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Monthly Archives: November 2006
The Plogical Song
We have something in our house that my husband calls plogic. It means Pam’s logic. Or put another way, doing things my way. When my husband is feeling less than thrilled with the plogic he grumbles, “It’s Pam’s world, we just live in it.”
It’s not just that I’m bossy or control freaky. I am pathologically logical (are you allowed to put those two words together?) and am often frustrated/mystified/agog that the world does not share my vision of the best way of doing things.
I’m not this way about everything. For example, I have no input on things having to do with sports. But generally I think the best way to do things is the most efficient — I don’t like to waste my or anyone else’s time, money, or energy — so really exercising plogic is for the good of mankind.
The other day I was at the burrito cart (Fuego at 2nd and Yamhill for you locals, cheap burrito-y goodness) and an Asian woman came up and started to fill out the little sheet you use for your order. The guy always asks you wheat or flour so he can warm your tortilla while he finishes the order in front of you. When he asked her, she shook her head and said in broken English, that she didn’t understand.
Before I could even think about it I jumped right in telling the guy how to make her burrito because I had a good idea how she would probably like it, not too spicy or with too much sour cream. And then I stopped myself because, omigod, I was being That Pushy Woman Who Bosses Around Random Strangers.
In my defense, have you ever been in a situation where you weren’t clear on the customs and ways and you kind-of wished someone else would just take charge for a minute? When I was a teenager my family went to France and it was time to eat. The waiter came over and said a bunch of stuff in French, a language we unfortunately do not speak. My Dad nodded and held up 4 fingers. The waiter knew exactly what to do. He brought us 4 drinks and 4 sandwiches which we ate with great joy. “Hey, look at us, ordering food in France.”
Back in Portland, I pointed at my burrito and she ordered flour. English was not her native language, but she had a pretty good handle on it. The problem was she couldn’t hear because of the traffic.
Things to Do Before You’re 40
This morning I read a post that referred to a magazine list of things to do before you’re 40.
It’s too late for me but I was curious to see if I could find the list to see what I missed because there is nothing like assigning importance to random events and circumstances and giving them an arbitrary deadline.
I plugged the phrase into a search engine and turns out there are books and all kinds of people talking about these lists.
If you’re under 40 and have a list, I’d say get on it and go for it because once I hit 40 I was too lazy to do anything. I have to be in bed by 9pm or I’m tired for a week. A hangover lasts at least three days. A weird muscle pull can annoy me for months. If I eat too much or stuff that’s too fatty or preservative laden, I spend the night in roiling pain. It takes us a week to get organized enough to do dinner and a movie.
At this point I’m enjoying making a list of things I’m never going to do and am thrilled to avoid. I’m never going to climb a mountain, sail around on a frigate like Master and Commander, wait in line all night for anything, do space travel, observe a gnarly surgical procedure, gamble away my life savings, be on reality TV, win an Olympic medal, have a threesome (possibly negotiable) or study grizzly bears in their natural habitat. Whew. So liberating.
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Indian Dance
American Indian Heritage Month
When I enrolled at Clark College I filled out some form that asked my ethnicity and I put American Indian. Now I’m on the diversity mailing list and have gotten more mail than a person taking a single class for one quarter could possibly need.
I got a letter inviting me to try out for head dancer at the Clark College Pow Wow and when I told Bob, he said: "Cool. Are you going to do it?"
And I gave him a funny look because (a) I’ve never been a pow wow dancer, (b) pow wow isn’t part of my tradition, and (c) I’m not even a dancer in my own tribe’s tradition. Still, it was nice to be asked.
We went for Indian tacos before the pow wow and I was a little worried because there were only about 20 people and I thought, Oh no. Low turnout. My fears were unwarranted. The gym was more than half full. And those people are sad they missed out because the Indian tacos were awesome. I’ll omit any discussion about the fry bread controversy since it’s so yummy but if you’re interested start here. Also there was a tiny riot when late in the night the frybread ran out.
I love pow wows. My first favorite part is grand entry. It starts with Indian veterans and there’s always at least couple ancient elders, usually tiny, who stand so tall and so proud and are so completely confident and in charge. There is no way to watch without feeling a tug in your heart.
Last night was no exception. They followed grand entry with an hour of talking into microphones that sounded like the grownups on Charlie Brown. Everyone got to say something. Too bad most of it was unintelligible. This situation was made worse by all the dancers wearing bells on their shoes or jingle dresses and jumping around. I understood little except that this is part of a Title VII program — some sort of federal education funding and Indians.
They talked about Indian Heritage Month and read some sort of proclamation from President Bush. Possibly this. I like the part that goes, " … we honor the generations of American Indians and Alaska Natives who have added to the character of our Nation." I sat in the bleachers and said, "added? Are you kidding me, added?" The person reading the proclamation said he was going to skip the part about money and I said, "Yeah, how about settling Cobell?” the Indian trust case that doesn’t seem to have a chance of being settled. My dear husband encouraged me to relax and perhaps keep it down a bit
The MC was fantastic, as they usually are. He said, "We used to get just a day. Now, we get a whole month."
My second favorite part was the kid in the bleachers who danced during the opening songs, with a light saber.
My third favorite part was the tiny tots. Seven and under kids dancing is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. There was a little girl who looked like the Indian version of Little Miss Sunshine. I had my fingers crossed for a Super Freak moment.
Probably the highlight of the night was the drumline group of non-Indian sixth to eighth graders who set up their drums and joined the pow wow drum for a song. The first round didn’t completely work but the second round they were on fire. But no dancers. The MC asked them to play again and asked the dancers to get out there. Some of them balked but he would have none of it. "Make something up," he said. At least half of them got out there and went for it. It was really, really cool.
The next dance was Intertribal and the MC called the drumline kids out and asked them to dance. A nice moment and when you think about it, this is what heritage month should be all about.
I know a lot of people worked hard to make last night happen so huge applause from me. Super fun time.
Tripendicular
This morning we woke up early and drove across town to the Bean Store. I’m sure Mr. Red Mill would be thrilled to know that he went to all the trouble of building a giant red building to sell his products and we still refer to it as the Bean Store. They serve a kick ass breakfast which is a huge motivator. I bought tons of legumes and breakfast grains and a couple of bags of flour. I’m trying a new recipe for Thanksgiving. I’ve got the test loaf going now.
I decided that not having a camera is making me crazy so I’m going to do something I never do and pull money out of savings and not do very much homework and march into a camera store downtown on Monday and buy something. i hope I’m not sitting here in 6 months and linking to this post and talking about what an idiot I am. I keep seeing great things that should have their pictures taken. Like Bob’s side order of pancakes this morning. He got three different kinds and each one came on its own different colored plate. Or the vacuum cleaner the construction crew was using at the office had giant block letters on it that said: LOUD.
Don’t you think that O.K. Go song “Here it goes again” sounds like a lost song from the Valley Girl soundtrack? (That’s a huge good thing, by the way)
My beeper just went off and it’s time to run out to the Clark College Pow Wow. Busy day.
The Test Kitchen
This week feels like it’s gone on forever. I’m beat.
Wednesday’s NYT Dining In had my favorite food porn type of article: perfect pie crust. You’d think after reading and clipping every article of this kind I’ve ever seen I’d be the reigning gold medalist in both the single and double pie crust events. But no, I haven’t even been invited to try out for the team.
Pie lady made 5 pie crusts with various approaches to the fat part: 1 all butter, 1 all shortening and 3 with different amounts of both.
She said butter won hands down. Dang, I don’t like butter crust. (I’m appalled, too but I like what I like.) I use the all shortening method which she says is popular because it’s easier to handle. If that’s easiest I guess I’d better to stick to what I’m doing.
Don’t you think being a test cook would be a weird job?
Every time I read an article and they roasted 18 turkeys, or made 12 kinds of green bean salad or once it was bread pudding and I swear the article said they made 40 different kinds to find the perfect recipe, all I can think about is the stuff that didn’t work. Do they give it to homeless shelters? Do they take it home to their families? Who had to taste and report on 40 different kinds of bread pudding? Do they throw lots away? Are they so sick of bread pudding by the end that they have the perfect recipe for a food they never want to see again in their lives?
I hate wasting food and I remember how awful I felt tossing a huge pan of carrot cake that I’d royally screwed up. I think I forgot half the flour and it was a soupy mess that nothing could save. It made a hollow whump! when it hit the bottom of the garbage can. I didn’t make it again.
Posted in baking disasters, doing it wrong, favorite
Tagged pie crust disaster
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Pamily Values
Last night after I finished my delicious dinner of leftover soup washed down with two glasses of my favorite $6.99 Trader Joes Tempranillo the phone rang and you know the best calls always come around dinner time.
It sounded like a recording except the recording asked me questions so I’m not sure if it was a robot blend or the lady was just so filled with family values that she spoke without inflection.
She identified herself as being from the Dove Foundation which I had never heard of before. Then she started with something about families, kids, and concerned parents and grandparents. I almost cut her off right there because I have no children and was anxious to be excused from the call. But I let her go on because she was talking about how don’t I think that measures for monitoring violence and adult content in entertainment aren’t doing enough? (Note: I’m totally paraphrasing here, especially in favor of my side of the story.)
No, I said.
She went on into a longer speech making statements like, “We’re not about censorship,” and “Sure parents can be doing something in the home but that’s not enough,” and “We all know Hollywood won’t make movies with our family values, don’t you think we should do something about that?”
I behaved poorly because I laughed and said, You’re crazy.
She told me her message was intended for concerned parents and grandparents and thanked me for my input.
I wish I’d had my act more together and could have stated my opinion more intelligently. If people want to get together and promote family entertainment, I have no problem with that. I have a big problem with someone calling my home and telling what to think and feel about a particular subject while making untrue statements and projecting a particular set of values on me. I’d love to write 10 more screens on this except, it’s of limited interest and my writing time for today has long expired.
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Five Things I Like to Cook (including baking)
1. Apple Pie.
Home baked apple pie is one of the best foods known to man. My struggles to make pie crust have been well documented here. However, I do it anyway because no matter how badly it’s patched together it always tastes and smells fantastic. I like mine still warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I probably make at least 10 apple pies a year and it’s one of my favorite things to bring to a function. No one ever says, “Bummer. Apple pie.”
I use the Betty Crocker recipe from my Mom’s cookbook and use unhealthy shortening in my crust. One of my tips is to use a mix of apples but at least half should be of a tart variety.
Yesterday on the radio a guy was talking about how he makes pies from scratch and he always wants to try other peoples pies to see how they measure up and so on. Another guy asked him what he means by scratch and he says he gets the pastry shell at the grocery store and then cuts and spices the fruit himself. This does not fit my definition of baking from scratch.
[Aside: while looking for pie stories I found I’ve already written about the futility of the Great Pumpkin. I have zero recollection of this. ]
2. Tamales.
I learned how to make these fairly recently. We have a friend from Mexico and I was hoping she would teach me but it never worked out and I had to take matters into my own hands. I read as many recipes as I could find in books and online and then went for it and it turned out to be labor intensive, but easy.
Now I’ve made them a bunch of times and can whip out a big batch without breaking a sweat. The corn masa bag has a recipe, too. I use real lard for the tamale and fill them with a mixture of cooked chicken, cheese, chiles and lots of spices.
They’re super delicious with green salsa and perhaps a dab of sour cream. Great to freeze and serve later and a great gift. People love tamales.
3. Gumbo.
I use the Cooks Illustrated recipe and I would give you the date of the issue if I had it handy. It’s pretty labor intensive so I have to want to spend most of the day in the kitchen. It has shrimp and sausage and all kinds of seasonings and is magically delicious. Unfortunately, this is one of the foods I ate leading up to the digestive system meltdown I had in April so now I’m afraid of it.
4. Bob’s White Bean Chili and other Taco-ey Things.
Bob’s white bean chili is a recipe I got from the Oregonian and is basically chili using chicken and white beans. But it’s easy to make, great for leftovers and yummy every time. We do a lot of chili or taco type variations. We use regular tortillas or Safeway sells tortilla crowns which are taco salad bowls made out of corn. I use Penzeys Taco Seasoning, I just bought a ginormous bag, and ground turkey. The usual toppings: grated cheese, lettuce, onions, salsa, sour cream. If we’re getting crazy we open a can of olives. My favorite food group.
5. Chocolate Chip Cookies
I’ve turned into a cookie snob and only like home baked cookies. A chocolate chip cookie is my favorite sweet. I make a batch every couple of weeks and put them in ziplock bags and freeze them and keep them at the office for an afternoon treat. I use the Toll House recipe or the Cooks Illustrated and use lots of nuts, pecans or walnuts, which I toast before I chop. One of my favorite foods.
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Interim Update
I’ve started a wonderful post about things I like to cook except I was interrupted before I could finish and now I’ve got work to do so, hopefully, I can finish up tonight.
Meanwhile, three quick updates.
1. I believe my archive problems could be fixed by a quick blogger republish. Except every time I hit the republish button (home, office, various browsers and times of day), I get a hanging screen followed by an error. Will investigate further someday.
2. Remember those banking calls I was avoiding? Turned out worse than I imagined. Will not bore you except to say, it is my opinion that you avoid doing business with Washington Mutual Financial Services. They’re yucky.
3. I want to do handmade pasta for Thanksgiving but do not possess a pasta machine and didn’t want to buy one until I tried it once. I sent out a call in the office thinking among all these women, someone would have one. No, no and no. I inquired in the lunchroom and Kent (resident forester guy) found one in his attic. Score!
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Mythical Creatures: The Paradoxasaur
Photos: Downtown Portland last spring when I was walking back from the doctor’s office and have nothing to do with this post.
(If you believe in it, it doesn’t exist, if you don’t believe in it, it does.) The show let out by 9:20pm which was perfect. We weren’t the oldest people there. Other than old people there were young people and, of course, the requisite hipsters: the guy with the goofy knit hat with huge earflaps and lined with fur (what are those hats called?) which he wore during the entire show, the good looking jock type who walked up the aisle using his outside voice and big arm gestures to make sure we were all looking at him (I assured him we were) and the drunk loud can’t-stop-talking chick also with the flapping arms who manages to find us and position herself near us at every event we attend. I can’t stand this girl.
We must have done something terrible in a past life to be continually punished like this. Please girl, leave us alone. Tell us how we can appease you.
The beer line was long. Upstairs was the faint smell of Otto’s jacket. The show was not sold out but well attended. About 5 minutes before curtain an endless stream of people came in and went to the front looking for seats. Why?
I don’t know how to review a comedy show. There were two other comics on the bill with Demetri and they were all funny. The middle guy did a riff about losing your cellphone and not having any of your phone numbers and feeling alone. I’m probably the only person in America who writes all my phone numbers down, on paper, and then dials them in when I use the cellphone. I am by no means suggesting that this is an intelligent thing to do.
Demetri was hilarious and looks like he’s about 12 years old. He played guitar, harmonica, little bells on the floor that you hit with your foot, tambourine and keyboard. Usually two or three at a time.
I’d love to sit here and make this post better but I have a few moments and I’m going to deal with that banking thing I was whining about yesterday.
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Stuck In A Rut
Today’s special feature is original art. I’m still trying to learn Illustrator with more frustration than not. This reminds me of learning to play guitar a long time ago when I was in college. I’m trying, but it’s taking me awhile and the results aren’t much to look at. I’m still having fun, I just wish I could catch on a little easier.
I thought instead of grinding through tutorials I’d make something myself. I find I learn a lot when I have to figure it out rather than the book telling me what to do. Almost two hours later, ta da! I had to abandon my first effort because it got brown and when I shrunk it to proper size it looked turd-like and made me want to stick forks in my eyes.
Aside from Illustrator, I’m stuck in the biggest rut. I can’t seem to move forward on anything. Little piddly chores go ignored. Paper accumulates. Dust bunnies peek out from the corners. Lists get stapled to other lists, or thrown away because that’s easiest.
For example I have a banking matter that’s probably going to involve at least 3 phone calls. All week long I think: Friday I will take care of this. But then Friday rolls around and I take care of a few other things and can’t bear the idea of making numerous phone calls for this matter. So I think, well this week for sure. I will do this on my lunch hour. Or, I’ll definitely take care of it before I go home. Now several weeks have gone by. The matter is unresolved and becoming time sensitive.
Yesterday we took advantage of the sun break to take a wonderful walk. I wish I would have had my camera (and that it worked) so I could have taken a picture of a huge sign someone put on a telephone pole: Jennifer: I LOVED You.
I didn’t want to, but I worked outside and cut down most of the Dahlias and dug a small batch of bulbs, washed them and set them out in the garage to dry. I suppose I should carefully store them today so I don’t run into mass-of-moldy-bulbs next spring.
We’re going to see Demetri Martin tonight. Going out on a Sunday night is something I have a firm policy of never doing. We did last weekend because it was part of our lecture series and other than the biblical downpour when the lecture let out, it wasn’t that bad. Demetri is a comedian from the Daily Show. I loved him the first time I saw him but it still took a bit of convincing before I agreed to it. Since I believe his target demographic is about half my age, you know, people who don’t covet sleep as they should, it’s seems a lot to hope for that I’ll be in bed before 11pm. But maybe.
