oh for christsake

im going to admit something: im a compete failure in the kitchen.
i love food
i love cooking it serving it learning about it comparing it savoring it playing with it sharing it
and yet
every damn time i go in the kitchen with the best of intensions, SOMETHING goes wrong
sometimes that leads to greatness, glory, the stuff of legends
but just as often it leads to chaos mayhem and inedible food that gets thrown out still encrusted to the container in which it met its doom
case in point:
tonight i spent two hours making double butter triple almond extract fortune cookies stuffed with a stubbs postcard cut into strips on which id hand written a favorite poem by jack gilbert.
the cookies were 200% improved from my first fortune cookie venture.
they were wafer thin, buttery, crispy as crackers and beautifully browned.
i folded in the fortunes, found a beautiful tin, layered them into the tin and was just lifting it up to put it gingerly in my room to bring to my godmothers for thanksgiving tomorrow when the evil sprite that seems to follow me everywhere threw down the banana peel.
i slipped, grabbed, thrashed, flailed and finally hurled the tin across the room smashing every single cookie to smithereens.
steph, roommate, saw and gaped, trying not to laugh but there was really nothing left to do except howl with laughter and hten sit down and eat the whole entire batch. i mean really.
anyway in their honor im passing on the winning recipe and the poem that was held in that sweet far too fragile shell

Ingredients
2 egg whites, room temperature
6 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
Directions
Whip the egg whites until stiff and chill. In a mixer, cream the butter, then add the sugar and continue mixing. Add the flour and blend in, then add the vanilla and blend again. Add the chilled egg whites and mix on low until well incorporated and the batter is smooth. With a small offset spatula, spread batter in a circle about 3 per cookie sheet. Bake in a preheated 330-degree oven until light golden brown, 7 to 8 minutes. Quickly remove the pan from the oven and one at time place a fortune across the center with a bit hanging out. Fold cookie circle in thirds over fortune with flaps only slightly overlapping each other. Turn over and bring opposing sides together and pinch.

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not laguage but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.

--Jack GIlbert

i feel high im laughing so hard

have we all heard of FU Penguin? because i hadnt and now, an hour later having gone shamelessly through all the posts laughing til i peed a little all the way, i am a happier person.
its like dane cook ala "punch every bee in the face" crossed with cuteoverload. the combo is LETHAL.

example posts:

subject: I think you may have sat on your own face, clown monkey

Mandrill, I'd like to introduce you to a concept called restraint. Here's how it works: I don't make fun of the fact that you think chewing on a twig is cool, and you refrain from looking like your mom had sex with a box of Fruit Loops and made you. Honestly, of all the ridiculously insane monkeys out there, you have to be the craziest one of all. You're a primate, Mandrill, not a fucking Care Bear.
And as if it wasn't enough that you have a Van Gogh painting on your ass, you just had to get like an all-time amazing shampoo/blow out at the local salon. HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE IN THE WILD. It's so silky and planned, you are way too entirely ready for a night on the town in your rockin' unbuttoned shirt and puka shell necklace. Please stop your misguided search for a mate, wipe that shit off your face, and start eating a banana or something so other monkeys won't talk about you behind your back so much.

subject: Stay away from my family, Gerenuk

What is it about weird antelopes? Gerenuk, you are so adorable, yet so terrifying, like a Disney character that ends up torturing Bambi's mother while Bambi watches. You have a normal torso, but other than that I am creeped out by literally everything else about you.
It's the head that really gets me, though. You could have weirdly long legs, a bushy mohawk tail, a weirdly thin, long neck, and ears with pitchfork marks inside of them, and if you had a normal-sized head, I would be like, "Touché." But your head basically makes me want to write my congressman about starting a government agency to monitor your movements and make sure you haven't started any international money laundering networks to pay for your secret takeover of my brain. So just keep eating from that tree, hold your hooves where I can see them, and don't appear in any movies where you can talk in a funny voice, Gerenuk. I wouldn't want to have to do anything we'd both regret.

Subject: Never work with an alpaca

How come every time alpacas feel like the energy is low at work they have to do the worm from Labyrinth? Listen, Alapaca, obscure references to 80s cult movies are no excuse for your fuzzy hair, your bushy tail, your fucking face. And why are you always smiling? Are you purposefully trying to make me love you?
Well you and your whole species have tried to avoid the truth for a long time. You have poor dental hygiene, you look goofy when you get your hair cut, and your small talk is possibly the worst I have ever heard. NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR COMMUTE, ALPACA. You are a poor man's llama. So stop pretending you don't have legs and get back to work.

Go to the site. laugh your ass off. thank me later.

"we are the city that blots out the light of the stars"

today i made fortune cookies, i love them- not as much as J who has had a life-long fascination- but theyre one of the only ways that food and words come together and im a fan of anything that brings two of my favorite thing closer... i started thinking about what i could put in a fortune and i decided to try to make them and fill them with lines of poetry.

and then i found L's old Skinner catalogs and began using images of old dutch paintings as my fortune paper, hands of madonnas with ripe fruit and pink clouds as backdrops for nearly arbitrary slices of contemporary poetry. they made for strange little creatures but beautiful in their own way.

im going to admit, im bored with my life right now. im working on why and what i can do about it, but im currently bored and i hate to think that way or even admit it but nothing i do, create, drive towards, is holding my interest. i feel like im missing something, possibly right under my nose, but missing it nonetheless and just hope this isn't a window that will open and close if im too dense to see through it.

great new food blog and brussel sprout mania.

as soon as i start denying myself food its all i can think of. and then i found an entire page of delicious brussel sprout recipes. HEAVEN. click around the blog for great ideas.

One Pan Sage & Savory Baby Brussels with Figs, Pecans + Sharp Cheddar

Serves 2
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1.5 cups baby brussels sprouts
3-4 thin-skinned figs
1/4 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
3-4 sprigs or leaves of fresh sage
shredded sharp cheddar
salt & pepper to taste
balsamic

Heat olive oil and butter until browned but not smoking.
Clean brussels sprouts then cut stems and remove outer leaves. Toss in pan to coat.
After 2-3 minutes, add torn sage and pecans.
Wash then cut the figs into 1/8 pieces. Once the sprouts start to crisp (6-8 minutes), place figs flesh side down to caramelize.
Stir ingredients occasionally for another minute then place in large bowl. Season with salt and pepper and top with sharp cheddar cheese.
Drizzle with balsamic

i could eat a bushel a barrel and a peck of quinoa.

great place for getting simple healthy recipes:
NYT Recipes for Health

One i'm making when i can eat real food again:

1 6-ounce bag baby spinach
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 plump garlic cloves, minced
4 cups cooked quinoa, (1 cup uncooked)
2 large eggs
3 ounces Gruyère cheese, grated (3/4 cup)
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage
1 ounce Parmesan, grated (1/4 cup)

1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Oil a 2-quart gratin or baking dish.
2. Heat a medium frying pan or a wide saucepan over medium-high heat. Wash the spinach and without spinning dry, add to the pan and wilt in the liquid left on the leaves after washing. You may have to do this in 2 batches. As soon as the spinach wilts, remove from the heat and rinse with cold water. Squeeze dry and chop. Set aside.
3. Wipe the pan dry and heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in it over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir with the onion until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in the spinach and season with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat.
4. Beat the eggs in a large bowl and add 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir in the quinoa, the onion and spinach mixture, the Gruyère, and the sage. Add freshly ground pepper and stir the mixture together. Scrape into the gratin dish. Sprinkle the Parmesan over the top and drizzle on the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Place in the oven and bake until nicely browned on top, about 25 minutes. Remove from the heat, allow to sit for about 5 minutes, and serve.

Serves 4 to 6

eyeoftheday is BANNED

from china.
ive heard from the front that my blogaroni isnt available in china! AWESOME!! im so flattered. really.

i took my first sick day yesterday because i had a ten year old dweeby style bloody nose. taking a sick day was surprisingly easy to do, i happen to be in a bit of a lull for once, work-wise.
got nothing accomplished at home. but did drink delicious hot chocolate with chile powder in it thanks to my roommate.
things i want to perfect and then personalize:
grilled cheese
mac n cheese
hot chocolate
coffee
muffins
but not right now. becuase i did manage to feel gross enough that i realized ive been treating my bod like shit and im going on a bit of a controlled juice fast.
well see how this makes me feel. i still have a headache but that might just be because i come back to the office only to receive this:
heals (10:52:03 AM): silly q
daisy (10:52:07 AM): yessss
heals (10:52:10 AM): but you know in a sports stadium?
heals (10:52:20 AM): i cant think of what the board is called
heals (10:52:28 AM): the one that displays the score
heals (10:52:34 AM): OH
heals (10:52:36 AM): score board?

SM strategy BS for HP DPNE FS

just got an email that said that.
and i understood it perfectly.
its official i am a robot.

florence & the machine youve got the love

kettering by the antlers

lyrics here

eye colors

the colors of my blog (as it stands in the moment i make no promise it will remain thsi way for long) are the colors im really attracted to these days, and, if i think about it, always. my room in brookline is all sea foam and sand and dune grass colors. and recently i brought a grey blue tapestry into my office and draped it over my extra chair. it was the first attempt i really made at decorating, only a year after arriving... something like the devil wears prada where stanley tucci recommends that anne hathaway stop "deigning" to work at mode... im finally admitting that i'll be here for at least another three months, hopefully not much more but either way i should make this awful space my own. i'm not sure if this is a terrible sign that i am resigned to my fate or a sign that i'm learning to make myself happy and not live in denial. anyway now my blog, my virtual room if you will, is reflecting those colors that make me take a deep breath. and thats good because i forget to breathe a lot.


the artist responsible for these images and the one thats up top now is Alicia Bock. Her polaroids are beautiful. i want to live in them. in them.

ARE WE ALL AWARE OF THIS?

this site, "gnod" thats actually well stocked and easy to interface and maps your music preferences and can give you endless suggestions based on your top three music loves. in this case i typed in william fitzsimmons and look what i got! it's this bouncy amorphous map and its beautiful and im so excited to go investigate Ryan Montbleau, the duhks, nizlopi and others. AND IT DOES IT FOR BOOKS AND MOVIES!
click on it and it'll be readable:

i want a howling hurt

Not Here

There's courage involved if you want
to become truth. There is a broken-

open place in a lover. Where are
those qualities of bravery and sharp

compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought? I want

a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.

We alchemists look for that which
can heat up and change. Lukewarm

won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well-enough to get by? Not here.

by rumi