For some reason I don't write too much about my cooking, but perhaps I'll start.
I've been doing a great deal of cooking. Alton Brown's books are incredible for learning how to cook, not what to cook. Don't get me wrong, there are some tasty recipes, but most of the book is devoted to teaching yo different methods of cooking. I've read through it a couple times now. He's taught me proper sauteing technique, gotten me to be a better searer, and has made me a huge fan of frying my own food.
Tonight I made a baked polenta dish. I made and set polenta (I did this on Sunday to save time), made my soon-to-be-patented tomato sauce, cooked up a cream sauce with gorgonzola and spinach, layered everything in a casserole dish, baked it for forty minutes, and finished in the (gas (swoon)) broiler. Everything was a bit more wet than I would have liked, but pretty tasty. I also took the leftover bits of polenta, oiled them, and through them in my getting-to-be-awesome cast iron pan. This went on the top rack of the oven (the casserole was on the center) and in an hour I had delicious polenta chips.
The polenta dish was a variation on a recipe I found in a great vegetarian book, but I've always been pretending to be a chef and whipping up my own dishes. Last night I used my already-awesome immersion blender to make a tasty pea and corn soup. I through a couple cloves of garlic in a pot with some hot oil. After a couple minutes I added a can of vegetable stock and some water. Once everything was boiling I put frozen peas and corn (two to one in favor of peas) and a little rosemary. Once things had gotten back up to a boil I suddenly realized there was a clever way to get rid of the parmesan regiano rind that so often goes to wast. I bit it into a few chunks (stuff is too hard for a knife) and tossed it in with everything else. I added some chili sauce and reached for my immersion blender. The blender made short work even of the cheese rind, and in no time I had everything purred to a nice consistency.
That's just one of the adventures in cooking I've had of late. I find it incredibly relaxing. Hank the Dog isn't doing so well these days (he's regressed after making lots of progress in late January and February), I got rejected from University of Illinois, and I had some strange health problems last week. I've needed the relaxation of cooking lately. It just makes me feel better.
Beki, Ben, Dave, Leslie, and I watched the Oscars on Sunday. I've never actually watched the Oscars, but Beki wanted to make fish tacos, so we invited folks over to complain about the winners and bash the dresses. There was also a drunken bet regarding The Departed between Leslie and Ben that needed to be settled (I was not a fan of the movie, but maybe more on that in the future).
The tacos were my first experiment with frying in my new 12 inch cast iron pan. Beki got a recipe for the taco filling from a guy at whole foods (kale, grapefruit, garlic, onion, lemon…) and I was in charge of frying the salmon and cooking up my famous black beans. I reread the section on frying the Alton Brown's book (a must have for anyone interested in cooking). I prepared my dredging station of flower, egg with a little water, and panko bread crumbs. We had a pound and a half of salmon cut into chunks; it took me a half hour just to bread everything. On Saturday I purchased a candy/frying thermometer. I filled the pan with oil so that each piece of fish was half covered, heated the oil to about 375, and went to town. I must say that I impressed myself. The thermometer allowed me to keep the oil at a constant temperature, which resulted in brown, crunchy salmon without a hint of sogginess. Beki's filling came out great. Add heated corn tortillas, a little rice, some tomatoes, and my black beans to make a great feast. This was all washed down by sweet tea and followed by some homemade truffles.
The Oscars themselves were mildly entertaining. I had no idea that they were so long, but with five people and a cat screaming at the television, it wasn't so bad. The girl who won the Oscar for that movie about Motown sure can sing. I was glad to see Scorsesse win an Oscar, I just wish it had been for a good film.
I was pretty taken aback by just how self-congratualatory the whole thing is. It made me understand why people like O'Reily can so easily demonize Hollywood. I almost threw up when DeCaprio called it the first “green Oscars.”
On Saturday Beki and I went to see the Oscar nominated animated shorts at the center for contemporary arts. It featured the nominees and the runners up for nominations. The short that ended up winning was by far my favorite. It really used animation to it's fullest. The great part about the art form is that you can things that just don't work in live action. I'm not talking about drawing things that we can't make; you can do damn near anything with CGI these days. I'm talking about using the fact that things are animated to have things happen that just don't make sense when you have real people doing or pretending to do them. In the short that one the award there is a scene where one of the main characters is forced to leave the love of his life behind. He just falls flat on his back and is dragged away. It just works in the context of animation, where it would be stupid and awkward with real people. Unfortunately most all of the shorts went for kind of cheap laughs and that's about it. I don't quite understand why animation has been relegated to more of the world of entertainment and/or beauty. I'm all for both those things, but the great part about the winner is that it's about something important. Also, too much animation about animals. Why can't these people make stories about people?
Filed under: Bank, Cooking, Excercise, Horse-Play, People Watching, Weather, Work
I got a job today. I will be the executive assistant to the CFO for Los Alamos National Bank. The pay is OK and the benefits are really nice. Now I can start paying rent!
One of the best parts of working for the bank is that you get a free membership to the YMCA, the gym across the street from my apartment, and the aquatic center down the street. I've decided that this means that I should train for a triathlon.
I just returned from Smith's (the supermarket across the street) where I was treated to the wonderful sights of last minute Valentine's Day shopping. The carts were filled with alcohol and hunks of meat. The flower section had no fewer than six guys crowding the sole female employee. Each had a look of panic and confusion on his face as they handled boxes of bad chocolate and gazed at half-dead flowers. For my part, I had a dozen roses delivered and I'm cooking what I hope will be a delicious meal of salmon and shrimp steamed in a nice, vaguely Asian, broth.
Beki got home little early today and we went out to play in the snow. We put on black gloves so that we could catch and see individual snowflakes. They're small, but really amazing when you see one all on its own. We then had an epic snowball fight. Tonight Beki will make homemade chocolate truffles. We experimented last weekend and they came out pretty well. I look forward to gaining a few pounds over the next 24 hours.
