Chili Music

I can't remember when I started singing. I think it was about ten seconds before I started blinking. Suffice it to say, mine is a musical life. And it has always been my belief that anybody can make music. Anybody with a pulse can understand at least the basics of rhythm. Anybody who can feel can get an inkling of volume, pitch, harmonies, and percussion.

Music is in all of us, even the deaf, the mute, and the horribly untalented.

You see, anyone can learn to make music. Not everyone can learn to make music well.

I think the same holds true for cooking. Take the noble vegetarian chili, for instance. My partner Fey has a wonderful recipe for this dish that takes about 20 minutes and (by her standards) requires the basic culinary skills of a monkey. Simpler than peeling a banana, this recipe is.

So.

When she is not feeling well and asks me to cook, our menu inevitably returns to this chili. I go to the kitchen. I pull out the ingredients and cooking tools. I turn on the stove. She walks me through it, step by step, in order.

And it is a passable meal.

Last night, Fey made this same dish, same ingredients, same steps, same tools. And it was delicious. Maybe it's experience, maybe it's practice, or maybe it's something completely intangible.

Maybe her chili is better than mine in the way two pianists can play an etude by Chopin with very different results. One pianist plays the notes, the crescendos, the decrescendos, the tempos and rhythms. The other makes music.

My partner makes music.

I make chili.

Thank goodness I can write about this stuff. Thank goodness Fey can cook it.

WhistleStop Curry Soup

I am adoring the WhistleStop Cooking blog! On the fifteenth, they posted a recipe for Curry Soup that looks divine. With Fey being sick, I have decided to take on a bit of the cooking responsibilities at home. I've never been much of a cook--but I'm a fairly good sous chef, and I take directions well. As long as it doesn't require any fancy techniques, I should be okay.

And I really want to try this soup.......MMMMMMMM...

Tofu or Not Tofu

Fey and I rather adore the new Japanese restaurant in town, Kansai Japanese Steakhouse. But they changed our tofu appetizer. Now, instead of tempura fried, they are panko fried. And they...well, now they taste like tofu.

Thank god the other menu items are still amazing. After years of half-baked Japanese at The Other Place, it's nice to have options again.

Mmmmm....miso soup.....

Dinner and a Movie

Well, it's another weekend and another fun-filled post at hand. Okay, maybe not such a fun-filled post, but here I am anyway.

Fey and I decided to go back for lunch at Adrienne & Co. in Jeffersonville, IN, yesterday, and we both have discovered something--since the weight loss, neither of us can eat as much food. I was downed by a double-decker PB&J on toasted wheat bread, a side salad, and half an eclair. Couldn't even touch my cupcake. (Soooo much food on the lunch special.) Fey had a chicken and avacodo sandwich on focaccia with a side of chips, and came away much less terribly stuffed than me. (Oh, and she had the other half of that eclair.)

We decided to go see "Race to Witch Mountain" in Louisville. It was actually quite exciting. Duane Johnson has pretty much left The Rock in his past and is doing very well playing himself in action movies. He was quite likable and carried the movie easily. The teens were good--close enough looking to the original kids from the 70s film to be nostalgic, but different enough to be their own characters. The effects were off the scale, and for the most part the stereotypical sci-fi conventioneers didn't make me want to hurl. (Although I was the only geek there who caught the Whitley Streiber cameo....maybe the stereotypes aren't so far off the mark?) I was distracted by Carla Gugino through the whole thing. Not that she wasn't great--I've always liked her. But with her hair done that way, she looked eerily familiar. It took a minute or two, but then I figured it out. Actress Carla Gugino and my friend, author Maya Bohnhoff, could be sisters. Check out below.

Separated at birth?

Anyway, after the movie we decided to have dinner at Queen of Sheba. A few years back, we ate there and loved it--not only for the food, but for the atmosphere. They've recently moved from their hole in the wall right off the freeway on Bardstown to a newer place on Taylorsville Road.

We didn't stay for dinner. We were ignored, left standing for a table (when a table was literally right in front of us), told they were looking for a suitable table "in the back" because they didn't want us seated "in the middle of the floor" (then why is there a table there, we ask?). The only reason we got a seat at all was because I went back to talk to the manager and convinced them that the two fat chicks would be perfectly happy to sit "in the middle of the floor" (which was coincidentally, right in view of everyone--ooh, scary--fat chicks where the Beautiful People can see them!) Of course, there was another fifteen minutes of being completely ignored before Fey decided she'd had it and we were gone. Now this wasn't a busy situation--this was seriously being ignored. I tried to make eye contact with a server who averted her eyes. I'm not sure what shit was going down, but Queen of Sheba is so not on our list at the moment. Fey gave the manager an earful before we left--and the manager didn't actually deny that the reason we were not seated up front was because we were not as attractive as the rest of the customers. I don't know. We both may have been hormonal, but it was still a very bad experience for both of us--one neither is in the mood to repeat any time soon.

We wound up at Shalimar again, and ironically got the best service we've ever gotten there. I tried the mushroom curry and was in heaven. Seriously, it was so damned good. I took half of it home (still kinda full from lunch, believe it or not), and my taste buds are just waiting for Monday at work to eat it.

Today we're going to make fried rice for lunch, and if we're up to it, I'm going to make my grandmother's corn soup for dinner. I'm not sure how that's going to work out--we may just wind upsaving the corn soup for another day if we're neither too hungry. But it's out there--still cold enough for soup, ya'll.

Life Tools: Hackers Diet

I am the anti-diet girl. Seriously, I'm militant on the subject. I think diets are evil, and the diet industry is second only to the oil & gas industry for pure self-serving hypocrisy.

There. It's on the record.

I don't diet.

I eat what I want.

So, how have I lost a buttload (literally) of weight since October?

A friend recommended John Walker's The Hacker's Diet to another friend on LiveJournal and I happened to notice. Now, aside from being a foodie and a history junkie, I am a true geek wannabe. Granted, I'm not hampered by any actual programming ability, but that does nothing to dim my admiration for programmers and computer geeks.

Intrigued, I read the book. It was funny. It was simple. It was logical. And most of all, it didn't tell me what the hell to eat.

Seriously. I hate diets specifically for the reason that nobody puts Baby in a corn...erm, nobody tells me what to eat. I don't eat cheese. I don't eat meat. I don't like certain types of food. And if I follow your evil, controlling, money-grubbing meal plans, I will certainly gain weight because--ew. No. Not gonna do it.

Sorry. I digress.

Anyway, here comes Hacker John with the attitude, "Hey, I'm rich. I don't need your money. Here's this book for free. I'm a programmer, and I don't want to be unhealthy, so I did all the math and made the tools (oh, they're free too) and all you have to do is weigh yourself every day and exercise and maybe watch the amount of calories you consume."

This is my kind of weight plan. I eat what I want, just control the portions. Although I have to admit, the more I control my portions, the more I enjoy healthy foods. Not just because I can eat more. To be honest, my appetite for the most part has decreased. I am preferring the healthy foods because they make me feel better.

The other part of the plan, the exercising, is what usually trips me up. I do not have a lot of money. And what little fun money I have is gonna be spent at a restaurant, not a fitness center. Also, I don't like to sweat. And I don't like walking for miles and miles in circles. The bottom line is, I don't much like exercising.

John doesn't like exercise either, but he makes a very good argument for it in his book. Not only that, but he gives a very easy plan that takes me no more than ten minutes a day and doesn't leave me all sweaty and gross. If you think you can do the following, you can do this exercise plan: toe touch, crunches, leg lifts, baby push-ups (not the real ones...yet), running in place, and jumping jacks.

No stupid outfits to buy or memberships to try to get out of when you have lost interest. No complicated dance routines to learn. Just the same six exercises, in the same order, all the time. You add reps as your fitness level improves. And the best thing is, it can be done almost anywhere and you don't have to spend a dime.

Don't shoot me, but I have to say it--I almost look forward to my exercise now. (Are you still reading? Whew. Good.) It's fast, focused, and helps me work out my stress on break.

So. Eat what you want, but watch your calories. Do a modicum of exercise every day. Get over it. This sounds like my kind of diet plan.

That being said, I wonder what we're doing for lunch--Fey mentioned something about going to Louisville for Mediterranean food...mmmmm......

Simple Pleasures: Dinner with Mom

Fey and I love eating out. But there are some realities that even we cannot avoid. The main one is we are not wealthy. Inevitably, we must eat at home.

For me, eating at home is not such a sacrifice (except the dishes part) because Fey is a phenomenal cook. Her dad was a chef who trained in Paris and ran the Non-Commissioned Officer's Club at a major Army base. The genetic predisposition was obviously passed down, and my partner is a great cook even without formal training.

While her mom is a good cook too, she is hampered by a significant other who only likes...shoot me, please...country food. I'm not talking that delicious, wholesome, fresh country food that makes you happy to be alive, that reconnects you with your roots and reality. He likes The Other Country Food--you know, cafeteria specials, bland meats and gravy, vegetables over-cooked to the point of brutality, lots of butter and fats, and...oh, this is important...no flavor.

Fey's mom is a frequent companion on our restaurant escapades and has a healthy appreciation for fine food. Every once in a while, she can't stand it and has to share a favorite recipe with a receptive, appreciative audience.

We are that audience.

So last night, Mom packed up her groceries and spices and bottle of extra virgin olive oil and schlepped it over to our place to make us dinner. Her recipe? Grilled Salmon with Rosemary from The South Beach Diet Cookbook.

We don't have an option to grill at our place, so she broiled the salmon. Either way, it was fantastic--appropriately seasoned, moist, and less than 250 calories a serving. She also made rice and vegetables and cut up some English cucumbers for a side. It was simple, healthy, and ultimately delicious.

The best part, of course, was that we got to spend time with Fey's mom, just hanging out and talking and eating. It cost us nothing but a sink of dirty dishes and an hour or two of our time, but it was one of the best meals we had in a while.

Now...if I can only figure out a way to get my mom up from South Louisiana for a visit. Mmmmm....red beans and rice....

Sharing and Caring: The Food Game

Fey and I tried something fun yesterday while in Louisville. We had a set amount of money to spend for lunch and supper (not a lot, btw), and we decided to play a game Fey thought up. Here are the rules:

1. We must stop at a restaurant we've never visited before.
   
2. It cannot be part of a chain.
   
3. It cannot be "planned" - we have to see it and stop.
   
4. We must order one item on the menu (water--no tea or soda).
   
5. We must split this item between us (difficult, considering I don't eat meat or cheese).
   
6. We cannot "settle" on an item--we must both want it.

This was surprisingly difficult, but we wound up having a great time. The winners of our scavenger hunt were:

• Red Pepper: A Chinese restaurant on Frankfurt Avenue, where we split Sizzling Rice Soup with Seafood for Two.
  
• Adrienne & Co. Bakery Cafe: This was across the river in Jeffersonville, IN. We split a ginormous blueberry scone.
  
• Bucks: The most expensive restaurant on the trip. We split Maryland Crab Cakes.

We had no luck at Brendan's Irish Pub, where we couldn't find anything but water to agree on (although we may return when we don't have to split anything). Finally, after all this driving, we decided to chuck the game and get a real supper. Happily, we still had enough in our spending budget to go to Shalimar, where I once again proved I'm the spice wimp of all time by ordering baby food. Actually, I got egg pulao ("as mild as humanly possible"), which might as well be baby food. It was delish and I had enough to take home for lunch today. Fey got the non-vegetarian sampler tray ("moderately spicy" because she's a show-off), which she loved.

And guess what? With all that, we still came in on budget.

We rock so very much.