I mean, I have thoughts everyday that are shareable. Today’s would probably be my idea for scratch and sniff food magazines. Sure, reading them is enough to tempt my tastebuds and make the corners of my mouth water (like when you smell Frank’s Hot Sauce), but smell is such a strong factor in, well everything. I remember hearing studies about smell being linked to memory, and I think it’s true. I wish I had more information, but there are certain smells that bring me back to a certain time in my life. One occurred after a car accident, and the dry, powder covering the airbags filled my coughing lungs with such a terrible odor.

A more pleasant example can be found here. the part I’m referring to is as follows:

Marcel Proust, the French novelist, described a vivid memory brought to his mind by the smell and taste of a small piece of cake (a madeleine) dipped in tea. On Sundays as a child, his aunt used to give him a piece of madeleine dipped in her tea. Many years later, when he did the same thing, “immediately, the old gray house on the street . . . rose up like a stage set,” Proust recalled. “The entire town, with its people, and houses, gardens, church, and surroundings taking shape and solidity, sprang into being from my cup of tea.”

While Proust said it better than me, the idea remains the same. I think it’s why dentist offices have such a peculiar smell (the smell of dread), and food taste less appealing when we have a cold.

It’s endlessly frustrating trying to cook something when I’m sick. I can’t for the life of me motivate myself to make food when I’m not really going to taste it. Sure, cooking is very Zen-like in that the process and the act of cooking is far more refreshing and filling than the end product, but let’s not get carried away. I would never cook a steak or BBQ pulled pork if I had a cold,  and it’s probably why I think canned soups are terrible: the smell reminds me of being sick.

That’s hardly revolutionary. Our tongue can only sense 4 + umami “tastes,” so our identification is supplemented somewhere else, otherwise everything would taste like chicken. As an aside, when did chicken get the ubiquitous moniker for “bland?” Chicken is terrific, and if you are tired of it, try another bird like squab.Interestingly, if you type “why is chicken considered bland” into Google, it thinks you mean “blind”. I think rice has the ability to be bland much more easily than chicken, that is as long as it’s not simply boiled chicken.

The thing about smell is that it, to a certain extent, it’s run its course. We developed unique senses of smell to aide in hunting and gathering, and also to avoid spoiled meats and foods so that we might stay healthy. Aside from sniffing the milk carton once and a while, I am not sure I need my sense of smell. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy and relish it, I’m not advocating this is the correct choice in a bizzare game of “would you rather.” But it doesn’t really do much for me on a day to day basis that I don’t think I could live without.

I’ve met several people in my life who had no sense of smell. One lost it from chemotherapy, another simply was not born with the ability.  The former I met while putting dog food away at Target, and was bitching about the smell when he dropped the “I had brain cancer and can’t smell anymore” bomb on me. I felt like an ass. The point is he and my other friends seem to be doing quite fine. I’m sure someone will say “what about pheromones” and what not, but those are sensed differently than smells, and we’re not even sure if a human pheromone exists and/or how the alter human behavior.

But I digress, I’d love to get a copy of Bon Appetit with scrath and smell photos for things like desserts and those salatious thanksgiving issues would be simply to die for. I can almost taste the stuffing.

Until the advertisers got a hold of it…

Unfortunately I had no idea it was starting, and feel a little jaded and disappointed that I missed the first episode. It’s the kind of thing that I make popcorn for. And now that the Cute southern girl is gone, I’m a little bit more sad. Still not sure who my picks are for the season, i’ll probably write that later.

Today Danielle and I planned our joint birthday party, and I’ve got to say I’m really excited. We’re going to have an all day festival with football, grilling, hot tubs, drinks, and everything else we feel like. I’m going to try and whip something tasty up- but i’m not sure what yet. I guess i’ve got about 2 weeks to figure that out. I’ve been cooking a lot recently, and maybe that’s because i bought my tupperware, or maybe it’s the relaxing nature of the art. I think i spoke of it being Zen like before, and I still feel this way.

The next thing i’m making is a creamy hot chocolate for Stef and myself (tonight) but i am going to try some Waldorf chicken legs tomorrow, and maybe some creamy citrus chicken this weekend. I saw the recipe on the le Creuset site, and i’ve been licking my chops ever since.

Finally, I don’t think i’ve written much about Obama being elected, and I still will not, but there are a few things I want to throw out there. With the coming of this new age, we are setting history. Let’s adopt the following rules as part of this history breaking process:

1. Sentences will never, ever be ended again by saying the word “Not”
2. Sublime will be played 50% less. Seriously guys, what’s up with Sublime? I’ll throw 311 into this boat as well. If I never hear Amber again it will be too soon.
3. Counting before songs in music. We get it- it’s raw and not over produced to do it. Or something like that. Just start the damn song, ok?
4. The BCS System. Let’s try something new, like a tournament.
5. Saw Sequels. One was good, they’ve got exponentially worse since.
6. Bush bumper stickers. I’m assuming this one is self explanatory, yet won’t come true. Ever.
7. References to Brown University.

The past week and weekend was really long, and unfortunately I was unable to catch up on sleep. It’s always my goal to do this, but never works out. I’m resolved to do it this weekend though- and I’m putting all readers on notice: I am not doing a thing Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. I’m going to read, sit on my ass, watch movies, but nothing else. If you want to join me you can, but rest assured I will be going to bed early and sleeping in late. Except for maybe Saturday with farmer’s market goodness.

Last night I made a new dish- Asparagus risotto. Normally this is not noteworthy, except for the fact that I thought it was delicious, Steph said I should make it for a date, and then proceeded to lick the plate clean of the delicious goodness. It’s been entered into the recipe book that I keep, and will definitely make it again sometime. I also learned that dry vermouth is only 4 dollars from Trader Joe’s, which is awesome.

I’ve made a few purchases this past week that I should also comment on. I’ve finally made the leap into the wide world of denim with a pair of (ridiculously) expensive jeans. My new Rock and Republic jeans are fucking comfortable as hell. The obscenities are necessary to convey the amount of comfort these things bring me. I also like having these giant curved R’s on my ass when I walk down the street.

Aside from this I also purchased a wallet and a shirt. Buying a wallet is so counter intuitive to me. Spend money on a place to hold money. Like, a safe is one thing, but a wallet is just silly sometimes. I ended up getting a nifty little one on sale from Macy’s- it has a little removable part that holds my Id and a few cards, perfect for going out to the bars where money is simply not necessary.

I had a funny thought this weekend, about shopping in general. In order to shop at nicer stores, I feel you should look like you belong there. But when you’re moving up a level in dress, how does one achieve this? I suppose you could order online, but that’s always dangerous. Instead you just have to look like a schmuck that first time you go into these boutique stores.

I was at forever 21 yesterday, wearing a shirt from forever 21. This is the reason I thought about all of this. Now, don’t get me wrong, forever 21 is not a boutique store. I wasn’t even shopping. I was accompanying a girl to the bathroom. But I was wearing a shirt from that store while there. And I was thinking about how silly I actually felt. It’s like talking to a line chef about the burgers you make at home. They don’t care at all, but somehow you do.

Oh well, I got over it pretty quickly.

I really need this week to be better than last week. Last week was brutal for some reason, and i’ve been feeling rather anxious lately. Something I need to fix. I’ll look into it.

“Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.”

After the burrito, Dan, Steph, and I headed downtown to the Truck Stop. A bar, where, well, I wasn’t going to meet my future wife- that’s probably the best way to put it. Aside from the girls dancing on the bar, which was amazing, we also ran into a person we had met last weekend at Neomeze- and when I saw her, drunk as she was, she did indeed tell me to do my best Jagger. It was funny, but that was about the extent of our reunion.

Saturday was similar, I actually don’t remember what I did during the day, but I know food (meat) was cooked, probably the first time that kitchen had chicken or beef in quite a while. It won’t be long before it sees it again.

Saturday night Kevin and I went to Lauren’s party, a send off to school, a celebration. Hardly. We’ll give it a year to see if she is as joyous about being “done” as she was that night. School and life are the same exact thing, except for school you’re surrounded by friends all the time. Life has you come home to an empty apartment, maybe a cat, thinking about what you’ll do that weekend. And you fool yourself into thinking that’s what life is like.

The party itself was fun. Seeing some old friends and meeting a few new people was actually a lot of fun. Good food was there too, and we all know I like that. Emily made some amazing peanut butter cookies for which my mouth still waters.

Afterwards kevin and I went to a bar, which i keep calling Tom Bergeron’s, near his chateau. The place was kind of a dump, and the bartender was pretty much a jerk. Which is fine, I don’t need people to like me, but the nonchalant assault on civility which this man displayed was nearing epic proportions. I can learn a lot from him.

The next day I got a new hairdo. It was probably the first time it’s changed in, oh, 15 years? Something ridiculous like that. What’s funny is that Steph and Brian kept saying it looked fine, while I wanted to immediately ostrich my head into the sand. But it’s growing on me, as long as I don’t see it. I would describe it as Cristopher Walken-esque, which makes me very… sad. We went out to lunch and then to the store to pick up some odds and ends for the days baking activities.

Normally I don’t bake- It’s too restrictive and the room for error is about the size of my new closet- but it was Eisha’s birthday and she wanted a cake, so a rich chocolate cake she would receive. The cake called for 2 cups of flour, butI ended up using 9, give or take. 2 for the cake, to be sure, the other 7 were instrumental in testing my vacuum when I dropped the flour container all over the kitchen, in what could only be described as a coke head’s dream. I also got to use a stand mixer for the first time in my life, and let me just say- I would bake a lot more if I had one of these bad boys. It really makes mixing a snap, and does a much better job than I am patient enough to attempt.

When it was all said and done, the cake was complete, delicious, and covered with a semi-sweet ganache to which people rejoiced. Eisha liked it, so that’s really all that matters.

I, lastly, caught the finale of season 1 of Dexter. And let me just say that I respect the show even more now. It had one of those “oh my God” moments near the end, and I now remember why I’m hooked on that show. October can’t come soon enough.

“I’m stepping into the abstract, in terms of how I view myself”

At work, issues of reading files have been driving me nuts, especially when everything works perfectly, and then others are change their files without my knowledge. If this makes no sense to you, imagine learning to drive (for some of you, this is harder than others), and then, without your knowledge, left turns on red become legal, right of way becomes left of way, and speed limits are actually followed. It’s similar enough to driving, but not the same. This is exactly what happened at work. Fixing the issue was simple, but the monetary damage of driving is the pride of coding, and I felt this one remarkably close to home. Besides, why don’t people follow the standards?

Other than that, a lot of the other things I’ve done this week came together and worked great for test 1, and tests 2-10 million are next week, so we’ll see.

Last night, after work, Stephanie and I went to the Farmer’s market. If you don’t know Stephanie, you’ll know her soon. There is a picture of what she would like you to think she looks like to the left. We headed off to the farmer’s market in South Pasadena, where these “Green parrots” were making so much noise. I quote this mostly because I feel Steph is way off, they are bats. Or some migratory bird that is more akin to a buzzard than a parrot. In any event, they were not talking.

I picked up some sourdough bread, sweet I-talian basil, and some broccoli. To be honest, everything there looks great, I just wasn’t in the mood to get vegetables or oranges, which is mostly what they had.

After eating papusas, and a bunch of fat jokes, we headed to Le Petit Vendome, for our weekly wine tasting. I say weekly, and mean random Thursday night encounters, but it was a great night. We always skip whites, Stephanie because she hates them, me because I’m a sheep. Actually, I just don’t know enough about wine and want to be able to talk about it with someone. That and I don’t want to pay 38 dollars for wine tastings. Which I almost did anyways.

It would be a crime for me to omit the cheese we had. Unfortunately, one was forgettable, and the other’s name escapes me- but it was a sheep’s milk cheese from Spain (I think). The aged Wisconsin Cheddar was simply amazing, though. I could buy and eat pounds of this stuff for dinner. Imagine the most perfect cheese you’ve ever had, and this one beats it, as far as I’m concerned. I’m thinking cheddar muffins, are in the future.

Next time I’ll have to try the aged Chimay.

After that we went to Magnolia, where we got some drinks, discussed life and all of its glory, and strolled home. That was it, although I did make bacon upone my return for today’s sourdough carnivastic sandwhich. I can still taste it now.

Friday I noticed something interesting about the gate that leads me into work. it’s one of thsoe gates that spins one way, and prevents people from getting in unless tehy use their badge as a key- very high tech stuff. But it’s been kind of a curmudgeon as of late, spinning with great resistance and laziness. Yet, last Friday and today, it has been a different story. Perhaps some WD-40 or something has been doused over the flames of rust and it is now free to follow it’s whimsical spirit. In Circles.

When searching to describe how this gate acts, it was difficult as most of my friends are east gaters, or as I like to call them “late”. I likened it to the spinning of a dreidel, but had no idea how to spell the word. Even as I type it now, there is a little red line underneath it, making me very suspicious indeed. Anyways, I found an article online and was reading it and I discovered something: the driedel game is a really lame game. No offense, but I recall making these in school and could put anything on the sides- I feel I owe it to kids everywhere to reinvent the game. In fact, much like a top, most of the joy of the ‘game’ is derived from seeing something spin as long as possible. Not from getting half of a pot of beans, or whatever the kids play with these days.

probably crack.

Speaking of Tops, I kept referring to a restaurant as “Tops” all weekend long, when obviously I meant  The Hat, a world famous pastrami place. On an aside, i think the word “world famous” is a bit deceiving, because anyone can use it. I can say my crotch is world famous, but that doesn’t make it so.

At all.

Back to Tops, I mean, the Hat. You can see whereI’d go wrong, hopefully. Top is a kind of hat, and indeed is the location on which a hat rests. regardless, The Hat makes a damn good pastrami sandwich , which (haha) I did not order. But I did get to try some, and can’t wait to go back. unfortunately I’ve taken a vow of not eating out for about two weeks because I’ve seriously been reviving the US economy myself with how much I’ve spent the past few weeks.

This spending hiatus all starts today, I might add, as I bought a cast iron skillet, some spice jars, and 4 ramekins yesterday. Nothing I needed, just things I wanted. But once I had them, making a souffle (I will always pronounce this in my mind “soo-ful”) was no longer a desire, but a necessary endeavor which would save my life. Or at least that’s how I felt.

But one thing: beating eggs by hand is absolutely absurd. It was my fault the eggs were cold to start with, but Jesus how did people do this centuries ago?  It was so bad, and i was so tire, that I ran to target during the Oscars to buy a hand mixer. and even that took damn near forever. But I think it was worth it, my chocolate soofuls were damn tasty, and I have one here in my office, just waiting for lunch. Or earlier, if i don’t plan on sharing.

What?

Aside from the food and tastiness (we also had sushi sunday. I love unagi, and I’m not referring to an ever present awareness, Ross), I also saw Vantagpoint, which wasn’t bad, but I also don’t recommend to anyone, as, if you do or have seen it, you see the same movie about eight times throughout the sitting. Funny story about the movie though, I was getting a refill on my coke zero (health FTW), and saw a guy with a large popcorn and large soda, alone. I nearly asked him if he was sitting alone for some strange reason, and quickly played through all the scenarios that would happen in my head and thought it better that I not 1) make him feel bad, or 2) give off the biggest gay vibe ever recorded in the Paseo theater complex’s History. I think not knowing this random stranger’s story is for the best.

Not that there is anything wrong with that (#2.)

Really, I love my family.

But seriously, none of this compares to what Grace has done.

My birthday had passed by about 9 days, and I was on pins and needles waiting for a few packages to arrive because they would, like a VD, change my life forever.
On my birthday, she received the unfortunate news that my packages would be delayed until the 10th. She was pretty sad about the whole ordeal, but I was not phased. Then she told me what it was- and I immediately wanted to cry, as it could not come soon enough. It got so bad I was demanding updates on package status basically every time we talked, which happens to be quite often.

Knowing what i was going to get wasn’t a bad thing at all- as it saved me a pair of underwear. Which probably would have made it through most of the day until i saw this:

I think we all know where this packaging comes from. But in case you don’t, it is basically the curator for the library of culinary magic. Upon ripping open the packaging (OK, i undid it very nicely so that i could reuse the paper in some horrid joke) I saw what I’ve probably wanted more than anything for 3 years…

But it’s not done yet! in fact, they felt so bad about being unable to deliver that “Knife Illustrated” cutting guide, they threw in a toaster! But not just any toaster,  a toaster so awesome that it should have a bunch of numbers and letters (preferably of the [ISXZ] variety) following it’s name. Let’s call it the Cuisinart ZX9000- because this thing could probably launch a rocket.

OK, as I work for NASA i can’t really say that, but you get my point.

So now i just look for excuses to cut stuff, and it’s even gotten so bad that I was watching television,  looked down, and realized i was holding the 8inch Chef’s Knife in my hand- a little scary. Pocyalmania.

Several categories are set up for one to choose from, indeed to narrow down the gifts that might apply. Imagine my surprise, and chagrin, when the most interesting link i saw was the “For her” category. I think it’s odd that the grill is still considered a man’s domain, while baking and any other type of skilled cooking (not that grilling is unskilled) is relegated to women. Perhaps you like this, you being women, with which I have such little contact that my mother is probably beginning to worry.

Who do i talk to about this? Should I write amazon a reverse sexism letter? Or is this just sexist? I don’t care- i am not, how i write, offended or anything. Just think we’ve come far enough that we could have avoided this whole thing. I mean, why not split it into baker, cook, and griller. Honestly, if you know enough about the person to know to buy them cooking wares, you probably know what they know, or at least want, to cook.

Anyways, my gift MIGHT be coming today, and you can bet your ass if it does I will be incredibly happy. Until then, though, I’ll just keep on keeping on.