...so Ill say it in pictures. He just bought this:
I just realized I never posted a any pictures of my cat. Ok, well, I really never had any digital photos before. But I forced her into an early-morning photo session today, and I managed to get one where she wasn't moving in protest:
Ok I know that the Six Apart office here is all dog-crazy, and I love the puppies too, but c'mon people, I know some of you have kitties! Time to make your presence known. Stand up and be proud! Let your cat flag fly!
Vive le chat! MEOW!
No, really.
I've had a love/hate relationship with tofu for years. Well, really more of a "I know you're good for me/you will never ever measure up to meat" relationship. I know all the health benefits of consuming our soy curd friend. I've had many a vegan and vegatarian try their best to convince me that tofu could be more than just acceptably palatable and that I would be happier if I didn't exploit animals for food. But I've never been convinced.
Sure that tofu scramble was edible with enough carmelized onions, Tabasco and ketchup, but it just doesn't stack up against real eggs. Ok, the Tofurky sausage works on a bun with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale brown mustard, and pretty close to satisfies the hot dog craving. Tempeh chili is a winner because anything that lives in a crock pot for six hours with cumin, garlic, and chiles is going to come out tasting like cumin, garlic, and chiles.
But straight up tofu, cut in chunks and sauteed, just never does it for me. My dad sed to feed us tofu and vegggies stir-fried with soy sauce and garlic salt. I used to pick out the broccoli and snow peas to eat and then cleverly mush the tofu around to make it look like I'd eaten at least some of it. It's was bland, and the juice inside tasted like dishwater to me. It still does.
That said, I've been trying to make tofu work, on and off, for years. I've read vegatarian cookbooks that claim that tofu can be made to taste like anything, and I think they lie - tofu can be made to swim in anything, but retains that mild curdy flavor that is still a bit like dishwater. I've tried making puddings, but the sweetness seems to live on top of the whipped tofu, not infusing it. I've tried baking it, which dries up the liquid but still retains that tofu taste. Not the grossestting ever, but not something I'm stked to tuck into, either. And yet as much as I fail, I always keep some around, thinking that one day I'll make something that is actually tasty.
We were told when we were yougn that necessity is the mother of invention. If that's true, then it's deadbeat dad is laziness. I got home late a few nights ago, hadn't gone shopping and had little in the cupboard, and didn't want to go back out to eat. I dug around and was basically confronted with a pound of extra-firm tofu, a jar of tandoori marinade, and a half a head of green cabbage. I hung my head, knowing that I had no choice but to make the tofu.
I chopped it up into little cubes, the poured it into a big ziploc bag with the whole jar of marinade. Iw as goign ot leave it for just half and hour. But after about fifteen minutes my roommate came home and fixed up a plate of cheese & crackers, which we ate while we caught up on our respective days. The marinating tofu sat forgotten in the fridge.
The next night I was going to make the tofu again. I got home, got distracted, and by the time I remembered that I was going to cook the tofu I realized that I need to also cook up some brown rice, which even in my rice cooker takes about 45 min. I coudlnt' wait, and didn't feel ike having to wash a bunch of pans, anyway, so I left the marinade and got a prawn burrito from the corner taqueria.
Last night I got into a groove of reorganizing my studio area and it was 11pm before I knew it. I trudged into the kitchen, aware that if I didn't cook the tofu then, it would have to be thrown out. I put on a pot of brown rice, chopped up the cabbage and steam it until it was halfway done, then dropped the cabbage in a pot with the tofu and the marinade and put it on low heat. I wanted to at least cook it long enough that it was firm and a little crumbly, rather than soft and gushy on the inside.
After about twenty minutes, I tried a piece and was thoroughly unimpressed. It had a little of the smoky tandoori flavor, but whatever. Again, it didn't taste bad, but it wasn't a party in my mouth. Ah well. I fixed a tupperware container of the tofu and cabbage, filled a baggie with brown rice, and figured I'd call it lunch anyway.
I was running late today and skipped breakfast. By 11am I was so hungry I couldn't think, so I thought, what the hey and decided to eat it for brunch. I rarely like breakfast food for breakfast, anyway - cereal never satisfies, eggs and breads make me want to crawl back in to bed, and I've just never been a real yogurt & fruit person. If I coud find way to justify eating salami sandwiches for breakfast, I totally would.
The sweetness of the cabbage and the nutty flavor of the brown rice took a great meeting with the smoky tofu and decided they could work together. It might be the pre-existing hunger, or it might be that soft proteins and complex carbs make my body happy in the a.m., but it was totally delicious.
Guess that's one thing I can cross off my 43 things list. Tofu will never replace meat in my epicurean aesthetic, but it has earned its way into the desirable ingredient list.
Grr... I have big trouble with any question that requires a definitive. I have no single anything-est moment, idea, experience, or preference. There are multiples of everything and they change on an irregular basis. Life just isn't that simple and I'm just not willing to pick one sugary thread out of the multi-colored cotton candy wad of my life. And what about the paper cone? No one ever seems to care about the cone.
so here are a few of my fondest childhood memories:
...singing "John Jacob Jinkleheimer Schmidt" at the top of my lungs with my brother Jeremy and our cousins at the kids' table until we were laughing so hard we could no longer discipline our lips enough to form the words nor eat any more pumpkin pie...
..spinning around in a circle until I fell down. And doing it again. And again and again. And having it be just as funny the last time as the first...
...singing songs as our bedtime ritual. I started reading very early, and bedtime stories didn't cut it - I'd never get sleepy or let my mom stop before we got to the end. So instead I would pick a bedtime song and sing it to my mother, while she stroked my hair and sung it to me. The one I remember most is "Rainbow Connection", which still makes a most excellent lullaby...
..the day I met my dog, Hershey. We had just driven down to Laguna Beach form Berkeley, to move into this tiny cottage up the hill from Wood's Cove. I had just turned six, and my brother was eight. We were helpig our mom move boxes from our red & white VW van into the house. This mostly black Labrador mutt sauntered right in the front door, took a look around, and I swear to God he nodded to himself "Yep, this'll do." It was love at first sight and he really did become my best friend.
...or his writers.
I don't have a TV anymore, but due to the wonder of the internet and the intentions of those who seek to promote the greater good, it seems like all the best stuff will find its way to me, regadless.
Once in a very great while, I wish life would imitate television:
http://www.wingsofjustice.com/06/03/woj06012.html
My Nana Madeline just moved up to the Bay Area from LA, where she has lived her entire life. I am really excited to have her here, and spent Saturday with her at my Auntie Sharlene's house in Pinole.
Nana is 92, but looks twenty years younger. She's relatively spry, and has even got all her teeth, which is remarkable for my or any family, I think.
She's in that phase of life where she likes to reminisce, and I've started collecting her stories about my Grandpa Sonny, the Clark Gable lookalike who passed away before I was born.
Max "Sonny" Maron was a very minor gangster in LA, running pinball machines back when they were gambling devices on par with slot machines, and liked the glamorous lifestyle of night clubs and other pseudo-wise guys. He joined up with his buddies to fight in WWII and was stationed somewhere in the South Pacific away from any real action. He made it back alive, with all his parts, and non-shellshocked. He got involved in some kind of legal issue with the pinball machines - they weer outlawed - and briefly moved up to San Francisco to avoid it, but came back and settled in Encino.
He met my Nana at a vacation spot in 1941, and we have a terrific family photo of the two of them that weekend, looking for all the world like they were newlyweds and very much in love. They married three times - once a few weeks later in Nevada to "make her an honest woman", once with his family in attendance in LA (Nana was estranged from her own mother, but her brother was there for her. ), and once in a civil ceremony at City Hall in San Mateo because it turned out the Bevada minister was not legally ordained. They were by all accounts happily married until his death in1970, just a few weeks after he got to meet his first grandchild, my elder brother, Jeremy.
I love hearing this stuff, the famiy history that no one ever talked about on my father's side of the family. I'll be trying to get more details out of her in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.
I wrote great descriptions/reviews for all of my media assets, which seemed to be allowed, then I go check out the published blog to find out that they get truncated down to nothingness. I filed a bug for it but still...dude!
oh yeah and this not being able to type around the image in a post is getting old.
and showing the filename for the image is, to put it nicely, sub-optimal.
Wow.
http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7567
The chalk drawings are created specifically to be photographed, but even knowing that. Even knowing that it's trick of perspective, the effect is no less spectacular.
The ability to read my non-friend, non-family contacts in one page. Oh wait, no one's given me that present yet. OK then I'm going have to go with Mom for giving me life. Dad too, I suppose.
Requires flash. And very keen sense for the absurd.
http://www.cowabduction.com/
Why is it always cows? What did the cows ever do to the aliens?
