What do you do when life dishes you a crap sandwich?

If I believed in biblical things, I would say that this is the time of Job in my life, but on a much-smaller scale. Maybe I am operating under the principle of Murphy’s Law, which states that, “Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.” I’ve decided to take a cautiously optimistic approach to life and my spell of minor troubles and believe that if the universe is indeed dishing me a few too many sides of bad luck, I’m going to take it as a semi-positive sign and believe that at least I am somewhat important- being totally ignored by the Fates would be worse, wouldn’t it?

My troubles are the same as everyone else’s- the only difference is that they all came at once. My hard drive unceremoniously crashed on my computer, a week later my e-mail was hacked, my car decided to make enough funny noises that I was reduced to taking  public transportation until I could afford to get it fixed, my wallet got stolen by a seemingly friendly backpacker, and when I got angry about the BS, someone close to me started judging me a little harshly- I wasn’t dead, I still had all my working parts, and I wasn’t on death’s door, so what could possibly be the problem?

I don’t know what my problem is- I used to be happy- things used to run a little more smoothly, and I was a generally happy person. I’m not necessarily unhappy now- just going through the normal bullshit that is life and getting a little aggravated sometimes.

Thankfully, I haven’t yet taken a total turn to the Dark Side yet- I’m still smart enough to listen to Yoda when I can decipher his poor grammar. I’m not bitter yet, either. Maybe I’m not old enough yet- I’ve had enough bad things happen to me and have lost enough of myself to mourn, but whenever I feel the bitterness creeping out, I try to turn kill it off fast.

What do you do when the crap starts hitting the fan? Do you duck and run for cover? Do you yell at the Life, The Universe, and Everything (thanks Douglas Adams) or do you pretend that nothing is wrong and wait until your internal organs combust one day? Do you tell your friends and neighbors what’s really going on as you fake a smile throughout your day? If you need a place to vent, I suggest ranting online. Just don’t get fired like the Waitress who got a bad tip.

Lumpy Pancake Day

Today was Lumpy Pancake Day- it wasn’t on my calendar as such and as far as I know, no one officially designated it as lumpy Pancake Day, but sometimes you have to re-invent the calendar to suit your own nefarious purposes. In honor of the imaginary holiday, I cooked Blackberry Pancakes.

The freezer is full of blackberries picked right in front of the house a couple of days ago, so it seemed like a great idea to put them to use in everyone’s favorite breakfast. I don’t have any pancake mix lying around the house or hiding in the cupboards, so I used a recipe from the Betty Crocker Cookbook.

The recipe called for flour, an egg, milk, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Because I was planning on eating the pancakes with maple syrup, I left out the sugar. After mixing up the ingredients and adding two handfuls of berries in, I heated up the griddle (ok, I’ll be honest- it was a run-of-the-mill aluminum pan which might eventually kill me as the aluminum seeps out). Then, I put a couple of slabs of butter in frying pan, and got it heated up enough for my pancakes.

Just like my mom taught me as a kid, I waited for little bubbles to appear before flipping the pancakes that were truthfully looking more than a little raggedy in the pan. I don’t have a gas burner and it took what seemed like 23 minutes for the first pancakes to be ready for flipping. With a flourish, I brandished my rubber spatula and flipped the pancakes and then proceeded to wait another 23 minutes for them to cook (and yes, smarty pants, the burner was turned on high enough).

I took out a plate and put the lumpy Blackberry Pancakes on it and presented it to my husband (who is truthfully the cook in the family). After he finished complaining about the mess I made (which wasn’t all that bad) and suspiciously eyed the lumpy pancakes on his plate, I asked him if he wanted to eat them now or later. He was hungry and opted for the first option.

I wasn’t nervous, but knew that they weren’t my best pancakes ever. The color was all wrong- the pancakes were pasty-white with bleeding berries spreading out like varicose veins. I was so hungry for my own pancakes that I failed to wait the requisite 23 minutes for the other side to cook enough and had to endure a bite or two of raw pancake batter- the Horrors, the Horrors. Alas- I guess that’s why I’m writing for cookingbadly.com and not another food site.


For a crazy science look at pancakes, check out THIS.

David J. Lieberman, "Get Anyone To Do Anything"

Sub-titled "And Never Feel Powerless Again," this book takes a "command and conquer" approach to life.  The more I read, the more I realized that… I don't really have a need to learn how to get anyone to do anything.  I'm not a sales person, and I no longer work in a corporate environment where winning arguments and driving the conversation is important.  Lucky me!

I checked this book out for a laff, expecting to find a lot of cheesy salesman style Jedi mind trick advice.  My biggest surprise was that most of the book was actually fairly reasonable.  

For example, on the section "Get Anyone To Say What He's Really Thinking," the advice is to ask "What do you think?"  And then when they say "Oh it's great," as of course they will, you follow up with another question.  "What would it take to make it REALLY great," for example, or "What would you have done differently?"

This is the kind of coping strategy that I often wished came with Life, when I was younger and fumbling my way through the world.  I think that's a common experience for socially inept computer geeks like myself.  Half of the advice in this book I would whole-heartedly recommend for socially awkward people looking for a primer on conversational tactics.

Unfortunately, the other half of the advice is just… just terrible.  I don't see how anyone can put some of these tactics into effect, without being the greatest actor in the world.  For example, if you suspect your husband of having an affair with his secretary, Lieberman recommends that you bring up something that alludes to this crime.  

"Casually, maybe over dinner, she would say, "Gee, you know what, honey?  My boss, Jim, I think he may be having an affair with his secretary."

That's the kind of thing that goes over a lot better in the movies than it does in real life, trust me.

The problem here lies in teasing apart which advice falls into which category.  Is it good advice to ask the receptionist to draw a smiley face beside your message before they pass it up to the boss?  A smiley face will make the message stand out, certainly, but it isn't the most professional thing in the world.  If I ever received a "While You Were Out" message from someone who had asked the receptionist to draw a smiley face on it, it would certainly give me pause.

Other tactics are downright car salesman sleazy.  Best way to get someone to return your message?  Say "I appreciate what you've done… Please give me a call, I'd like to thank you personally."  

Hey, that's great!  And when they call me back I can be all "Thanks for returning my call, that's so awesome!  So what kind of financing do you want on that Toyota?  You know, the owner's daughter has her eye on that model, so you'd better snap it up now!"  (Lieberman elsewhere advocates a time limit to encourage a sense of urgency.)

There's some good stuff in here, but I strongly advise you to keep your wits about you.  Unless you're a high pressure salesperson, in which case: Here's a spoon!  Eat up!

Manna, Although Maybe Not From Heaven

I had always heard the phrase "it's like manna from heaven" to denote "a good thing falling into your lap at random."  And "this tastes like manna," meaning "really delicious."  I even (being a good and true atheist) had a vague idea that manna was a thing from the Bible.  

But not until this recent Metafilter post did I learn that manna is a real thing!  In fact, you can buy it online.   No joke.

In Exodus, as the Jews wandered the desert for 40 years, they were sustained by manna which God provided for their food.  "It was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey."

(I'm going to stop right there and say, I have only the vaguest sense of what that means.  Wafers made with honey.  My mind keeps slipping to the thought of those Crème Wafers that come in three different colors, the waffle crisp long rectangles with the white frosting stuff in between.  And then I picture them being scattered all over the desert floor and I get confused.  And then I want some.  ANYWAY…)

After the dew cleared in the morning, the manna would appear.  "As small as the hoar frost on the ground."  

No one really knows what the biblical manna was.  Theories aside from tree sap include aphid juice, the emerging tendrils of psychoactive mushrooms, and "a kosher species of locust."  (I don't even want to know what that means.  I just don't.  Okay, I peeked!  Gross!)  Maybe the "psilocybin mushroom" theory explains why they wandered in the desert for 40 years, when it would only have taken a year to cross on foot at most.  They were all stoned out of their minds!

Manna had some interesting characteristics.  You could only gather the amount you needed for the day, because if you tried to keep it overnight, it would rot and become infested with maggots.  The only exception to this was the Sabbath.  Manna did not fall on the Sabbath, and you wouldn't have been allowed to gather it then, anyway.  Therefore you had to gather a double ration the day before.  And miraculously, this Sabbath portion would not rot.

The distribution of manna was not even; sometimes you could just reach out your hand and scoop it up, and sometimes you had to go hunting for it.  You could pound it into a bread-like substance, but even so, gentiles could not perceive it.  If they tried to catch it, it would slip through their hands.  Animals, however, could feed and drink manna.  In one tradition, the taste of manna depended on how old you were.  It tasted like "like honey for small children, like bread for youths, and like oil for the elderly" to quote Wikipedia.  

What is sold now as manna is usually the dried sweet sap from various trees.  (Which makes it related to maple syrup, if you think about it.)  

Once the Jews reached Canaan, the fall of manna ceased.  Although it's rumored that one last little bit of manna is saved in a pot, which is kept beside the Ark of the Covenant.

Photo credit: Flickr/erix!

August 1 is Sisters Day

Tomorrow is a day to celebrate with the second-most important woman—or women—in your life—your sister(s). (Okay, if you are married, maybe she’s third…) Sisters Day is a perfect time to either go out or make plans to spend the day with your siblings, or to reconcile with them if you’ve had a spat. Here are a few things you might want to do with your sisters on this special holiday.

Hang out. This isn’t so complicated, is it? Just block out an hour or two and spend some time together. Visit a park you went to as kids or have a treat at your favorite ice cream shop. Watch a marathon of your favorite films (my sister and I are planning a Jim Henson marathon soon) and make some frozen margaritas while you quote or sing your favorite lines. Have an old-fashioned sleepover if you want and paint each other’s toenails, pop popcorn, and listen to music. Speaking of music…

Share new interests. When was the last time you hung out with your sister? She may know of some cool things in life that will surprise you! I’m the oldest, so I used to introduce my sister to my interests—classic rock, Neil Gaiman, X-Men, art, fantasy novels and movies, etc. Now that I’m a mommy without a lot of time to spend pouring over new things of interest, it’s me who’s learning more from her these days. She’s introduced me to several bands I enjoy, new Neil Gaiman stuff (comics as opposed to books and films), and some fun games. To do this very simply, simply burn each other a CD of your latest favorite songs and exchange them—or have a listening party and play them randomly at one of your houses.

Plan a special day out. If you can’t get together soon, plan a time when you can. Start making travel arrangements if you live far apart. Book a hotel or bed and breakfast if you like; there’s one near us that I’ve always wanted to have a “girls night out” in (and will someday!) with a whimsical gnome theme. Arrange it around something you’ve both wanted to do—such as see an Amish village or go to a casino. Find something that suits you and make a date.

Cook together. Play Iron Chef or Chopped and bring some ingredients to see what you can come up with. Try to make a three-course meal with only 20 or 30 minutes per course.

August 5 is National Underwear Day

August 5 marks a very silly, frivolous, and fabulous holiday—National Underwear Day! Whether or not you think our undergarments are in need of their own holiday, the fact remains that there are endless possibilities for celebrating such a day, such as…

Throw an Underwear Party: Of course, you could do this in any number of ways. You could do what Kim and Jason suggest and soak all of your clothes down to cool off—only, instead of just using your clothes, strip down to your underwear! (Use family appropriate attire, of course, unless it’s just you and your significant other playing semi-naked time together.) You could also have all of your friends over—this one is mainly just for the women out there—and draw a name and size. Then, you can all go shopping and select some cool underwear for that person, delivering it secretly. You’ll get an all-new style of underwear and you won’t know who knows your size! (By the way, secrecy is a must here; no revealing sizes or names!)

Play with Your Underwear: Tie dye it, draw all over it with your favorite Sharpie, sew on patches—whatever you like. If you don’t want to use it as underwear anymore, tear it up into strips and use it to stuff your fall scarecrow, make a blanket for your kid’s dollhouse, throw it at people as confetti, whatever.

Do a Tom Cruise Move: A al Risky Business, of course; not a la Oprah’s couch. Play in your underwear all day. Put on your favorite T-shirt—or your partner’s T-shirt—and leave your underwear. My husband loves when I do that to hang out after our daughter has gone to bed; he calls me “The Pants-less Wonder” as I beat him at Dr. Mario on—yes, our old 1990s Nintendo. See what kinds of outrageous getups you can make with your underwear and whatever else is in your home—a boa? Scarves and sunglasses? A Viking helmet?

Abolish the Holiness: Toss out any underwear you have with holes in them. You deserve better than that. If you absolutely can’t and have to wait until payday, at least sew them up if you can—or draw little lines around them to make them sunbursts.

See How Many Times You Can Say Underwear: Insert the word into everyday conversation. Or do something every time you hear the word, like stand up or snort your nose.

Thai Steak Salad- MMMMM!

Martha Stewart saved me the other night. I was in need of a good salad to make using the over-abundant lettuce that resides in the potted garden in front of my place. In desperation, I turned to one of my Martha Stewart post-prison cookbooks for a suitable recipe and found a great recipe for a Thai Steak Salad. Although I’ve been to Thailand and have never eaten nor seen a Thai Steak Salad, I thought it would be my best bet.

The recipe called for a quick marinade. The basic marinade ingredients were: lime juice, soy sauce, sugar, salt, pepper and vegetable oil. After checking through my cupboards and refrigerator, I decided to make a few modifications to Martha’s recipe- I substituted lemon juice for lime juice and decided that I really didn’t need any sugar in the recipe. I quickly mixed the ingredients together, thought about adding minced garlic but decided against it, and put two flank steaks in about 1/4 of the marinade juice. I then waited the requisite 30 minutes for the steak to marinade.

As I waited, I started in on the salad. Again, I changed the recipe slightly by choosing a wider variety of lettuce from the garden than the recipe called for- including a little of the purple lettuce that always tastes a little bitter. I then used my super-duper peeler to peel some thick slices of carrot and added it the salad to be tossed.

According to the anonymous chef who was lurking in the background trying to see if I would do a good enough job, I only made one mistake. After the 30 minutes and before he could intervene, I started cooking the steaks in the frying pan on the stove as the recipe called for. When the real cook of the household saw what I was doing, he started gesticulating wildly in the background in some kind of strange folk dance. I couldn’t hear him and didn’t understand what he was saying, so turned down the music that was blaring in the background.

He was pointing at the BBQ. Apparently and in his opinion, I had ruined the meal by following the recipe. By ignoring the BBQ in the background, I had broken the cardinal law of the summer time- always grill when you can. Always.

Despite my mistake, I am happy to report that the salad turned out well. Once again, thanks and kudos to Ms. Martha for giving me the courage to try to cook healthy, tasty meals for myself.

The Best of America's Test Kitchen 2007

Apparently America's Test Kitchen puts out one of these books every year.  I have to admit, I'm surprised!  The volume of work that clearly went into producing this book must have been staggering.  

Although admittedly it seems that the book itself is just cherry-picked awesome stuff from the Test Kitchen Empire.  According to the back of the book this includes eight different books produced during the year, plus a television show.  

So in theory, if you are consuming all that other Test Kitchen stuff, everything in this book would probably be old hat by now.  But if, like me, you have only the vaguest recollection of having heard the phrase "America's Test Kitchen," then you will be delighted by this book.  DELIGHTED I TELL YOU.

One thing I appreciate in the realm of cooking is some kind of approximation of the scientific method.  You try something, and if it doesn't work out, you try something else.  America's Test Kitchen has this in spades.  The little anecdotes alongside the recipes include mentions of having baked, say, dozens of batches of brownies before finding the blend of ingredients that was just so.

I also like that the various authors freely admit that some recipes have problems.  Morning Glory muffins are often grim and gummy.  Trifles are frequently soggy and haphazardly assembled.  Omelets can be chewy.  Only by admitting problems can we find solutions and improve them.

(I still don't believe they managed to craft an edible Morning Glory muffin, though.  I'll pass on that one.)

The pictures are gorgeous, and the recipes are clear and easy to follow.  But it's everything aside from the recipes that really makes this book shine.  It includes honest product reviews that come from experience (more expensive and fancier isn't always better) and sidebar notes like how to create a non-stick work surface without adding flour (spray oil) and which light cream cheese is the best and why (Cabot's 50%).

Each recipe starts off with a paragraph about "what makes this a best recipe."  It may be a blend of flavors, a streamlined technique, or just that they were able to make a semi-okay thing better.  For example, what makes their Creole Crab Cakes a best recipe is that "we were sick and tired of crab-flecked dough balls being passed off as crab cakes."  

It then goes on to talk about how they experimented with ingredients before finding the right ratio of meat to binder, why they chose a slightly unusual spice blend, and so forth.  This particular recipe also includes a sidebar on "where things can go wrong" (always be sure to chill them before frying) and "what you can do ahead of time" (make the sauce, and shape the cakes).

This attention to detail and comprehensive additional information is what makes The Best of America's Test Kitchen so readable.  It's a valuable resource, sure, but it's also an enjoyable book to sit down and read from cover to cover.  And I say that as someone who is not a habitual cookbook reader!

The Idiotic New Food Pyramid

As much as I disliked the old governmentally prescribed food pyramid, at least it made a kind of sense.  The new food pyramid (I'm inclined to put it in "scare quotes" and call it a "pyramid," but I shall refrain) is so clearly the work of a bureaucrat, it makes me want to bury my head in my hands.  It's so bad, it should come with its own Powerpoint presentation.

For one thing, the original food pyramid WAS a pyramid.  You had different sizes of blocks which stacked on top of each other.  To make a pyramid.  It made logical sense, and visual sense as well.  

Okay, so the base of the pyramid was this gigantic slab of grains.  Which was sacrilege to the carb-haters.   But what would you expect from the United States Department of AGRICULTURE?  That's what they're for - to get you to eat plants.

(And don't get me started on carb-hating.  Let me put it this way: if carbs make you fat, then that sure explains why vegans are all such fat bastards.)

The latest food pyramid is actually some kind of crazy-ass vertical pie chart, split into a crazy number of segments, all of which are too tiny to discriminate between.  The first time I looked at it, I got confused by the black outline and the color purple, and thought that it was recommending only the tiniest sliver of meat.  Then I got confused because each color is separated with a white strip, but I couldn't tell the white line from the yellow denoting "oils."  And looking at it again… I still can't.

To make things worse, they have made it graphically confusing, by including a crazy plethora of food products scattered at the bottom (not color coded).  Plus a flight of stairs up the side, in what I'm convinced have some kind of serious perspective flaw, but I'm not quite able to put my finger on it.  And a completely out of proportion humanoid figure striding cheerfully up the steps.

There's no point to going up the steps if all the slices go vertically.  This entire graphic is confusing and stupid.

I also have some complaints about the recommendations as a whole.  I like that fruits, vegetables, and grains are recommended in pretty much even amounts.  However, I have difficulty believing that we should be eating as much dairy as we do fruits and vegetables COMBINED.  I mean, that's a damn lot of cheese.  And I say that as someone who eats a fairly preposterous amount of dairy daily, from the milk I add to my coffee, to the cheese I put on just about everything, and the nonfat yogurt I use in my daily smoothies.  

Speaking of me being a vegetarian, what is the deal with lumping together meat and beans?  I'm so outraged by this, I'm going to add a few more question marks.  ?????

Both meat and beans are a source of protein, it's true.  But beans are a valuable source of fiber and complex nutrients.  While meat is fatty and artery-clogging and not super good for you.  Okay, maybe in small amounts.  Point being, beans and meat ARE NOT THE SAME THING.

A lot of people brush off talk of the governmental food pyramid.  But need I remind you, this is what they use to legislate the contents of school lunches.  That doesn't keep schools from serving French fries as a vegetable, but it's still - dare I say it - food for thought.

Clark Bars: Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate

You know, I am honestly not sure if I have ever had a Clark Bar before I picked these up on a whim.  I always sought out Fifth Avenue bars in that particular ecological niche of candy.  

A Fifth Avenue bar, for those of you who haven't had the privilege, is basically a Butterfinger bar with two almonds on top.  (Or rather it used to be, and now I date myself, because I see by the Wikipedia entry that they discontinued this practice in 1987.  Explains my confusion the last time I had one.)

Clark Bars could best be described - and I'm sure they hate it when people do this - as "kind of like a Butterfinger."  Except independently owned by a small company (well, relatively small - in this case, owned by NECCO as of a financial downturn in 1999.)

I love to read the history of candy bars, and NECCO has a great page on the Clark Bar's history.  It was invented by an Irish immigrant named David L. Clark, who went to business college at night while working odd jobs and day laborer work during the day.  In 1883 he started working as a sort of roving candy seller, driving a horse-drawn wagon full of candy across the country.  (Yes, I guess that was a real thing!)   In 1886 he bought the horse and wagon from his employer and settled down to found his own candy company in Pennsylvania.

D.L. Clark's legacy lives on in the two bars that carry his name.  (Also, Zagnuts.)  The Clark Bar bears a superficial resemblance to the Butterfinger, but oh, it is so much better.  Where a Butterfinger is cloyingly sweet, the Clark Bar is just, um, regular sweet.  The Clark Bar's peanut butter crunchy filling also has much less tendency to pack into your molars, which is my biggest complaint with Butterfingers.

I also like that the Clark Bar's filling is distinctly saltier than the Butterfinger filling.  Maybe Butterfingers wouldn't be so nauseating if they had a little salty flavor in there.  Clark Bars taste more like the filling in a Reese's Cup, albeit crunchy.

Clark Bars are touted as being "all natural," and I suppose that is true.  They contain real peanuts, real ingredients like molasses, and no preservatives.  This is a rather shocking thing, in this day and age when candy seems to be one of the last refuges of the food additive.  Purged from grocery store shelves throughout the aisles, these multi-syllabic ingredients have seemingly found safe harbor on the candy aisle.

I'm not entirely certain if corn syrup or invert sugar can technically be counted as "natural."  I guess it depends on your definition.  Let's not get bogged down in that.  Suffice it to say, I understand everything on the label.  

Of the two, I definitely preferred the dark chocolate version to milk chocolate.  I mean, who wouldn't?  The dark chocolate pairs nicely with the peanut butter filling, and the slight bitterness helps to cut the sweetness.

Pages