blue artichoke

Oh, my, where is my mind? I forgot to write about the cookout we had two weekends ago. The menu: burgers, chicken breasts marinated in Dale's, Hebrew National hot dogs, zucchini marinated in Italian dressing and corn, all cooked on the grill. I also made rainbow coleslaw (red and green cabbage, apples, carrots and green peppers) and a black bean salad. A neighbor brought the requisite cookout potato salad. And, for dessert, a blueberry crisp and Gentleman Caller's mama's show-stopping chess pie. Chess pie is simply a filling of eggs, sugar and butter with small amounts of vinegar and cornmeal or flour. When baked, the filling becomes dense and translucent with a thin, crusty caramelized top. Partygoers described it as a poor man's crème brûlée, a sugar pie and a pecan pie without the pecans, all accurate descriptions. Here's the description from my favorite food reference book: This pie has always been a favorite with Southerners, but no one seems to know exactly where it got its name. It's believed that at first it was called jelly pie or Jefferson Davis pie, and later became known as chess pie because of the pie chest in which it was typically stored. In any event, we probably have chess pie to thank for the eventual creation of the even more popular pecan pie. I found several more recipes for chess pie in the bounty of church cookbooks I just donated to the public library. All had the same ingredients, with slight variations in proportions.

I don't know how protective GC's mom is of her recipe, but I think we should be honest with each other, dear Internet. There should be no secrets between us, so in the interest of full disclosure, here's the recipe:

Chess Pie

3 whole eggs, slightly beaten
1 ¾ c. sugar
1 T. cornmeal
1 T. flour
1 T. vinegar
4 T. melted butter
3 T. milk
1 t. vanilla
1 deep-dish pie shell

Beat eggs slightly in a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients; stir well.

Pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and cook until firm, another 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well, it took me almost a month, but I finally finished Red Meat's recommended summer reading, Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey. This book was not so much read as endured. Don't get me wrong, I really liked it, but it isn't something to breeze through on autopilot. It took quite a while for me to get into the story because the style was so chaotic. Narrators switched, sometimes several times, within one paragraph, interrupted on occasion with song lyrics playing from a radio or jukebox. The din was so great that I felt like reading with my ears plugged. After slogging through a few pages of this, the story would even out to just one point of view for several pages, and I'd get sucked right in to the story, only to get frustrated later on by the sliding narration. It is a story that lingers with me, though, and now that I'm done, I find myself still thinking about it. That, to me, is the mark of a good book.

I need a nice breezy read next, something less strenuous and taxing. The DaVinci Code.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The best thing about church is the cookbooks. I recently acquired a bevy of these cookbooks, en route to the Friends of the Library book sale. Before donating them to the library, though, I started flipping through them and have discovered a treasure trove of great recipes. Many are from the 1960s and 1970s, and the recipes take advantage of new conveniences, like box cake mixes. Some earlier cookbooks have recipes completely from scratch. I tend to like those better.

After flipping through several of the cookbooks, I can see some trends. Some years, crab cakes were really popular, and then there was the fruitcake craze, prune cake mania, gelatin fruit salads and the banana bread years. Chocolate cake has always been popular. I’ve added a few more banana bread recipes to the current Snackdown battle, pushing the end even further out of sight. I’m not yet sick of banana bread, though, so I’ll keep battling on, once I clean the ashes and baking soda out of my fire-prone oven.

Here’s a neat link to an online collection of cookbooks.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I set my oven on fire again. How does this happen, and so often, and to me? My oven was clean, from the thorough scrubbing from the last time it caught on fire. Obviously I have angered Uncle Ben, the Patron Saint of Kitchens. Revenge for swearing off use of the oven for the summer? I never knew Uncle Ben, so benevolent looking, could be so malicious. All I was doing was broiling 2 packages of bacon when the bacon grease ignited. So how do you put out a grease fire? Not with water! Or prayer (Oh, almighty Uncle Ben, please extinguish your heavenly light burning up my oven! In the name of the Uncle, the Cook and Converted White Rice, Amen!) Opening the oven door made the flames leap out pretty high. After shutting the oven to see if it would go out if deprived of oxygen, and crossing my fingers that it would just go away, I finally yanked open the door and emptied a new carton of baking soda into the oven. It didn't even make a dent in the fire. I pulled out the tray and started dumping flour on top and flailing my oven mitt at the flames (luckily, this oven mitt is flame retardant). I got the fire put out just before the smoke alarm went off, so I ran to fan the alarm and open windows and turn on fans. The house aired out so quickly that I wonder if it even happened at all? Maybe it was just a vision sent by Uncle Ben to get me on the path to righteous rice.

Dinner tonight: cookout

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday was even hotter than the day before, when I declared it too hot to work/cook/move more than 5' from the window unit. So yesterday, I hopped in my car and road-tripped (I just made road trip into a verb, did you see that?) to St. Louis. I stopped at the outlet shops on the way and bought myself a pair of pants for $6 and another for $9. I hooted around the 'Loo for most of the day, stopping in at World Market and Trader Joe's before I left. Then I drove around for a while looking for a Big Lots that I thought I had seen once in the vicinity, but couldn't seem to find it this time. Ah well. I drove a long way for some bargain pants and some cheap wine, but the A/C blasted and the music sounded good enough to sing along, so I consider it a super three-quarter-day vacation.

When I got home, I congregated in the shared driveway with my neighbors to bemoan the heat and compare degrees of sweatiness. "This is the end of the heat wave," said all the passers-by. And they were right. It cooled off sometime in the night and was mid-80s today. Tomorrow it's supposed to be positively arctic. We're having a cookout to celebrate.

Dinner tonight: cantaloupe & beer (BA); Chili's Southwest Cobb Salad (GC)

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I can't cook anymore. I just can't.
It's too hot.
I know, there's a heat wave everywhere, so surely you all must know what it's like.

I stopped using the oven a few weeks ago because it heated up the house too much. Last night I made a tofu stir-fry, which was super-excellent, but I was drenched in sweat, with my clothes sticking to me and my hair matted to my face from standing over the stove. So, stovetop cooking seems to be out now too. And grilling, why, it's even worse outside! It's so humid. A few minutes outside is a sweat-shower. No, I don't want to be standing by a hot grill on a hot summer evening, especially when I won't be able to cool off by going back inside. Our lonely window unit probably produces more heat by chugging along every day than it does cool air. I guess the microwave is still an option, but I don't have much that can be microwaved, and even if it did, it's just too hot to eat hot food. Nope, it's all iced tea and Popsicles for the Blue Artichoke household. And maybe salads prepared while hovering over the air conditioner. Ugh.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I spent some quality time with the Last Angry Young Man last night. If you haven't checked out the Monkey Chow Diaries, do so now. I'll wait...

Funny stuff, huh? Anyway, the Angry Man's post about people who "know karate" got me to thinking about punching people in the face. Now, I run from confrontation, so all face punching is purely in my mind, but there are some people who I think deserve a good bruising. Topping my list is people who laugh with their shoulders. I've only encountered these people (usually obnoxious men) in the Midwest; the sound comes from their mouth, but their shoulders shrug up and down in time. Pow! Right in the kisser!

I wish I could have punched a regular customer at the ice cream shop in the mall where I worked in high school. He'd order the same thing: a large cup of chocolate frozen yogurt with a middle layer of chopped up Reese's cups. I didn't care about the repetition, but that he would end each order with, "but don't tell your boyfriend!" Why would my boyfriend care what kind of ice cream some fat old man ordered? Pow!

I've been thinking about this all day, and these are the only ones deserving a knuckle sandwich so far. I often want to punch pretension in the face, but Gentleman Caller is pretty good at calling out and ridiculing pretension. Humiliation is a virtual punch in the face and the sting often lasts much longer.

I'll be on alert for others who need to take a punch. You be on the lookout too.

Dinner last night: sushi, from a restaurant

P.S.: Happy Birthday to Gentleman Caller and Fat Larry!

Posted ~2 1/2 hours later:
I thought of a few more deserving punchees. People who try to out-obscure your knowledge. That sort of goes along with the pretension-bashing.

People who wear ribbons or stick them on their car. I acknowledge their interest in causes they find worthy, but do they really need to broadcast it? I'm not suddenly going to become aware of or remember AIDS when I see a red ribbon. And I don't care any less if I don't drape myself in multi-colored ribbons. Some of my friends might fall into this category. Sorry, but I'm going to mind-punch your face.

Unsolicited advisors. If I want advice, I ask.

That's it for now.

Posted the following day:
I went to a party last night and we added a few more, such as pregnant women/mothers who can talk only about their pregnancy or children.

Anise, in particular, and licorice in general, needs to be punched in the face.

People who are content to complain incessantly about their problems without actually doing anything about them.

The check-out clerks at Victoria's Secret during their semi-annual sales.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Omega-3s isn’t my new band (but thanks for the idea, Red Momo), but my new secret society (new? Does that mean there’s an old secret society? Shhh…). The society itself won’t be a secret (look at me, I’m writing about it on the Internet!), but membership will. Sort of like the Freemasons.

So, why the omega-3s? Well, because that’s the key to a super-evolved human race. Omega-3 (aka, ΩΩΩ) is an evolutionary society, and its members will rule the world. And here’s why: Omega-3s are fatty acids derived from plants and marine animals, and are so important for good health that some scientists postulate that these omega-3s are the reason the human brain evolved. Did you know that 60% of the brain is fat? It’s true. And because these omega-3s are fat soluble, the brain just gobbles them up. So does the fat in the body, and the body benefits just as much as the brain. Omega-3 fatty acids reduce the risk of coronary artery disease by increasing the amount of good cholesterol, reducing blood pressure, stabilizing the heart beat, thinning the blood and decreasing the “stickiness” of blood platelets (which leads to blood clots and strokes). They also prevent cancer, especially breast and colon cancer. Sounds good, right? There’s more! They prevent age-related macular degeneration, mitigate autoimmune diseases and relieve depression and several other mental health problems. Neat!

It isn’t just that adequate amounts of omega-3 prevent the development of all these diseases, but an omega-3 deficiency actually leads to some pretty serious health problems: high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, some forms of cancer, diabetes, asthma, hypertension, chronic obstructive lung disease, autoimmune disorders, ADHD and depression. Sound like that covers all the modern Western health issues.

So, where do we get omega-3? The downside is that our bodies can’t manufacture it. We used to get ample amounts back when we ate a whole lot of leafy vegetables and animals that fed on grass. Marine derived omega-3 is found in cold water fish that feed on zooplankton: wild salmon, albacore tuna, Alaskan halibut, sardines, herring, trout, sea bass, and oysters and clams. Plant derived omega-3 is found in flaxseed, canola oil, soy nuts, walnuts, wheat germ and products enriched with omega-3 (such as eggs or meat. Even the tortillas we used last night to make quesadillas were omega-3 enriched). It’s difficult to get enough omega-3 from these plant sources, so it’s best to eat these marine sources 2-4 times per week, or if, like me, you hate fish, a supplement in the form of a fish oil pill 2-3 times per day.

So, if plentiful omega-3 allowed the brain to evolve, then a widespread omega-3 deficiency means a paused evolution or even a devolution, right? This is where ΩΩΩ really shines. Members will form a society of super-evolved and super-healthy people to rule over the omega-3-deficient slobbering masses. You’ll know the deficient by their dry skin, fatigue, brittle nail and hair, constipation, frequent colds, inability to concentrate, depression and joint pain (all symptoms of omega-3 deficiency). You won’t know who members of ΩΩΩ are, but you’ll know who they aren’t. All that’s required for membership is to consume an adequate amount of omega-3, or take a fish pill supplement 2-3 times daily. You can take it with Kool-Aid. It isn’t a cult. First meeting is Sunday at 5pm, location TBA.

Dinner last night: Kielbasa, grilled squash and corn quesadillas

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The most efficient system of government is a benevolent dictatorship. But what happens when the benevolence become self-serving and detrimental to all the loyal subjects? Well, then it is an oppressive regime, and that's bad. A two-party system, with all its flaws, is a better alternative. The best one can hope for is that the two parties will keep each other honest and benevolent, and at worst, that they will block each other from acting and nothing gets done. The Supreme Ruler of my Mouth (the Crown) started out benevolent, but then started making bad decisions, such as ordering me to drink too much beer and buy Snickers Almond candy bars and a bag of Lay's Sour Cream & Onion potato chips. Absolute power corrupts absolutely; it turned into an oppressive sweet tooth with occasional salty cravings. The other teeth began to protest and chose another leader among themselves. This new leader, who was crowned yesterday afternoon in a simple, yet elegant, ceremony, was chosen to represent the Maxilla district (aka, Teeth of the Upper Jaw). The previous Supreme Ruler is now master of the Mandible district (Teeth of the Lower Jaw). The Maxilla Crown ran a campaign for healthy eating and professed a love for broccoli. The Mandible Crown promised to give the teeth what they want: sugar, soda, and salty snacks. The Crowns are directly opposed to each other (as in, they touch when I chew) to keep a balance of power and facilitate cooperation.

The Maxilla Crown wasted no time asserting its authority. Its first decree was a healthy breakfast. Instead of a bowl of cereal or a hunk of banana bread, this morning I had a banana mashed up with nonfat plain yogurt, drizzled with honey and topped with a handful of blueberries, followed by a fistful of raw almonds and an omega-3 fish pill supplement (more on omega-3 tomorrow). Long live the Crowns!

Dinner last night: Kielbasa, Israeli couscous salad with pistachios

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I got the notion to paint the kitchen. I spend so much time in there, why not make it pretty? Blue, perhaps? And, you know, the dark green bathroom is so dark and poorly lit that most of the time I can't see myself in the mirror. Maybe I should try a lighter green in there... I went to Lowe's and picked out some paint chips, called my landlord and got the green light for water fountain blue for the kitchen and blue grass mood (which is actually green) for the bathroom. I trucked on back to Lowe's, bought the paint and the necessary accoutrements and hurried home to begin prepping the kitchen and bathroom. Prepping is the hard part. Painting is the easy part. Both rooms now look so different; the kitchen is bright and cheery and the bathroom is light and pretty.

Here's a fun game, sort of like a treasure hunt: pull out the fridge and oven to see what gems lie beneath! It's especially exciting in a rental house, because most of the booty belonged to someone else. I found sidewalk chalk, stickers, a crayon, several lids and caps, something that looked like a mushroom, a spider, some wads of lint/dust/hair? and a magnet. The bathroom wasn't quite so fun. All I found in there was a wadded-up bloody tissue on top of the built-in cabinets. Ewww. I cleaned the sides of the fridge and oven, and I'll bet I have the cleanest kitchen baseboards on the block.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 08:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Because summers in mid-Missouri are sultry, hot and humid, and because we don't have central A/C, and because our poor window unit struggles to cool just the living room, I've switched to a no-oven menu for the summer. Meals are now cooked on the grill or stovetop. This works out well, because it's just too hot to eat anyway. But every so often, a girl just wants to bake, so I try to save up all my baking needs for one day a week (preferably a relatively cool day, say, only 90 degrees). Yesterday was that day. I made a cheddar and onion pie for dinner, a loaf of molasses-oat banana bread for the Snackdown (see below) and a blackened blueberry cobbler. The cobbler wasn't browning like I hoped, so I flipped on the broiler, let Fat Larry out to play in the back yard and came back to an oven belching smoke. Oops. The top is slightly blackened, but luckily the topping prevented the blueberries from burning, turning acrid and bitter. It was more like an upside-down blueberry cake than a cobbler, but it was yummy.

Snackdown #16, Molasses-Oat Banana Bread
Recipe from Cooking Light. This bread has all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, oats and dark molasses, making it one of the healthiest of the bunch. I cut down a bit on the molasses and added an extra banana, in violation of the Snackdown rules, but it turned out great. Even with the extra banana, the fruit flavor is rather subtle. I think the molasses flavor would have completely overpowered the banana if I hadn't reduced the amount of molasses and added another banana. This definitely wouldn't satisfy a banana bread craving, but is still really good. I think it'll go to the top five nontraditional banana breads.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I never know what I'm in for when I go get a haircut. In high school, I always felt like crying when I left the hair salon. After so many bad haircuts, I don't know why I kept going back to the same place... Of course, those were the days when I styled my hair by hanging my head out the window to dry my hair on the way to school. Or, I fixed bad hair days with a curling iron and a can of hair spray. I'm still a low-maintenance hair care kind of girl (now I style my hair by letting it dry overnight while I sleep). Anyway, since it had been almost eight months since my last hair cut, I decided that it was my patriotic duty to get a haircut on the 4th of July. I headed to the mall, where there are several salons that take walk-ins. I sort of cringed as my hair got shorter, but I ended up with an actual hairstyle. It wasn't what I wanted going in, but I like it so far. Layers. And, finally, almost all of the green from last summer's henna debacle has been cut out of my hair.

After the patriotic haircut, I went to the first of two patriotic cookouts. The first was a true cookout, with burgers and dogs on the grill, potato salad, grilled corn, guacamole and chips. We played badminton in the back yard and basketball in the front, then retired to the air-conditioned living room to play dominoes and watch fake sports (hotdog eating contest, darts competition). The second cookout was light finger foods, bocce ball in the backyard and fireworks in the front. This cookout was out in the country, and several neighbors set off fireworks too. Quite a show. I like any holiday that is celebrated by firing up the grill and blowing up things .

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

IKEA is one of my favorite stores. Those Swedes just seem to get me, and design furniture and arrange rooms to make me feel at home instantly. We stopped in at IKEA on our way out of town. Gentleman Caller had never been to one before, and no husband of mine will ever be denied IKEA. My dad and I have been to this IKEA a few times. The building is a square with two side sections that protrude at an angle. My dad says he feels like the building has its arms out for a welcoming hug. Today, however, the store was an unwelcoming madhouse. I've never seen an IKEA as crowded or chaotic. It was rather overwhelming. I forgot to pick up something, so deposited GC at the cafe and parked the cart out of the way, then ran upstairs to get the missing item. When I returned to the cart, someone had emptied our items and taken the cart. And the cart stand was three feet away! It marred an already disappointing trip. I don't know if GC will ever return to an IKEA, and I can't blame him if he doesn't.

We drove back to MO without incident, and arrived home to a whiny cat, a dead bird by the birdfeeder in the backyard and a sauna for a house.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 09:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our plan for today was to go to the Shedd Aquarium and to rent bikes to ride along the waterfront. But which to do first? It was drizzly in the morning when we set out, so we decided to do the aquarium first and hope that the weather would clear up by the afternoon. We wound up doing neither. The line at the aquarium was waaaay too long, so we hopped a water taxi over to Navy Pier to see a 3-D Deep Sea IMAX. It is one of the coolest IMAX movies I've seen, plus it was a good substitute for actually going to the aquarium. We walked around Navy Pier for a few minutes before deciding it was an atrocious tourist haven, and retreated to a far less crowded sidewalk cafe and market for a light lunch and some gourmet marketing. Then we picked up Gentleman Caller's friends, went shopping for a cookout and returned to their apartment to make dinner and hang out on the patio. We had grilled pork tenderloin with a grilled Serrano chile and tomatillo salsa, grilled Romaine with a lemon vinaigrette, grilled zucchini and yellow squash and a vanilla cake with whipped cream, strawberries and blueberries. Yum.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Taste of Chicago was awesome. This is what Chicago tastes like:
Stuffed spinach pizza
Chocolate turtle
Jumbo coconut shrimp
Plain cheesecake
Mango rice pudding with dried cranberries
Bailey's Irish ice cream
Crawfish boil with corn
Steak taco with lettuce, tomato and cheese
Lemon, strawberry and mango Italian Ice
Persian chargrilled chicken with pomegranate BBQ sauce
Cannoli
Plantain chips with garlic sauce
Italian sausage
Beer
Wine

That's a lot of tastes for one city! My only regret is that I didn't try any goat dishes. They were there; I was too full to eat another bite. There was a Food Network stage where we saw a bartending competition and several smaller stages with cooking shows and local celebrity chefs. We also saw a few minutes of the Yonder Mountain String Band, but opted to move out of the blazing sun to a shadier spot far from the dancing hippies. Six hours of eating out in the hot sun tuckered us out, but we walked around the city, moving from one grassy patch in the shade to another. I discovered a hidden talent of falling asleep instantly on park benches. We ogled ourselves in the giant silver reflective bean in Millenium Park and stumbled upon the orchestra rehearsing in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, a really cool outdoor amphitheater. I snoozed on the lawn there a bit too.

After trudging back to the hotel, hot, sweaty and grimy, Gentleman Caller and I decided not to go out to a fancy anniversary dinner, as planned, but to stay in and order room service. I thought the food was surprisingly good for room service, but I've never ordered room service food before, so have no point for comparison. I feel so worldly now.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)