This is the thread where I say (pt. 3)

Farmer's market! Fresh good food! Happy Ned.

Ahhh, much better. So I tells Nick, I tells him, "Go make me a water!" And he asks me, "How do I MAKE water?" And I say, "Go pour the water in the glass, add ice, give it to me!" So he does, but he gets the water out of the tap so it's hot and icky. BLEACH!LKJ I mean BLECH! Not BLEACH! cuz that wouldn't make sense now would it?

These don't play the Beatles, but they're kind of cool. My Casio is all chipped to hell anyway, so I guess the difference between a $15 watch and a $50 watch isn't so huge when I need a new one as it is.

This or this or this look really cool, though!

I have permanent watch-untan. I have no sense of time whatsoever: if not for my watch and the system tray clock, I'd be lost.

I can tell night from day, but ask me to do something "an hour from now" and you better make sure I have a watch on :)

I need to start drinking.

Houston, we have lift off...

Don't make me have sex with an Allman brother, please.

... okay, so the options suck.

I hear that's okay.

Anyway, lots of love to everyone. Must go to sleep now.

I love my surroudnings. Freinds, bar, exes, loves. My life is good. GET IN ME!!

I'm pissed off because I think Hanle y is a childish waste of space, but obviously there are great things about him cos so many cool people like himn. What am I missing?

I am extremely depressed and somewhat angry that friends of mine are now raging at each other, the more so because the cause is easy to see.

Mark, I know it means different things in different places, but you really must never refer to me as a Yankee again, even by implication :)

The misusage of "get in" is deliberate, though -- I saw "get in, me," ignored the comma, thought it was funny, and have just used it that way since. I figure it'd be just as screwy for me to just arbitrarily adopt Scouse, so why not mess with it while I'm at it?

(I say this out loud all the time now, though, which is going to cause confusion I'm sure.)

Ditto what Ned said, about Hanle y and a bit of the other.

How about letting us in on the secret, Ned? What is the cause, because I sure as hell don't know.

I'm tired of being taken advantage of. I'm tired of never having money because my entire useless family borrows it from me because they're all to fucking lazy to work. It's not MY fault you have two kids and live a million miles away from here - get a fucking job and stop being such a cunt to everyone you know! This motherfucking car is such a piece of shit, I have to replace parts on it every two fucking seconds and I can't ever actually DRIVE it anywhere. Right now, I want to go bash it in with a baseball bat. As well as Eric's head. I'm just so fucking angry - I'm the only one who ever fucking does anything, but I'm also the one who gets shit on. I want to throw things and break something, it's an absolutely murderous rage anf I swear to christ, if one more person tells me to tell the fucktard ex to get a job, I will beat them senseless and then have an aneurysm. I'm so fucking ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My patience with ILE and sinister has reached an all time low. What does it mean. I dunno. I do know that I feel much more warmly toward my online friends than I do the communities as a whole right now.

Tep, if you mis-use "get in", i can misuse "yankee" ;)

Aw man, there's gotta be a compromise! How about just "yank"?

And Aimee, yes -- feel the love and rejoice that it's Sunday.

I feel much more warmly toward my online friends than I do the communities as a whole right now.

I'm that way about nearly everything, but this has been an odd weekend online as well.

It's late. Sunday. Tomorrow my son starts his last year of pre-school. He's not sleeping at my (what was "OUR") house tonight. I think this is the beginning of his mom kinda um taking him. I'm trying to not get really sad and shit, but...uh...

Cheer up, Luna. It's amazing how happy your posts make me and I've never even met you. I wish I could do the same for you when you get so upset.

And..."if you could save yourself, you'd save us all/is that what you called me for/is that why you're knocking on my door/the time I've spent working myself to death/thought that's what you wanted/thought you needed my help/to make it good again, to make us strong/to make you happy, to push you along/and gain some respect and be thrown a crumb/I was on my knees when you knocked me down..."

I have a weak spot here, a pet peeve I cannot control: nothing burrows under my skin quicker than the institutional assumption that a graduate student's time isn't valuable.

Want to come fix up my yard? My backyard looks so bleak and awful, yet I plan to have a cookout back there for my birthday party (which, of course, you guys are invited to). My downstairs neighbor cleaned it up, but now it's just dirt and moss instead of dirt, moss, and weeds.

I get not wanting to involve the law, nick, just ... be careful. You know. In general. And if you're pretty much accepting of it, then I gotta assume she's at least not going to do a bad job, it's more just the missing thing ... which isn't much fun either.

Sarah you'd be amazed what some strategically placed mulch and tiki torches can do to even the most desolate wasteland of a yard!

I think "welcome to _______, please don't puke" is something that should be said way more than it is. In fact, I'd like to start answering the phones this way at work, "Thank you for calling G&5 - please don't puke..."

I got free lunch today because my grandmother came and took me out before heading to the airport (and back to Denton, TX). Yum.

Dude is OLD.

I'm just twisted.

I hope ILX is a little more on the happy side today.

*carnival music erupts from speakers, blows a woofer, now the "doot doot doodydoody doot doot doo doo" is punctuated by paper-y flapping sounds*

Welcome the the annual Happy Tuesday ILX Fair! Cotton candy fer the young'uns? Beer bong fer the lady? Oooh look we've got Ted Nugent over here!

If'n you couldn't tell, I'm a little on the delirious-side this morning.

Aimee, hope your day gets better or has done so already.

Tep - dwarf cherries, you say? Color me intrigued.

Good morning, Luna!

I have an idea for a sauce and no idea what I want to put it on, or if I even feel like eating it as opposed to just cooking it (I get that way a lot). Shallots, Armagnac, cream, green peppercorns. Just that, and just so.

Meanwhile, I know it may cause you to lose respect for me, but dammit, I LIKE John Mayer.

I just found out my ex randomly ran into my best friend from college, online; they had never met before and didn't realize at first that they were, well, each other.

*I'm also now singing this song in my head. I hate you, Milkman Dan.

Oh but wait, I like Kelly Clarkson. A lot. So.

Ned, I hope your headache goes away. I've been addicted to Excedrin Migraine lately myself.

He was a sweet kid.

Oh yeah, the Happy Tuesday Day Annual ILX Fair continues! Come see the amazing internet typists! Let yourself be baffled by the injokes and pally-ness! Gaze in amusement at googled images placed in threads for comedic effect! Be rocked by the "Submit" button! Everything must go goin' outta bidniss goin' outta bidniss goin' outta bidniss we got bargaaaaains galooooooooooooooore.

PURPLE TOMATOES?!!

The only mix tape a girl ever made for me. The first song was "Lola". She didn't realize at the time that that song is about a man getting with a woman and realizing that woman's actually a man, baby, so it's much more sweet than most rockists would have you believe.

An Ani DiFranco postcard from the very early stages of a rather recent thing with this girl I had been friends with for years whom we both had secretly crushed on each other since high school but never did nothing about it, and then when things seemed to be going amazingly she just stopped talking to me altogether out of nowhere. She spells my name "Nickolas" in the postcard. I really should burn it, cuz the last line of it hints at what the future might have held. Fuck it.

A letter I wrote to my best friend when I was 14 telling him I quit our band; I was such a passive wuss back then I couldn't even tell him to his face. Of course he found out through his girlfriend what was up and confronted me 'bout it. That band was hella fun, in retrospect. Catchy retarded songs aplenty.

(x-post)

Oh right beer bong! Hey Paulo, go get the beer bong back, we've got a customer!

Paulo: But boss that dude had it in his mouth! He was all like "it tastes so good when it hits your lips"?

Happy Tuesday Day Ringleader: Well then get the executive beer bong from my trailer!

Paulo: The executive beer bong!?! SIR YES SIR!

(wow this is the best coffee I've ever drank in my whole life btw)

- Sometimes I am overly pedantic about religious studies type stuff, and worse, sometimes it is very difficult for me not to throttle people and shout, "God doesn't hate gays, God doesn't vote Republican, God doesn't care who you fuck, God doesn't care if you're wearing underwear, God's never even been to church, and there's no Biblical reason not to have sex before marriage -- and lots of it! And ... so there!" Most of the time, though, I manage it.

(and negatory good buddy on that alcoffeehol notion, 'tis merely some very STRONG Tanzanian Peaberry amazingness)

Tep, I wasn't in a good mood, then I let myself get carried away by a couple of threads. It happens :) I think I've burnt myself out though - maybe a read and a quick dinner and a long, long sleep.

Oh, I am so rocked by the "submit" button. Maybe I'll press it right now--whoooooooooo.

What babe?

The babe with the powah!

What powah?

The powah of...

*smacked in face*

And Labyrinth, yeah, geeeez. Fanatic Bowie fan + former parent + love the Muppets + born in the 70s = I frickin love Labyrinth.

"Me? I'm just a worm..."

http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/lobby/lobby12.gif

That doesn't make any sense at all.

True. I want some cake. I read a post earlier that just made me want to kick the guy's ass. Itdoesn'tmatteritdoesn'tmatteritdoesn'tmatter....

Yep, Sarah, when they cross the Bog of Eternal Stench

Well, you CAN, but... you know.

It doesn't type well.

(See, it's never "get in!" for some reason. Always get in. Full stop.)

Every time I hit the keys.

Stop being so pally!

Ha that would be hella amazing Tep cuz then when I hear my hippy-friends exclaming their favorite-jam-band-of-the-moment is "jamming out" I'll know what they're really saying is "dude these guys blow", even though THEY DON'T ha ha ha!

"Bear crackers" = insane sexual act that only a full-on Olympic-qualifying freak would engage in sober. Appropriate either as "dude, that's such a bear cracker, that thing you did," or "man, last night, me and the girl went totally bear crackers."

Now it looks like I'm emphasizing "for it."

Anyway, neither the nuns nor my stepmom included anything about peanut butter.

This best friend-meets-the-ex thing is weirding me out, cause a) I don't think they get along very well, and b) they knew each other for like a couple months, in a casual online sort of way, before one of them mentioned Hampshire and everything fell into place and they were like "holy crap, Bill!"

And no, I never have. Shut up.

(woah! x-post)

Now I'm worried about the contents of those bottles!

I wasn't that milkman :(

How have I managed to get pretty much nothing done today? It's 3:30. It feels like morning. Where's my bacon and biscuits at?

You owe me bacon and biscuits, dammit.

Next time I'm in Indiana, I will buy you bacon and biscuits.

|||

Otherwise I would gladly trade Moxie for an Aero bar.

Have not yet found my Belgian chocolate bars with the bits of cinnamon stick here in Indamnana :/

Was it a flake? I dig those. Also, if you like Violet Crumbles, have you ever had a Crunchie? Not as sweet, but goooooooood.

Man, you can get the flavored Aeros. That's a bag of unfair.

But if you haff ways ... that would be so so cool.

(I'm currently looking at Disney World stuff, having realized just how cheap it is to get there. I know, it's the park that kills you, but even so.)

What you need to do is go to McDonald's in India.

Jumpin Jesus.

Mark, you'll have to let me get you something in return, but okay, emailing you my address now :)

Have you read Robert Anton Wilson? That's where I first heard of the Jumping Jesus Phenomenon. It's one of the theories that tickles my thinkbone the fiercest, although RAW seems to put it more in an "information increasing"-only context, when it seems to me like lots of other aspects of humanity (social memes/trends, sub-culture incubation/exposure rates, language mutation/incorporation, etc) are following that exponential accelerating-acceleration pattern.

Hmmm... That is the equation for all of humanity, but what about just one person? It seems that for the first few years of your life, there is a very drastic increase in information, but when you reach a certain age, the information comes in at a slower rate. Also, you don't retain all of the information you take in. Then, at another age, you start to lose information. I challenge you to create that formula.

I have a list of approx. 100 agents that I need to call in order to get their fax numbers and then I need to send them each this info sheet on one of our listings. Holy moly!

I fear I might be pissing some ILXors off lately by saying what I think and making fun of everything. As Nick reminds me, sometimes I can be a brat.

I'm excited though because some ILXors might come to celebrate my b-day with me!

(x-post, as ever)

Is it my birthday yet? I want presents!

This is why I'm forced to be a specialist, see, if I wanted to be smart about everything my head would have to be exactly the size of Madison, Wisconsin.

I have to do more filing. Damn playwrights and their many plays. Damn them for all the money they make. I wanna piece of the action. What shall I write a play about so that it'll be performed constantly in almost every major territory?

Mark, that's the properest job of all right there.

The dinosaurs talk. They say "Yo beeotch, thundah lizards represent!" and then they get blasted with laser guns (this is my guess, it's Mark's baby).

But still, no.

The hell's up with that?

JAM OUT Google, geez.

"Hey, so-and-so, jam out and shut the front door."
"Get in man, you told him."
"Dipsy doodle right I did."

Then again, he didn't specifically say we should marry one another...

Jam out, Tep

Por tu:
http://www.apoc.com/Gardner-5-02/LeakStopper/images/GA-0313_200.jpg

http://store.sextoys.sex-superstore.com/images/pimage/toys/9018181N.jpg

Can you get the "dumb" surgically removed from your "ass"? I need one of those.

Color me Beyonce.)

Add that sentence to your mental list of things that only make sense on ILX.

'No thanks, I'll take the zero'

Now I'm thinking of Jam in Detroit Rock City. (He's from New Hampshire! I saw him at Andy's Summer Playhouse in Wilton when we were both tots.)

I'll give eleven dollars to the first person who can figure out why that came to mind.

- Nick said "I went straight bear crackers on that ass."
- which reminded me of "I'm gonna get medieval on your ass," from Pulp Fiction
- which reminded me of variants on that in general, and especially the Gump Fiction skit from Mad TV
- which reminded me of Forest Gump
- so I plugged the animal crackers type reference back into the famous Gump quote instead of the famous Pulp Fiction quote.

I am wearing my new shoes! Wearing new shoes always makes it clear to me how odd my walk is, cos I haven't yet totally worn away the left rear section of the sole.

If the money comes by weekend, I'll go see a movie and get dinner or something. If not, I charged my textbooks to my bursar's account, and we picked up some stuff at Borders, so I have books and DVDs :)

Sunday, wake up extremely hung over and go home. Pick up dog. Lounge on couch all day. Try to get it on with wife who will surely refuse my stank ass.

Sunday Pookie comes home early in the afternoon and we're gonna just kinda laze about, I'll prob'ly fire up the grill or something.

I'm so behind on thread-reading. I should take a second vacation after this one just to catch up on my ILX studies. ha ha

Peace, and indeed jam, out,
Mark

Take me to see Freaky Friday.

Actually I guess I can understand the writer's block too, although for me it's more like a scattershot inspiration problem; when I should be working on lyrics for one band, I'm hearing melodies for my own project, when I should be working up drum beats for the other band, I'm feelin' a vocal melody for the first band. I just can't seem to be inspired to do the things I'm supposed to be doing.

So, uh, where do you live in Indiana again? I might have to take you up on that "buy me a drink" one of these days.

I'm in Bloomington :) 45 minutes from Indianapolis, or something like that.

DRINKING. NOW.

... shut up, I LIKE champagne cocktails.

... that's a really creepy thing I just said!

Now what I want is to know how to make vinegar chicken. Hausen or not.

This is my version of an old Italian recipe which I believe was the inspiration for Buffalo wings (the creator of Buffalo wings was first or second generation Italian-American, I forget which; the main difference is deep-frying the wings and using a vinegar-and-pepper sauce instead of ... well, what I'm about to do.) Hits the same flavor notes -- chicken, tangy, spicy.

Take yourself some chicken on the bone. Anything works, but I like thighs best. Chop em up real good with a heavy, sharp knife -- and be careful with your cutting board, cause I've broken several this way. You're chopping through the bone to make roughly bite-sized pieces. You'd think doing this when the chicken was half-frozen would make it easier, right, like when you shave steak? BOOYAH. You're wrong, Binky. You can break a knife that way. I've done that, too.

Drumsticks work, too. So do breasts, but white meat dries out quicker. Don't much bother with backs or wings unless you want to use them up.

Keep the skin on.

Now you need some heat, preferably dried chile peppers. I like piquin, Thai bird chiles, or tabascos. Practically anything works. Those crushed red peppers you use for pizza, those are dandy. Crumble them up, if they aren't crushed. How much you want depends, but a good rule of thumb is about enough to cover a pinky nail, on each piece of chicken (post-chopping).

I don't hold much to measurements.

Get yourself some vinegar. Don't use distilled white vinegar. Don't use balsamic. Red wine vinegar works best, followed by malt vinegar. Flavored vinegars are all right, but make sure it's a flavor that, you know ... doesn't suck.

A little diced onion or garlic'll be good here, too, about enough to fill a Tic-Tac box if it's onion, a few cloves if it's garlic.

Salt. You need you some salt here.

When the chicken's chopped, sprinkle the skin with salt and let it sit for fifteen minutes, it helps the skin crisp by leeching the fat to the surface. Heat a pan to medium or medium-high, depending on your stove -- a non-stick pan or cast-iron pan with a little oil is what you want here. Add the chicken pieces skin-side down, and add the onions around the chicken, stirring them if necessary (if you use garlic, add it with the peppers in a little minute).

Flip the chicken once the skin's crisped. If you want, you can drain any fat from the pan at this point, and might be you should if there's a lot there. Sprinkle everything with the dried chiles (and garlic if), and add enough vinegar to come up on the chicken a bit. You want to more than cover the bottom of the pan: you want the chicken to pretty much be cooking in that vinegar steam. When you get that much vinegar going in the heat, and the thingies coming on out of the onion and so on, it helps the flavor come out of the peppers and thence to the chicken: the capsaicin in the peppers is carried in oil, which goes all loopy from the vinegar like those ads where they drop the lemon juice or detergent or whatthefuck in the greasy dish sink, you know? That's why this works.

So you cover that, reduce the heat so it's only simmering, and let it cook for 10 to 20 minutes depending on the size of the chicken pieces. Check it every once in awhile, make sure nothing's sticky and you still got some vinegar there. When it's near done, you want to take the cover off and -- if necessary -- up the heat a bit so the sauce reduces down until it's the consistency of cheap maple-substitute syrup. Ought to be helping the onions cling to the chicken.

Serve. Rice optional to soak up sauce. I like brown rice better, but you butter your biscuit however you like. If you really want to make this even more like the Anchor Bar Buffalo wings, get a dipping sauce going like a tartar sauce made with pickled garlic, or some such. Goes good with beer, lambic, and life in general.

Second-favorite thing I make:

Blackened Sesame Chicken with Satsuma Vinaigrette.

Spice blend:

1 Thai chile, crushed, or whatever amount toots your flute. This adds some spice but does not make it a hot and spicy dish, as such. (If you substitute, remember that Thai chiles are small: shorter than a Tic Tac box and the width of a pencil.)

10-12 peppercorns, assuming the quantity of chicken in the below recipe. You can use white, green, black, pink -- but I used grains of paradise, which I love possibly more than green peppercorns. That's saying something.

Equal parts black and white sesame seeds. Part of what works in this dish is using both. You can use just one (I assume you'd be using white if you only have one), but it's really really worth using both. Black sesame seeds have a less-sweet, more-piquant flavor which marries great with the peppercorns.

A pinch of sea salt.

All told, you want enough spice blend to completely coat your chicken. Toss it into a dry pan on a medium or medium-high heat, toast until very fragrant and white sesame seeds have started to turn golden, and grind in a Cuisinart until somewhere between coarse and fine.

2 boneless skinless chicken thighs (I used 2 for me, but they were small thighs; if I'd felt like having rice, 1 would have been enough)

Coat the chicken with the sesame spices and let sit in fridge, on uncovered plate, for at least an hour. I let it sit overnight, but I don't think it made much difference.

In the meantime, make the vinaigrette, because it tastes better after it's set a bit:

1 satsuma, or a very juicy small orange, mandarin orange, tangerine, tangelo, etc.

1 spoonful of honey, exact measurement unimportant.

1 spoonful of vinegar, I'd go with red wine vinegar, but a rice wine vinegar could certainly make sense, and if you had an orange (or even satsuma) vinegar, that would logically work, etc. Again, exact measurement is unimportant, go by taste. You may want to add the vinegar last, or last before the oil.

A few shakes of sesame oil, but if you don't want the sesame flavor to be too strong you probably want it to be a light or blended oil. I have a hot sesame oil I use from Lee Kum Kee which I like a lot for things like this.

Sriracha or other hot sauce, to taste. Just a little bit.

Juice the satsuma into a pan -- the same one you toasted the spices in, if you like -- and boil at high heat until reduced to half its volume. Eyeball it, precision is unnecessary. Add the honey, vinegar, oil, and sriracha, remove from heat, and set aside.

In a medium-heat pan, with a few drops of oil if necessary, sear the chicken thighs on both sides until fully cooked and firm. It takes about as long as it takes to cook a hamburger to medium. Put the chicken on a plate (with a bed of greens, if desired) and dress with vinaigrette.

Years and years ago, there was a vendor at the farmer's market in Amherst who sold garlic dip mix. Nothing else. Garlic dip mix. You know why? Because it was fucking ultimate garlic dip mix and she didn't need to sell anything else, that's why.

"Hey," I said, the week after I bought the mix to make at home. "Yours tastes different than when I make it at home. What'd you do?" I figured it was some Sneaky Vendor Trick like using a higher concentration of dip mix to sour cream or something.

"Mayo."

"What?"

"Mayo. Half mayo and half sour cream, instead of all sour cream like it says on the label."

So I tried it, and yeah, it works. Mayonnaise has more body and more fat, and fat is one of them there flavor intensicators, so it comes out very nicely. This was back before everyone and their grandmother was doing "kiwi ratatouille aioli," so flavored mayo was something pretty much reserved for potato salad.

Anyway, this is me, taking the memory of that dip, recreating it, and adding a few things for zip and color. It works well with veggies and chips -- I like it with sesame blue corn tortilla chips, but that's because I don't eat potato chips anymore [note upon typing this in for ILE: this is now a lie, I'm afraid]. Pretzels would work well, too -- I'm not going to open a bag to confirm that.

But it's specifically meant to take the place usually held by blue cheese or ranch dips/dressings, next to hot wings and celery sticks. So it's build to the following specs:

1) It should hold its own against the spice-ification of Ultimate Hot Wings [ILE note again: I no longer believe in an Absolute Platonic version of hot wings], without overpowering them or deadening their flavor the way a cheese-based dip might.

2) It should taste good cool/cold, for the temperature contrast (leaving out spinach/artichoke dips, true French onion dip, etc.)

3) It should go well with celery, because I like celery with my hot wings.

4) It should cool your mouth off.

That said:

1/2 cup sour cream. Now, I used Mexican sour cream, which is thinner in texture but close enough. I wasn't being funky, it's just what I have in the house -- why buy two kinds of sour cream? I don't use it often enough for that to be practical.

1/2 cup mayo. Would Miracle Whip work? Having never tasted it, I have no idea. This is not a low-fat dip, but by the same token, you really don't need much. This makes a cup, and that's overkill, but hey.

1/2 tbsp garlic. I used granulated garlic, which I prefer to garlic powder because of the way it incorporates but has largely the same flavor. Raw garlic would -- I think -- have too much of that harsh heat which raw garlic has unless it's extremely fresh. If you want to use fresh garlic, though, I'd blanch it. I don't know what amount would work, try small amounts to taste, bearing in mind that the dip will be considerably more flavorful after it rests in the fridge.

1 baby carrot. Coarsely chopped if you're using a Cuisinart, finely diced if you're not.

Oregano and basil, a pinch each.

A pinch of pesto, optional. Not worth getting pesto just to add it to this. Pesto's a staple for me, so it's always at hand.

Put the carrot in the Cuisinart and chop it fine, if you're using a Cuisinart. Add the remaining ingredients and pulse a few times, or combine by hand. Let sit in fridge, covered, for at least four hours, or longer. Mine's going to sit overnight, but the flavor is definitely developed.

This is a strong dip. You can dip a pretzel in just a little and be fine, same with veggies etc. That's largely because I only like a little dip on my wings, and partly because that way, per serving, it's not nearly as high-fat as it would be otherwise. This blows onion-dip-from-the-Wise-brand-mix out of the water and back to the docks.

This one's pretty basic, but I like it.

Tequila-marinated salmon with roasted tomato cream sauce.

Sufficient salmon fillets. I prefer fillets to steaks because the thickness is usually just right for the ways I like to cook salmon, and you get the crispy skin. I'm a big fan of salmon skin.

Marinate for two hours in:

A shot or two of tequila. Sauza, baby.
A tablespoon or so of lime juice.
A little bit of oil.
Some crushed red peppers, optional.
A bit of salt. For marinades, it doesn't much matter what kind of salt you use. I use kosher salt for everything except the occasional sea salt spice rub, though, for the record.

Meanwhile, roast two or three vine-ripened tomatoes, in my case a combination of red, orange, and yellow, at 375, probably for the full two hours. You want to roast them -- stems taken off, if necessary, but with no oil, salt, or anything like that -- until the skins have become browned and dried and the tomatoes have noticeably reduced in volume. They collapse, and then continue to roast awhile. They may leak some liquid, depending on how thick the skins are and how juicy the tomatoes are. When they're done, they'll feel a little heavy.

You can use those fucked up shelf-ripened tomatoes here; actually, the only time I would use shelf-ripened tomatoes is when I'm roasting them. It's the only way to salvage the nasty little fuckers.

After an hour, toss a clove of garlic per tomato, still in its paper and wrapped together in aluminum foil, in the oven with the tomatoes.

Pull skin off of tomatoes. Peel garlic. Toss together in a Cuisinart with a pinch of salt, two smallish mushrooms (stems removed), and a small pinch of sugar if you didn't use vine-ripened tomatoes. Pulse until well-blended.

You don't need to cook this sauce, because the tomatoes and garlic are already cooked. We'll finish it in a minute.

Add a tiny bit of oil or butter to a non-stick pan and heat to medium or medium-high, depending on your stove. Sear salmon, skin-side down, and then flip. Cook until it flakes easily, flipping again if necessary -- about six to ten minutes, probably.

Add a few tablespoons of half-and-half to the sauce in the Cuisinart; pulse again until thoroughly combined and volume has increased somewhat. Serve over salmon.

This one, in contrast, is very sparse, though, cause I wanted to jot it down realquick:

Turkish lemon chicken

Four chicken breast quarters, on the bone, skin-on

Two to three lemons

One white onion, chopped

Splash of Louisiana hot sauce. That's Louisiana brand hot sauce. Not just hot sauce from Louisiana. Or God help me, hot sauce made from Louisiana. ("It tastes like tourists...")

Tablespoon of sumac (can be left out, but sumac's damn tasty stuff)

Two tablespoons of sweet paprika

One handful of small red potatoes, peel-on, per person

About twenty capers, rinsed

Salt

Olive oil

Squeeze one lemon over the chicken breast quarters, rubbing juice into and under skin. Salt skin generously, splash on hot sauce, and coat chicken with the bulk of the sumac and paprika, leaving only a little left over. Place chopped onions in bowl and squeeze remaining lemon(s) over them, mixing in remaining spices. Wedge squeezed-out lemon wedges underneath chicken skin and between the wing and the breast. Let sit for one to two hours.

Preheat oven to 400.

Remove lemon wedges from chicken. Place potatoes in metal dish with enough olive oil to coat them (shake the pan and roll the potatoes around to coat), salt, and the capers. Pour some of lemon juice from onions over chicken; add remaining juice, with lemons, to potatoes and shake to coat again.

Bake both the chicken and the potatoes for about 45 minutes to one hour, shaking the potatoes after 30 minutes.

Minestrone #13.

There are lots of kinds of minestrone. This's one of em.

Mixed broth.

Broth is pretty much the key to every soup: the roux and bay leaves of gumbo, the heavy chicken-infusion of chicken soup, the meatiness and thickener of stew, and so on. The key to good minestrone is to start with a mixed broth -- a broth which gets its flavor from more than one source. Ideally, this means being a meat-eater; you simply cannot have as complex-flavored a broth with only vegetables, if for no other reason than that you can't put anything in a veggie-only broth that you can't also put in a meat-included broth.

You want any of the following in it:

* Meat and bones. Beef, pork, veal, any sort of poultry -- no seafood, which is probably obvious. Pork bones work better than unpreserved pork; if you want to add pork, some kind of seasoning pork -- tasso or other ham, pickled pork, very hard sausages (such as many Italian dry salamis) -- works best. You get the flavoring not only of the meat but of the preserving process -- the smokiness, the salt of the cure, etc. That's a good thing.

Ideally, you want at least two kinds of meat. The idea with a mixed broth is to use up your leftovers -- toss the chicken you didn't finish in there, and the leftover ham, and the bones from ribs, whatever. That stuff keeps for a week or more (especially bones), and you can always freeze it. The loss in texture quality that you get from freezing cooked meat doesn't matter for broth.

Anyone who cooks can easily accumulate the things to make a mixed broth: just keep a Zip-Loc freezer bag in the freezer, and toss stuff in there until it's full.

* Vegetables. Remember that you can use the normally-you-wouldn't-eat-this-bit parts of veggies in broths: onion skin, pepper tops, and so on.

Good vegetables to use: carrots, celery, onions, tomatoes (if you peel tomatoes, save the peel for broth), stems from herbs such as oregano and rosemary, garlic, bell peppers in moderation (you can get an unpleasant stewed pepper taste in the broth if you aren't careful), zucchini and squash peel.

Bad vegetables to use: any other root vegetable, leafy greens, basil (it turns bitter if it's cooked too long), brussels sprouts, broccoli (maybe in moderation, if thrown in at the end. Why do you have broccoli? You don't live with your Mom anymore.)

* A little salt, if none of the meat is salted. Salt helps leech the good stuff from the veggies and meats and so on.

* A little pepper -- or whole peppercorns -- and maybe a bay leaf.

So you put all that in a pot with enough water to cover it, and a bit of white or red wine if you like. Bring it to a simmer. Cover it. Leave it at a simmer for, ideally, two hours or more. You can cook it all day if you want. Check and make sure the water is staying over the top of everything, cause even covered, some of it's gonna cook off a little.

Strain it, cool it, skim fat off if necessary.

Wine.

Wine is good in minestrone, especially if you don't use it in the broth. The longer the soup is going to cook, the more wine you can add without the final product tasting winey. Either white or red is fine -- forget everything you know about "white goes with this, red goes with that," no one much cares anymore. Sweet and tannic and dry and fruity are things that matter more than white and red, and ultimately, if you don't like the wine, you won't like anything you're going to do with it.

You can also use vermouth, port, or any other fortified wine. Just taste it as you're adding it, make sure you're not just making meat sangria.

Meat sangria would suck, Chuckles.

Meat.

Chicken, especially dark meat that won't dry out, is best for minestrone. Stew meat of any kind is okay. Ham is okay. Italian sausage, pre-cooked, is okay. But chicken is best. Pre-cook it -- doesn't matter how, so the easiest thing is just to pop it in the oven until it's cooked. Toss it in the broth. Chopped up, that is. If you tossed it in bone and all in big pieces, go pick it back out. Now touch your toes. Wave your hands in the air like you just don't care.

Add the veggies that can cook as long as you want: onions, celery, tomatoes (fresh or canned, chopped or diced or pureed, just don't use hothouse tomatoes, they're of no use to anyone), spinach, garlic (roasted or toasted or fresh). Taste the broth when you add the veggies -- if there's any bitterness or sourness, add a little salt. You can also add parmesan rinds at this point if you want. Parmesan rinds are great.

Cook for as long as you like, until you're about half an hour from when you want to eat, at which point you can add chopped carrots, chopped potatoes if you want them, and canned beans (canned beans nearly always work best; cannelini are my preference).

Note: don't go to sleep while you're cooking it, or everyone will die.

The trick with the pasta: ten or fifteen minutes before you're ready to eat, cook up some pasta separately from the soup. This prevents the starch from leaching out into the soup, which would make for crappy leftovers. You want maybe a small handful to a big handful (measured before cooking), per person.

When it's all set, you can add some chopped fresh basil to the soup, ladle the cooked pasta into bowls, ladle the soup over it, top with a spoonful of pesto if you like, or some grated parmesan, and you're good to go.

Anyway. No, it isn't ready for the public yet, that's my point.

This is like Eyes Wide Shut, only, you know ... nothing to do with sex, and more petty.

nevermind me, I'm just stagnating a little tonight!

Oh who a,m I kidding? I'm superfunpartygirl through and through. There really is depth and meaning underneath it all though, I swear.

I think I just made up a Warren Zevon song.

What did you do, make vinegar chicken for everyone? What if it had SUCKED? They'd be coming at me with pitchforks!

Anyway, none of them could find Indiana on a map, much less get there.

My good thing for today: amidst other projects doing this or that, the Warren Zevon tribute anthology should be starting up next month, so hopefully I'll have something in that.

Being stuck at home is dud dud dud. I hope you find ways to get out and have a good time despite your carlessness, Luna.

Sorry you're possibly housebound, Luna -- I'd probably rent the car in your position, admittedly, but that might be because I have no idea how expensive it is to rent one for just normal in-city use instead of roadtrips.

- Dr. Seuss

p.s. Many MGDs are being consumed in conjunction with the chicken - goes nicely.

Note to self: don't reduce the sauce quite so much next time as it's quite tasty on the rice

(That's a cooking pun. Not an especially good one.)

I hate that cramp I get in my knee when I accidentally pull the seat in the car too far up when I'm driving.

I have like eight energy drinks in my office fridge. Booyah.

My favorite from today is 'I want the chocolate to be so dark my mouth goes blind. I want it to be so black my stomach isn't invited to antebellum social functions.'

The chocolate thing is nice, but it's just spillover :)

Welcome, Nick, watch your step. Here there be dragons.

Sometimes I wonder, y'know? A lot of the time I feel comfortable about my role in the Universe, that what I'm doing isn't in the way but is maybe even part of something; other times I feel like I ruin the Universe for those I come in contact with. Maybe it's this balance that keeps me (one) interested in life? I dunno; maybe I need to eat something now...

Wondering about your role in the universe is often a sign of low blood sugar, because it's your head's way of reminding you that part of that role is to eat parts of the universe. I don't think I'm actually kidding, but it's VERY late. Either way, I think you should feel comfortable: aside from anything else, you're a father, and that's a damn good role.

You know, I get this way too... but I gotta say, Nick, ther ain't no way you could ruin it for anyone, word, yo.

I don't know why.

I resented the hell out of that wood.

Yeah, the spiders! Wasps, too, often. All those nooks and crannies surrounded by wood, bugs love that shit.

Now, down to brass tacks, there are eight million new messages on the moderators thread. What the hell did you kids do? I've only been gone for two hours!

That said, they have braunschweiger, which smells just like boudin, even though it tastes very different. So I got me my braunschweiger and beef on an onion roll, with mustard, and I'm all good.

And have I mentioned I'm tired? Jesus god.

Maybe I need to stop with the Nick Drake and Tori Amos and that might help me feel better.

MGROWLRGRLWMBLRGROOMBLAROWWR

(translation - put food in me you poxy fule!)

Almost time to go home hoorah! Th3 M4nn3qu1ns play out for the first time tonight; stokednessometer = rising dramatically (innuendo = intended). Hoping I can find my hockey mask before we leave; I'd hate to play naked-faced. With or without it (< /bono), I'm gonna drum my guts out tonight!

Sarah, I totally missed you! I love Chicago - I'd like to move there myself one day - I say DO IT.

I am so glad to be home-ish. Long days really are very long days. Sweet Chocolate Jesus.

On the other hand, there's a delightful thunderstorm happening, I finally bought 'Perpetual Motion,' Savannah is now trained with ahnd signals, my house has been vacuumed, I have broken down lots of the boxes in the garage, and I am about to send an email to the hedgehog lady.

(I'm not meaning to abuse Aimee's thread, but it's a where-I-say type post, and I'll forget if I don't remind me, cause I am chlorazeepazoomed.)

(etc.)

Reality. New Bowie album. Okay. Here goes.

Many some years ago, on a wet hot day on the bank of Lake Pontchartrain, I was telling my then-girlfriend about how I liked Bowie's Outside, and how it really grooved with this story I used to fiddle with since high school, about this guy who does Bowie cover songs, and then his record label announces he's the Second Coming of Christ, and the conversation developed into "You know, I really should take these different things I like in Bowie and ball them up together, so that Ziggy from, well, Ziggy -- and the art murder in Outside -- you get the idea of martyrdom as a performance piece."

So I worked on that for awhile, and it flittered away, and I worked on it some more, and etc., and from time to time I'd notice some little tidbit here or there -- Bowie's fashionable fascism period, phrases here and there in other things, songs with titles like "Savior Machine," Jareth's clothes -- and I started to kind of take those tidbits, take those pieces, and sew them together into this sort of ... Bowieskin. This was combined with one of the central conceits of the story: that sometime in the future, David Lynch directs a movie based on Outside, and a character in my story played Baby Grace Blue. That isn't important. Chlorazeppobippityboppityfoo.

What I kept finding was that I would be working with X, and come upon Bowie Product Y, and go, "Hey, Y goes really good with X, but I don't know about it when I did X." This was the sign that I had keyed in on what I wanted to key in on.

When Hours came out, I listened, stared at it, shrugged. "It's pretty, I guess, but what can you do with it?" Heathen came out while I was revising the novel's final-form-for-now, and I said, "Damn, good Pixies cover. The rest ... well, it's pretty, I guess, but what can you do with it?" It didn't resonate with the material I was working with.

Reality came out, and the book is with a publisher, and I stared at the music -- so to speak -- and said "Fuck. Holy fuck."

The girlfriend listened to it first, because I was on the migraine meds and loopyzoobileezoopy. "Listen to this," she said. "Mrrhohdwha?" said me. "Listen to 'Bring me the Disco King,'" she said. "It sounds like what you'd write if Bowie asked you to write him a song."

And yeah, it did. It doesn't do a lot of the things I do, but the things it doesn't do are the things I have to do because you can't hear books.

So I listened to the album, and track 3 came on, "Never Get Old," and I said "fuck" and listened to it like 3 times in a row. It would work perfectly to sum up the book I'd written. It would work great as the music playing over the trailer. (Yes, there's a trailer, even though it's a book. This is something I'm trying to get people to do.)

I listened to the rest of the album, nodded. Eclectic. Uneven. But good.

Listened to "Bring me the Disco King" again and thought, well, shit: the book has a sequel. Not a novel, a short story. A sequel all the same. "Bring me the Disco King" perfectly fits the one character in the book who didn't already have a song associated with him -- a character I've since become almost obsessed with, working him into the sequel to the vampire book, an unrelated collection of short stories, and my horror novel. And yet he's always a peripheral character, always a bit skewed, always a bit off, always leading with his knife: but this song puts him in first-person perspective for me.

So this one resonated.

And that's my review.

I'd like to re-wire my head, please.

You have a KID. Kids take thinking. On the go, on the spot, in the saddle thinking. Don't underplay that. I've done it. It's tough stuff.

Why oh why must everything remind me of a song?

*spits out chewed up chunks of cheese-&-bacon covered tennis ball*

Where do you get yr brain rewired? I'd like that.

(woah fucking-ay x-post! hit-in-face-with-tetherball-action!)

No, if I couldn't find it at Tulane, these kids don't have it. Probably.

I just got this image in my mind of kids laying down kinda going 'mruuuh' under their breath with a tetherball swinging loose over their heads, one kid almost getting his hand off the ground in a vein attempt to swipe!

Somebody everywhere always has acid; it's ridiculous. Look for the paranoidest mufucka around.

Okay, I think all this talk may have triggered a flashback.

I think I may buy duck, though, cause ... that's what I do.

Right now.

Surprise.

... nah, I'm not gonna backspace that.

That's the watch I ended up buying.

OH MY GOD, I'M CHANNELING JUICE NEWTON.

Tep, you broke my brain.

I'm so excited about Chicago though! How many ILX chicagoans do we have and what hoods do they rule?

I now own ktepi.com and discomotherfucker.com (which is a funny thing to own). They don't seem to be live yet, though. But whee.

Sarah MUST HAVE CAKE.

I've got only 13 minutes left before lunchtime. Hmmm... Where oh where should I go...? I should definitely eat outside...

Those Bailey's minis are neat and all, but holy crap, they're overpriced: $14 for four 100ml little bottlets, which is about the same price as a 750ml bottle! They weren't marked; I should've put em back once I saw the price ring up, but it didn't really register. So to speak.

That was sort of fun, if a little repetitive

You owe me a discomotherfucker.

Dammit.

The secret of my success!

Anger anger anger anger ANGER. Anger. God, I wish it would go away.

(This CD is spinning literally right now.)

PS: how'd the broccoli turn out??

I would love to chat more now, but I should go finish my resume so I can get the hell out of dodge!

Still being drunk & going to work the next morning...C/D?

Dudders dudders DUD. Being hunover and tired. Even more dud.

Having old jams come on the radio and all the kids simutaneously begin singing, classic however. :)

Now I just want some food in me belly and a pillow under me head.

I understand how not funny this is for everyone but me. I just don't give a fuck.

Good morning.

For now, the moran who sits next to me is taking the day off - woo hoo - I had a really great conversation on Friday night (winky face) which completely made the rest of my weekend, and I'm about to go start coffee for a meeting. Wooooooooo.

Hi, Julia, nickalicious, Tep, Chris V, Sam, etc.!! (and Ronan)

Sarah, I'm glad you had a good birthday!

One more reason why I hate telephones.

In good news: appt. made for Wednesday to have Pepper and Gretchen spayed. And nick, I got my Green Theory CD in the mail just now!

I want a Green Theory CD!

Okay, Sarah, give me his number.

Boss got you down? Friends annoying you? Boyfriend dating another women? Girlfriend treating you badly? Call 1-800-KICK-ASS and I'll take those bitches down.

And on that note...*gurgle gurgle*

(ps if'n it's a CD ya want email me yr snail mail addy & I'll mail ya one!)

p.s.: Here's to a fantabulous week for all of us.