Pizza Overload (or Total, Unabashed Laziness)

Posted on May 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

Friends, I did not think I’d hear myself say this, but I’m quittin’ pizza for a while.

Yeah. Let’s take a moment to process that statement, its severity.

Last week was the Week of Pizza, practically and theoretically*. If I were to be honest with myself and y’all — and, DUH, I’m gonna be totally upfront — I ate pizza on five occasions last week. FIVE. I’m embarrassed even to write that, but confession is a form of catharsis, is it not?

Gee, Kate, you might wonder, How were you able to eat so much pizza? Lemme break it down. One night, happy hour with Bree turned into many happy hours, and when I got home I ate half a leftover frozen CPK pizza (BBQ Chicken variety; not recommended). I heated these leftovers in the toaster oven so generously given to me by Sabina. But, unfamiliar as I was with the settings of said oven, I burned the hell out of that pizza. Did I eat it anyhow? Oh, yes I did: in secret and in shame.

The next night, lazy as I was, I ordered pizza and a Greek salad from Serrano’s. Which was much more food than I thought it would be — half the salad and two pieces of pizza left me feeling uncomfortable. Friday, I had pizza for lunch AND dinner. Sunday, after a day of so-called revelry, I horqed (oh god) the remainder of my St. Francis’ Chef’s Mess and a slice of SARAH’S LEFTOVER PIZZA.

When you’re eating your roommie’s leftover pizza, you know you have a problem. I staged my own intervention.

See that? That’s one of my lovely quinoa salad casserole things, a dish I make (almost) weekly because 1) It’s simple; 2) It’s delicious; and 3) It provides more nutrients than most ‘zas. I made this Quinoa Thing Monday night — an effort, however small, to right my seriously off-course eating habits.

This Quinoa Thing included the following ingredients: Quinoa, prepared per package directions; Bacon, pan-fried, cooled, and crumbled in at the end; Brussels sprouts and chickpeas, tossed in EVOO/maple syrup/s&p/red pepper flakes and roasted for half an hour; One Fuji apple, diced; Salt-and-pepper pistachios; and lemon-parsley vinaigrette adapted from one in this month’s Bon Appetit. Oh, and goat cheese, because I eat goat cheese every day of my lyfe.

Quinoa Thing is delicious and masquerades as healthy food. Sure, it’s got bacon, cheese, nuts, and oil, but it also has protein! And a vegetable! At the very least, it doesn’t have a crust. Monday night, I took pride in my Adultish dinner, and the pride has lasted this entire week.

*Lest you think I forgot about Theoretical Pizza, you’re wrong. Last week was Pizza Week because of what I ate (obvs), but also because  I was seeking comfort in all realms of my life. I burrowed in my bed, wearing my new AmApp hoodie. I listened to tons of Nite Jewel. And I leaned heavy on my oldest comfort food. Not the greatest week, to be sure, but hey! It’s a new week. Yes, it is.

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A Day In the Life

Posted on May 13, 2012 | 4 Comments

When I say I eat like a frat guy, I’m not kidding around. I thought of this a moment ago as my glance lighted on the plate that, just minutes earlier, had held BBQ-chicken frozen pizza and a s’mores Pop Tart. (Yep, it was that kind of night.)

As an ode to tried-and-true features in women’s magazines everywhere, I thought I’d post a tru-lyfe account of my day in food. Ahem!

I allllllmost bought these, but resisted. #admirablerestraint

8:30: Woke up; a bit rugged. Put coffee on before I showered and, post-shower, horqed said coffee and a small bowl of hippie cereal (feat. flax, pumpkin seeds, oats, etc.)

1:00: After a leisurely Target jaunt during which clearance wine, cat litter, and a king-sized box of Cheez Its were purchased, it was lunchtime. Klassy dames that we are, Sabina and I hit up the adjacent Hooters, where I enjoyed most of an order of boneless buffalo wings and half a plate of fries. Also a bloody Mary: Grey Goose and extra olives.

It should be noted that our lunch visit coincided with a casting call for the show “Bad Girls Club,” which I’ve never seen. Our waitress described the show’s premise as “ghetto girls fighting with each other.” I don’t understand the absence of an apostrophe in the title. Moving on!

6:00: Returned home, where Sarah, Brent, and Kent were sippin’ Tecates. In solidarity, I also sipped one.

6:47: Hunger strikes! Noshed Cheez Its while chatting with mother on phone.

7:47: Dinnertime. Rather than cooking Actual Food, I succumbed to my baser urges and popped in a frozen pizza. Ate half of said pizza while scanning my G-reader and listening to The Kinks. For dessert? A s’mores Pop Tart straight from the freezer. Frozen Pop-Tart filling has a consistency similar to that of saltwater taffy, which is one reason I like the treats frozen rather than cooked.

***

There you go: a day in the dietary life of Garky. I’ll admit, I wrote this post mainly to amuse myself, but if y’all gain secondary enjoyment from reading about my simple-carb consumption, all the better! Perhaps A Day in the Life will become a recurrent feature? We shall see.

PS: Totally listened to “A Day in the Life” while writing, natch. Hadn’t heard the song in years but man, has it held up.

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Office Lunch/Tiny Pride

Posted on May 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

Changes are afoot. Rather than working 9-5, we now work 8-6, which may not seem as vast a difference as it is. Oh, but it is vast! Such a radical shift in my schedule will undoubtedly impact — has already begun to impact — every aspect of my life: the social aspect, most notably, but also how I consider food.Will I begin to eat frozen entrees with greater regularity? (God, I hope not.) Will I eat out more? Will I make a big-ass batch of soup (or chili, or hearty grain salad) on Sunday and eat that for an entire week until I become so tired of that week’s dish that I enter an Involuntary Fast Mode? These questions remain to be answered.

What I can say is this: I’m damn proud that I cooked for myself last night. Got home at 7:08, had to be out the door not long after that, but I made one of my Quik & Ez Stir Frys. This particular stir fry was ultra-simple: trimmed asparagus, cubed tempeh, three cloves of garlic (minced). Seasoned this dish with Bragg’s, chili paste, sesame seeds, s&p, and ground ginger. Served it over udon. DONE!

Simple though it was, it was decidedly good — for once, I used the right amount of chili paste. More than that, though, it reminded me to remind myself of what’s important. Yeah, I was dog tired when I got home (not as tired as I am today, which, oof). Yes, I was craving The Simplest Carbs. For a glint, I convinced myself that a potato-chip dinner would be a more efficient option, but then I un-convinced myself.

Preparing and eating nourishing food is part of adulthood, and I’m an adult. I’ll intone this statement the next time I want to dive nose-first into a Sharing Size bag of Cheetos.

Oh! Finally, the second picture in this post is from Saturday’s dinner. I included it because the Instagram filter makes the halved heirloom tomato (top-right sector of the plate) look a bit like a snail(!) Didn’t taste like snail, however.

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Joy of Joys

Posted on April 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’ve been gone; I’m back now, if only brief & flittingly. I’ve got no real excuse for the non-posting, my only sort-of excuse being the visiting of family, the suddenly warm and breezy weather that makes me want to abandon all my formal tasks and just walk.

Though I wasn’t posting them, I gathered a lot of meals & stories these past few weeks, one of my favorites being a simple quinoa salad that I dressed up with a new vinaigrette. Besides the grain, the dish contained roasted chickpeas and sweet potatoes, bathed in olive oil, s&p; salt-and-pepper pecans; golden raisins; fresh snap peas, cut into sections; roasted grape tomatoes (not yet burst); a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, s&p, dried tarragon, and fresh mint; and, finally, goat cheese, mixed in after the salad had cooled a bit.

Yes, I just spelled out the ingredients list for that salad, that’s how satisfying it was. I’m going to replicate it; I have just the sweet potato prepared.

My favorite story, though, is my first trip to The Jelly Donut. Since I first saw it, perched at 24th and South Van Ness, I’d longed to go. I put off visiting, in part out of fear that the donuts might not meet my expectations (what if they tasted like old grease?). Really, though, I enjoyed the longing: the anticipation of the day I’d cross the bootscuffed threshold and pause before the display case.

My history with donuts is a long one, more storied than you might assume. I’ve waxed nostalgic for Hans’ Bakery, the donut shop of my youth where you could get a glazed donut as large as a plate, its interior lighter than spun air. I’ve also mentioned my fond feelings for Swedough’s, whose burnt-orange decorating scheme and aging clientele make one feel as though they’ve fallen into a wormhole and landed in 1976. In both cases, I love these donut shops not simply for their wares (though DAMN, do I love donuts), but for the experience they provide: temporary relief from the exigencies of daily life.

My first Jelly Donut experience was wholly unexpected. Having eaten dinner and had a cocktail, Alex and I faced a long wait for the bus. Rather than sitting in the [relative] cold, A. suggested we get a donut. And, despite having just eaten, the lure of fried dough was irresistible: time and time again, I’d passed by that smudged plate glass, only to walk on past, but not that night. “OK,” I said, when I really meant, “Oh HELL yes!”

I knew immediately which donut I wanted: that one, the chocolate-covered behemoth pictured above. When in doubt, I opt for the largest-available, chocolate-frosted treat. (When not in doubt, I opt for the same thing.) My standby didn’t let me down. I undid the golden dough from the coils into which it had been fried, trying not to get chocolate all over my hands and face; mostly, I succeeded. Contrary to my initial prediction, the donut did not taste like old grease — in fact, it was airy and not-too-sweet, though the frosting may have given me insta-diabetes.

What I enjoyed most about the trip — indeed, what I enjoy about most donut jaunts — was occupying the dining room. Those well-wiped tables and serviceable chairs make me feel I could be just about anywhere. Donut places have about them a certain desolation, a silence that isn’t replicated in other establishments, even those with a similar price point and customer base. There’s a loneliness, a desire for a moment of peace and quiet; it’s reflected in the charred-coffee smell and the fluorescent lights’ flicker and the pleasant detachment of the woman running the till. It’s a mild, meditative disengagement from The Routine: a respite I’ll never give up, despite the barrage of bad news about refined sugars.

I don’t have a donut shop here (“my” shop). I love Bob’s, but it’s too far away to establish itself as a haunt. The Jelly Donut, though lacking some of Bob’s charm, has a solid product and a grittiness that resonates with me. It’s miles closer, too, and open late. I foresee more J.D. trips in the future: the late-night future, replete with unpopulated muni rides, wind-whipped scarves, adventure.

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Meditations on Dim Sum

Posted on March 12, 2012 | 1 Comment

Another too-short weekend! I’m mightily glad the evenings are lighter — all the better for post-dinner strolls, my dear — but I have Strong Negative Feelings about waking up when it’s dark out. Once again, daylight savings has made this unenviable condition a personal reality.

Back to the start, though, the start being Friday night. Hit up Southern Pacific Brewing Company for burgers (I got the Black and Blue, as last time), Brussels Sprouts, and beers — or Manhattans, for those not in a beer-drinking mood. My Manhattan was on the sweeter end of the continuum; not undrinkably sweet, but sweet enough. Lesson learned: stick with beer. The burger and fries — oh, the fries! — were totally solid. The fries, slender and golden, were better than solid. They were impermeably good.

These are homemade Micheladas, created/enjoyed on Saturday night. They're not related to our trip to Southern Pacific except that these are alcoholic drinks, and we consumed alcohol at S.P. #tenuousconnections.

Southern Pacific may feel warehousey (which, duh: it’s in an old warehouse) and be packed with startup bros, but it’s meeting a critical consumer need: the need for good, decently priced food & drinks. Try finding that on Valencia, and ye shall be lost.

Saturday’s adventures took us to the Richmond, that infrequently visited land o’ yore. We’d planned to bike from our houses* to the ocean, stopping on the way back for lunch (ambitious!). As it happens, hunger waylaid us. (Are you surprised? We were not surprised.) We stopped at Good Luck Dim Sum — Alex’s favorite dim-sum joint in the city — for sustenance.

Full Disclosure: When Alex suggested dim sum, I made the “Hmmmmm” noise I make when I’m thinking “HELL NO!” but want to appear more open-minded than I’m actually feeling. Those who know me know this noise. Alex responded, “Wait, do you not want to go because you’re not in the mood for dim sum, or because you’re afraid of it?”

The latter, sadly. Prior to this weekend, I’d had dim sum once — and that was only by accident! I’m skittish about eating foods I can’t identify, foods with gelatinous textures, or foods that may or may not contain shrimp. BUT, in the spirits of Progress/Open-Mindedness/Overcoming Personal Failings, I said, “I’m scared, but let’s do it.” And we did.

What I liked most about this meal was the element of choice. Choice — choosing what I want to eat, how I want that food prepared, the fork I select, where I sit, etc. etc. ad nauseam amen — is one of my favorite parts of cooking and eating, and the choices available at Good Luck were damn impressive. As we waited to order, I gazed into the display case, admiring the tender coconut shreds blanketing the desserts, the golden symmetry of the sesame balls.

Perhaps I should modify that statement: I enjoyed the coupling of choice and excessiveness. I knew when I placed my order that there was no way I’d be eating all that food, but it was uniquely gratifying to carry that orange plastic tray, heaped with food, from the counter to the table, other diners looking on in curiosity or aghastness. The woman behind me in line actually said, referring to Alex’s order, “Oh, I thought that was for the two of you.” WHAT?

“Nope,” I said. Pause. Another pause. Woman looked a little nervous. “We do like to have leftovers,” I finally said.

Alex, looking so dapper and about to dig in.

My favorite bite, to be sure, was the sesame ball. I’m gaga for sesame: seeds, oil, whatever form I can get. It’s difficult for me to write about the ball because I have no basis for comparison, but I’ll say this: the interior bean paste kicked up the depth of flavor in a way that pleased me. Murky red, one shade darker than a kidney bean’s coat, the paste tasted ruddy. It tasted like it looked. Beautiful in contrast to the ball’s light exterior.

On the other end of the enjoyment spectrum was the scallion dumpling, the loser in my Personal Food Judgment Zone. I love scallions, and I love dumplings, so what could go wrong? MANY THINGS. I’ll break it down nice & simple: first, the dumpling’s skin was ueber-gelatinous, a texture that greatly displeased me. Second: the dumpling’s interior had only two visible ingredients: chopped scallions and shrimp (which were not listed in the item description!). Third: Well, I don’t have a third. I’ll just restate that the dumpling contained shrimp.

Scallions rock, but shrimp do not. Sorry, seafood lovers, but shrimp (to me) look like outsized bugs. Someday, I will try one, but that day is going to take weeks — months? Years? — of preparation. As it was, I was unprepared for shrimp and did not eat more than a nibble of the dumpling’s skin, and that was good enough for me.

Man, writing this is making me crave a sesame ball.

Dim sum. It’s not a Garky Tradition yet, but it’s on its way.

In other exciting news unrelated to everything I’ve just mentioned, my mom and sis are heading to town tomorrow (cascading applause!). Yep, We Three Troublemakers will be reunited and ready to nosh. Mom and I are going to bake Sys a special birthday cake, but we’ll undoubtedly sneak out for some treats, too: likely Papalote (sys’ favorite salsa in the city), Boulange (mom loves their breakfastssssss), and, if I have anything to say about it, MISSION PIE. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had one of their scones, and I’m getting itchy for one.

***

*Well, from one of our houses, but just imagine us starting from a point directly between our two houses, if that is easier. Which it isn’t, because maybe you don’t know where Alex and I live? To simplify: we set out from Alex’s house.

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Semi-Homemade: Thoughts on Convenience

Posted on March 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

This morning, I came upon Emily Matchar’s Hairpin article The First Sandra Lee: Poppy Cannon and Her Can-Opener Cuisine, and my brain perked up. I thought I was in for a real treat — the rhetorical equivalent of a triple-layer chocolate cake, cemented with layers of buttercream and lovingly scattered with flakes of chocolate. And I was in for a treat, though one by no means as decadent as the one I imagined — more of an intellectual sponge cake, soaked in low-rent rum and sprinkled with the zest of a shriveling orange.

Matchar begins with an introduction to Poppy Cannon: food editor, cookbook author, and lady about town. Cannon was no dolt; she knew good cuisine when she saw it, yet she elected to write about can-opener cooking. Such a decision brought criticism upon Cannon, who didn’t care — after all, she was makin’ money and livin’ the dream. (All together now: money talks and bullshit walks.)

Further into her post, Matchar compares Cannon to modern-day frozen-foods whiz Sandra Lee, who, like her predecessor, has come under heat for her “recipes.” Superficially, at least, the women are similar: both faced adversity as children and longed to get the hell out of Dodge; both profited enormously from their advocacy of quik-n-easy foodstuffs. But there the similarities end. Where Cannon was an innovator, Lee is merely upcycling a decades-old concept, repackaging it in a millennial-friendly manner.

At the time Cannon was writing, convenience foods were a relatively new concept. Canned foods had been around for a while, but TV dinners were viewed (so I’m told) as a miracle product — a way for housewives to provide their husbands with a warm, nourishing meal without spending hours in the kitchen.

Today, of course, heat-and-eat foods aren’t viewed with the same impunity. Reviled as junk and made the target of class-focused arguments, frozen meals and components are the red-headed stepchildren of the food world. Not as nutritionally void as Pringles, Twizzlers, and Pizza Rolls, frozen and canned foods are almost worse off; by asserting themselves as nutritive, they draw more contempt and cynical evaluation than they would otherwise.

But I’m not here to hate on canned foods; I’m here to examine the critical difference between Poppy Cannon and Sandra Lee. Matchar draws comparisons between the women to illustrate her point about convenience-food haters. She quotes chef Michael Ruhlman, who claims that cooking with other people and eating homemade food is “part of what makes us human.” Retorts Matchar, “unlike Ruhlman, both Sandra Lee and Poppy Cannon understood that some full-blooded human beings actually find cooking a giant pain in the ass.”

Which is true — some people do find cooking a major pain in the ass. I’m not one of those people. What Matchar fails to acknowledge is that Sandra Lee doesn’t cater to people who truly find cooking a pain in the ass. Those individuals have available to them a glorious array of fully prepared, fairly nutritious meals; every supermarket has a frozen section filled with fully prepared meals, and more and more markets have salad or hot bars with entrees ready to be eaten. People who actually hate cooking rely on these options. Or they eat at restaurants. Or they wait for others to cook for them.

On the contrary, Lee targets people who like the idea of cooking, who view the process as something valuable, but for whatever reason don’t want to engage in the process from start to finish. If Lee’s target demo didn’t care for cooking at all, they’d open a can of Dinty Moore and call it a day. Even the title of Lee’s show (Semi-Homemade) acknowledges the value of a homemade meal. Matchar miscategorizes Lee’s audience and, as a result, weakens her argument.

Cannon, who aimed her book at “working girls,” was writing at a time when women had recently gained the option to enter the workforce. The necessity of balancing work life and domestic tasks was a new one for many women. Not so for Lee’s audience. That is to say, many women (and men) still struggle to balance their work and home lives, but the struggle itself is nothing new.

Lee’s purpose isn’t to alleviate the struggle; it’s to stoke the self-esteem of people who want to make homemade meals but are too lazy. Her recipes occupy a strange doldrummy space: hideously unappetizing, they require a decent — but not an overwhelming — amount of prep. They yield products that are pointillistically “homemade;” get closer to the table and you’ll recognize that that gorgeous pie is really just graham-cracker crumbs topped with cherry sludge and Reddi-Whip. Failing on the levels of nutrition and taste, Lee’s recipes are little more than window dressing.

Maybe Cannon’s are, too, but they’re the window dressing of an earlier era, a time during which such a classification held different cultural associations. Food snobbery has always existed, but its targets were different in 1951 than currently. Matchar’s primary oversight is her failure to acknowledge the very different cultures in which Cannon and Lee worked.

Matchar is right: there are people for whom cooking is a giant pain in the ass. There are also people for whom cooking is a semi pain in the ass, and those people are the followers of Lee.

***

Image sources: [1], [2], [3], [4]

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Reading of the Day: On Olive Oil

Posted on March 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

Good afternoon, friends! A relaxing day around these parts. True, my ride to work was hella gusty, resulting in bangs sweat-plastered to my forehead, but lyfe since then has been golden.

One nugget of joy from today’s Internet Explorations is this post on ciao samin, Samin Nosrat’s blog. Samin* offers readers advice about how to buy olive oil, starting at the true start: how to identify good olive oil. So, how DOES one identify good oil? Samin’s answer: it’s all about taste (not cost). That is to say — and I’m grossly oversimplifying, here — follow your heart and palate.

Which is good news for yours truly. As much as I’d love to spend $35 on a bottle of oil, that ain’t in the cards just yet — I’ve got other billz to pay, y’all. (Note: I have several get-rich-quick schemes a’brewing, and the internet will be the first to know if/when I strike it rich.)

Last weekend, I bought a bottle of California Olive Ranch EVOO (feat. above). I’d bought it once years ago, based on the comparative cuteness of its bottle,** but I couldn’t remember its taste. Now I have the chance to revisit this product of yore, judge it in relation to the other olive oils I’ve had (which, truthfully, isn’t that many). I’ve used said oil a few times this week and haven’t formed a distinct impression — yet. I will, though: Oh, will I ever! And I’ll report my findings to you.I’ve got half a mind to start an olive-oil journal. For one, I love lists: lists of anything. Most of my contemporary lists are of the to-do variety, but when I was a teenager (13 or 14), I created this massive list of everything I liked. I set aside ten-odd pages in a journal of mine and added to the list whenever I could. In retrospect: man, I had a gratitude journal before gratitude journals were cool. #aheadofthecurve.

But back to the notion of an olive-oil journal. Such a project would not only cater to my love of lists & classification, but it would help me identify my ideal oil: one whose taste, price point, and appearance meet my needs. An OOjournal might not be as glamorous as, say, a cheese journal or a scotch journal, but it would be  infinitely more practical. I love cheese and scotch, but neither of them is an everyday food. I use olive oil [almost] every day. It would behoove me to know the oils whose flavor I most enjoy. Added bonus: I love the idea of having a record of All The Oils I’ve Tasted. Someday, far in the future, I’ll sit in my rocking chair, paging through the OOjournal, remembering the great oils of my young adulthood.

If you have a moment, wander over to ciao samin and beef up your olive-(oil) knowledge. (I wanted to say “olive knowledge,” which has a great ring to it but isn’t wholly accurate.) For any interested parties, here’s a Smithsonian post about the process of tasting olive oils.

***

Image sources: [1], [2]

*Typically, I refer to authors by their last names, but referring to Ms. Nosrat as “Samin” seems friendlier, more natural, and so it shall be!

**A terrible reason to buy a food product, I realize, but I’m in FULL DISCLOSURE MODE.

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