links for 2007-03-01

• From Phobia to Fame: A Southern Cook’s Memoir - The New York Times
  She may now be as perky as a cheerleader, but Paula Deen had to conquer agoraphobia to become the Food Network’s queen of Southern food.
  (tags: 2007 nytimes paula+deen southern+cooking)

links for 2007-02-28

• Demand for English Lessons Outstrips Supply - New York Times
  Immigrants are waiting for months or even years to get into government-financed English classes.
  (tags: 2007 immigration)
• In Medieval Architecture, Signs of Advanced Math - New York Times
  I'm no mathematician but I've seen a few of the mosques from this time period, and they are astounding.
  (tags: math mosque islam 2007)
• Wall Street Plummets After Chinese Stocks Take a Big Hit - New York Times
  For all those who said China doesn't have a big impact on our economy, or that we can ignore our economic relationships to other nations....thanks, my 401(k) took a big hit today. Guess I won't retire by 40 after all. ;)
  (tags: 2007 china economy NYSE)

Junk food hits a new low

  They're real

I blogged this several months ago, and didn't think to take a photo at the time. I was in the store the other day and saw this abomination again and captured it for you to appreciate as well.

Be careful with pimentos

  The offending pimento 

I will start by telling you, I love pimentos. They are one of my favorite extra items to add to a dish. Perhaps it stems from my in vitro love of pimento cheese. [Oh, people, if you don't make your own pimento cheese....but that's another post.]

And yet today I discovered a use for pimentos that made me stop and say, Hmm. And not in a "Hmm, this is great, I can't believe I never thought of it before" way, but in a "Hmm, I don't know about that" kind of way.

I ran downstairs to our local lunch shop--I don't eat there much but I had gotten swamped and had to reschedule a lunch with a friend. We had planned to eat at the always-wonderful Kalamata's. Please, you must go there--and grabbed a cup of soup. It was in one of those to-go containers for liquids, where there's a little pinhole in the lid. And just a teeny bit of soup leaked out the pinhole and I had to lick it off my finger. When I did, I didn't taste potato, or creamy soup. I tasted only pimento.

If you have a delicate soup, let me recommend against the addition of pimentos. Their flavor is so distinctive as to transform a creamy potato soup into Pimento (potato) Soup. The cream and potato flavors were just totally overwhelmed.

Now, pimentos are fabulous in many dishes....often in a casserole or a sandwich spread. I'd say olives and capers are foods with similar issues: In the right place, they absolutely make your dish. In the wrong dish, they don't blend and your dinner is all about capers. Is that what you want?

I didn't think so. Go forth and cook accordingly.

We are sick of the sickness around here

First, I got sick for 6 days. Let's be clear: I don't get sick. And yet there I was, laid out in my recliner [I can own that I love my recliner] for days on end. I took the Hungry Toddler to school and came back home and did nothing. For six days in a row.

Not only do I rarely get sick, I am a poor patient when I do. I was pretty whiny all that time.

So I was "well" or at least, better, for all of 3 days when HT started barfing. And you don't want to know more, but it was an ugly weekend here at Fixin' Supper. After HT was done being sick, he was just so wiped out that he laid on my lap for a day and a half in [thank you] the recliner.

So surely the kitchen gods have forgiven me for the horrible state of disarray that has taken hold in my kitchen over the past few days. I managed to get a load in the dishwasher before I left for work this morning, and that did help quite a bit.

I even made a chicken pot pie Sunday afternoon while HT was napping. It is delicious. Please always make a nice pie crust for the top of your chicken pot pies. It is so easy and makes such a difference.

Here is one:

Pie Crust*
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. salt
1 stick unsalted butter
Ice water

Mix flour and salt. Add butter in small chunks and cut in with pastry blender [or two knives in a pinch] until it resembles coarse cornmeal. Add ice water. Start with 5 T. and add as much as it takes to make a non-sticky ball.

Roll out on floured surface. Great for topping chicken pot pie or to make any sort of pie.

* I really think I've given this recipe before. I'll have to look.

Making dinner gets in the way of cooking

I cook a lot on the weekends. Even though we're usually really busy, the time seems less restricted than during the week. The free moments come at random times throughout the day, instead of clumped in tiny pockets at the beginning and the end, when you're tired, rushed or both.

The Hungry Toddler remains stuck at the age where he Must Eat This Instant! so weekday breakfast and dinner preparations often revolve around food that can be prepared and served in a matter of moments. Or we end up with the situation we had tonight, where he eats one meal while I'm cooking, fusses for a while because I won't let him down from his high chair, and then eats a second with the 7yo and me.

Regardless, it all makes for a rushed dinnertime. And not much time for enjoying the full cooking experience.

Tonight I made some chili that turned out pretty good but it was a race from start to finish. Regardless, it's nice to have something you can whip up quickly that still feels like a real meal.

This weekend I'm definitely going to cook something fun, just for me.

Weeknight Chili
1 onion, diced
1 lb. ground turkey
1 14 oz. can beans [or two cups cooked beans]
14 oz. diced tomatoes
6 oz. tomato paste
6 oz. water
Chili powder
Cumin
Salt & pepper

Crumble and brown the ground turkey. I find that I need a little nonstick spray even in my cast iron skillet when I'm cooking ground turkey; it just doesn't have enough fat on its own. Remove it from the skillet, then cook the onion in a little bit of canola oil. Add the chili powder [start with 1 T.] and the cumin [start with 1 1/2 t.] and salt and pepper to taste.

When the onion is translucent, add the turkey back to the skillet, and the beans, tomatoes, tomato paste and water. Mix well and let simmer for at least 15 minutes. If I had the time, I'd simmer longer, but I never have the time.

links for 2007-02-23

• IBM To Media Companies: Loosen Grip On Content - MediaPost
  Piling on to mainstream media companies....
  (tags: webcontent)
• Wimbledon to Pay Women and Men Equal Prize Money - New York Times
  Geez, what took so long??
  (tags: 2007 wimbeldon tennis)

Shrove Tuesday at EEUMC

  Shrove Tuesday at EEUMC

I have been awfully puny this past week...I even had to leave work at lunch on my first day back thanks to that "hit by a Mack truck" feeling. But I did manage to drag myself to church tonight since if I did so, other people would feed my children dinner.

An added bonus was the whole Shrove Tuesday thing. Pancake supper! And bacon! And sausage! Topped with whipped cream! Or, at least, the squirty version thereof that comes in a can. I didn't have any king cake -- is that cheating? -- but I'm therefore also not responsible for next year's cake.

I really am going about all this the wrong way, aren't I?

Sigh. I have tried and tried and tried to get into Lent but I'm just not there. I'm not even good at Mardi Gras. I went to Mardi Gras once, in college. It was HORRIBLE. Did you ever hear of a college student who didn't like Mardi Gras?

We went junior year, planning to spend our whole spring break in the Quarter. We even had hotel reservations at the Marriott, right in the middle of things. Unfortunately, in that college-student-devil-may-care sort of way, we decided to go a day before our reservations started.

So, instead of parking at the Marriott, we had to leave my roommate's brand new car with an attended garage. Let's just say that Ferris Bueller played in her head all night, negating any sort of fun she had. I'm not sure what the two parking attendants might have done with her Nissan Sentra, but it was a point of stress nonetheless.

We then spent quite a while trying to connect with our friends who had arrived ahead of us, thinking we could just spend the night with them. I think we were not the only people with that idea, because I spent my only night of Mardi Gras in a retirement community with our friends from school, at someone's grandmother's condo, along with 20 other similarly hard-up college students. The highlight was when my friend's great-uncle arrived with the sun to take photos of all of us. We were draped over, around and under every piece of furniture, sleeping in sleeping bags, with towels and blankets, or just sleeping....it was not a fun night.

Bless his grandmother's heart, she seemed to find us all very amusing, and I suppose we were in a lack-of-planning, laissez-faire, no-manners-crash-your-house kind of way.

The one night -- and yes, there was some drinking in there somewhere and a parade or two -- was enough to convince my roommate and me that Mardi Gras was not for us. We took off that morning and drove all day and through the night, and we spent the week on the beach in south Florida, staying at her house with her parents.

It was a great spring break.

links for 2007-02-20

• New heart guidelines urge women to exercise, cut fat, consider aspirin - CNN.com
  (tags: 2007 diet exercise)
• Battling Epilepsy, and Its Stigma - New York Times
  A friend pointed me to this article on epilepsy. I have been so fortunate with my epilepsy the past few years that I hardly ever think about it anymore. The first few years after I was diagnosed were more difficult, but nothing like this girl has experien
  (tags: 2007 nytimes epilepsy)

Go Dores! Vandy Sports on the Rise

In a shout out to Nashville sister, I feel sure I am not out of line in sharing part of an email I received from her today:

---

#17 Vanderbilt
#18 Duke

In the post-game bliss of our Gator chomp, it appears that my alma mater is ranked higher than good ole Coach K and Duke.

It’s a great day here at VU in Athletics. Our baseball team is ranked no. 1 for the first time ever (we’re undefeated 6-0) and we had an SEC Player of the Week in men’s and women’s hoops and a national player of the week in baseball.

---

I will just add: the context to note here is that NYC sister is a Duke alum. The three Commodores in the family never, ever, ever get to gloat during basketball season, so we'll take this while we have it.

In other VU news, I can share that apparently I'm the key to their success. When we knocked off No. 10 Alabama, I was not at the game. When we lost miserably to UT, I was watching with a number of my Vandy friends. And when we de-throned Florida on Saturday, I was still home sick, and with an extra person in the house to boot: had I felt better I still couldn't have used the tix.

My boss and Nashville sister's boyfriend took our three season tickets, and thank goodness some good Vandy fans had them. From reading Rex's account of the game, and from talking to Nashville sister, it sounds a heck of a lot like the time we beat Kentucky, then ranked No. 1, my senior year -- from a general atmosphere and pandemonium perspective. I was on the floor post-game on Jan. 13, 1993. Sadly, I was just checking the score on the Internet this past weekend. I may try one more game in the next couple of weeks....but if it looks bad at halftime, I'm outta there.