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JUICERRRRR

April 11, 2013 in food blog by Jessica | 8 comments

Omg omg omg omg.

JUICER!

And, hello, yes, my name is Jessica, I believe we’ve met before: the very first thing I decided to, uh, “juice” was a homemade bloody maria mix. Because that is how I do health food.

There’s celery in it. That’s basically a salad.

I based the recipe off of this one. I have no idea what a “roma or slicer” tomato is, but I used something like 10 smallish, um, tomato-tomatoes? And I am literally just this second as I look at that recipe realizing that I forgot to include the carrots. Other than that, the juice part I did pretty much exactly according to that recipe. There were three of us taste-testing: me, who will throw basically literally every single fucking thing in sight into a bloody mary if you let me; Chris, who apparently doesn’t like hot pickled vegetables (I KNOW, right?!?); and Benedict, who is allergic to food, in general. So all I put into the punch (er…I’m calling it that because I served it out of a giant mixing bowl with a soup ladle…because that is how I do entertaining?) was the juice – everybody added their own other-stuff.

(And parenthesis, but speaking of that: There is nowhere else to put this little aside, but have you ever been to this place in Kansas City called Port Fonda? FUCKING AMAZING AND BRILLIANT AND WONDERFUL and I want to live there forever, but also, they have a make-your-own-bloody-maria thing, where you pay, like, 8 bucks or whatever [Kansas!] and they bring you a shot of a super-nice tequila of your choice and a glass rimmed with whichever flavored salt you choose, and then you get to go up to this awesome set up bar thing where they have lots of different tomato mixes and hot sauces and pickled things and spices and stuff. Bacon! Pork rinds! Fucking whole pickled eggs!! It’s insanely fun, and also delicious. But mostly fun. I want to have this at my next birthday party. It’s such a good idea. Anyway, go to Port Fonda! Okay.)

How was it? It was pretty good! It…just wasn’t really a bloody mary. (Well and partly actually that’s because it was a bloody maria, because they’re totally way better, there, I said it.) Chris said it tasted like a salad, and that’s about right. It was super-fresh and yummy and all, but didn’t have that nice hefty thickness that store-bought tomato juice or V-8 or whatever has. So, like, A+-gold-star-would-make-again and all, but, like, it’s not going to replace anything.

Interesting juicer things:

My juicer is so fast! It’s kind of scary!
Two cloves of garlic, juiced, produce like 8 drops of this weird oily garlic juice that smells like about a zillion pounds of garlic. None of this adds up.
I cut the rind off my limes. Apparently you don’t have to? But that would be fucking CRAZY, right?? I’m going to keep cutting the rind off my limes. I also peeled my cucumber, which I presume I’ll give up at some point out of laziness, though.
I want to juice broccoli!
I want to juice EVERYTHING!
JUICE!

(Well. “Interesting.”)

Digby does not appreciate being used as a photo prop!! Fyi.

Tags: boozin', JUICERRR

i am so full of baked goods you guys

March 3, 2013 in Uncategorized, food blog by Jessica | No comments

Dear Internet,

BAKED.

These, first of all. Which, I mean, come on. I have been eating these for breakfast a whole lot recently. It’s…a whole thing; I don’t know. There are recipes for these available online which I haven’t tried yet; I’m sure it would have made a better blog post if I had, but whatevs. Someday.

Also, handsome!

But the real reason I am talking about this now is because of an oatmeal cookie I had there yesterday (I think it was called a “monster cookie,” maybe?) which I’m just frothing at the mouth for a recipe of. They have some books, but I can’t tell via lazy online research if this recipe is in any of them. I suspect this is probably its base, but there were no M&Ms (I don’t support M&Ms in cookies; I don’t know why. I never have.) and there were instead raisins or dried cranberries, and nuts I think but if so they were tiny-tiny-chopped, and some mysterious dobs of white something which weren’t white chocolate? Some kind of cream cheese smooches, I think? But WHAT!?

Anybody know what the fuck I’m talking about? If you can find me this recipe, I promise to mail you some!!!

Also: I think that oatmeal raisin cookies are the best cookie. Discuss.

Also: I’ve decided (remembered?) recently that I love prunes. (I think it’s adorable when marketers refer to “prunes” as “dried plums.” WE’RE ON TO YOU, MARKETERS!!) What do we think of replacing raisins in oatmeal raisin cookies with chopped prunes?

Also: Gin and prune juice. Adorable or delicious? (OR BOTH?)

Love,

Jessica

um delicious

January 5, 2013 in food blog by Jessica | No comments

Remember when Chris and I made those salted oiled peppers? And they were super-delicious and I said I was going to make them again, but try it with hotter peppers? SO YEAH. IT’S A VERY IMPORTANT PEPPER UPDATE, motherfuckers.

So but this time I wasn’t actually looking at the recipe; I was just sort of winging it from memory (slash actually looking at that blog post and trying to recreate it from that). So honestly, mostly the reason I’m actually writing about this a second time is because I realized I didn’t actually give you any kind of decent recipe to follow (“a ton of salt,” “heat the oil,” etc), so if I hosed this batch up, it would have been hosed up for anybody trying to recreate it, too.

And, uh. I hosed it up.

Things I did differently this time:

* First, I did use hotter peppers: a combination of jalapenos and serranos.
* Second, for one jar I just re-used the leftover oil we still had sitting in the fridge from the first batch. (I was keeping it with the vague idea that it would be neat to try to use it to make, like, popcorn? I never remembered it, though, so…still an experiment for another day.)
* And for the other jar, I used a combination of peanut oil and Smart Balance (whatever the fuck that is?), because we were out of vegetable oil. (I THINK it was vegetable oil we used last time? Or maybe non-virgin olive oil? One of the two.)
* And, since I was just winging it, I presumably also changed a bunch of other details: used a different amount of salt, let it sit in the salt for a different amount of time, didn’t heat the oil to the exact right temperature (I just sort of…heated it up some?), etc.

So uh.

It half-worked.

Let’s go through these experiments in order.

First of all, jalapenos and serranos were a very good change. The serranos ARE kind of hot here, so if you’re making these for, like, guests, jalapenos are probably the way to go. (But then again, why do you hang out with pussies?) But the salt really does take so much of the heat away that even the serranos aren’t insane-o-hot.

Re-using the leftover oil seemed to work just fine. (That’s the jar that DOESN’T look repulsive.) They taste perfect, they look perfect. The only thing that I’m a little bit concerned about is that they might not last as long as they otherwise would have – they might not be correctly, like, preserved, or whatever – since I didn’t actually heat this oil up. I just poured it in cold, straight from the fridge. (I was somehow worried that if I heated it, the salt/pepper juice it it would burn or something?) When I poured the HOT oil over the peppers in the other jar, there was this very satisfying little boiling sizzle, as (I guess?) the hot oil boiled away a little bit more of the water inside the peppers. I wonder if that extra little bit of getting-rid-of-more-liquid helps to preserve the peppers? Shrug. Like I said, they taste great, the texture is great, etc. So I don’t know how important it really is. (But man, can I just say: I forgot how GREAT these are. Super-hot but also really sweet, too. Just so effin good on everything, but mostly I just want to sit on the floor with a sleeve of fucking Saltines and demolish the whole jar.)

So now to the horrible jar. Like…that looks awful, right? It looks solidified in there – like bacon fat, when you let it cool down, or whatever? – but it’s actually not solid, just cloudy. I think the reason it’s cloudy like that is because of the KIND of oil I used. Chris said it might have been because the peanut oil has a lower smoke point than the other oil? Though I also don’t think I brought it up to as high a heat as we did the first time. I guess that might have something to do with it, too, though?

And, yes, for the sake of science I did try it. The peanut oil doesn’t taste as good as the veg/olive oil from the other one, but…it’s not super-awful? Like, it looks gross enough that I’m just going to throw it away, but…it’s edible, I guess, technically.

Also, I still don’t know for sure what kind of oil you’re supposed to use or how hot to make it, so this VERY IMPORTANT PEPPER UPDATE was not actually helpful at all, I guess. Chris has the recipe somewhere on his computer! Make him go look it up and tell you!

EDIT: Okay, there’s a big-ass bottle of canola oil in the background of the photos of that first batch, so. I guess that answers that. Canola oil ftw!

Tags: food blog, peppers, very important pepper update

peppery

October 10, 2012 in food blog by Jessica | 6 comments

A few weeks ago, when Willie came to visit, he and Chris and I all went to this place called Fatty ‘Cue, this weird tapas-ish American-Southern-barbeque/Thai-flavor fusion place? It was bananas and delicious. We had deep fried bacon and these crazy fish-sauce-y ribs and sweetbreads that I just wanted to smear all over my face, they were so good. Unfortunately, I never posted about it, because I LOST MY GODDAMNED CAMERA (which is actually technically Chris’s camera, even) that weekend, and all the photos on it.

(FORTUNATELY, the bartender at quiz night last night asked me, as soon as she saw me, if I ever came and got my camera! It was locked in some room downstairs, so I didn’t get it last night, but she totally recognized me from the photos on it, and they saved it for me! YAYYYYY!!! So there.)

Anyway – one other thing we had while we were there were salted oiled peppers. They were just these really thinly sliced hot peppers, salted to take away some of the heat, and then packed in oil. They were served with fresh farmer’s cheese and nice warm rolls. They weren’t the BEST thing we ate that night, but they certainly were the one we could reproduce!

So Chris actually bothered to look up the correct recipe, which did help, particularly with the amount of oil to use at the end, but it’s pretty intuitive. Slice up some peppers really thin (you can use just about anything; we used those green finger peppers because I was kind of pussy about using anything hotter, but next time we make these, we’ll DEFINITELY use something hotter – the salt really takes a lot of it out), put a TON of salt on them,

toss and let that sit for an hour in a colander to drain (this was how much liquid came out…),

then rinse with water, dry them off, heat the oil (I wouldn’t have guessed that part – and now I can’t remember how hot it was supposed to get to? not boiling, anyway), pour it on, let it cool to room temp, then let it sit in the fridge for at least a day before you eat it.

Then you eat it! We tried to recreate the farmer’s cheese and bread thing, first:

It was delicious!

Actually, they were really good. Like I said, next time we’ll definitely use hotter peppers. And there was NO salt left on them after all that rinsing, so I ended up adding salt, also. And our cheese wasn’t as good as Fatty ‘Cue’s. But still! I kind of want to put them on absolutely everything: chili, sandwiches, cold leftover pizza. I put them on some reheated lentils (best lentil recipe EVER, incidentally) with Siracha and sour cream (I was kind of drunk at the time), and that was fucking fantastic. At first, Chris and I thought that we’d have a ton of these from the recipe, and that we ought to give a jar or two away to friends, or else we wouldn’t be able to eat them all. But that, ah, won’t be a problem, I think.

BONUS TASTE TEST:

As you may or may not know, Chris has a lot of Stuff. Among Chris’s collected Stuff is weird old beer. Like, he has many years’ worth of the special yearly Stone Vertical Ales or something-something-stouts or whatever. I don’t know what’s special about, say, these, but I know they’re in his “special beer” section of the fridge that I shouldn’t steal from:

Anyway. He also had this:

It was from like 1996? And had been opened the first time in 2004? They’d had to drill a hole in the cork, and then strain it?

AND THEN CHRIS DRANK SOME OF IT.

AND DECLARED IT “NOT BAD.”

AND HAS NOT YET DIED.

AND PUT THE REST OF THE BOTTLE BACK, TO SAVE IT FOR LATER (like presumably 2021).

Chris is a madman.

The end.

Tags: boozin', food blog, roomatin'

in which jessica tries something new

October 3, 2012 in food blog by Jessica | 1 comment

CUSTARD ROLLS: A VERY SERIOUS CULINARY REVIEW
(The first in a series of Very Serious Culinary Reviews of all of the restaurants [okay probably mostly just the taquerias actually] within a 3-block radius of my new apartment.)

I’ve been waking up late lately, and tired. Last night right after work, I took a(n accidental) nap, and then I also went to bed relatively early. And I got up with my alarm, and turned it off, and went back to sleep, and had THE WORST dream about how I was late for work. Actually, late for work and also late in moving out of my house? And the new people were already moving in? And also I was sitting around eating breakfast with a bunch of people I don’t like, who were being mean to me? It was this whole thing.

So I decided I needed a treat.

On the subway in the mornings on the way to work, I see people sometimes, mostly Chinese people, eating these big yellow rolls. They’re shiny like challah, sort of of, and they have this crunchy crumbly yellow topping stuff on them, and I’m always wildly jealous. In my new neighborhood, there is a Chinese bakery literally right next to my subway entrance. I’ve been walking past it, eyeing it greedily, ever since I moved in. I haven’t gone in, though, because the line is long or I don’t have cash or I’m weirdly intimidated by the fact that I don’t hear a lot of English inside?

Until NOW, dun-dun-DUNNNN!

(Er…okay, actually, the first time I did this was a few weeks ago, and not directly in reaction to the horrible dream. I’m posting this very late; my timeline is strange. Just play along, it’ll make sense soon.)

Okay, so, I go in. I realize people are totally speaking in English and half the people in line are apparently Mexican, anyway, so, whatever. I’m dumb. I order an iced coffee and “one of those,” I say, pointing to what I suddenly realize is actually a giant sign that says, in big red letters, “custard rolls.” $2.70 total ($2 for the coffee, $.70 for the roll). Everything goes into a little brown paper bag, including the coffee, which I would not have expected but which I realize is terribly convenient for the subway (though I guess it did smash up the roll pretty good, as evidenced by that sad and admittedly kind of unappetizing photo). Once I get down there, I just stick the straw in the cup in the bag and drink straight out of the bag like a wino. AND IT’S SO GOOD. It comes (unrequested) pre-loaded with enough sweetened condensed milk to stun a goat. (Or maybe it’s just milk and sugar, even? I don’t know. But it’s SO SWEET.) It is now officially my second-favorite coffee in all of New York City (though I suspect that technically, legally, it probably actually cannot be called “coffee,” but should be referred to as “a milkshake”). I have a giant heavy book I’m reading at the moment, so I was actually unable to start on the roll on the subway, what with the coffee and the book and the falling-down and all, and I had to wait until I got to work. But guess what, you guyz???

There’s custard INSIDE the roll, too!!!!

They’ve thought of everything!!

Who knows what the yellow stuff on top is. I assumed that was the custard, but I don’t think so, now? Also, as I’ve gone back again, I’ve noticed that it’s also on top of the red bean rolls (which I haven’t tried yet but want to) and the coconut rolls (which are good, but not as good as the custard rolls) and maybe other ones, too. It tastes kind of eggy? And slightly sweet but not very? I have no idea. Anyway, these things are basically donuts and presumably terrible for me, and I’ve had to try really really really hard not to buy one every single morning.

But this morning I needed a treeeeeeaaat! (Timeline!) So I tried a new one again this morning, one I’ve been eyeing every time I go in, but keep being tempted away from because the custard roll is so awesome: the ham and corn roll!

It was fine.

FINAL VERY SERIOUS REVIEW: Chinese bakery breakfast rolls are delicious! And only cost seventy cents! You should have them! Also the coffee! Ridiculous! Soooo gooooood!

Love,

Jessica

Tags: very serious culinary review

hengey

July 13, 2012 in food blog by Jessica | 3 comments

Happy Day-After-Manhattanhenge! I missed it on Wednesday, and on Thursday, it looked like this:

Okay, fine, perhaps I was in a less-than-ideal viewing spot, also, and took that photo while running across the street. Still. One big cloud on the horizon. Screw you, anyway, then, sun.

Chris and I went to JoeDough beforehand, on the recommendation of this Serious Eats list. (Serious Eats keeps making these lists – best tacos, best pizza, best whatever in whichever neighborhood – and someone who does not live in New York keeps forwarding them to me and they always all look amazing and I can’t keep up!) I had the recommended Conflicted Jew (chicken liver, bacon, carmelized onions on PERFECTLY toasted challah, with apple chutney on the side) and Chris had something with brisket and peppery horseradish mayo on a really excellent brioche roll.

I think mine was objectively delicious-er, but that liver was SO FREAKIN RICH (and there was SO MUCH OF IT) that it would have been absolutely impossible to eat the whole sandwich by yourself. Chris and I went splitsies and it worked out pretty well. (I got a stomach ache, anyway.) I want very much to go back and try more of their stuff, though. You could tell that it was all just really well-thought-out combinations of stuff: the toasting on the bread, the spiciness of the mayo, the proportions, the apples. It seemed very INTELLIGENTLY done, if that’s not a dumb thing to say about a sandwich. It’s a really cute shop, too: very tiny, decorated with all this kitchy old-fashioned silly Jewishy stuff, loud hip-hop playing on the speakers, super-nice staff, house-made celery soda. Good stuff.

This is me trying to take a photo of me and Chris.

I’m pretty much a super-good photographer, you guys.

Tags: new york city, screw you sun

i’m bragging; not crying for help

July 10, 2012 in Uncategorized, food blog by Jessica | 5 comments

Recipe for Sad Bachelor Rice:

1. Order Chinese food with Chris. (Hi, Chris!)
2. Let leftover white rice season in refrigerator for 1-12 weeks.
3. Drink like three beers.
4. Heat butter in pan.
5. Decide you should have a vegetable.
6. Panic.
7. Add frozen peas to pan. What? That…that’s not how that’s supposed to go.
8. Well…add rice, I guess?
9. I don’t know, garlic? How about some raw garlic now, hastily smashed up on the counter because you don’t have enough time to use a plate, much less a cutting board? Your counter is probably clean, right? Well…anyway, heat cooks away cat-paw germs, I bet.
10. Let’s say…half a Goya cilantro boullion cube, just like smashed up between your fingers and sprinkled in from 18 inches above the pan, because, fuck it, you know?
11. Plate. Add salt and Siracha to taste. Eat at desk in front of computer, fending off multiple cats, while wearing boxer shorts and no shirt (NOTE: try not to have any A/C) and watching Azealia Banks videos and sighing heavily at the concept of your own inevitable mortality.

Fuck. THAT SHIT IS DELICIOUS, MOTHERFUCKERS. I need to write a Sad Bachelor cookbook. (Have you ever put Old Bay on ramen?? YOU ARE WELCOME.)

Tags: sad bachelor cookbook

loco

May 17, 2012 in food blog by Jessica | 1 comment

So remember when we ate horrible things, but failed to find a Taco Bell Dorito Loco Taco? No more, my friend!

So, first of all, Taco Bells are rarer than you’d think, in Brooklyn. (Or…maybe not.) We had to take a bus like 30 minutes out to a freakin’ mall to find one.

Would it be worth it?!?

Eh.

I mean, it tasted like a Taco Bell taco. Which, you know…if you’re into that kind of thing. (Hint: I am!) The Doritos flavor was surprisingly mild. They could have pumped it way up, if they’d wanted to, it seems – I wonder why they didn’t? Also, kinda stale. Still! Taco Bell! I missed it on my birthday this year, so: a treat!

(You know, sort of.)

This taco, happily enough, was only our appetizer: after, we went back to Sunset Park for real tacos! Specifically, the taco orientales at Rico’s Tacos.

The orientales is the one on the right. (Why is it called that, incidentally? Anybody know? It’s fried pork with a smoky spicy pepper sauce. How is that “Oriental?” Or is that even really the real etymology?) It was recommended here. We’ve been to Rico’s before (a bunch of times; it’s great) but we’ve never tried this one kind of taco before – it’s sort of hidden in a separate part of the menu. (Also on the plate – bottom left: lingua, top: cueritos.)

How was?

Oh god, so good.

I mean, actually, Chris is reacting to other things – he got the weekend special barbacoa and some other stuff. But dude. Trust me. That look of pure innocent childish joy is just about how I felt about the orientales. Was it better than the lingua? God, that’s so hard. I don’t know? Every time I had a bite of one or the other, I decided it was better. They were both so gooooooood!!!

And…let’s talk about this cueritos now, shall we?

This may be the only taco, like, ever, in the history of Jessica, that I have not finished. It was listed as “crispy friend pork skin” on the menu. But it arrived minus those first two parts.

Still. The lingua and the orientales made up for it. In the hard-fought case of Taco Bell vs Rico’s Tacos, I’m officially declaring a winner: Rico’s by like 7,000 noses. Sorry, TB. We still dogs. See you next birthday.

slow your roll

April 21, 2012 in Uncategorized, food blog by Jessica | 6 comments

In the beginning, before the Shogun were dominating Japan, the Overlords were dominating women with Fierce Intensity during sexual intercourse. This intensity was spoken under cover for years among women who craved multiple orgasms, men with endurance of machine and an Iron Beam between their legs.
The Overlords had discovered the seceret of Fierce Intensity and kept this to themselves for years as they fulfilled the carnal desires of all the local women. They knew if this secret was ever discovered, all men would be created equal. They entrusted this formula to a young powerful Overlord…Stree.
Stree was a tiger of a man with a body built in the Gods image. Women melted when they saw him in the streets. Stree had a reputation with the ladies as they all knew he possessed the sexual secret of the Overlords. Once he dominated a woman in the bedroom, she morphed into a crazy woman, craving ever more of his sexual steel. The stamina of a horse and the endurance of a machine kept Stree a favorite among the wives of other men.
Eventually, the men who couldn’t keep their women happy, grew enraged with Stree. His Overlord secret was no longer safe. Stree fled his homeland and traveled South to new lands, safer lands. Unfortunately, this was not the case, as his reputation had preceded him as woman all over Japan craved his Fierce Intensity!
And in the night, they attacked!!! *

That’s right. It’s a food blog.

With special guest stars:

Dr Chris and the Iman

Larry The Very Evil Quaker Oats Guy

50 Cent

and introducing:

Chun-Li’s Boner Knee **

We had a whole range of disgusting and/or dangerous things to try: Cock flavored soup, a variety pack of instant repulsively flavored grits, a mixed six-pack of Sippin Syrup, a couple of Street King shots, and…and Stree Overlord bodega boner pills. There was some talk, too, of trying the Dorito-shelled tacos at Taco Bell, but we somehow couldn’t find a Taco Bell in Brooklyn. Or this was our excuse, anyway.

All of this was Chris’s idea. Blame him.

Now, listen. I took notes at the time. They are…mostly unintelligible, though pretty well time-stamped. I will include them where possible, though…they are not vast amounts of help, frankly.

We wanted to keep it scientific. Of course. To that end, I was the upper tester: Street King and Stree Overlord, Isley (because even having chocolate past 5pm keeps him up) was the downer tester: far too much Sippin Syrup, and Chris was the control group: ALL THE THINGS. (That’s how science works, right?)

Street King tastes like…you know. An energy shot or whatever.

BUT IT MAKES YOU HARD AS THE STREETS.

Deepak knows how it is.

Sippin Syrup came in an amazing range of Barbie neon colors and confusing flavor names. I guess I didn’t get photos of all of them, but imagine you melted a bunch of Skittles and then mixed them with uranium, I guess?

9:19pm, Sippin Syrup flavor “Purple” (grape)
Chris: “It tastes like grape drink, with a little bit of cough syrup after taste.”
Isley: “I’m basically going to pass out right now.”
Chris: “I’ve had this one before, and it’s a good baseline sizzurp.”
Isley: “I’m worried that all this sizzurp is going to keep me up.”
Jessica: “It tastes exactly like Kool-Aid. That’s all.” (Okay, fine, I had one sip, I’m a bad scientist.)

9:29, Sippin Syrup flavor “Mellin,” maybe? (I have it down in my notes as “mango,” though the website says that there is no mango flavor…?)
Chris: “What this one tastes like, is, it tastes like Shena’s mom…”
[long pause]
“…it’s these little Asian jelly fruit things…like a tiny rounded-bottom pudding cup, like a fruit gelatin thing?”
Isley: “I’m not gonna lie, I feel a little relaxed right now.”
Chris: “I feel perfectly level right now. I’ve had a little sizzurp, a little Street King.”

9:40pm – actual direct unedited quote from that night’s notes:
c: do you want to try dr. seklect bnow? because i am a dr now.
j: wow. ic an’t type. ni am the worst at typeing now.

I…had had some beers, too. Anyway. The Doctor’s Select “Downtime R(x)elaxation” flavor was VERY BLUE.

Isley: “It smells like SweetTarts, right?”
Chris: “Like blue SweetTarts.”
Isley: “The cup really opens up the bouquet, right?”
[Chris was drinking out of a cup that he had stolen from a church. "Is it moral to steal from a church, if it's for Christmas?" he asked.]
C: “It’s blue raspberry Four Loko, is what it is.”

And while they were drinking the Doctor’s Select, I decided it was time for boner pills! Because that’s a good idea. (Interesting side-story: I bought boner pills in a bodega with Chris by my side. The check-out guy had to keep pointing at boxes behind the counter and asking, “These boner pills? These boner pills? These boner pills?” as I kept replying, “No, the boner pills to the left…no, the boner pills below those boner pills….” ***)

These boner pills were hot pink **** and had Chinese writing all over them. That’s okay for a pill, right? That’s the way pills are supposed to be?

I literally do not know what is in them. All of the writing on the box was in Chinese. That…can’t be legal, right? The box said to take them 20 minutes before boning (in English!), so I knew that by the time 10pm hit, we’d be in for it. To prepare, we fired up the Cock Flavored Soup.

The literal second ingredient in cock soup is salt. Isley’s hippy-ass was even more concerned that the third ingredient was MSG.

Chris: “I think my dad bought this during the Clinton administration.”
Isley: “This isn’t bad!”
Chris: “This is actually not bad.”
Isley: “I’m really relaxed, you guys. Like, slightly woozy.”

9:59pm – a moment of weakness
Jessica: “I’m gonna take a second boner pill.”
Chris: “Really?”
Jessica: “I don’t get a second drink!”
Chris: “Don’t take a second boner pill.”
Isley: “Don’t take a second boner pill.”

Then Isley told a story about the time his dad took a second hit of strong acid before he realized that the first hit had been coated in gelatin (for some reason?) and just hadn’t kicked in yet. I don’t know. I didn’t take a second boner pill.

10:06pm – Sippin Syrup flavor “Kandy” (cotton candy)

Jessica: “I bet Kandy is pink.”

It was!

Isley: “It tastes like marshmallows.”
Chris: “Marshmallows and cotton candy.”
Isley: “And not something I would drink a whole bottle of, ever.”
Chris: “What is that other flavor after?”
Isley: “Notes of oak and corn syrup, I believe?”
Chris: “Just corn syrup.”
Isley: “Oak and corn syrup.”

10:14pm – another moment of weakness

Jessica: “Can I have a second boner pill?”
Chris: “When they came for the first boner pill, I did nothing….”
Isley: “My dad had to plow an entire field while tripping balls! Don’t do it!”

I didn’t do it.

So which was the best Sippin Syrup of the four?

Isley: “Grape was best, the worst is Doctor’s Select.”
Chris: “On behalf of all doctors, I apologize.”
Isley: “Also, I keep eating the cock soup, and we’re past the part where we HAVE to eat it, so, Isley hearts cock.”
Chris: “If I hadn’t left mine in the kitchen, I might, too.”
Isley: “It’s salty and delcious.”

BUT GRITS!

Oh god.

Grits.

The grits were not good.

I don’t think real doctors are supposed to laugh at you so much when you’re in so much pain. I think that photo was of the butter flavor. The butter flavor was pretty much the single worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth in my life. It smelled like butter and tasted like baby oil. There was also bacon, which smelled like bacon and tasted like potting soil. Isley claimed that one was the worst. He made this:

Cheddar cheese was the best of the three, because it smelled like cheddar cheese and tasted like fake cheddar cheese. (Chris, for the record, agreed with me that butter was the worst.)

At some point, Chris went to the bathroom, and when he came back, he said that he had asparagus pee. At some point, I fell asleep on the chair and flashed everybody my underpants. (Accidentally!) At some point, Isley finished all the cock soup. At some point, Isley also pointed out that we shouldn’t be drinking beer and kava-kava (a key ingredient in Sippin Syrup, I guess?) at the same time. He said he’d heard that from his sister and texted her to make sure. He got a very stern reply warning against liver damage. I still have no idea what kava-kava is. At some point, after I’d stopped taking…such careful notes?…I had a third moment of weakness:

Jessica: “I’m going to just eat the rest of the cheese grits.”
Chris: “I’m about 90% sure that’s a better idea than having another Stree Overlord.”
Isley: “My dad didn’t say anything about cheese grits.”

I don’t…know if there are any solid conclusions to take from this very scientific taste test. I guess…don’t take more than one Stree Overlord. Don’t eat flavored instant grits. Slow your roll. Stay strong. Take a nap.

EDIT:
Someone pointed out to me that I never actually gave any final analysis for the boner pills. Um…I think they did nothing? (I’m pretty sure I could have taken a second one.) Or at least they did nothing when mixed with Street King and like four beers. Though Isley says that at some point in the night I mumbled that I “felt funny” and that’s when I passed out on the chair and showed everyone my underwear, soooo…? Maybe we should ask Chris what the boner pills did, as he has more of the proper equipment for analysis than I do.

* Isley, rollin’ on syrup, attempted to record the story of Stree Overlord on his phone. He talked for a long time. He recited I think the entire story. This is the recording that he ended up with:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

** Photobucket deleted that picture for violating their terms of use. I had to upload it somewhere else.

*** Paraphrasing.

**** Chris wants to argue that they were actually “safety orange,” not hot pink. We do have two left, so I could just open up the packaging and check, but…I don’t really want to expose any more of them to the light. It’s like feeding them after midnight, or something. You just…probably shouldn’t do it.

i have an oven!

March 4, 2012 in food blog by Jessica | 2 comments

And Ian doesn’t! Or, anyway, his is small and sucks or something. So he keeps finding awesome recipes and making me make them! And I keep being sort of slightly disappointed by them?

He first challenged me to make this chocolate oatmeal pie. The recipe sounds sort of like crack pie, which is life-alteringly spectacular (no really – stop reading this right now, go out and buy some fucking dry milk powder, and make a crack pie; it’s worth it). But as for this oatmeal pie?

Eh. (Though look how you can see that little foam of butter boiling up on the edge there. That’s bananas, right?) It’s kind of a mix of robot cookies and crack pie, and that sounds like it should be FANTASTIC? And certainly I did at least discover that I can make ganache, which…dipping robot cookies in it? Or, like, melted ganache hot chocolate? But the filling was…a little boring? It should have been crispy and brown-sugar-y and maybe molasses-y, but instead it was just kind of soggy and chewy and boring. Maybe this all could have been fixed by just baking it a little hotter or a little longer to really crispy-up the top? Or use a bigger pie pan to make the layers thinner? Or make crack pie instead? I should totally go to Four and Twenty Blackbirds, though, to see how close my version came to the original, and whether it’s worth trying again.

On a Frenchier note, he went to a dinner party last week and had something that he said he knew I would like: tartiflette. Turns out, yes, Jessica is a fan of big piles of potatoes and melted cheese and bacon, shockingly enough. And honestly, as far as fancy French dinner party food goes, this one wavers awfully close to unhealthy American breakfast casserole. The trick to keeping it fancy is the white wine, the creme fraiche, and mostly the cheese. I ended up completely unable to find lardons, and probably should have gone with pork belly instead, but used bacon. It was great, of course, but I worry that it missed that Frenchiness. Actually, I couldn’t find Reblochon, either, but the cheesemonger gave me what I think was a very good substitute.

My only real complaint was that most of the recipes were obviously written by Frenchies. So, like, what the fuck is 250 grams of bacon? 1.2 kilograms of potatoes? Half a cheese? For that matter, I don’t really support a recipe that calls for a “glass” of wine, either. Dear Epicurious: I drink my wine out of pint glasses. (I mean – I don’t fill them UP, or anything.) (Also, yes, fine, fuck you, I understand that there exist ways to convert grams into ounces, and that cheeses come in standard-sized wheels, fine, whatever. But still. One-point-two kilograms? One-point-TWO??)

This one I do want to make again, but I want to add different stuff: asparagus, smoked salmon instead of bacon. Or do a version with salt pork or pork belly instead of bacon (or actually find lardons).

Also, what the fuck do I do with all this leftover craime freche? (I’m thinking homemade ice cream? Is that crazy?) And what the fuck do I do with the salt pork that I also bought, but then didn’t use, in favor of the bacon? (Split pea soup? Rice and beans?) Suggestions for how to make Ian jelz of my kitchen?

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