cookies and rosemary squash lasagna, I had pretty much sworn off the cookies we frosted this weekend, but tonight, I played right into the devil's hands. I ate a cookie. By tomorrow, I'll be about forty pounds heavier and missing a cookie or twelve. (Don't worry, I'll take pictures.)

5. At my office holiday party last night, I thought I might have to call the EMTs. A big mucky-muck partner was on the dance floor flailing about so wildly that I was sure he was in coronary distress. Thank goodness for the female associate drunk enough to practially perform CPR on him while his wife looked on from the sidelines! (Yay, Office Politics!)

6. Also at my holiday party, I discussed the fact that the number of fuckable coworkers at my firm are somewhere between none and zero. As a torture device, my friend made me come up with a list of five partners I'd sleep with. On that list are a couple of decent human beings, but there's also this one partner who thinks he's hot shit on the dancefloor. At the holiday parties, he likes to work it -- especially with all the hot ladies of color at our firm. (Fine by me, as it spares me the fun of dancing with him myself.)

A couple of glasses of wine into the party, I pridefully added him to my list, "just to show him what a white girl could do."

Which, I'll add, is (in my case) NOT DANCE.

No! Frosting! 'Till Brooklyn!

Third time's a charm, they always say, and after Saturday's Third Annual Cookie Party, I have to agree! (See 2006 and 2007)

This year's festivities kicked off with the corresponding arrival of Lisa R. (with her elves Max and Charlie) and the completion of the Rosemary Butternut Squash Lasagna. Which was more delightful? Hard to say. Which made me happier? Hard to say. Which smelled better? Um, no comment.

Max went straight to the tree and found his favorite non-breakable ornaments, and put them on. "Fabulous," I crooned, "just fabulous!" He then proceeded to create presents for everyone by hiding magnets from my fridge inside of two stocking ornaments on the tree. (Very creative!)

The next froster to arrive was Kiara, who had experienced some extraordinary train karma and made the trip from Washington Heights to the southern reaches of Park Slope in forty-five minutes. Yes you heard me right -- FORTY FIVE MINUTES. On a weekend. Uphill. Barefoot. (This is truly unheard of in my many years of traveling to the great northern wilds.)

Next came Lisa B. and Avery For them, I have written a song to be sung to the tune of "Ebony and Ivory":

Lisa B. and Avery

Frosting cookies for kids like you and me

Side by side at my kitchen table...

They won't look at meeeeeee

The frosting was flowing freely, and the cookies started looking great. After a couple of hours, though, we realized that Keri wasn't there. When I texted her to find out if she had been waylaid by her boyfriend in the park (see last year's adventure here), she told me that she had the flu and strep throat and a variety of other forms of potential death, and so I told her to stay home and get better, that we would frost some cookies in her honor.

So we did.

We frosted lots of cookies. (Please note the ghost in there -- that's the Ghost of Christmas Past.)

Max did a great job frosting cookies. Charlie wanted to contribute too, so he tossed his cookies. Twice. (Your favorite puke-o-phobe stayed cool as a cucumber, though!)

Here he is, handing out cottage cheese lids. With a face like this, you want twelve, don't you?

After several hours of frosting, garlic-mint potatoes and fish soup (in addition to lasagna), we were finally done. It was time to choose a winner.

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!

Ladies and Gentlemen, the winners in the Best Non-Traditional category:

Glove (by Kate), Loving Max and Loving Kate (by Lisa R.), OCD Boot (by Avery) and Menorah Star (by Lisa R.)

The winners in the Best People Category:

I Heart NY Guy (by Avery), Old Guy in Pajamas (by Kate), Red Guy (by Kate), Lisa and Charlie (by Lisa R.), Guy in Tie (by Kate)

The best Traditional Cookies:

Christmas Tree (by Kate), Candy Cane (by Kate), Sparkly Lightbulb (by Kiara), Little Tree (by Kate) and Amazing Angel (by Kiara).

A new category was added this year to accomodate our up-and-coming frosters, which caused a little bit of confusion and a lot of asking, "Max, did you frost this one?"

The Best Cookies in the Six-and-Under Category:

White Blobby Guy (by Max), Y B Stripey (by Max), Bootload of Frosting (by Max) and Oops My Dress Fell Off and Now I'm Embarrassed (by Max).

And the winners in everybody's favorite category: The Ugliest!

Candy Cane (by Kiara), Glove with Bloody Nails (by Kate), Creepy Glove (by Lisa R.) and Clean-Up-The-Sprinkles-On-The-Table Boot (by Kate).

I have to say, these do not quite live up to the uglies of years past.

No longer a novice at this Shitload of Sugar thing, I paced myself considerably better this year and shoved more lasagna into my mouth than really should be legal. All of which is to say: No Headache!

Having no headache, of course, allowed me to get all trashied up and head out to a White Trash Christmas Party that night. Witness:

(You'll notice I'm pointing to some cookies that were freshly frosted that day!)

And in honor of the fact that there are only two days left to shop on Amazon.com and still get free super-saver shipping, I bring you my tree:

Feel free to send me lots and lots of presents to put in the empty space underneath it.

let this be a lesson for you

"This is what we do with recalcitrant plums around here," I said.

("Sticking to the pan is what we do around here," said the recalcitrant plums, thumbing their plum noses at me.)

that magnificent window

I am grateful for two very important windows today.

First, the cable guy actually came in the 8-12 window as was promised me.

And second, the plums have finally seemed to reach their ripening-but-not-yet moldering window.
This bodes well.

hi lights!

I’ve been reading book three of Teenage Vampires (and Werewolves) In Love, so I’ve been very busy. (Ok, ok, it’s actually called Eclipse, by Stephanie Meyer, and I can’t help it that I’m a sucker for teen fiction.) I pried myself away from the book for a few minutes, though, to share with you some powerful reflections. (Which vampires do have, in this book, by the way.)

1. It’s funny how different things make different people lonely. For me, not having any plans all day and all night makes me feel really lonely. My friend, though? She feels lonely when she logs on to Facebook and sees that people she’s called have time to play on the internet, but not time to call her back. Another friend? He feels lonely when he goes out and can’t find anyone at the bar that he knows. Another friend gets lonely when her boyfriend’s away on business. It’s interesting to note what, specifically, triggers loneliness.

2. The other day I splurted a little bit of yogurt onto my keyboard. Not enough to cause a short circuit, but enough to drip down between the keys. I grabbed a letter opener and started prying off the yogurt-covered keys in order to de-Axelrod them, and promptly beaned myself in the eyeball with a lemony R. Awesome. (It hurt way more than I think you might be imagining.)

3. Do you ever walk into a grocery store and think, “Soon, all of this will be either trash or poop”?

4. No mints grow in winter. No mints taste like winter. So why the hell is there a “wintermint” flavor?

5. I have these three plums in my kitchen that have petulantly and steadfastly been refusing to ripen. Two weeks now, we’re talking! I imagine the memos exchanged between them:

From: Plum One
To: Plums Two & Three
Re: Our Mission

Well done, Plums. We have successfully remained here for two weeks now. The end is in sight!

Do not forget: Our mission is to stay as hard and yet get as mealy as possible. This is crucial to our survival. Do not give in to softening temptations. Do not even think of releasing ripening hormones.

If we succeed, we will be thrown out and turned into compost. If we fail… Stomach Acid.
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(Little do the plums know that if they fail in NYC, it’s not compost, it’s rats. Sorry little plums.)

a culinary mistaken identity

I bake a lot. (If we haven’t established this already, it’s probably worth mentioning it again. I. Bake. A. Lot.)

Saturday morning I sat down with my cookbooks and plotted the best way to make some stuff I had never attempted before. I selected an orange and rhubarb coffee cake (not knowing the first thing about rhubarb), banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting (because I knew my friend would like them), and peanut cookies (because a tub of peanut butter is a dangerous thing to leave me alone with). I headed out to the grocery store with my list, and procured everything I needed. As I headed to the produce section, I followed the sign to rhubarb, and saw a picture of a red-stemmed leafy vegetable, so I picked it up, put it in my cart, bought it and went home.
Now, I don’t know rhubarb’s ass from its elbow. How do you clean it? Cook it? Trim it? I consulted a number of resources online about what to do with the leaves (theirs didn’t seem to have any, but mine did, so I just cut them off and chucked them -- they smelled really bitter anyway). I chopped up the red, veiny stalks, tossed them in with the rest of the ingredients, baked it and gave the cake a try when it was done. Delicious!

The cupcakes, too, were terrific, and the peanut butter cookies (with rice krispies in them) were a great hit.

Then today, while on a stroll down a major street in my neighborhood, I passed an organic food market, that had rhubarb in it (that matched the pictures I had seen online). They also had the vegetable I had chopped up and put into my cake, which was decidedly NOT rhubarb.

So tomorrow at work, I will be serving Orange and Swiss Chard Coffee Cake.

(I’m thinking of calling it Torte a L’orange et Chard. Hey, if it’s Fronch, who are they to question it?)

In my defense:
Rhubarb:

Swiss chard:

awesomest photo of the season (so far)

So Awesome.

So awesome, in fact, that I couldn’t decide whether this should go under "Art and Photography," "Food and Restaurants" or "Parties and Nightlife."

It’s aptly titled: Peep Show

Happy Pending Easter, everyone!

adventures in cheesemaking

I made cheese tonight.

(And no, that's not a euphemism for some bodily function.)

A few weeks ago, I read a book that extolled the virtues of eating locally (Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) and one of the things the author talks about is making her own cheese with her daughters. It sounded like fun, so I ordered a cheesemaking kit, bought myself some milk and made some cheese.

Sort of.

First things first, the instructions said I should use a pot that wasn't aluminum or cast iron. I don't exactly have one of those. So I did the best I could, and the curds and whey (they really are called curds and whey) separated apart the way they were supposed to. That was promising, so I moved on to the step where you're supposed to put the curds in the microwave, drain off more whey, work it into a ball with your hands and then keep microwaving, draining, kneading and repeating until the cheese reaches 135 degrees.

That was my second mistake.

The directions suggest that when the cheese gets too hot to handle, you use rubber gloves. Well, I don't own rubber gloves. So when the cheese got too hot to handle, I got super-classy on its ass. I put on a winter glove and stuck it into a plastic bag and used that.

I worked the one big curd (and by "big" I mean "not much more than a fistful") until it was just sticking like glue to the plastic bag. I thought perhaps it was just too hot, and if I just let it cool off a little bit, it would be fine.

That was my third mistake.

By the end, my mistakes combined to make a really tasty ricotta-rella that wasn't exactly ricotta, but wasn't quite mozzarella either. But boy will it be tasty on toast!

what is the limit of human food consumption?

I've been away from work for six days now, and have an additional five days before I have to go back. I would like to think I have used this time constructively, clearing up the odds and ends of 2007, getting my house in order (as they say) and spending a terrific christmas with my family.
Alas, I have done only one of those. Instead, I have spent the time successfully turning myself into a slug. A cookie-eating, nut-devouring, snack-munching slug. To borrow (and tweak)a phrase from a friend, I have become "a mindless food hoover." It got so bad that Monday and Tuesday were No Nuts Days and Wednesday was a No Cookies Day.

And along with this crazy eating pattern I've fallen into (i.e., eat everything all day along), I've developed a wild case of boredom. I know! My life's too short and I have too much to do and accomplish and focus on to spend so much time bored. But it's that irritating Cyclical Suck kind of boredom, where I could get up and do something, but I don't have the energy. Because I still have FIVE DAYS before I have to go back to my regular life.

It's weird. And it begs the question: why is there "apathy" but not just regular "pathy"?
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Meanwhile, I've become a sap. I can't even watch TV without getting torn up inside. In my defense, though, have you seen that diamond commercial where the couple's inside the car and it's snowing out, and they're holding hands and he slips the seven-whatever-engagmentversary pendant into her hand while the heartbroken male singer starts croaking out a song about how he might be falling in love with me? (Um, I mean, her?) Yeah, that's what I want. And I want to be lost in the desert, dehydrated and broken armed, only to wake up in a medivac copter to the face of the one man who loves me more than anyone else in the world.

(Ok, fine, I'll skip the whole desert/copter/dehydrated/CSI bit and go straight for the loves-me-more-than-anything part. Is that so wrong?)
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And doubly meanwhile, I think the mouse might be back. (I found little poos near my blender. What, may I ask, is there to eat near my blender??)
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I got on a bus today going in the wrong direction. At the last stop, the bus driver shouted "last stop!" so I got off the bus, watched it turn around and go back in the other direction, not even taking long enough in its turn for me to catch it on the other side of the street. I acknowledge that it was entirely my fault for getting on the bus going the wrong way, but if it was clear enough to the driver that I didn't realize this was the last stop, don't you think it would then have been clear to him that he should have stopped on the other side of the street to let me back on? Luckily, I didn't care much (hell, I still have FIVE DAYS in which to get all my stuff done) but it did get a little chilly walking along, waiting for the next bus.
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Seen on the back of a van today: "Where the Pro's Go!"
Clearly, it's not where the Grammar Pros go.
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I watched my favorite movie from childhood today: Nadia. It's the story of Nadia Comaneci, the Romania gymnast who got perfect 10s in everything for years in a row in the 70s. And then she drank bleach because her life was going to shit! I'm not kidding, this movie has easily the WORST script in recorded history, and yet, I still remembered it. Especially the yelling (of which there is plenty) and the syrupy, intentionally heart-string-pulling moments.

And yeah, even 23 years later, I teared up in all the right places.

Sucker. (see above)

ho ho oh my tummy!

A Recipe:

3/4 cup butter
1/4 cup milk
2t vanilla
9 cups powdered sugar
4 awesome friends
16,349,271 cookies


Combine first four ingredients, and add to food coloring in five different bowls. Slowly add friends (one of whom got a little lost on the way and stumbled across a lovely neighborhood man masturbating in the park, and another of whom asked for directions near the subway and was answered by a woman whose mouth was entirely filled with gold -- and I have the audacity to say I live in Park Slope??). Start frosting the 16,349,271 cookies.
I had my Second Annual Cookie Decorating Party today, and the results were just as spectacular as last year's. If you recall, there was a great deal of sugar ingested, and some moaning in agony several hours later. I think much of that was curttailed this year by the introduction of several savory foods, and some bloody marys. But maybe I am only speaking for myself...
(Some participants were better prepared than others, simply for having gone through the agony of the tummyache last year. This unnamed participant was not one of them.)


One of the best parts about this year's party was that it combined five of my favorite women, none of whom had met each other. So it was an opportunity for my worlds to really collide -- with frosting!
Andrea (above) was a meticulous decorator, creating this year's Best In Show. However, her perfectionism kept her low on the productivity scale. Keri was a little slow to get the creativity flowing (her first cookie, Christmas Rock, was one of the winners in the Ugliest category), but once the roll started, there was no stopping her. Lisa got onto a piping kick -- so much so that we were considering an entirely new category called Best OCD, in which the only contenders belonged to Lisa and Andrea. Ruthann showed some serious growth since last year, not making a single black cookie this year. And me? Well, I think I stuck like to glue to my traditional theme -- after all, I do eventually want to eat or give away these cookies. (Too many ugly ones and your options are limited.)

But enough build up! The envelope, please!

In the Best Traditional category we have:

Santa (by Kate), Menorah (by Lisa), Ice Skate (by Ruthann) and Christmas Tree (by Kate).

In the Best Non-Traditional category we have:
Boot (by Ruthann), Hugging Stars (or Fucking Stars, depending on who you ask) (by Andrea), Gray Christmas Tree (by Keri)

I would like, ex post facto, to add another contender to the Best Non-Traditionals, the Flipping-You-The-All-American-Christmas-Bird-Turned-Into-A-Dreidel (by Lisa)
(Perhaps you can see how this cookie was made from a hand and then turned itself around, through love, dedication and hard work, into a festively American dreidel. Perhaps not.)

A new category this year -- Best Gingerfolk:
Generic Vet (by Andrea), Rock Star in a Monokini (by Ruthann), Chest Hair Man (by Andrea) and Kate's Ice Skating Date (by Kate) (duh).

Everyone's Favorites, of course -- Ugliest!
There was an almost clean sweep in this category. Christmas Pile (by Ruthann), The Statue of Liberty (by Keri), Christmas Rock (by Keri) and Swamp Thing (by Keri).

And of course, everyone's favorite, Best In Show:
This is Suburban Mom (with fanny pack, festive sweater and easy-to-manage hairdo) (by Andrea).

I love this party for several reasons -- 1) it gets me to clean my house, 2) it lets me spend time with my fabulous friends doing something creative, 3) I get cookies, 4) it forces my friends to drag their butts to my house (from as far away as Columbia and the Bronx!), 5) I get cookies, 6) my friends get to hang out with each other, and 7) I get cookies.

I feel really lucky to have the friends I do. And I will throw this party every year if I have to put on 75 pounds each December to do it. My friends are worth it!

scary ass candy

I've been meaning to take pictures of this and post it here ever since halloween, but I haven't gotten around to it -- either out of fear, or a sense of admiring awe. (Hard to tell. Sometimes those get confusing.)

Someone in my office was giving out little gummy food items for halloween -- ice cream cones, hamburgers, milkshakes, etc. They were all really cute, and somewhat tasty, actually. But there was one among them that was just too scary (and repulsive) to just pop into your mouth without adequate reflection (and photo opportunities).

I bring you... (drumroll please)... THE PHILLY CHEESESTEAK!

At first glance it's a mere hotdog. But after some label-reading, I discovered it was, in fact, a philly cheese steak.

Even more frightening out of its wrapper, the cheese steak haunts me now. Mostly because, once I took it apart, only one image stuck with me, and the only phrase I can come up with to describe it would have to be "vaguely-syphilitic"

But if you're sitting on the edge of your seats wondering the same thing I was...

Yes, it was quite tasty.

more entertaining utter uselessness

I was recently complaining to a coworker about how stupid some other coworkers were and I said to him, "I mean, come on, it's not like it's rocket surgery!"

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I think it's sad when the only action you're getting is from your dental floss:
(and when the screen on your camera phone is so small you can't tell when something is in or out of focus...)

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Remember my animal crackers? They've been in the bag together too long, and I think they're getting randy!

I can't say that I blame them, though. I've always been a big fan of hot monkey on hippo action. (lion on guinea pig action? squirrel on cow action?)

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I was on a date the other night, telling one of my favorite stories of all time, and the Frank I was on the date with cut me off halfway through. And I'm all for chiming in when you're excited about what you're hearing, but I also believe there needs to be some circling back to where the original story was left off. Otherwise it feels like you're not listening to me.

So, in honor of interrupting cows -- I mean, boys -- everywhere, I bring you the full story:
I used to live one block further south than I do now, and on my way home, I used to pass a small produce store, run by an overly friendly Korean woman who spoke both English and Spanish (and, of course, Korean). I was a very regular customer, and she often plied me with chocolate bars, compliments or other niceties you might share with your top shoppers.

Our conversation was always very mundane -- the weather, the neighborhood, the price of cantaloupes. It was a formality that was comfortable. I knew her well enough to greet her in passing, but not well enough that I actually knew anything about her. One day, however, she crossed some imaginary line and took up residence at the corner of Don't Go There Lane and No She Didn't Avenue.

I happened to walk out of the house one morning sporting the largest Mt. Vesuvius my forehead had ever seen. I mean, this zit was so big, it throbbed. It impinged my line of sight. It was colossal. I did my best to cover it up, but there was really no hiding it, so I just pretended it wasn't there and went on with my day.

Until I got to the produce store. The first thing the shopkeeper said to me was, "You have beeg peempill on your foh-head!"

I stared at her, shocked. After twenty seconds, I picked my jaw up off the floor and said, "You don't tell people that! They already know!" I paid for my goods, stormed out the door and contemplated never going back.

Of course I went back (her fruit was so much cheaper than anyone else's) but from that point on, I dubbed her Inappropriate Vegetable Lady, and was braced for whatever was going to fall out of her mouth next.

"You very beeg," she said, making the hubba-hubba-big-tits gesture with her hands. "I no think so 'cause you so skeeeeny!"

I made the mistake of telling her I was single. "You no maddied? You preeeety girl. You should be maddied. Make man buy food for you to cook."

I made the mistake of telling her I had a date. "Where he take you? 'Spensive dinner? They no pay, they no good."

I made the mistake of taking a boyfriend in with me to shop. "You maddy her? You very lucky. She very beautiful." And in the same visit, "You two look like brother-sister."

Eventually I took to lying to her. Yes, I lied, he buys me things. Yes, I told her, he's moving in. Yes, I dug the hole deeper, I'm engaged.

Finally, I moved up the street. No longer passing her store on a daily basis, I found it much easier to just never go back. And although the folks at Steve's C-Town (Town Town) are efficient, cheap and non-intrusive, occasionally I suffer a wave of nostalgia for Inappropriate Vegetable Lady, and wonder what on earth she would come up with if I strolled into her store today.

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My sister is turning into my mother. Last night I talked to her on the phone and she told me three different times that her wig had arrived from Hong Kong just that very day. (which was funny enough just hearing it once.) My mother would say my sister has a case of "youngsheimers."

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How's this for an awesome quote?

"One thing is certain: To the person with an unshakable faith that something wonderful is going to happen, something wonderful is happening." -- Eric Butterworth

a plague, a cake, a hero, panama!

I have the plague!

It's true! I went to the doctor today and she said, "No More Monkeys Jumpin' on the Bed!"

No, wait, that's not what she said. She said (without touching me once), "why are you here?"

"Potential sinus infection."

"How long have you been sick?"

"About five days."

"What color is your mucus?"

"Mostly clear, kind of yellow."

"Facial pain?"

"Yes. Here." I pointed to my face, in a vain dumbshow, as she wasn't even looking in my direction.

"Ok, well, it's viral. Nothing we can do about that. But I will write you a prescription in case your mucus starts turning green."

"Don't you want to touch me?"

"No."

"Has all that we've shared together meant so little to you?"

"No. I just don't want to touch you. I'm actually a robot, and not a doctor at all. But shut up and leave or you'll have taken longer than your lunch hour."
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Ugly Cake's Twin Sister.

Last night I didn't go see Spoon in the rain (because it would be at Stuyvesant High School and I'd have to have a ticket and we all remember what happened last time...) (if you don't remember, "last time" was when I went to see John Pizzarelli and I actually had a really good time, but I liked the way "we all remember what happened last time" sounded as I wrote it.)
So I went home. And I baked. And I baked and baked and baked. And I brought the cake in to work this morning (kind of like Bring Your Daughter To Work Day, except it was Bring Your Ugly Cake to Work Day), and sent out the following email to my coworkers about the cake:

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK -- Last night, disaster struck a small apartment in the South Park Slope section of Brooklyn. An isolated incident, the unspecified and mysterious disaster was restricted to the oven and cooling rack of a recovering actress/baker named Kate Surgeon.

"When I put the cake in, I thought, well, ok, I altered the recipe a little," said Ms. Surgeon, covered head to toe in flour, "but I didn't think THIS would happen!"

Authorities reported to the scene to find what could only be described as the Ugliest Cake Kate's Baked Yet.

"That cake has no head!" shouted one EMT, as he swooned with disbelief.

"Yeah, but it's filled with pineapple and cocount goodness!" responded the hottest firefighter in Kate's Imagination, as he clutched the young woman in his arms and whisked her away to --
Oh, sorry. Got carried away there.

I have (ugly) cake.
kate

Don't believe me?
Original Ugly Cake:

Ugly Cake's (Fraternal) Twin Sister:
(I find it particularly appealing in this bizarro color scheme)
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My Newest Hero
This morning, on my way to work, I realized I had not turned my cellphone on all day yesterday. So when I did, in fact, turn it on, I was mid-walk to the subway. And in yanking it out of my bag, I also managed to yank out the little holder that has my metrocard, ID, library card, building pass and gym membership card. Except I didn't realize I had done this.

When I got to the subway and found myself bereft of said items, I tore ass back up the stairs and headed focusedly towards the spot where I got my phone out. My panic was building with each step -- my identity could be stolen, someone could pretend to be me and take hundreds of books out of the library, work out until she was sore and ride the subway for free for the next 16 days -- until I ran into an angel.

"Are you Katherine?" she asked, floating about two inches off the ground, swathed in the most beautiful light and accompanied by choirs of small angels on the harp.

"OH MY GOD, YOU'RE MY HERO!!!"

I fell prostrate in front of her, pledged my neverending love and gratitude to her and thanked her until I was sure she was going to push me in front of the next oncoming train (but not without grabbing my ID holder back before doing so -- underneath all the angel there was the gleam of a feindish reader-but-not-returner). I totally would have offered her my cake, but, well, it was ugly, and somehow didn't seem worthy of her.

Of the many things I am grateful for today (including the break in the weather, not having to take antibiotics and having delicous cake for breakfast), I am most grateful for her.

Whoever you are, I love you! (And I'm pretty sure the NYPL does, too!)

scratch-n-sniff neighborhood

Either I recently quit smoking (without ever knowing I smoked in the first place) or the trees have stopped having sex long enough for me to breathe freely again. Whatever happened, I started to really smell my life again recently. And let me tell you this: I live in a smelly, smelly world.

A useful tidbit from Kate State University [This one's for free. The next will cost you partial tuition.]: The reason smells evoke such strong memories is that the part of your brain that processes smell hangs out right near the part of your brain that processes emotional memory. So that wiff of cookies baking? The recognition of that kicks a little part of your hippocampus (Mr. Emotional Memory) and it digs through its files (really quickly) and comes up with Mom. And the Kitchen. And You (in your 80s-licious garb, those like fluorescent mickey mouse tube socks! Yeeeeah!)

So... my smelly world. There's a bakery near my house, and when I run around the cemetery, the 11th of the 12 sides always smells like brioche. So I run faster, like the donkey with the carrot danging in front of it, in hopes that magically there will be brioche at home. (There never is.)

They must also make jelly donuts. Because the other night I came home and for three blocks, all I could smell were lucious, goopey jelly donuts. (No, there weren't any at home when I got there, either.)

So last night, when I got home, the whole hood smelled of play-dough. Weirder still? My whole house was full of it when I got there.

(No, it wasn't.)

Completely unrelatedly, in a search for jelly donuts online, I found this picture and it made me happy, so I share it here with you:

further drivel

On the way to work today, I saw someone who had "Naval Militia" license plates. (I also saw someone walking his dogs in bare feet, who let them poop on the sidewalk and then didn't clean it up, but he and his karmic ringworm-yet-to-come are another story). The Naval Militia plates got me thinking that I'd like to be in the Navel Militia. Where everyone wages war by flinging the lint from their bellybuttons at one another.

Unrelatedly, I started taking psychology classes at Kate State University. Sure, ok, I'm my own professors, and I have to listen to A LOT of podcasted lectures, but some of them are really interesting, and already I've discovered that I have seventeen different symptoms of a variety of mental disorders. Luckily, none of them add up to very much. But you know you're dorking out when you wake up after 11 hours of (much-needed) sleep and say "Ack! I'm a hyper-somniac! I must be depressed!" (I suppose, however, that it's better than waking up alone and saying "Ack! Who the hell are you?!? I must be schitzophrenic!" but perhaps only marginally.)

Also unrelatedly, I have to stop baking for a while. This weekend I produced some orange cupcakes (quite tasty) and some sweet pea cupcakes (green and fabulous!) Now why, you ask, if these cupcakes are so terrific, do I have to stop baking them? Don't be dense, it's Pending Bathing Suit Season and cupcakes do not a tankini-bod make. But you know how it goes, you think, "oh, I'm not making these for me, they don't really count. And, really, I'm just licking the spoon, how bad can that be?"

You're not just licking the spoon, now, are you?

Lecture over. Suffice it to say, the baked goods that appear at my desk today may mark a very sugar-free May.

Besides, I'll be very busy in the ROTC program at Kate State. Who knows? I may even be called up for Navel Militia service.

tasty chinatown!

Saturday was the annual Taste of Chinatown festival, so Lisa and I each strapped on a feed bag, met up with her husband, RJ, and walked through the streets of Chinatown with our mouths open. To quote Lisa, it was "delish!"

Our first stop was somewhere along Baxter Street, and, according to the map of the festival, wasn't actually a participant in the event. Whatever, it was still tasty! We ate these FABULOUS steamed spring rolls with shrimp and bean sprouts and a tolerable hint of cilantro in this gorgeous dipping sauce... for a dollar.

Yeah, see, that's the beauty of the Taste of Chinatown -- every dish is either a dollar or two dollars. Can't go anywhere near wrong with that.

After that, we hit Vegetarian Dim Sum House which, when you look at the menu online, claims to have been serving Beef w/Rice Noodles, Shark Fin Soup and Mango Pudding. (An odd offering for Vegetarian Dim Sum House, but hell, it's Chinatown.) I have no idea what we actually ate, but it was fried, and mushy, and melty-in-your-mouthy, and I wanted about seventeen more of them. (They were, in fact, serving mango pudding, as RJ tried to eat it with his lungs. Not a good tactic.)

Then came Sanur, a Malaysian restaurant that I desperately want to go back to. We got a rice/bean/pork/mushroom mixture that had been cooked in a banana leaf. Yumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyummmmmmmmmmmmmm. (That's Malaysian for "I think I'm in love.")

Seventy nine dumplings and fourteen vats of mai fun later, we were stuffed to the gills, when we discovered a Peking duck stand. Lisa got herself a sandwich, and I went across the street and got myself the weirdest, most fabulous desert I've had in a while. It was this sweet little ball, wobbly and solid, like a jello-y paste, covered in coconut and full of sweet peanuts. Oh. My. God. I definitely died and went to heaven.

Now, we didn't really focus on the live performances (although RJ did note that one of the drummers in the seemingly-all-Asian drumming circle was definitely Causcasian), but which of these would you have lined up for a Taste of Chinatown?

1:00 PMPat Cannon's Foot and Fiddle Dance Company: "American Footsteps," American folk dances and their European African and Native American cultural origins. [um, no.]

2:00 PM VariAsians: Asian American A capella group. [sure, yes, definitely]

3:00 PMMexico Beyond Mariachi: The colorful culture of Mexico through song and dance. [um, no.]

4:00 PMDarrah Carr Dance: Champion Irish step dancers. [um, no, lassie.]

5:00 PM Taikoza: Japanese festival "taiko" drums. [this is the one with the white guy in it]

I think they should probably just stick to food. Because that, they definitely know how to do!