Recipe Apps

Due to Pepperplate going to a subscription model, I went looking for an alternative.

I don't object to paying--I'm a software tester and currently head up mobile app testing, hell yes I know what kind of work goes into even a simple app--but I do object to doing it every month. I like buying apps; all the games I buy now but Pokemon Go are pay upfront and no in-app purchasing. Non-Game apps, if there's an add-free premium paid version, I upgrade. Pokemon Go is literally the only exception to this.

So, I bought Paprika 3 off Google Play, which is pretty much Pepperplate but without a working web interface (I think?). It does have a Windows program you can sync with but it's $29.99. And while I might quail normally, I have to admit I am at least going to try the trial and see.

(I am seriously tired of inventing my own versions of anything I need using spreadsheets and what is becoming some terrifyingly complex VBA scripts (and oh God so many subfunctions) that are sometimes half comments to explain what I'm writing, what it's subfunctions are, and why. I love coding but would like to go back to doing it recreationally for Agincourt and Pokemon Go and work and not to get through my life without forgetting rent or buying nothing but brownie mix and cotton candy grapes and computer parts.)

When I say it's basically Pepperplate, it is; there are some quirks, but nothing to write home about so far. It let me import everything from Pepperplate and there were a few oddities, but Pepperplate's import system often had some oddities that with some, I forgot to ever correct.

My biggest objections with pretty much all recipe programs (the ones with features) still stand, however.

Meal planning

Recipe apps really really like the daily calendar thing to do meal planning, you have to add a meal or meals to a day, which no.

a.) That's not how I plan, like, at all. I plan by month; this is what we're eating this month at some point. I don't want to add for a day; I have no idea if I'll have time, if Child and I are both home, if Doordash will give me 15% off and free delivery, or if bread and cheese is the limit of my functionality that day, okay?

b.) you can't just see a flat list of 'meals added for month'. You have to go day by day. See above.

c.) You can't manually add a meal without an attached recipe.

It's a taco kit; I do not need a recipe, I need a box and ground meat. Other variations: spaghetti, frozen gnocchi alfredo, tamales, Frozen family size lasagna, Frozen Marie Callender Because I Had Coupons and I Love Her Chicken Fried Steak and Turkey Dinners, Subs n'More Has Tamales This Week Hell Yes, etc. I don't need the recipe; I need them for my meal count. I need to be able to see Thirteen to Sixteen Confirmed Meals Of Some Kind, Yes, Including the Three That Are Just 'Sandwiches or Something'.

d.) no option for special meal planning or one time things aka Family Reunion Things, etc

The entire meal planning alone is just really outdated; I don't know anyone not in much higher income bracket than me who does planning at that level (and wouldn't they pay people to do that for them?). Even my mom during her (very few) SAHM days in the eighties didn't microplan three meals a day; she had a husband and three kids and hell yes, she planned, but she did it like I do, dinners for the month, and the only hard dates in there were ones with complicated shit, like her three hour prep for lasagna. When she went back to work, the same thing applied. And breakfast was planned at 'oatmeal, waffles, or cereal'. Fancy breakfasts were vacation or big family party territory and this is Texas, it didn't meed to planned: it involved eggs, two or more pork products, several variations on the basic potato, biscuits and gravy. Aka Special Meal Planning.

I mean, leave the option for the calendar if it makes you happy! But have a month list option and without dates. Yes I can do it on my spreadsheet, but if I do that there, I might as well do most of it there instead of glancing from phone to spreadsheet to confirm.

Add to Grocery List

I actually like this functionality but it has issues.

a.) It will add the same thing multiple times if the wording is slightly different and so far, I can't work out how to manually edit the grocery list after the fact. I can remove something before adding if I do it from the meals calendar page, but not condense.

Chicken broth and chicken stock are the same damn thing. Chicken bouillon is a form of chicken stock. A can of cream of chicken is the same as a can (14 oz) of cream of chicken and a can of condensed cream of chicken. 'Salt and pepper to taste' is not an ingredient. 'Garnish' is not an ingredient. 'eggs' and 'Eggs' are literally the same. I get it's being thorough so it gets everything, but a merge function or something would be good here.

Or even--I would love this--a grocery entry of "Chicken, Total 4 lbs" and you can click to open a sublist that breaks down your specific chicken needs there by recipe. Like, this way does reduce my workload--and it does list the recipe(s) for each entry on the grocery list--but not by very much. I'm currently in the process of going through my recipes and standardizing, but one day, someone is making a recipe app for me.

b.) Buying location options: I'd kill for that. HEB, Amazon Prime, Amazon Pantry, Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Central Market, Trader Joe's, Instacart, Target, the list goes on. Yes, I know that would be a whole round of complicated, but seriously. I don't expect the local Latino/Mexican and Indian and Halal and Chinese and Asian markets, but when you have a major online presence that specializes in online grocery shopping, it shouldn't be this hard to comparison shop.

c.) Alternative: ability to manually edit grocery list entries with place/price. There are many local and many online options; when I see a good deal, I want to note it down if I cant' shop immediately. Sometimes it may be over by then, but the alternative is I'll forget it.

Food Shopping in General

Amazon Fresh finally came to Austin, and--it's not bad? Prices are reasonable and a pretty good variety. Mostly, though, the more Amazon encroaches, the more I hope HEB with level the fuck up already. They've had the time and funds; for decades, they had a practical monopoly over most of Texas, so it's not like they didn't have the money to get into this.

The smaller local grocery stories, especially the halal and Chinese and Indian and ones like M Mart--don't have a lot to worry about; they specialize in what you can't get anywhere else and if you can, it's not the same quality. The Mexican/Latino grocery stores are local to the community and also have really good prices; they chose for location to get their population perfectly, and again, you can't get most of it from online, and their only real competitor is HEB, who--to do them credit--do adapt their merchandise (and believe it or not, prices) to the community.

(In Austin, we have an HEB for four rough groups: Jewish people, Latino people/Mexican immigrants, upper middle class people who feel brand loyalty and/or want to save gas so don't want to go to Central Market or Whole Foods, and working to middle class (untyped). You know when you walk in: one has a massive Kosher section (in fresh foods, frozen foods, and meats); one sells nopales, tortillas made fresh in house, parts for tamales, fajita kits, and has special fresh cooked chicken caliente (hot chicken basically) you can buy with three sides (refried beans, rice, and corn or flour tortillas, optional jalapenos), and a three chickens for eighteen dollars deal (if you need the address, email me; you won't regret it, I too buy in bulk); one has stuff with French names and organics with Central Market labels and God's own produce section; and one has none of that and no one really wants to go there but that's what they have locally. When possible, we all go to one of the others. (We'd go to the upper middle class for steak, butter sales, boomerang frozen pies, and their produce section, then the local Latino HEB for actual groceries and dairy, ground beef, chicken, and pork, three to six fire chickens, tortillas and bread, and anything needed for barbecue or fajitas. The Kosher HEB had better beef than anywhere but was too far away for casual groceries unless we happened to be in the neighborhood.)

Part of my excitement that Amazon was piloting taking EBT (SNAP/food stamps) was that it might finally force the major food chains to play nice; they have dragged their feet with online delivery so damn much. Yeah, six years ago it was the province of those with money but how the hell they didn't look ahead and realize that was going to change fast blows my mind. Specifically--and Amazon is pretty much the only one who seems to get this--people using EBT with limited funds? Hell yes they'll comparison shop, note price gouging, and with free delivery--if amazon is willing to take the hit--they could get most people on Food Stamps who don't have a friendly local market that specializes to the community. (Wal-Mart is as close as I have to friendly local market; everything else is a minimum hour bus on weekdays and two hour on weekends. Yeah, no. I miss my local HEB and regular fire chickens like you have no idea.)

And I can't lie: the better it is for business (for Amazon, for major businesses) to get EBT money, the better protected the program is. If the free market can protect it, by God I will support it.

Creamy Tuscan Chicken

My new favorite dish; we make this twice a month now at Casa Jenn.

Ingredients

4 chicken thighs or 3 breasts
2 Tbs olive oil (can substitute regular oil, butter if you're experienced)
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, granted
1 cup spinach, frozen or 2 cups fresh
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
1 box angel hair pasta or favorite pasta

Directions
1. Cut up or slice chicken into double the size of bite size. Think half the size of a chicken tender
2.) Heat olive oil and cook chicken for three to five minutes. You can also skip this and use leftover or precooked chicken, it literally makes no difference in flavor
3.) Remove chicken and set aside
4.) Add heavy cream, broth, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and Parmesan cheese to skillet (add butter or olive oil first if you had pre-cooked chicken and skipped two and three). Whisk until thick
5.) Add spinach and sundried tomatoes. If using fresh spinach, continue until spinach is wilted; otherwise, five minutes or so.
6.) Add chicken, heat thoroughly, then pour over pasta.

Notes

For leftover chicken, this is a fast meal, maybe twenty minutes prep time. Now, some suggestions.

1.) Sometimes, it won't thicken because food. Either create a roux with cornstarch or a white sauce base with three tablespoons butter and three tablespoons of sugar, then pour in some of the liquid above to start the thickening process.

2.) Check your sundried tomatoes; are they super strong flavored? Cut them up into quarter. I love them but the first time I had this, I left them whole and they really overwhelmed my taste buds.

3.) You can use whole milk instead of cream, but in that case, definitely make the roux or cream sauce first. If you're using 2% or 1%, add more butter and flour to get the fat up. If fat free or skim milk, check the flavor and if doing the cream sauce, you may need a roux anyway to get the thickness and flavor or start with a four tablespoon butter/four flour white sauce.

4.) Sub in broth for cream and you will need to create a white sauce (with broth) or roux.

Due to multi-family demands, Thanksgiving (aka At Mom's Thanksgiving) will be the Saturday after.

In a sane world--or with a sane me--I would have realized that meant Official Thanksgiving (11/28) could be celebrated with doritos, fake cheese, samosas, fresh cherries, ice cream, and vodka. Or at least, I would have realized it before I ordered Thanksgiving-related groceries in a pre-Thanksgiving panicc that include none of that but do include a 12 lb turkey, the ingredients for brine, the makings of three (3) to four (4) side dishes, and a can of cranberry sauce, and I really wish I could say that at least showed sense, but no, that was only because I couldn't find my recipe for cranberry sauce and panicked.

But. Let's talk about this turkey. A 12.04 lb turkey, rather, which I'm not actually sure will fit in my freezer no matter how I Tetris this shit, but that's a worry for one hour from now when it arrives. I just scanned my soon to arrive grocery list and I am pretty sure at least some portions were done in a fugue state. Apparently--for reasons unclear--I also purchased Turkey broth, which is twice the price of chicken with no discernible difference in flavor, and I cannot work out what happened.

But also, three (3) to four (4) side dishes; granted, not complicated ones, but this ties back to the turkey situation in which I ignore good sense and also forgot the only people involved in eating this are me and Child and worse, I ordered no doritos or fake cheese at all.

If anyone needs me, I am watching the shape of my fate descend upon me (with occasional digressions) via the delivery map.

All,

Grapery's Cotton Candy Grapes are now available. I repeat, Grapery Cotton Candy Grapes are now available. Also in select locations: Grapery's Flavor Promise which I managed to find for the first time and have entered a grape semi-coma with at least two and a half pounds left.

Central Market also had grapes, I kid you not, called Plot that tasted a little like Rose. No idea who makes them but man I wish I'd gotten some because three pounds of grapes, a pound of hatch pepper jack cheese, and olive bread really isn't enough even though I can no longer move.

Are the Greatest Grape People on earth available to you? Probably: The Grapery where you can find a complete Grape Calendar with all their varieties (my God, there is nothing here that isn't worth murder) and who distributes their great work.

Rookie mistake: shopping for food online when you're not hungry and feel like you never need to eat again because you glutted yourself on tamarind candy from Mexico that your coworker introduced you to never realizing where this could lead.

There are two things that deeply annoy me here:

1.) How did I not know tamarind a.) existed (I thought it was some kind of fantasy food?) and b.) was so fucking good? Like yes, I get I'm eating the compressed sugar-and-spicy version but holy shit.

2.) My shopping list was, to my experienced eye, remarkably functional with little to no indulgence (nope, one thing: English muffins). In fact, I am well under budget.

This may sound like a good thing but generally, no, it's not. My budget plan has built-ins for indulgence, and in general, I go over by at least 10%-15% each month, which is expected. Then why not raise the budget, you wonder? No, then I'd go ten to fifteen percent over that. Logic.

Anyway going under that hard this early in the month when I'm stocking up on staples as well? Not a good sign.

Sure, now I'm on a tamarind candy high and care not, but there's a reason I have that ten to fifteen percent buffer to buy snacks and candy and boomerang pies at reasonable prices. The reason is, if I don't, if I'm careful and methodical and stick to the healthy ingredient list and act responsible and shit, there will be many trips to the convenience store next door for overpriced Bear Claws, Reese's Pieces stuffed chocolate everything, and while I'm there, might as well grab an Orange Vanilla Coke or two.

This is going to be a really fun month.

Food Weirdness

When I moved to my apartment, I made a resolution to eat healthy. This quickly morphed into 'eat healthy and organic (when affordable)' but at some point turned into becoming super into ethically conscious meat and dairy consumption.

( yeah, it's a good thing, but )

Semi-relate, I've also come to realize there's been a shift in the Force on how I view rice.

( rice: it is a food and not just white stuff under the actual food )

I'm sure there's a true canonical version, so we can assume this is not that. This is a variation of Helen Corbitt's Beef Stroganoff, and if you can find The Helen Corbitt Cookbook (I think that's the title), I recommend it highly for being bar none the best cupboard cookbook in history for recipes that for the most part you will have all the ingredients on hand and with easy instructions. The woman worked the Neiman Marcus Zodiac room and still wrote how to eat like a normal person. Two thirds of my base recipe list come from her and I have this book in hardback that I got from my grandmother because if the end of the world comes and I have no internet, I still want to eat well.

( beef strognaoff )
( cream sauce fixes anything )

It sounds exotic and fancy, and it's so easy you will cry. The first time I made it, I fed it to aerialiste and my best friend and they emptied my pot.
( chicken and gnocchi soup )
( gnocchi notes please read )

Up to now, online grocery shopping has been pretty much the best and only way to a.) stay under budget and b.) not buy eight boxes of brownie mix (mulitple types), ten to fifteen pounds of fruit that looks interesting, six kinds of cheese I can't pronounce, and a minimum of four loaves of artisan bread, three of which I may not be able to pronounce. I could never afford to go into Central Market, Sprouts, or (sometimes) Whole Foods with a credit card; it just ended expensively with nothing that could be used for meals but lots of highly pretentious snacking.

The most important advantage in doing it online is I can do it over a period of days, specifically when I'm not terribly hungry. I sensibly go through my old grocery lists to check for things I may be running low on, add my staples to the online cart (x amount of beef, x amount of chicken, no more than one (1) pork product because my stomach doesn't like too much of it and one (1) bacon, x number of frozen broccoli, spinach, peas, mixed veggies, bread, cooking butter, eating butter, milk, cooking cheese, sandwich cheese, one (1) obscure cheese, eggs....), go to pepperplate and sensibly choose easy recipes I can make ahead of time after work with no more than two (2) that require a lot of effort. It's all very adult, and in this way, I always go above Real Budget but always below Actual Budget (actual budget is one quarter higher; that is my indulgence in fifty grain provolone bread and local full cream organic milk, out of season Ranier cherries or those super random sales on usually overpriced steak or something).

This strategy is one of the reasons I used Prime Now, specifically their Sprouts and now their Whole Foods section. I am not joyful about Whole Foods, but while they are above and beyond on Totally Pretentious Food, they had a comparatively limited selection compared to HEB (the ubiquitous grocery store of Texas and some of the south) and honestly, I picked up a taste for local and organic produce and chicke; in other words, prices made sure I was budget limited, but it did get me eating almost entirely organic and (often) local with like, step rated so I knew my chickens and cows were well-cared for and possibly more educated than I am. And healthy.

(This is why I never go live into grocery stores without a monitor (aka family or friend); my brain just stops working and wants ALL THE FOOD even though there's no way I can cook and eat that much produce and garbanzo beans. I also never go before I've done my monthly grocery shopping, ever. Just no.)

My secondary strategy for dealing with I Want All the Food (Or Things Food Adjacent) also rests on the multi-day online grocery list; fine, I tell myself grimly, you want it, lets put it on the list. Then--while again, not hungry, I'll strip it down again of all the eight pounds of cotton candy grapes, moon grapes, cherries, six of the ten cheese, you get the idea. This makes grocery shopping fun as well, with the addition the joy of self-denial when actually, twenty four hours later you really didn't want so many damn grapes. So I really am not denying myself anything but I do get a glow that maybe I'm denying past-me who really should have known the unfortunate result of shotgunning five pounds of cherries in two days (she does, she just doesn't care).

I only use Instacart rarely; it's dangerous. HEB is on there and HEB is my Paradise/Waterloo; it's just too much. I only use Instacart before holidays when I'm expecting to make dishes for family stuff or to pick up bulk canned mushrooms and butter sales or something, once, twice a year at most.

For reasons beyond my understanding, on Thursday, while hungry, I opened up Instacart. And it went downhill from there. My usual strategies? Failed. Didn't even try. The part that is now driving me nuts is that going over the list, there's no junk at all--I managed to control that--and all of this is meal or good snack related. This is a solid fucking list; really, it's unjudgeable.

It's the amounts that are the problem.

( examples )

And this is where I explain Weird Food Feelings that influence me unduly and may have had a part in this (though never before like this).

( boring food rules of self )

Part 2--there's a part two--I get a monthly Amazon Pantry box (it arrives Monday). I also did the order for that on Thursday night. I just went to look and am going to pretend (until Monday) that this isn't happening.

Like, what the fuck happened to me on Thursday? I did my full budget, all the math is right there, and--here we are, preparing to Tetris the fuck out of my fridge and pantry and break myself some physics.

So this is my non-foodie-compliant 1.5 hour stew recipe. It's for anytime you desperately want stew but want to make it fast, easy, and cheap. All but the one hour simmering can be done in stages ahead of time. This one can take me a week if I really spread it out.

I'm mentioning this today because I just made it and it's fresh in my memory.

( lazy beef stew )

My current dream is one day I will work on The Great British Bake-Off and get a chance to eat everything. Like, they wouldn't have to pay me, just let me at all the bakes and don't ask questions.

Currently rewatching S2 and now want English muffins so much.

...because work is eating my soul, in bites. Small bites, but dude, that just means there's more of them. Also, it froze again Monday/Tuesday, so we had a two hour delay. It's March. I honestly don't recognize weather anymore. I am so very done with winter.

In other, less interesting news:

1.) The cat is neurotic (expected), and we're all getting used to him appearing at random under us. I know cats do this--I know--but see, our dogs do this, too, but unlike cats, they don't have preternatural moving out of the way powers, so basically, there's no point in my life I don't have bruises on my shins, just now they're not necessary a third of the time.

2.) I got to the journeyman stage in tortilla making. Two coworkers gave advice, one of them taking up a very zen approach (You'll know you're ready when you can feel the tortilla is ready) which inspired me to stare into the pan trying to becoming one with flatbread. That worked out well. However, out of three batches, my second was wildly successful, by sheer accident, and they were eaten while I was cooking them so none for storage. The problem is there's no recipe that has what I call a small batch, which makes sense, because of the amount of margarine/butter/lard/shortening you use is so small that it's hard to divide it down more. However, that means when I get it wrong, there's a lot of leftover unbaked and waiting to be badly cooked. The last batch isn't bad, but it's--very flakey, too much so, and I have yet to figure out how this one went wrong when the last one didn't since the recipes are identical.

I think it's how I'm doing the margarine/butter/lard/shortening and flour mix together. I may try to start with one cup of flour mix and the margarine/butter/lard/shortening, then add in more flour when that's well mixed. It's enough like pastry in basics--and I know basic and complex pastries, it may be my only true gift--that I'm stuck in the wrong mindset while making it and treating it like pastry, hence very flakey and not very much tortilla. OTOH, it still tastes okay, just utterly useless for wrapping around fajita meat or carne asada.

(In case you're curious, I'm not using margarine/butter/lard/shortening, just one of those at a timee, but I was originally switching, and after consultation with people who are really good at this, decided to stick to lard until I get it right, then I can judge how to use substitutes. If I get this right, a coworker has promised she'll teach me naan, but I have to get a handle on flatbreads in general first or it will not end well. Well, and I have to pay her with a batch of tortillas using shortening or something vegetarian/vegan.)

3.) In food related news, my Indian coworkers are bringing out the snack foods again to helplessly addict us all. I usually get first pick, since I mentored several of them, and also it's a subtle test of my ability to eat hot things (there was a thing with lemon peel that mostly metaphorically set my mouth on fire; they were all extremely excited about this) or random things that they refuse to name until I eat it, because I'm the kind of person that responds to that very well. The latest is a very hard rice-based--I want to say like a chip, but it's not, it's in twists not unlike a pretzel (but nothing at all like a pretzel) and it has a faint spicy undertaste that was amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to eat any until the woman who brought it left, so my Monday will be spent finding out what it is and who I need to kill to get a bag of it.

4.) In more food-related news, we finally got a rice cooker and I'm eating rice and veggies like it's a drug. I remember someone on my flist or dcircle talking about making rice and then just mixing it with leftovers and eating it for days, and for the record, that works. I've been mixing it up with wild rice, sticky rice, jasmine rice, random rice, and orzo (I think?), but I am actually eating healthier in general now, because add a little cheese on top of everything and my God, yes. It's also nice not to have burned rice. I know there are people out there that can cook rice without a layer of burn at the bottom; I am not one of those people.

5.) In even more food related news, we got a deep fryer. I don't want to talk about how my son managed ot master chicken wings and vegetables and my chicken wings and zucchini so failed sadly, but let's just say it happened and leave it at that.

6.) I had a lot of food related news, okay? It was fucking freezing and I'm either skipping meals or eating my own weight. It's--something. Food, okay?

Oh God, Thanksgiving - Update!

The bread came out of the oven delicious and golden. I also forgot strangely enough to name the bread, which is challah. It's my one of my four yeast breads I can make that has a 100% success rate: the others are white bread, brioche, and croissants. To say I find this weird when I can burn coffee cake, cookies (all kinds), have yet to pull off frying anything with a success rate higher than 75% is an understatement. I also burn rolls of any kind, which makes no sense but also kind of goes with the WTF theme of my cooking experience.

Adding here my current favorite Fastest Meal You Can Possibly Make With Just Your Cupboard:

Stuffing in General Casserole - 4 to 6 people
Ingredients
1 box stuffing (Stovetop, Really Fancy, Generic, whatever)
1 can of Cream of Mushroom soup (cream of: chicken, celery, whatever)
1 to 2 cups of broccoli (any vegetable or mix)
1 package of fresh mushrooms (1 can)
2 cups of chicken

Optional
1 cup cheese, shredded
1/4 - 1/2 cup onion
1 can water chestnuts
really anything here

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Make stuffing and set aside
Mix chicken, vegetables, mushrooms, and soup.
(Variation: add cheese and/or sauted onion.)
Mix in stuffing.
(Variation: put chicken mix et al in first and cover with stuffing.)
Bake for 35 minutes.
(Variation: Remove, sprinkle with cheese, bake until melted)

I fell in some kind of creepy infatuation with stuffing. So far, I'm up to four variations, using random foods to see what works. Hint: anything. My leftover variation was exclusively leftovers I found in the fridge mixed with stuffing. Dear God, it was magic.

God, I'm hungry now.

For the record;

McDonalds, I forgive you everything, up to and including stale coffee one day that made me very sick, for bringing back fried baked cherry pies (I miss fried things).

I have a terrible feeling this will end badly at 2 for 1.00, is what I am saying. Though honestly, there are much worse reasons to have a heart attack.

We had relatives, food, and three kinds of dip because I was unwary and said, sure, I'll go with you to Central Market to get those last few things and there was brie.

Uninteresting Notes

1.) Why does Central Market hate me and rearrange their coffee every time I go in there? I am not ashamed of my coffee preferences, but I am conscious of the fact that in general, my economic class does not say shit like, "No, not the decaf free-trade organic Sumatran with the full body and high acid; I mean the regular free-trade organic Sumatran low-acid, shade-grown, full caffeine." I sound like a parody from Family Guy. It's not that I am mocking people who are environmentally aware, but I feel like a very specialized afterschool special for the Montessori crowd whose parents went very green five years ago and talk about their composting strategies.

( my love/hate relationship with central market )

2.) I finally got the bluray thing working on my server by dint of turkey-induced madness and strangely enough, what I'd been wondering about for a while.

( after this is a tragic story of my server, so you may need to read this for context )

3.) At 11:23 PM last night, dreamatdrew received this email from me.

...I think I'm uninstalling my entire server by accident

( this is where everything went to hell )

On the bright side, I've reinstalled ubuntu server so many times I could do it in my sleep and now I actually know which programs I need and which ones I don't and cause problems. When I get around to doing it, which I haven't, because my deep sense of betrayal is too great, and um, I slept super late.

4.) Tonight is the next great server install. Earlier this week my router was under DoS from bots and while telling madelyn about it and reading the logs while color coordinating them and whirlwinding through my securities and ports, she was thoughtful before mentioning she was glad I was enjoying myself so much. Last night, after a long pause, dreamatdrew told me he was glad I was having so much fun.

I can't lie; if Horace still has my media okay? I don't even care. This is fantastic. I'm not bored. I don't foresee in the near future I will be. What could be better than that?

I went through a period of time for most of yesterday in a truly horrible mood. Today I'm going to post something positive and uplifting, or at least, on the less-rage portion of the continuum, because undirected rage is both exhausting and terrible for the complexion.

Tea

I ordered--okay, at this point, we can call this a tea habit--a lot of tea. I even ordered those UV containers for my tea. Short version; I have a lot of tea. It has its own shelf that is overflowing.

( experiments with tea )

( a short digression into the art of ice tea in texas and the greater south )

( back to tea mixes )

One day, I hope to have time to explain why the Fajita* is considered the perfect food, as well as Why When Someone Says They Are Making Tamales, Do You Want Some, you say "God, yes, thank you."

My tea arrived on Wednesday, so it has been Tea Central of Tea-ness around here. I got ten samples and two full size of the ones I knew I'd love--Irish Breakfast and Apricot--so below, my completely pointless thoughts on Tea, Tea, I Need More Tea Now.

Did Not Like (Not Tea's Fault)

Earl Grey - I am not a fan of Earl Grey except very occasionally; it's a very occasional/social tea for me. Basically, it could not be done in a way I'd love. Gave to friend who loves Earl Grey.

Did Not Like (Tea's Fault)

Golden Monkey - I can't explain why it was ick, but it really was. There was some kind of back bitter/sour thing going on with an underbelly of something vaguely earthly in a bad way. I checked to see if steeped too long, but no. This is the only one I didn't finish. Gave to boss because I'm like that.

Not Sure Yet

Grapefruit Oolong - I need to try this one again with a shorter steep. It was really zest-like notes in it that were bitter and not delicious. But I like grapefruit, so reserving until I can try again.

Good/Great

Darjeeling #12 - It was good but not magical. I'd drink it again.

Ceylon Sonata - very good. It's Ceylon. It's hard to do it wrong.

Orange - very liked, orange a tiny bit strong but I think steeping it thirty seconds less would take the edge off. Very nice sweet edge without citrus sharpness, clear white flavor.

Nepal First Flush - I like this one, but I am getting the steep time wrong. Five minutes is too long, but three is too short. Dammit. Very nice, a tiny bit earthy.

My God Yes

Yunnan Jig - this is a black tea of the freaking gods, okay? I'm almost done with my sample. It's clear medium dark brown, steep time at four minutes thirty seems to bring the best results, water just at boil before adding to tea. I am drinking a very large pitcher of this right now. It has a round heaviness at the first taste and is very mellow with a low warm golden flavor.

Currant - perfect currant tea. Almost done with my sample already. Clear medium-medium brown, steep between four and four and a half minutes (I am not grooving the full five minute seepage; that seems to bring out something bitter that doesn't get picked up if I do it a little earlier). I am in love.

Apricot - it's hard to get apricot wrong (though I have had contenders) but this is very nice. Very good scent, good balanced flavor, full five minute steep to get all the deliciousness.

Unreviewed

Irish Breakfast and English Breakfast - unless something in the Force changes mightily, I'm not seeing how these could go wrong. Irish Breakfast is my go-to tea of go-to-ness. This is my coffee of the tea world (though yunnan jig is really giving it a run for its money; I need to try the yunnan golden now).

Anyone want to throw out their favorite flavors? Adagio or otherwise. On the first will be the second tea buying fit and its nice to be prepared.

I am having a spiritual experience with a breakfast burrito, as it has ham, egg, potato, bacon, and cheese, and if I am not mistaken, after assembly, was rolled about on a grill for a while to achieve a state of crispy tortilla deliciousness that I am not entirely convinced is moral nor do I care.

Visited Central Market, as I tend to do to get out my shopping vibes and not break my credit rating. As theoretically, there's really only so much food you can buy. I was okay through most of the fruit (fine, the pluots spoke to me--they had three different types!), and two types of apples since Child is a junkie and who am I to get him clean. So far so good--escaped the figs (I love figs, but not like, love-love), and these huge Washington blackberries (they were shiny and flawless and terrifying; I wasn't certain if I should eat them or use them for some kind of fruit-related performance art project about the fall of western civilization), and made it past the Table of Unrecognizables (I have a weakness for things I can't pronounce with shapes I would swear aren't found in nature).

I got through the bread (just one! I was strong!), the cheese (fell, of course), the delicious horror that is the crackers and olives and various chicken salads (tarragon chicken, apricot chicken, I ran), and managed to only stop in the chocolate of many variations area and bravely got away with two. I was golden. I was a fool.

However, I always (never) forget the coffee section.

Adventures in Coffee Consumption

So I'm weak.

Note for Coffee People: I'm a fan of medium and breakfast roasts and at thirty-two, my stomach no longer wishes to deal with high acidity, so take that as your warning on my taste. I prefer milk (whole or 1%) to any of the creams and I like the final color to be within two shades darker than my skin color (three darker with the lighter blends). I like sweet. I am not a good judge for the general coffee drinking population. I am not a coffee snob. I am a coffee slave. There is a difference.

(I still cannot find any that mix in chicory. This is Not Happiness.)

( five coffees, three reviews pending )

Question--how long can you keep beans refrigerated before they are useless?

ETA 9/17/2008: Added review of Sumatran coffee under cut

I don't think life really gets much better than when someone hands you a sausage kolache.

I was extremely lucky growing up in that my great-grandparents, rejecting the ways of their parents' home countries (God be thanked), refused to feed their children any food that could not easily be found at a local grocery store at that time (or grown on the unsuccessful family farm; I come from a long line of really crappy farmers). This has led to a real lack of food that frankly, would have scared me, since my Bavarian (okay, fine, I totally get a kick out of that part. Bavarian! In Bavaria! When--it, you know, existed as a country) ancestors were like, Bavarian peasants and ate really terrifying food. If they ate. Being, you know, peasants and whatnot. Could be why they left. Really don't know. Though there was a minister of some sort involved in the entire expedition.

Right, food, coming back to that.

Except saurkraut. That, and cabbage. Couldn't get away from it. Saurkraut, luckily, only came out with such accompanying dishes as macaroni salad, potato salad, and hot dogs (the traditional ancestral food of the gods). Which--I guess that's a food that is common amongst the German peasantry? But those two. And like, this range of Polish to Czech food things that, in some kind of show of middle European solidarity (I really have no idea here) would be dragged out, for years were considered the Traditional Ancestral Foods of My Family until we discovered a.) we had reached the age of majority and b.) no one in the family could work out the Traditional Ancestor who was that hot for Americanized bread pudding.

However, cabbage grew on me. Saurkraut, Polish sausage, anything with the word blood in it in any language, no, and that's after being forced to visit A Million Heritage Festivals (Texas hill country. There were festivals at the drop of a hat in order to Introduce Our Heritage of Not Hot Dogs, the bastards).

It's like this entry had a point, huh? Just wait.

So whilst in college one year, I had this professor I loved and who died, so we really won't linger over that part, but he had this argument that America had no culture, which even then I thought was bullshit but he would smoke with me, so what can you do? We talked about defining characteristics and cultural anthropology and you know, all the stuff liberal arts students talk about with their professors while sober. Now, about ten year later, I finally want to tell him I found my defining characteristic of at least my family's culture, and it is gravy.

This came to me when I realized:

a.) not everyone could match gravy type to meat at a glance and a taste.
b.) some people don't have a gravy for everything. And I mean. Everything.
c.) some people make cream sauce and call it gravy (my soul hurts)
d.) some people do not like gravy and in fact, really cannot comprehend them

I once dated a guy who did not like tea, coffee, or gravy. I should have known we were doomed. He also watched a lot of japanimation and refused to buy a new bed no matter how much it squeaked, which is beside the point but weirdly funny right now.

And the query I was running just ended. Sample of the latest tests sent to us to write:

PSRjd 4028: DT8000_080 FOR EDG 100084969 AND TRACE ID 184231617

Dear Programmer Person,
Please tell me you thought this was funny.
--jenn

(Yes, I do know what it is, but that is because my mother wrote the error code. Otherwise, I would still be at the colon going "eh"?)

Dump cake with brownie mix == INSPIRED.

For those few who are not aware of dump cake the single most awesome food ever invented:

1 box brownie mix
1 can cherry pie mix
1 can chopped pineapple
1 stick butter

Dump fruit in pan. Mix casually. Dump mix on top. Cut butter into slices*, place on top of mix**. 350 at fifty-five minutes. Eat.

*Minimum eight slices by tablespoon, but I did it to fifteen, and I'd recommend more than that and spread over the whole surface. It's dump cake. If you do it twice the same way, you are doing it wrong.

**also can melt butter and pour on top.

Any other variations anyone uses? I am very into the brownie topping.

Wow.

(Link found at OTF_Wank at Journalfen)

A Flame War on Shepherd's Pie etymology.

This is possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It goes from food to education to World War II to the Revolutionary War to education to canned gravy to football to the war in Iraq. Yes. From Shepherd's Pie.

Highlights

Tony Blair - on those darned Americans messing up words!

That's a Cottage pie, shepherd's pie is made with lamb, the clue is in the name, shepherds don't herd cows do they?

Americans get so many things wrong, that doesn't mean you have to go along the wrongness, use the correct phrases and terminology and educate your people.

Stop perpetuating ignorance.

( more below cut! Because I am seriously amazed )

Read the whole thread. It's beautiful.

Is this how non-fen feel when they read about shipper wars?

For the record:
1. Tater tot casserole? Now want.
2. Shepherd's Pie? I will call it Cottage Pie over my dead body.
3. Canned gravy? Okay, I have no defense of that one. I'm from Texas. Gravy is a food group. I have never seen it canned. So I have no idea.

ETA: Link to Wikipedia's entry on Shepherd's Pie. This is now gospel, because I agree with it.

ETA 2: Oh my God, they dragged in Scottish history.

( no, really. King Eddy. Seriously! )

This is awesome.

...the coffee at work tastes really good today.

This is so disturbing.

*worries* Does this mean that I no longer have useful taste buds or that the world is ending?

I'm really craving something fried right now.

Not in a pan, either. Something from a deep fryer, with sunflower oil. Something rolled in raw egg and then flour (or cornmeal)and salt and pepper, dropped into boiling oil, turning golden-brown and crispy and delicious. I want--hmm. Chicken fingers, the ones that turn deep tan and the edges flake off. Or God, chicken, still with skin, soaked in egg and milk, rolled in flour and salt and spices, resoaked, re-rolled, then dropped in and made golden-brown perfection. Eggrolls. Deep fried potatoes. Fajitas sealed with hot cheese and grilled onions on homemade tortills.

God, I am hungry, and no one around here serves anything in the overly greased family. Dammit.

Yes, yes, yes, arteries, but God, food.

however, I will say this.

Sweet and sour chicken can, in fact, minister to a mind diseased. Or at least yearning for God, better coffee, please.

Mmm. Sweet and sour.

For those waiting with bated breath--the nailpolish is gone, no stains, breathing again.

Yes, I'm sure that this was a worry to everyone.

The Warren

Sloppy and Bryante had a tragic break-up at around six this morning, in various stages of loud and louder, in which Bryante, finally fed up with Sloppy's constant attentions, somehow--don't ask me how, according to what I understand of physics, this is *not possible*--leaped *over* the halfwall between his portion of the fortress and the atrium, down to Reggie. This is a good three Bryante-lengths distance. I'd be impressed if it hadn't scared me to death.

You know that the break-up was bad when anyone goes to Reggie for comfort. Reggie has all the tact, subtlety, and well, empathy as toilet paper. This is so sad.

But there have been signs. The arguing, the refusing to cuddle, the desire to chew paper instead of pile together, constant spraying of all available surfaces (and I mean, all. Available. Surfaces. And guess what? I'm a surface! God.), an unwillingness to share carrots--I mean, this tragedy is really only a surprise to Sloppy. I think all of us watching pretty much saw this coming a mile away.

Mr. Waffles, AKA The Rabbit That Bit Me, is still zenning out in the penthouse and is above all pettiness. When I woke up this morning, however, the mess of their cage was--I mean, I have no words. You'd think I keep those rabbits in squalor. Oh God, I sound like my mother talking about me and my sisters. But seriously! Newspaper--not just shredded, but *destroyed* and wrapped around objects in ways eerily reminiscent of toilet-papering a house. All of them are *fingerquote* marking territory */fingerquote* like it is going out of style. Pretty much the only thing I can say to this is thank God for vinyl tile. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

In other news--wait. Did I ever say I had a life? Right. Never mind.

Coffee

On Friday, Best Friend kidnapped me for coffee and food at Austin Jaffa--no, that's SG1--Java, right. I think. It's generally downtown past sixth and in a fairly older neighborhood. The coffee was excellent, the queso was worth its weight in cheese, but I can say now that never will I ever eat turkey sausage again. I--it's this weird consistency thing. It's like a hotdogish type mushy thing going on. Not something I was really ready for.

Right. Coffee. Saturday I took my mother to Central Market. She is not a huge fan, since it's a.) kind of large and twisty and b.) the salespeople need to seriously remove yuppie stick from too-tight ass. But they always have cool bread and cheese samples, and I usually try to get something that won't give me nightmares in the strange food family (see, blue cheese, *twitch*). Also, I was looking for new lettuce for my rabbits.

Okay, I was pricing *butter lettuce* and Boston head red lettuce for my rabbits. Okay? Fine.

Yes, it all comes back to the rabbits.

Okay, serious good times in the coffee section. God, the *smell*. I picked two I've already mentioned here, and the employee choice one, which smells like a lot of different coffees and kind of scares me. The cherry chocolate cordial is kind of like a chocolate covered cherry, and the vida dolce thing is--well. You know, it reminds me fainty of really really good dessert, but like, hard vanilla cookies covered in chocolate or something. Yeah, something. This one smells like *coffee*--strong, don't sleep, live-and-die-wired coffee. So I keep wanting to save it for a day I really need to be awake, since I only got enough for one pot.

I think my next adventure in coffee might be the Ethopian triple roast dark (insert more words here meaning Freakishly Strong Coffee). I mean, at this point, just to prove I can. Looking at it was a lot like looking into a black hole--no light escaped. I just don't see this being *tasty*. I see it being so close to a controlled substance that they might ID me leaving the store, but tasty? Not so much. I tend toward the light or medium roasts for home; espressos and things that can double as cleaning fluids are for coffee shops, where I can pay to twitch and pour in inordinate amounts of sugar, the better to get the double shot of sugar rush and caffeine rush.

For those of you who have seen me and the sugar container bond--yeah. Pretty much like that.

And that covers my report on current happenings. Sent a story to beta, sent Child to my sister's for swimming, and have three days until The Great Seaworld Adventure, and two days until I get to spend an entire day in my jammies in bed, drinking coffee and watching SGA season two reruns to prep myself for the new season. Oh the hardship fo watching Trinity again.

So I wrote out a long, long, dear God long, depressing entry last night, then my computer crashed.

Everyone should be thrilled by this. I am.

So. Because I'm in the mood.

Recipes! Failsafe! These are recipes that are completely idiot proof they are so easy. I mean, I can make them without messing them up.

Sand Tarts, from the Helen Corbitt Cookbook.

( sand tarts )

Seven Layer Cookies from Christmas Cookies by Oxford House

( seven layer cookies )

Peanut Butter Blossoms (no idea WHERE this came from. Small piece of notebook paper in bottom of recipe box)

( peanut butter blossoms )

Forgotten Cookies from Christmas Cookies by Oxford House

( forgotten cookies )

And for those in need of a cookbook for people who don't stock every kind of everything in creation. (hating Joy of Cooking)

Helen Corbitt's Cookbook.

It's not in print anymore as far as I know, so whenever my grandmother see one at a used book store or garage sale, she buys it. Simple, easy to make, no really, recipes. Strangely, when she says you probably have the ingredients as leftovers, she's usually right.

My mother's is full of notes, since my grandmother tried everything and gave it as a gift to my mom on her wedding day. Mine's just getting started. *G* I work in pencil since I'm not as confident in some of my choices. Especially recommended are the Beef Deutsch and the Beef Stroganoff, which as far as I can tell are basically the same thing, one starting off with cooked meat and the other not, along with some vegetable variations. I usually combine them to get the sour cream sauce right. You really can't go wrong with green peppers, pimentos, and mushrooms. I also make the sour cream sauce separately before adding. It just thickens better that way.

Hmm. Wow, this was a useless entry, wasn't it? Still, it can never hurt to share the recipe blitz.

Recs:

Yellow by RivkaT. Excellent, gorgeous, fun, and funny. And plot! Mmm.

The Bed Is Empty by Jessica. Wonderful, sweet Clark and Lex fic of sheer happiness. *sighs* Just lovely.

Naughty and Nice by Caro. *grins* I love Christmasy cuteness and this is definitely one of the most fun.

Winter by RachelRhiannon. Mmm. CLex in winter. Smut. Lovely use of style.

Coming to Town by ingrid. I haven't chuckled this hard in awhile. Santa! Lex! Clark. REINDEER! And even Rudolf! Read and love.

The Gingerbread Party by meret. Awww. Schmoopy loveliness. *hugs* Just as nice as hot chocolate on a cold day.

My email is behind again, because I'm procrastinating it big time. I'm still wired, since I had to be up most of the night to listen for Small Niece, since sister and her fiancee were needed somewhere else for the night, and I was too tired last night to risk sleeping and not being able to wake up if she needed me. Oh the coffee. Oh the shopping I still have to do. Oh my to-do list frightens me.

Oh, poor buggery, who I was AIMing last night until my computer crashed. Sorry, babe. I was in too--uncertain--a mood to get back on.

But! Firefly pilot tonight!

I moved most of the rest of my webpage to illuminated text, though the links haven't been corrected for the stylesheets or pretty much anything else. Just a little more to go. Plus, it keeps denying me permissions for bizarre reasons. *shakes head*