| Current mood: |  melancholy |
| Current music: | Folkways |
Jules: mmm... bitter
The subject line refers to my mood, though I'm also enjoying some nice coffee, which is also kind of bitter, but in a good way. It's been wintry around for the past couple of days, so a nice hot cuppa joe is just the thing. The bitter mood, as I'm sure you know, is the result of the election result and (like you) I'll avoid going on at length, except to say that I'm glad we'll be able to send our child to private schools and we should be able to survive retirement with no help from social security. Bummer for the folks who can't, though.
Oh, and FYI, wintry weather in these parts means cloudy and chilly, with highs around 50F. Good chili weather, and I know what you mean about chili-ground meat, which looks like ordinary ground beef except that the grind is coarser, about as big around as my pinky. Stores carry it around here, but mostly just in the fall and winter. It's a lot easier to use than the traditional method, which is to cut the meat into 1/2" cubes, which is way too much work and gives me achy wrists.
My parents, by the way, won a chili cookoff (along with their team of workplace cronies) using that method, which they chose primarily because they could afford the best meat if they bought it whole instead of ground. Plus, many hands = light work, blah blah blah. As I recall, they used a recipe that omitted beans but included tomato paste (no chunks of tomato) and fresh spices. I wasn't a big fan of the chili of my childhood, by the way, which included squashy lumps of tomato and kidney beans, both of which I disliked for texture reasons and laboriously picked out.
Full disclosure: I know it's not acceptable to purists, but I don't actually mind beans in chili, as long as they're pinto or anasazi beans (or similar), which tend to meld with the meaty texture instead of standing out like little firm lumps, as kidney beans tend to do. That compromise comes from years of using the beans to extend the more expensive meat--a way of serving a lot of guests on the cheap (and when we lived in NC, nobody had any notion of beanless chili).
Have I ever told you the Chipotle story? Back when we lived in Chapel Hill, Eliot was at home making chili and we'd brought two cans of chipotles home from our last visit to Texas and I was at work. He asked how to use the peppers and I said, oh put one or two in the blender and dump it in the pot--which he thought meant one or two CANS (and I'd meant one or two peppers). You can imagine the scene: I got home, we tasted the chili and staggered around with flames shooting out of the tops of our heads. Rushed to the store and bought giant cans of beans. Guests arrive immediately after that and say, oh but we like hot food, so we hand them each a tortilla chip and say, taste it first and THEY stagger around and rinse their mouths out in the kitchen sink. Two giant cans of beans go into the pot and we all enjoyed the chili, with a box of kleenex on the table to wipe our eyes. Days later we compare stories, Where Were YOU When The Peppers Hit? One reported that she was in the Operating Room (in her job as an OR nurse) and had to flee in haste, then return and re-scrub. Also, the leftovers just got hotter and hotter until they turned into the subject of dares, as in, go ahead, I'll bet you can't eat half a bowl.
Ahh. Good times.
Now for the Questions:
1. Oh, I am SO looking forward to The Amazing Race. Especially since Survivor has turned out to be a boring guys-versus-gals story.
2. Do I have trouble thinking of questions? Dude, I asked you hypotheticals about superpowers! Of course I have trouble thinking of questions. But I agree that it's a good discipline, and it gets us interacting in regular sort of way.
3. Mm, winter food... Roasted and stewed meat comes to mind first. Plus I really love winter squash, usually just roasted and served with salt and butter, though I also admit to a real affection for acorn squash served halved and filled with butter and brown sugar. My grandmother used to make, no kidding, squash pie, which was a lot like a pumpkin pie except with squash and slightly different seasonings (more nutmeg, I think, and less or no cinnamon). I wish that I'd gotten her to write down how she made it, though she told me at the time that she just threw it together.
Generally: Autumn, roasted meats (including poultry); Winter, ditto plus soups and stews; Spring, smoked meats and Mexican food; Summer: salads, grilled meats and Food Prepared By Others.
4. Ah, scallops. I've avoided scallops lately, since I've had Trouble With Bivalves, even though I adore them. Of course, you can't go wrong with garlic, pepper and white wine (and butter, too, I assume? Ha! Snuck in a question on the sly!). What about scallops baked in their shells (or a shallow dish) with seasoned breadcrumbs?
So, tell me:
1. Any thoughts about slightly-non-traditional holiday food? For instance, last year we made buttermilk-pecan pie (modifying an old buttermilk pie recipe, which is a traditional chess pie but more sour and less mind-bogglingly sweet) with extra-short crust (the result of Eliot's accidental use of twice the usual butter). That was good, but in Hawaii we had a coconut-pecan pie that was heavenly. I even brought home some coconut syrup in the hope of re-creating that recipe.
2. Hm, any guesses as to how the term "short" got to be used to describe baked goods that are buttery-and-crumbly as opposed to flaky? And am I using the term correctly? I could look it up myself but then I'd have to come up with another question. Still, I like it that there's a word for it, because it's the sort of thing I care way too much about.
3. Also, whither cranberries? Hee! I love the word "whither." I'm thinking it would be interesting to put cranberries in something other than sauce or jello salad (both which I love, by the way). What about half an acorn squash filled with chopped apples, cranberries, butter and brown sugar? Hm...
4. What food do you think is Just Wrong (or, more sensibly, Not For You) when associated with various holidays? There's the traditional stuff, like turkey for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas, Ham or Lamb at Easter, that sort of thing. I've never made Christmas Tamales, will happily eat them when prepared by others (and made them at home now and then) but never really considered eating them for Christmas Dinner. I've never eaten a Christmas Goose and don't have much interest in making one unless it was for a different occasion. Oyster stuffing just makes me shudder, though if I'd ever seen it in person I might change my mind. And I like oysters, when they're not making me ill.
Oddly, it's much easier to come up with questions when I'm deliberately avoiding some topics, like politics and How The World Is Going To Hell.
Also, you're getting near graduation? Awesome, dude! When? And will there be a ceremony and stuff? You rock!
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dangerchicks) wrote,
