Not So Glamorous

Lunch the other day. Steamed broccoli and, always a favorite, smoked salmon-caper-red onion-cream cheese- muffins.

BBQ

On Wednesday I decided to make chicken. I perused countless online and offline recipes, made decisions, changed my mind, made new decisions and then finally came upon a barbeque chicken recipe I thought was worth my time. I'm going to do a Chicagoist post about it, so I'm going to just say looky here at the chicken I made.

Happy Happy

This makes me really, really, really happy. I mean. Can't you just picture it? I can...and I laugh and laugh and laugh and feel very happy.

The Soup Comes From Star Of Siam

Tuesday afternoon the boyfriend and I went to the MCA--Museum of Contemporary Art, that is--partially because it was a good place to go and partially because I had to go for the class I'm TAing. The museum seemed rather small. My comparisons are the Beacon Dia in New York and, even though my memory is a little fuzzy, the Cincinnati (is that how you spell that city?) Museum of Contemporary Art.

You know what forget the MCA and forget the food above. Here's what just happened. I'm kind of awake because the boyfriend and my bed is friggin killing my back but I'm mostly asleep when, about half an hour ago, our buzzer buzzes. The boyfriend gets up and answers the door and it's a woman. I'm not out of bed but I can hear her. She's all out of breathy. She tells the boyfriend that she lives in the next building over in our courtyard and that her thirteen month daughter had a seizure last night and that, a number of people including one 'white lady' have helped her out but she's still twelve dollars short. Now, the boyfriend is a good person and gave her five dollars and then our house guest, who was sleeping on the couch at the time this all started, gave another ten. She thanked them both profusely and said that she'd pay them back by 1:30 at the latest.

This whole time I was thinking something to the effect of, 'that's so good that the boyfriend and houseguest aren't skeptical, I mean this is about a thirteen month old (with Down Syndrome, no less) and yet if it was just me I'd probably give her a dollar at most.' This made me feel pretty bad about myself, you know, that I don't trust a woman in need. Almost immediately after the woman left and I felt guilty, the boyfriend suddenly had a memory of a friend who lives more north than us having fallen for a similar 'baby had a seizure, I need money for the medicine' scam'.

So the boyfriend followed the lady, Theresa Franklin was her 'name' and caught up with her. He politely asked her for his money back and she told him that she gave it to 'the random guy over there' and he was going to go get the medicine for her.

Okay okay. Basically the boyfriend and the houseguest-and in a sense myself-were scammed, fleeced and hoodwinked and in the worst way possible--right after they woke up and in a place one assumes is safe from the mad, crazy, mixed up world.

It's not even nine in the morning.

Everything But The

Some other day in the past week I had this monstrosity...very much a everything but the kitchen sink kind of luncy. Beans, rice, smoked turkey, bacon, avacados, cheese and something else but I forget what.

The Boyfriend Is, In Fact, My Hero

This is a quick posty post brought to you by the brilliance of the boyfriend...he got a new camera cord, you see...he's also just brilliant. So below is a picture of the cactus (in profile) that attacked my foot a little less than a week ago.
This is a close up of the spikes...there were six of these spikes in my left foot...I mean whole spikes, sticking out, precariously and painfully. The boyfriend, as I mentioned, pulled all these spikes out...but the bottoms were a little (read a lot) reluctant to vacate my foot flesh.
Then, two days ago, the boyfriend pulled this sucker out of my foot. I will gladly admit to how proud I am of this picture and use of penny as a comparison....I mean, it's a big friggin cactus spike...and I walked around with that guy in my foot for five days!
I've also eaten many a meal since the camera problems started. But I'm going to save them for later.

They Said It Was Okay

These two youngins are my cousins...that kind of rhymed didn't it? I think this photograph is awfully cute and I have received permission from the kids' aunt and mother to post it...Mom.
I like how the new baby boy seems to almost be the same size as his big sister. Man I wish I had a camera that worked.

Dancing Whales

If you haven't already, you should go to this blog and this blog to see two very funny videos.

My Camera Doesn't Work

So, the camera computer saga continues...it seems it's more about the usb cord than anything I've actually done (whew). Today I walked to Staples to get a new cord and I did, in fact, get a new cord. But upon returning home I came to the sudden, and quite sad, realization that the cord was not going to fit into the camera. So. Because of that I can't show you photographs of the barbequed chicken I made from scratch, nor can I make a Chicagoist post about said chicken. I also cannot show you pictures of the cactus spike the boyfriend pulled out of my foot this morning nor the lunch we ate after going to the MCA yesterday. All in all, very frustrating. So instead I googled "My Camera Doesn't Work" and these are the images I came up with...the top four in order, actually. Some day soon things will turn around. Until then, enjoy these random people's snap shots.

Happy premise #3: Even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won't.

I own a bunch of movies and, often, I forget that some of them are actually pretty good. Two nights ago the boyfriend and I found ourselves sans a Netflix movie. And I, for one, was jonesing for some media (okay, I'm always jonesing for some media), so I took a look at ye olde video collection and decided it was time to revisit Bowfinger.

Oh my goodness. If you have seen this movie but kind of forget how funny it is, go watch it, you won't be disappointed. And if you've managed to go through life without seeing this movie it's time to change that.

I mean I laughed just thinking about what was coming up and then I laughed harder when the scene actually happened.

Best movie ever? No, but still worth viewing.

Craving Crab

The boyfriend's and my kitchen is lacking in many a thing as of late and because of this my homecooked meals have been decidedly lackluster. And now, for whatever reason, I can't stop thinking about soft shell crabs and how badly I want to eat, like, one million of them RIGHT NOW. Of course that would be silly, to eat one million all at one time. But, really, have you had a soft shell crab lightly breaded and lightly fried/sauteed? Oh my goodness. I am thinking about it and I'm thinking about it and I'm about to cry.

Something Is Amiss

Since Sunday the camera has not wanted to behave. It refuses to transfer photographs to the computer. In fact, the camera refuses to acknowledge the existence of the computer whatsoever. This, as you can imagine, troubles me greatly. I haphazardly attempted something to fix it yesterday but frankly I just want to whine at the camera until it fixes itself.

I have, in the last week, started- but not in true earnesty- three different books, two of which I have read before but a long time back. These books are Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Great Gatsby and Skinny Legs and All. I also, a while back, finished reading Henry Green's Loving and may be stuck in the middle of his Living for a long time to come.

So, no books completed and no meals to be shown. So sad.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

The computer/camera is still being funky about uploading the cactus photos but I'm going to perservere and move on. Yesterday the boyfriend and I decided not to do dim sum. There was talk of Golden Nugget and Pauline's. I would have happily gone to Golden Nugget in a car but it was a little too long a walk for my poor, poor, foot. So we planned on going to Pauline's. Unfortunately my foot wasn't too happy about that either. In the end we ate at Corner Diner at Foster and Clark. The boyfriend had the Jennie's (or maybe Jessie's or some other name beginning with J) Slam: two slices of french toast, two pancakes, one egg, a thick piece of ham and some fruit. I had the two egg breakfast: two poached eggs, sausage links and potatoes.
This breakfast was good but not great. My eggs were cooked to my specifications but the whites tasted a little like vinegar...which makes sense because sometimes when you poach an egg you put a tiny little bit of vinegar in the water but not enough that the person eating the egg is like 'oh yes vinegar'. The potatoes were so so. The sausage was tasty. What can I say?

Pizza Pizza

Once returning home we puttered and we pattered around for a while. Then we started to watch Malcolm X, a very long movie indeed. We took a Malcolm break and made pizza. The boyfriend was in charge of the dough and then I, in a very nazi like fashion, took over the toppings. The toppings were: bacon, tomatoes, pineapple and olives. I also put some pesto into the marinara sauce for extra flavor/to get rid of more of the pesto. It was a stupendously good pizza if I do say so.
I kind of feel bad writing about Malcolm X, the movie, in the same post as a pizza that has bacon on it. But not bad enough to take the time and make a new post. This movie was interesting for a number of reasons, stylistically, thematically and characterly (characterly is not a word). I'm not sure how I felt about the ending...not that he died but Spike Lee's choice not to end the story with Malcolm X's death but to throw in a speech by Nelson Mandela and have kids stand up and say that they are Malcolm X. I don't know, it kind of seemed weird. Or something. But what do I know.

I have cactus things in my foot and I am trying to upload the images of the cactus in question but the camera/computer is having some problems with this. So, yeah.

Good As Good As Sushi Is Good

After returning home from our nesting table adventure the boyfriend and I headed out to House of Sushi and Noodles. The boyfriend was quite pleased with my uncoerced decision to walk the 2.5 miles to get there. It was a lovely walk down Ashland. One should never forget how different a street is when you're actually walking it as opposed to driving by it. We saw some dogs, a house that would be amazing if it was fixed up and painted, random tulips (the tulips are everywhere and I love it love it love it) and eventually we saw Mecca and by Mecca I mean the House of Sushi and Noodles.
As always we ordered the buffet that starts with green bean tempura and a cup of miso soup. This time around there were also some sweet potato tempura pieces along with the green bean and they were a nice surprise.
We went with two rounds of four rolls and then one abbreviated round of two...then I fell over into a dead sushi induced coma. House of Sushi and Noodles is good for lots of sushi cheap but the actual quality of the sushi is still a little suspect in my mind. I'm trying to figure out if this is because it's buffet style and I'm a snob or if I actually can discern really great sushi from just so-so sushi. It may be the former but it could, potentially, be the latter.

A Jaunt To The Center

The boyfriend is a true addict not only of Cadbury Cream Eggs but Craigslist as well. Yesterday he found an offer for nesting tables he found to be superior to the nesting tables we already have and so we drove down to the loop to pick these new tables up. A beautiful day it was, too.

Yesterday's Gone

Yesterday, for breakfast, the boyfriend made our favorite smoked salmon, caper, cream cheese, red onion muffin. He, in addition, had a muffin with maple spread. Delicious. It's amazing how great all these tastes and textures are together.

Non Beer Bellying Boyfriend

Yesterday afternoon, after my second class, a group of us went to Exchequer to get some beer in our bellies. Whilst we were beer bellying the boyfriend was fixing up our candy centerpiece...and eating some spaghetti...this is what it looked like. Somehow I find this funny, yes?

Salad Is As Salad Does

On Thursday I made this splendiferous salad to eat with the boyfriend. I then went to walk some dogs and hang out in their apartment and watch their owner's huge television. The dogs are very sweet. Top Chef on Bravo is an addictive show and Rosie O'Donnell's gay family cruise documentary is hard to stop watching as well.

Candy Mountain

The boyfriend, traditionally, goes a little crazy just after Easter. You see, he's got a problem. Or, to be frank, an addiction. This addiction has almost cost us our relationship a number of times but we always pull through. Of course, you understand, the boyfriend's feelings towards Cadbury Cream Eggs often leave me feeling 'out of the loop' and, yes I can admit it, a little jealous. But this year the boyfriend's haul widened to certain chocolate lovelies that I do so adore...Reese's Peanutbutter Eggs. The pile of candy has actually grown since Thursday which is when I took the photograph. Now there are more Mounds Eggs and Cadbury Eggs and on top of the pile is a candle...it's a beautiful centerpiece.

The boyfriend is reading my blog and pointing out all the places where I left out words. My bad.

Don't Know Much

Tasty stirfry. Same ingredients as the one a little while back only with my favorite soy/sesame/honey combination. Artichoke hearts, mmmm.

Weirdo

Seems that Jane Fonda was planning on driving around the country in some veggie oil kind of bus à la Woody Harrelson but has now changed her mind. Her reason for canceling the tour/protest?

She carries too much baggage. I'm pretty sure she's not talking about emotional issues left over from her divorce. Could be wrong.

Back A Little

So on Friday night I came up with a brilliant plan for the following day. It went a little something like this: wake up, eat something, buy eggs and dye kits, rent four movies, walk to the lake, dye eggs and then watch the movies. A friend came along, bringing 18 additional eggs and an artistic spirit. I wish I had taken more closeups of her eggs because they were very pretty. But I didn't. You can check out the eggs we did dye at the Chicagoist this is the same piece I linked to earlier, so if you've already seen it don't think it's anything new.

We started with Prime starring Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and a very attractive young man whose name really doesn't matter all that much. It was kind of funny. We took bets on how it would end and I bet for the wrong outcome, which was surprising because I usually know exactly how movies like this are going to go.
Then we started watching Love, Ludlow. This starred the first Becky from Roseanne, Steve from Sex and The City, and that guy with the lisp from Welcome To The Dollhouse. This movie was adapted from a play. It was adapted by the original playwright and you could feel his inability to adjust to the screen format in almost every scene. Tells the story of a hardboiled girl from Queens and her mentally unstable (though we never get to know what his actual diagnosis is) and a quiet business guy who wants to date the girl. It was rough going, watching this movie. And there's a whole lot of drama stuffed into a very very short time period (like three, maybe four, days). I wish I could say 'well in the end I'm glad I saw it' but that's not completely true.
A little ways into Love, Ludlow the friend decided it was time to leave (I don't blame her the movie was hard to take and there a party). We ended up stopping the movie festival after Love, Ludlow. But we started back up after breakfast on Sunday with Dear Wendy. Dear Wendy is written by Lars Von Trier and stars a lot of rising youth starlet types. A movie about America's obsession and paradoxical relationship with guns made in Germany and written by and directed by Danes. I liked it but at some point I kind of stopped liking it. It's very, um, allegorical?
And finally we watched It Happened One Night. And it was good. Clark Gable's pretty handsome. I couldn't help noticing how both of the stars were attractive and yet their bodies don't correspond to our current Hollywood stars--Brad Pitt/George Clooney, Nicole Kidman/Charlize Theron. Our stars are skinnier and don't seem to have any soft parts.

Hola!

After the appetizers and margaritas we walked up to one of our local taquerias but found it closed...Easter and everything. It was raining, raining, raining so we decided to go home and get something delivered from Taqueria El Ranchito. We took advantage of the buy two dinners get the third one free coupon on the back of their menu. The boyfriend and the cousin had quite large burritos with sides of rice and refried beans. I had the enchilada dinner also accompanied by rice and beans. Filling. So filling in fact that I only ate one enchilada and the sides.

Olé Olé! è?

So this weekend, some activities were had. Now I've completely messed up chronological order and that bothers me. You see I love things to be choronological and, if possible, alphabetical. When I was younger I loved to alphabetize not only my CDs but the CDs of my friends as well. All the photographs/snap shots I have are chronological and when they're not I really really notice it and dislike it. Whatever this has nothing to do with the photographs below. So I'll just focus on them. On Sunday my cousin, the boyfriend and I were trying to decide what to do for dinner. We each wrote our idea on a slip of paper (see right here is where the chronological thing comes into play because the method we used to choose our meal was also the method we used the day before to watch movies and-this doesn't matter), I actually couldn't come up with an idea so my cousin gave me one (Mexican, Margaritas). Once all our slips were written we placed them on the floor and encouraged Meow Cat to choose where we would go, she chose Mexican.
I couldn't think of a Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood that also had margaritas. So we ended up going to Olé Olé, a more upscale version of latin american cuisine. But once we saw the menu we began to wonder...the boyfriend had been looking forward to a burrito, I had been thinking about enchiladas, my cousin had been thinking something that wasn't exactly on the Olé menu. But they did have margaritas. So we ordered margaritas and two appetizers, the vegetarian empanadas and ham croquettes.

The empanadas were pretty gosh durn good. The ham croquettes were good but a little too finely mashed on the inside.

Easter Breakfast #2

We had a waiter I had once before...he's my favorite, though I don't know his name. I had one Egg Benedict and the boyfriend and cousin both had two cinnamon rolls. It was kind of nice to have a fancy egg on Easter.

Dim Sum c/o Furama Part 22

Happy Easter and everything and all. On Sunday the boyfriend and I brought my cousin for her first taste of dim sum. She didn't like it so we changed our plan and ended up in Ann Sather. But not before I got my shrimp dumpling on.

Metamorphosis

You'll never guess what happened to this egg after we dyed it pink.



I just spent a considerable amount of time working on my Chicagoist post. So you should go read it...and if you see any typos don't think less of me.

9,999

Oh my goodness! I've had 9,999 people read/see briefly my blog! Who's going to be the 10,000???

Leave a comment! Tell me how honored you feel to be the 10,000th!

Pizza c/o Giarodnaoango's

Yesterday was a jam packed day full of a lot of lovely activities. The activities included eggs, Meryl Streep, 'Steve' from Sex and the City, yarn and pizza.

I am not quite up to writing a post about it yet because I am sleepy. I am also getting ready for dim sum. All to say, look at this pizza we ate last night and think about all the things you'll get to read later!

Lake Cake

Though it wasn't quite as warmly wonderful yesterday as it was the day before, it was still totally worth a walk to the lake. I can't wait until it's warm warm warm and I can put my feet in the lake and then my ankles and etc etc etc.