AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I skipped a holiday. And not just any holiday....my favorite holiday. What have I done? I wrote about Thanksgiving before I even mentioned Halloween. Shame on me.
I have to go straight home today and make something with pumpkin.
My friend Jamie's mom used to make these little biscuit cups filled with what I can only describe as sloppy joe mix. Then she would cut a slice of American cheese into a circle and cut out a little jack-o-lantern face in the cheese and put it on top of the stuffed biscuit cup. It was the best.
I tried to re-create this Halloween magic by making this for my family one year. I'm still not quite sure what went wrong...or if sloppy joe mix, cheap cheese, and buttery biscuit dough were never meant to be mixed, but I'm pretty sure I gave my brother dissentary.
He kind of looked like the poor pumpkin on the right:

And I am the pumpkin on the left, laughing..."ha ha, I poisoned my brother."

I subscribe to some food magazines, and I love them. I especially love when I get the Thanksgiving issue. I would even say it is almost better than the Christmas issue. I've never been that much of a Thanksgiving person, but there is just something about all those recipes for stuffing, cornbread and pies that is just so homey and comforting.
I haven't actually made sure of this yet, but I'm assuming that this year we will spend Thanksgiving with Al's family and I'm pretty excited. I mean, I will miss my cousin's fruit and marshmallow salad that I get when I go to Idaho for Thanksgiving, and I will surely miss all the wonderful food that my sister-in-law whips up when I go to her house for Thansksgiving (causing me to overeat to the point where I undo the pants at the table), but I'm looking forward to spending my first full holiday with my future in-laws.
Here is a link to Epicuriuos, where they list some of the fantastic Thanksgiving recipes from this month's Bon Appetit.

Tortilla Soup
All good things come from Oprah.
Al's going to hit me in the face for typing that. He hates Oprah. Not so much because of who she is as a person, but because of her legions of sheep-like followers...I like her. I think it might secretly hurt him inside when I buy an Oprah magazine, but they're just so good. I mean, the articles are 10x better than in any other woman's magazine, and the recipes...well, let's just say I've never seen a bad recipe come out of an Oprah magazine.
This recipe is from the October 2007 issue.

Tortilla Soup
1 dried ancho chili
1/2 cup boiling water
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 stalks celery, cut into 1/2-inch slices
3 garlic cloves, peeled and quartered
2 tsp ground cumin
6 cups chicken broth
2 cans (14.5 oz) chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves
6 corn tortillas
vegetable oil, for frying

1. place chili in a small, heatproof bowl; pour boiling water over and let soak 30 min. Drain; remove stem and seeds. Slice into 1/2-inch thick strips and set aside
2. In a heavy dutch oven or soup pan, heat olive oil over med high heat. Add chicken; season with salt and pepper. Brown on both sides, about 10 min total. Add onion, carrots, and celery. Continue to cook about 8 min, stirring often. Add garlic and cumin and cook and additional 2 min. Add broth, reserved chili, tomatoes and cilantro and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 15 min. With your hands, tear 3 tortillas into 2-inch strips and add to the soup. Continue to simmer about 15 min.
3. With a slotted spoon, remove chicken to a cutting board; take soup off heat. With an immersion blender, puree soup until smooth (or take your life in your own hands and do this in small batches in the blender...if you put the lid on tight the heat will cause some sort of pressure reaction and the lid with come flying off, leaving you scalded and scarred for life). With two forks, shred chicken; return to soup. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Now you can either slice up the rest of those tortillas and deep fry them to make a tasty garnish, or you can be lazy and use some ready-made tortilla chips.

This soup is delicious and spicy. If you have a cold, this will burn it out of you. If you have an ulcer...this is a bad plan.

Just when you thought I would never blog again...
Its been shenanigans, and I don't mean the kitchen kind. I had birthday fun and then more mouth trouble, not to mention getting busy with wedding planning stuff. I want to blog...really, I do.

Why my teeth hate me, and other life updates:

Last year, right before my 25th birthday, my teeth decided to rebel. I had an infection that caused half of my face to puff up and I had to be on antibiotics (therefore totally sober) on my birthday. Not only did I look hot with a super-sweet swollen face, but I didn't feel that great either.
This year, because I'm a sucker for tradition, my teeth have once again decided that the place for them is not in my mouth. (you can't see me, but I'm shaking my fist at the sky) I had oral surgery on Friday and have spent the last few days hopped up on Vicodin and knowing the mental fog that only painkillers can bring. My birthday is on Saturday. Hopefully I will be done with antibiotics by then.
I threatened that I wanted them to just pull the teeth and give me dentures, but then my grandma said that since she got dentures, her sense of taste has been impaired. WHAT??? No sense of taste? I might as well not go on living. Seriously. What kind of sad, cruel world would it be with no sense of taste?

On a happier note, my friend Karen is flying in from LA to visit me for my birthday!!!!
Yeah Friends!

Onto the topic of my upcoming nuptials. I am hard pressed to find a place that I both like and can afford. The whole wedding industry is a scam and all the engaged people in the world are it's blissfully unaware pawns. A lot of the places that are affordable just aren't that great...and let me tell you, I would rather not do it at all then do it in a New Jersey banquet hall with red carpet and gold accents everywhere that looks like the mafia is just using the place as a cover for something...although, isn't the wedding industry profitable enough? You better be selling crack by the pound if you are using a price-gouging establishment like a banquet hall as a cover. I mean, $150 per person for dry chicken breast and dinner rolls is a pretty freakin high profit margin.
Al thinks I'm a snob...but I didn't just go on a shopping spree at French Connection UK, so there! Whose the snob now?

Our (almost) Neighborhood Italian Deli
If you can consider 2 stops on the G train (which never comes) still in our neighborhood, then yes, G. Esposito and Sons Pork Store is in our neighborhood. I mean, I could walk there...and I can remember walking home from there, but why miss all the fun of that mysterious G train? Will it come? When will it come? When it comes, will it stop? It's really a fun game.
Next time anyone, and I mean anyone...even a vegetarian, comes to visit us, I am taking them to this place. It's amazing. It's in the part of Brooklyn where everyone is Italian and has an accent. They make their own mozzarella fresh every day, and they have every kind of cured meat you can think of.
I wasn't in a particularly meaty mood when we went, but I did purchase some meat sauce, which I served with some home-made ravioli that we also bought there. It was the best sauce and the best ravioli...well, that's I've ever tried to pass off as something I made, and that's really saying something.
After we bought some stuff there we went next door to the Italian Deli and shared a cannoli...and thus continues my journey into being Italian. Yep, gotta prepare to slap on that new last name.

The West Indian Parade
On Monday Al and I hit up what I just discovered is the biggest parade/festival in New York. With the promise of Jamaican food, we headed to Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn and down Eastern Parkway. It was craziness. It was just how I pictured Carnival in Brazil, with scantily-clad dancers, loud music, and delicious food.

In the picture of me above, I am eating some awesome fried cheese bread, which I can't remember the name of, but which they usually serve with shark in it as a sandwich. I just wanted some delicious cheesy bread.
I love you fried banana...not so much with cheese in you, but I love you none the less.

Catching Up
Much to the chagrin of Al, we haven't had internet for a few weeks. Last Friday, yours truly stayed home from work and waiting for the DSL man.
Once again there is happiness in this apartment. And I can finally post all these dang food pictures.














The above picture is of this wonderful chicken I made for dinner one night. I made it with one of those Indian bottled sauces from Whole Foods. I would tell you what sauce, but I forget.

I made baked apples for desert, only to discover that Al isn't such a big fan of the baked apple. I think his exact words were, "yeah, baked apples don't do me a whole lot of good if they don't have crust, or at least some sort of crumb topping." See what happens when you try to be a little healthy around here? Not that it was exactly lo-cal with the amount of brown sugar I put on it.

Isn't the saying that necessity is the mother of invention? Well, that's how I remember it.
One time Al said "just taking a stab in the dark" instead of "shot in the dark" and when I called him on it, he just leaned in really close, and in a threatening tone said, "lady, I carry knives, not guns." Point being, sometimes there really is nothing to make, and I gotta eat, so I'm forced to make something up...like this wonderful side dish. I had a green pepper, some sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and a can of potatoes. Saute up those veggies, add those potatoes, and throw on a little crushed red pepper, and you've got a pretty tasty concoction. It's dishes like this that earned me the nickname "Macgyver of the kitchen."

And it's cupcakes like the ones above that earned me the nickname EVIL. They are moist and good, and I made Nutella frosting for them. I started off with a basic buttercream frosting, but then cut back on the sugar a little and whipped in 1/4 jar of Nutella. It was delicious. I ate, well, I ate a few, but let's not talk about it.

Beaver and Steve
Click here for the full comic strip. It is hilarious. I saw this over at SeriousEats and just had to re-post it.

I just found out that there is a Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. I love green tea ice cream, so this is the best news I have ever gotten.

Bad Service

I know that a lot of people who are or were servers, or people who have friends that are servers are very sensitive about tipping. Even if they receive poor or mediocre service, they feel the need to tip generously because, admittedly, it is hard to be on your feet for that long and being a server can suck sometimes. You do make minimum wage, and you do depend on your tips to live...but here's the thing, I'm don't want to be the one who pays you to suck at your job. If the kitchen is slow, then tell me that. If they are backed up and I should expect to wait an hour or more for my meal, then let me know. Be nice. Be attentive. I can see how busy you are, how many tables you have, and if you are working hard or if you are standing around talking to the other servers.

Never...under any circumstances... add gratuity to my bill. Okay, if I'm at the Olive Garden with a party of 10, then add it, but if I'm at a nice restaurant in NY with a party of 5, you better not try to tell me how much you deserve. If you do an outstanding job, I will leave more than 20%, but if you are lazy, unattentive, or just basically suck, I will give you what I think you deserve.

Last night some people from work and I went to La Palette. When we finally got our food, after what seemed like an eternity, it was decent, but certainly not good enough to justify the kind of wait we endured. Problems like this can often be remedied by the server, who, if they have a good attitude, explain the situation, or take something off my bill for being so patient, can convince me to give the restaurant another try. We had to ask our server where our food was multiple times. She never apologized for the wait. Then she proceeded to add a 20% gratuity to our bill, before tax!!! So she taxed us on the tip too!

Needless to say, after waiting 45 minutes for our food, we weren't about to leave her a 20% tip. We left what we felt was fair, only to have her confront one of my co-workers about not leaving enough money.

Today is Dumb!
This morning was just one of those mornings. I left late. The train was stalled. I got to the gym late and didn't have time to work out. I was looking down at my coffee and walked into a tree. I burnt my toast.
It got to that point of being comically bad where you just have to laugh. I mean, who walks into a tree? In New York. I thought the only place we even had trees here was in Central Park, and I certainly wasn't there.

Ha! I'm living longer than everyone!
Al send me this article today from NY Magazine about why New Yorkers live longer than the rest of the country...9 months longer to be exact.
HA! Take that rest of the country! We totally rock. We're a fast-walking, long-living bunch of people. Granted I've only lived here for about 7 months, but still, I'm a New Yorker.
Sometimes when I'm walking somewhere and there's a really slow person, or slow bunch of people in front of me, I take the first opportunity to blow past them and in my mind I shout, "tourists!"
When I got off the plane in Salt Lake to see my family, you should have seen how slow people were moving. It was very upsetting. I had to clench my fists and take deep breaths and try to remember that I wasn't in NY anymore. Granted, that level of annoyance probably isn't doing my health any good.

I'm usually opposed to telling people what to do (that's a lie), but I want you all to go out and buy this book: Eat This: 1001 things to eat before you die. Then I want you to take a couple months off work, pack up the family, and visit all these places. If you don't have the time and the means to do it, then just send donations and I'll go for you. I'll take lots of pictures and tell you all about my trip. It will be just like you are there.

What? Why?I would like to introduce you to LiveActive cottage cheese...with fiber. Cheese? With Fiber? It promises to "regulate your digestive system" by which they really mean, "we're fighting the colon-hindering effects of cheese." You know, you could just eat a salad after you eat your cottage cheese, but apparently that would be way too hard.

Going to Utah...
I leave tomorrow to go to my family reunion in Utah. While Utah isn't exactly a culinary mecca, there is the promise of my Uncle Brad's dutch-oven potatoes to keep me warm. I will also be attending the carnival, and if we're lucky, I will remember to take pictures of the candy apple that my mom and I will inevitably share, even after we promise to be good and not eat junk food.

Gym Showers On a completely non-food related note, I would like to talk about gym bathroom etiquette. Now, I have been showering at the gym in the morning, on and off, for about three years. Before that I always had an erratic schedule and never really had a job with set hours to work around. Now, its hard to commit to going to the gym any time other than first thing in the morning...and since the gym is usually closer to my job than it is to my home, I end up showering there.

No, I think that I have pretty good gym etiquette. I take a towel with me and wipe off the treadmills and machines when I am done; I try to be mindful if someone else is waiting to use a machine that I am using...you know, the basics. At first the whole idea of showering at the gym freaked me out a little, but I quickly got used to it. My Swedish friends are quick to remind me of how inhibited Americans are about nudity and their bodies, and for the most part, I can see where they are coming from...but I've seen things in these gym bathrooms...things that make me want to break the very first and most important rule of gym etiquette--no laughing in the ladies room.

When I showered at the gym in Culver City, there was a woman who would sing in the shower. Not once in a while, but every morning. At the Hollywood gym, the tiny Asian women would walk around the nudist of all nude. One woman asked me to zip up her dress, which clearly was a size or two too small for her, but I tried my best to oblige, even though the zipper would only go about 1/2 way up. Yep, I've seen a lot of stuff, but never laughed until today.

As I walked from the shower room to my locker, wrapped in my towel, I saw something that made me break the first rule...the golden rule if you will. It was a woman wearing underwear, a towel on her head, and cowboy boots. No bra. Nothing else. Just underwear and cowboy boots. Now, this may not have been so funny, except for the constant commentary on everyone and everything around me running through my head, and instantly exclaimed, "Yee-ha!" Damn you inner monologue. Damn you straight to hell! But really, who gets dressed in that order? Underwear first, I can understand...but boots second? Unless you are indulging some sort of sexual fantasy, there is no reason for just underwear and boots.

It might not be a plastic bag, but you're still an idiot.I wouldn't say that I am against collector's items...or even designer items, but this is just silly.

Just to get some background/perspective, here are some articles on these not-plastic bags.
CNN
Ecorazzi
Gothamist

It's like saying you only want to help the environment if it is hot and trendy and fashionable...when really you could have bought a canvas bag for $2 long ago.

Here is a link to how much the bags are going for on Ebay.

Not in the club

There is a food blogging community. I'm not in it, but I know it exists. Other food bloggers send each other food and cookbooks from other countries, they participate in blogger activities like Sugar High Fridays and Weekend Herb Blogging, and they tag each other with memes. Now, here is a link the the Wikipedia definition of what a meme is.
My blogging is a little more haphazard. I don't tend to participate in blogging events and I don't spend hours taking pretty pictures of the food that I make and/or eat. It's more of a fly by the seat of your pants thing with me. Sometimes I blog a lot, and sometimes I don't blog at all. I'm sort of a food bloggin' rebel...an outsider if you will. Just call me Pony Girl. I'm like Olivia Newton John at the end of Grease, wearing tight pants and stomping out my cigarette. "You can't make me blog today, cause I don't feel like it." Yeah, I'm pretty bad-ass.
Well, mostly.
I was reading Once Upon a Tart this morning and saw that she got tagged for a meme by Other People's Food. Well, I've never been tagged for a meme, so I'm officially tagging myself.

Here are the rules:
"I have been tagged to post 8 random facts. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts: Each participant posts eight random facts about themselves. Tagees should write a blogpost of eight random facts about themselves. At the end of the post, eight more bloggers are tagged. Go to their blog and leave a comment telling them they're tagged."

Maybe after I tag 8 other bloggers, they will know who I am...or maybe not. That's cool too.

Fact #1. I just pre-ordered Monster Squad on DVD. I don't think I've seen this film since I was 12, but I love it. It's taken forever to come out on DVD, and I'm so excited that I can't contain myself.

Fact #2. I'm really not that good of a cook. I just really like food. Most of the things I make aren't worthy of being served to other people...but my friends eat my food anyway, because they know how much I like to cook. It's like the friend who's a really bad singer, but you let her sing along with the radio anyway, because she's your friend, and really, what are you going to say? (Gosh, I hope I'm not that friend too)

Fact #3. I have never left the country, other than a quick trip the the Bahamas and one to Mexico...but neither of those required a passport, and growing up in Southern California you don't really think of Mexico as a different country anyway. I just got my passport a couple of weeks ago and can't wait to go somewhere.

Fact #4. Don't tell my mom, but I secretly love musicals...even the super-cheesy one, which I guess is all of them.

Fact #5. I think I am the funniest person alive. There, I said it, and it made me laugh.

Fact #6. If I could choose my last meal in this world, it would be pancakes from Katie's Kitchen in Carmel, CA.

Fact #7. My first word was broccoli...and thus began my love of food.

Fact #8. I moved to NY for the food. People think I'm kidding when I say that, but I'm really not. That's really why.

Okay, here are the people I'm tagging:
-Big City, Little Kitchen
-Food Lover's Journey
-A Chicken in Every Granny Cart
-Tasting Menu
-Fresh Approach Cooking
-Cook and Eat
-The Passionate Cook
-For the Love of Food

Love and CommunicationI don't think we ever ate that much Indian food when we lived in Venice. There was a fast food Indian place around the corner from where I worked, and it was cheap and delicious, but all the Indian places around where we lived were rather expensive.
Now that we live in Fort Greene, there is an Indian Food place around the corner that has become Al's favorite place to order food from (second only to the pizza place, which he knows I will only eat every once in a while).
Every time we are starving and don't want to cook, or I'm on my way home and he wants to have food for me when I get there, or if I just refuse to cook because it's a million degrees outside and turning on the stove or the oven could be the thing that ruins the perfect balance that our air conditioner and the stinky, humid hell that is New York in the summer...we order in. I love our Indian food place, don't get me wrong. It's just, well, the family that owns it choose the family member with the least knowledge of the English language to work the phone. Calling in an order is like undergoing some form of Indian torture. Just when I am sure he's heard me, he repeats what he thinks I said...and then we have to start all over.
"What street?"
"Carlton, between Greene and Lafayette."
"879 Huston."
"What? No! That's not even close to what I said."
"Okay, we will be there in 15 minutes."
"What? You don't even know where I live!"
"Yes, we have that."
"What?"
And on we go, until I'm just about to loose my patience, and then he just says it will be right here and hangs up on me when I'm mid-sentence. Somehow it magically finds it's way here. I don't know how...unless that old dude is just messing with me the entire time and his family, who have probably all been speaking English from birth, is in the background cracking up. I'm sure they have caller id and every time I call he's like, "Hey, everyone, it's that really high-strung white girl again. Let's mess with her."
Actually going into the restaurant helps, because then I can just point at what I want...but when my goal is to escape the heat, going in completely defeats the purpose.

But the food is so good. Ah.....

Taste of Indian Cuisine
723 Fulton Street (at Lafayette)
Brooklyn, NY 11217