Friday Fluffer - The Vascularized Vagina

Ridiculous political correctness aside, it seems that scientific evidence falls heavily on the side of the male ejaculate being particularly good for women. Listen to your vascularized vagina, ladies, kitty knows what she wants.

As far as humans are concerned, you may think you know all about sexual signals, but you’d be surprised by new findings. It’s been known since the 1990s that heterosexual women living together synchronize their menstrual cycles because of pheromones, but when a study of lesbians showed that they do not synchronize, the researchers suspected that semen played a role. In fact, they found ingredients in semen that include mood enhancers like estrone, cortisol, prolactin, oxytocin, and serotonin; a sleep enhancer, melatonin; and of course, sperm, which makes up only 1%-5%. Delivering these compounds into the richly vascularized vagina also turns out to have major salutary effects for the recipient. Female college students having unprotected sex were significantly less depressed than were those whose partners used condoms (Arch. Sex. Behav. 2002;31:289-93). Their better moods were not just a feature of promiscuity, because women using condoms were just as depressed as those practicing total abstinence. The benefits of semen contact also were seen in fewer suicide attempts and better performance on cognition tests.



Bottoms Up, Hot Bitches.

DIY Lightbox

While I often do alot of cooking on the weekends, there's a good amount that gets done at night or after the sun sets (easy to do in the winter :/).   Thus, when I saw some posts about a diy lightbox, I sent my dad the links and asked if we could make one when I was home.  {home...  over christmas...  this has been sitting in my drafts folder for awhile!!}}

If you know my dad, you know that it would probably be a little more complicated than that ;)   And it was!  But he was only thinking of me, so I say that with love <3.  Given the limited space in my Boston apartment, dad wanted to make something that could be put away when it wasn't in use.  His solution was to use angle moulding (like this) instead of a cardboard box.  I'll do my best to explain how it went down...

First up was measuring out lengths of angle to make the box, I think we went with 18"h x18"d 24"w.  Thus, 8 pieces 18" long (to make 2 square sides) and 2 pieces 24" long (to attach the squares together).  Then I got to cut the angle using a vice grip and saw.  I was pretty focused ;)

Then dad marked the angle and I got to drill holes in the angle where we would attach the corners to make a box.  For the two longer pieces, we flattened out the edge of the angle before drilling holes, so they could be attached to the front of the the square sides.

With 8 pieces, I put together two squares (for the sides of the box).

On top of the screw went a washer, lock washer and nut, then tightened. 

Don't forget to check to make sure everything is aligned!

Once the two squares were assembled, we screwed on the longer pieces of angle that attached the two squares together.  A little finagling was required to make sure they were tight enough to stand up, but loose enough to allow it to fold in on itself.

Lucky for me, my mom happened to have an old white sheet that pretty much fit over my light "box" (frame?), so I just have it draped over the angle.  The frame sits on an old foam core board, and I can swap in/out poster board, napkins and placemats.  I have some velcro that I can use to attach different backgrounds/tissue paper/fabric when I get my act together, but for now I've kept it simple. 

Voila!

I'm still playing around with it, but it has certainly helped my night-time shots!   My lights can probably be optimized  (I've got three situated around it), but it's a start.  I've got some compact fluorescent bulbs in lamps, but honestly I'm not sure they're the best.

Pasta w/Spinach Sauce & Shrimp

Does anyone have any tips or tricks you'd like to share??  My photography, especially playing with lighting, is very much in progress!!

Bad Girls - To Emulate or Not?

Photo credit and Interview with Dr Carole.

Tuesday night I took this book on a tour of some local bars. A book might appear an odd choice of drinking companion, but this one is different - it's entitled "Bad Girls" and sports this alluring cover photo.

People were interested.

I also asked folks if they knew any of the bad girls listed in the index, and if they were experienced with them. Everyone had at least one story to tell.

So it's about how less adventurous, milquetoast girls can learn the man-eating ways of sexually confident, experienced women, right?

The full title is:

Bad Girls: Why Men Love Them & How Good Girls Can Learn Their Secrets. Emphasis mine.


Nope. Nothing of the sort. It is in fact a mirror image of that idea, describing in detail the sub-species of Bad Girls (The Gold-Digger, The Sex Siren,the Ball Buster, The Husband-Stealer etc) and how men can identify a weakness for - and avoid falling for - any of them.

Now that's useful information.

Important Point: The research behind the concepts presented is thorough and well written. Even more valuable is the way in which the author, Dr Carole Lieberman, carefully explained the vulnerabilities of certain men to the "attractions" of specific "bad girls". I found myself described in there, and the type of Bad Girl who fits my weakness.

Guess which. * LOL*

So, I have no hesitation recommending this book to anyone interested in understanding some of the possibilities as to why men choose certain women, AND why women end up clearly fitting some of the Bad Girl stereotypes.

That said, here are some random thoughts:

~ I wonder if this book stands out because Dr Lieberman is a psychiatrist, NOT a psychologist.

~ Whomever came up with the sub-title had not read one word of the book. It just doesn't fit.

~ I remain a little confused as for whom the book was written; men or women or both?

~ Pet Peeve: Editing and Layout. If the book is meant as a How-To, I think it needed a whole lot of creative input. As it is, page after page of standard text alternating with italicized real-life research excludes the kind of reader who might want to dip in-and-out. Fortunately, the writing style is clear, but it could work so much better. SO much better. It succeeds almost despite itself.

~ As an example of the poor production values, chapter commencement pages listed in the index do not match the actual pages in the book. Lazy and sloppy.


But these are all quibbles about publishing, not the material.

Worth your time.


Bad Girls. Why Men Love Them & How Good Girls Can Learn Their Secrets, By Dr Carole Lieberman.

ISBN 978-2-923865-12-6

Published by Cogito Media Group.




Bottoms Up, Good Girls.

wombat@kissnblog.com

Bake for Hope

 I wanted to let you in on a fantastic virtual bake sale to support a cause near and dear to me.  My two friends Cara and Jen are hosting Bloggers Bake for Hope, as part of a week-long, nation-wide bake sale leading up to Mother's Day.  All of the proceeds will be donated to Massachusetts Komen for the Cure.

How does it work?  Bloggers (like me) are donating baked goods that will be put up for auction.  May 4-6, buyers will make virtual pledges on the Bloggers Bake for Hope site.  At the end of the bake sale, the highest bidders will be awarded the donated baked goods and donations will be made via PayPal.

What is my donation you ask?  Well a batch of everyone's favorite Seven Layer Bars, of course!  They'll be packaged up and shipped to you, should you be the highest bidder ;)  So spread the word, tell your friends, and don't forget to check out the Bake Sale on May 4-6th!!

Bulgur Peanut Kimchee Spring Rolls

Not only did I need to make dinner for the love of my life, but also snacks for the poker game, and like an idiot I mentioned spring rolls in the group email to the poker crowd. I was on the hook for spring rolls, but I didn't really have anything prepared for spring rolls other than the rice paper wrappers.

We had a little reticulated cabbage head, an onion, some carrots, ginger and jalapenos, so I cored the cabbage and made a julienne of the vegetables and ginger, building a slaw I could quickly pickle into a mock-kimchee. I used Jacques Pepin's method of making julienne of carrots: using a vegetable peeler, cut long strips of carrot, then stack them, roll them lengthwise and slice into thin ribbons. This gives a much longer, nicer looking julienne than using a grater. I also sliced the cabbage core thinly for more substantial texture. The pickling liquid for the slaw was some chopped garlic, Siracha, white vinegar, brown sugar, lime zest and sea salt. It was tasty but quite astringent, so I needed something else to constitute the body of the spring rolls. I could have used plain rice, but lately I've been using bulgur as a malty, nutty substitute for rice and decided the additional flavor would probably help tame the slaw.

I cooked the bulgur as a farrotto (grain cooked in the manner of risotto, by adding stock a little at a time so the grains develop a binding starchy component without deteriorating into gruel) using white wine and vegetable soup stock with saffron and bay leaf. I tried a little spoonful of the farrotto and it was fine, but when I ate it with the slaw the pungent slaw annihilated it. I needed something else to moderate the strong flavor, something rich and fatty like bacon or avocado, but we had nothing like that in the house. After pondering for a while, it occurred to me that I could use peanut butter, which is fatty and has a protein mouth feel. I grabbed a jar of Jif off the shelf and compounded a lump of peanut butter with some toasted sesame oil and tamari soy sauce. The peanut sauce worked marvelously to mediate the extremes of the granular, starchy bulgur and the crunchy, acidic slaw.

I built the rolls by laying down a bed of the bulgur, then spooning in the peanut sauce, adding the kimchee and topping it off with a broad basil leaf before rolling the whole package up. I ran out of bulgur after making a half-dozen rolls, but that wasn't nearly enough, so I made a second batch, this time adding a load of chopped parsley and basil for color, and so I didn't have to fiddle with the loose basil leaves while rolling them.

I made a dipping sauce of honey, mustard, soy sauce and sesame oil, and it had the effect of making the outside of the rolls taste interesting, which complimented the flavors on the inside.

The poker crowd were thrilled, but most of them live on a diet of Hot Pockets and Gatorade and don't possess critical palates. Heather ate her share, but said "they taste like something you made up." I can't really fault her observation. (v)

Are You In The Dating DMZ? How to Avoid Machine Guns and Barbed Wire.

Pic credit.

I define the Dating DMZ as the space between where you are and where you want to be. Sometimes the space is wide, and sometimes it's narrow, and oftentimes you'll never know which it is until you're in it. Which is why we need some guidance so as to avoid being killed in there.

The most famous DMZ lies between North and South Korea. I've been there, a couple of times, and it's a pretty darned scary place. The funny thing is that the name is devastatingly misleading. Yes, the space between the two sides is allegedly free of military activity, but the two borders defining the zone are as full of stuff that'll kill you as anywhere on earth. (Short of a Bangkok titty bar.) It's a sleight of hand trick actually designed to divert your attention from the real action, which is the hundreds of mean-eyed dudes with machine guns trained on your bod.

It's a no-man's land, desolate and dangerous, with a disingenuous name.

Dating doesn't inevitably mean a transit of the DDMZ, but it's the rare bird who finds themselves in safe territory all the time. The nature of dating is that it involves risk, like all human activity. Finding and managing the amount of risk we can handle is an individual process; we're all up for challenges in different ways at different times of our lives. I'll give you an example:

I once was acquainted with a guy, back in Australia, who sized up his prospects for sex in an age-old way. He figured that if he asked enough women, he'd eventually get all the trim he wanted. His name was Alistair, and he asked pretty much every woman he met (socially, I hasten to add) if they'd be interested in getting together. He risked rejection in order to exercise his penis....a LOT of rejection.

Years after I first met Alistair, I ran into a friend who knew him better than me, and we discussed his case. Turns out that his success rate was much, much higher than we thought. Around one in ten women took him up on his offer. Maybe that doesn't surprise you - it does surprise me.

Alistair understood the DDMZ because he crossed and re-crossed it so many times. But he never lingered, because he was on his way to the other side, moving through increasingly familiar territory between the place he was prepared to risk being, and returning home. After a while, he became so familiar to sentries on either side, they both treated him like a 'friendly'. After all, everyone knew what he was up to, it wasn't like he kept anything secret. He would have made a great double agent.

The lesson of Alistair, the man who understood the DDMZ better than anyone I know, is to be on your way to the maximum point of risk, or on the way back. He never lingered when he was on a mission. He was either sprinting towards the target he'd chosen, or he was dancing around, changing direction. He decided what he wanted, then figured out a way to get there, and what he was prepared to do before retreating. Remember, too, that retreating is just attacking from a different direction. There is absolutely no harm in retreating, it's information about both your method of attack and your risk level.

Alistair's case is extreme, of course. He didn't use subtlety or finesse, but he knew what he knew about women and about himself. He was unembarrassable, and he knew that he was playing a numbers game. Voila, his DDMZ shrank to almost nothing.





Bottoms Up, Dating Warriors.

wombat@kissnblog.com

Easter Eggs

Dear Mom & Dad-

I made you some crunchy peanut butter eggs for your easter basket.

What I didn't realize is how they start to melt as soon as they're out of the fridge, so I don't think they'll make it home.   It's not because they're so delicious I couldn't stop eating them...

I'll make it up to you, promise!

Love,
Shannon

When I saw Dawn's chocolate PB eggs w/crunchy filling, two thoughts immediately came to mind.  1.  I must make these.  2.  Why didn't she use pretzels instead of panko breadcrumbs?  As the queen of all things sweet and savory, I was a little surprised Dawn didn't use them herself. 

FTC Disclosure:  Pure Dark slab received as part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program

Scientific method-style, a side-by-side comparison of prezels versus panko was warranted.   It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it ;)  The pretzels made for a sturdier filling that was easier to work with and had a more substantial crunch, they happened to be the ones I preferred.  The panko filling was a bit softer, but did have a good uniform crunch.  Panko or pretzels, you won't be disappointed!

I figured an easter bunny was the best judge ;)   Pretzel on the left, panko on the right

Crunchy PB Eggs
slightly adapted from Vanilla Sugar 
Yield:  ~16 small eggs

1 1/2c crunchy PB (as per Dawn's suggestion, I used WF organic crunchy)
2T powdered sugar (may want a bit more if using dark chocolate)
1/2c coarsely crushed pretzels (I used TJ's Multi Grain Pretzel Nuggets)
sea salt, to taste (I used a good pinch)
4oz chocolate, your choice milk or dark (I used a 70% dark chocolate)*

*You may need more of this depending on the size of your eggs and how thick your coating is, but I found this to be enough.

Add peanut butter, powdered sugar, pretzels and salt to a medium bowl or tupperware container.  Mix well, then taste and add more sugar if it's not sweet enough for you or more salt.  Cover well and refrigerate overnight (or a few hours) until mixture has hardened.

Form rounded tablespoon-fulls of peanut butter mixture into oval (egg) shapes and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Place formed eggs in refrigerate while you melt the chocolate.

Coarsely chop chocolate and place into a small bowl.  Set the bowl over a small saucepan with a bit of simmering water.  Allow the chocolate to melt, and stir to make sure it is smooth.

When you're ready, dip your peanut butter eggs in the chocolate.  I used two forks for this, turning the eggs over to make sure they're well coated in chocolate before returning them to the parchment lined cookie sheet.  Repeat with remaining eggs, melting more chocolate if you're running low.  My apartment was too warm to set the eggs (why did they turn on the heat again??  boo), so I popped them back in the refrigerator to harden.

Feel free to trim off any chocolate edges or drips from the sides of the eggs with a sharp knife if you like!  I need to keep mine stored in the fridge, but (again) that might be a function of my apartment.


Edited to add:  If you want these to keep these at room temperature, it's probably better to temper the chocolate, as Megan suggested in the comments.  Try these links from Dave Lebovitz and Serious Eats for the way I learned to temper chocolate...  and apparently forgot :)



Are you making any treats this weekend (Easter or otherwise)??

Wombatgram #18 - The Dumping Olympics

No reason not to make rejection a form of sport, right?



Click on Wombatgram for bigger version.




Bottoms Up, Athletes.

Changes, Not the David Bowie Kind.

Leena Huff from here.

Awesome though female liberation is, it has a few kinks. (No, not those kind of kinks you Ponyplay/S&M/Doctor&Nurse/PublicSex/Latex/Goretex/Wrapping/Bondage/Lingerie/Swinging devotees, you.)

Kinks that spring to mind are the kind which lead to misunderstandings. Mostly they're misunderstandings of intention, along these lines:

He's cute and I like him. Why won't he fuck me?

Right, let us begin.

1. He might want to fuck you, but just not right now. No reason.

2. He might want to fuck you, but wants to make sure...of something he might not be able to articulate.

3. He might want to fuck you, but wants you to stop being the aggressor so he can do it his way.

4. He might want to fuck you but just has a lot on his mind right about now.

5. He might want to fuck you, but needs time to work out something you know nothing about.

6. He might want to fuck you, but wants to tell you something first.

7. He might want to fuck you, but wants to make sure it doesn't stop at one.

8. He might want to fuck you, but within the confines of some kind of commitment.

And so on.

Or he might NOT want to fuck you, but can't bring himself to say the words. No man wants to say:

I don't know why, but I cannot fuck you.

Nothing good ever comes from that statement.






Bottoms Up, Kinksters.

PPB Burritos

If you follow me on twitter, you may have already caught this idea.  In case you missed it, I wanted to share :)

There was a little place two blocks from my apartment in Philly where I discovered this little gem of a burrito. Slow cooked pork, fried sweet plantains, and black beans in a warm tortilla blanket. 

PPB Burritos
inspired by Pico de Gallo

Not so much a recipe, but how I recreated these at home.  Crunched for time, I took all the shortcuts- bottled BBQ sauce, frozen sweet plantains and canned black beans.  Feel free to use homemade versions to take it up a notch!

Pulled Pork (or chicken, or tofu):  I used pork tenderloin done in the slow cooker, the pulled and tossed with BBQ sauce (bottled or your own)
Sweet Plantains:  I used Goya's from the frozen section, cooked according to package directions (but you can make these with ripe, black plantains)
Black Beans:  I used canned, but if you have the time feel free to use some you've soaked and cooked up yourself
Whole Wheat tortillas

Now, make an assembly line and make your burritos!  Warm the tortillas to make them a little more pliable (15sec in a wet paper towel in the microwave should do the trick).  Then add some beans, pulled pork, and top with plantains.  Do the burrito fold, wrap them in foil, and you'll have them ready to take to work :)  To reheat the burritos, I used my toaster oven at work, set to 350 for probably 15min, but you can also use a microwave.

(For 4 burritos I used 10oz pork tenderloin, 1 pkg sweet plantains, 1 can of beans.  Feel free to play around with proportions!)

Are you a fan of sweet plantains?  Definitely underutilized in my kitchen, they're delicious!!  And I bet they'd be a bit healthier if I made them myself...

Cavatappi with Peas and Dates

I've been using a lot of short pasta lately for these emergency meals. A confluence of circumstances make it so we have hardly any ingredients in the house, yet I have to make dinner nightly. I'm working most of the time so I don't have time to go shopping, and we're leaving town on Sunday for a week and I don't want to risk a bunch of fixings going bad while we're gone. As a result, I'm using dry goods, canned vegetables and whatever fresh ingredients I have left to consume before we leave town. Yadda yadda long story short, we're out of long pasta.

I've never been much of a fan of tomato paste as a base for pasta sauce. It tends to remind me of the heavy, wet red gravy served at suburban Mama Mia! Free Giant Garlic Bread! Meatballs As Big As Your Head! All You Can Eat Calamari! Half Price Pitchers On Mondays! Try Our Zucchini Poppers! Famous Tiramisu! Italian Restaurant! I cannot abide restaurants of this type. They debase our palates and insult our ancestors with watery matter piled in mountainous heaps and buried under granulated Kraft Foods "Parmesan." Screw this school lunch bullshit and get it the fuck away from me. Tomato paste is where that debasement and insult starts.

Still, we had no tomatoes left, and I needed to make something. I decided to make a very light sauce to bind some peas and diced dates to the pasta, and enrichen it with some tomato paste, but not enough to give me Mama Mia! douche-chills. I looked in the pantry for some herbs or spices to shift the sauce out of the suburbs and had to stop myself from grabbing the dried oregano. If any flavor combination defines pedestrian "Italian! American!" cooking, it's dried oregano and tomato paste. I settled on some cardamom seeds, which have a weird petrochemical/insecticide aroma that I love, and cannot associate with Mama Mia! After starting the sauce with some olive oil, diced onion, ginger and garlic, I added less than a tablespoon of the paste and let it caramelize with the onions. I incorporated about a half-teaspoon of honey at the beginning of cooking to induce a little color during caramelization. By cooking the paste dry I hoped to make the flavor a little less trivial. The dates were a substitute for bacon, since we had no mammal meats left in the house. They have a meaty body and a dark sweetness and mouth feel reminiscent of pork fat. I added the dates just before the pasta, so the date sugar didn't leach out too much and the pieces would retain their texture.

The pasta went in a little underdone with a ladle of the boiling water, and with a few minutes of high heat, the sauce coated the cavatappi nicely without hanging out in a puddle. I decorated the pasta with olives, pumpkin seeds and grated parmigiano. Good thing we have a lot of pumpkin seeds or I'd be sprinkling the pasta with pennies or cigarette butts or something. (vg, v without honey or cheese)

Cubism and Surrealism in Dating

Brooke Langton's pic from her website.

Hi. My name is Wombat, and I'm powerless. I'm addicted to women.

Group replies, together, out of synch, mumbled:

Hi Wombat.


I believe that we choose nearly all our behaviours, with some obvious exceptions. The mating imperative is one area in which we're strongly coded for irrationality, stories of which we could all relate. Over time our genetics over-ride any kind of logic or abstract higher-brain function, but not without a fight, and not in every case.

An example in my own life is that of two extremes created entirely in my imagination. If I encounter a woman I think is attractive, my head goes one of two ways: I'll either think she's so far out of my league that I won't bother approaching her OR I'll immediately imagine us together as a couple and how that would look and feel.

Both reactions are illogical, both reactions are destructive.

The mental tussle arises because of those competing priorities we all keep upstairs. There's that deep-seated reproductive urge fighting with all the cultural curlicues created higher up in the brain, the latter of which are so often ephemeral, tied up with ego and snippets of half-learned mind-junk.

Back to basics for me. All I can control is my own thinking, which needs to be stripped of expectation and artifice.



Hello, my name's Wombat. What's yours?




Bottoms Up, Clear-Headed Thinkers.

Disbelief

Photo of Miss Shahi from here.

I shake my head and close my eyes in disbelief at how we proceed to find partners. We go looking - actively looking - for complete strangers and give them the once-over with an eye to compatibility. We imagine, project, hope, wish, long, mask and guess our way to deciding that he or she might be a good-un, despite evidence to the contrary.

I'm criticizing me and my own behaviour, in which I can confidently assume others indulge.

From my own experience, a few words from someone familiar with dating and mating ins-and-outs would have been infinitely valuable. Parents are supposed to give us a clue about all this...a problematic concept if ever. Relationship education exists, but we need to learn earlier than the point at which, say, I would turn to self-help books or seek the advice of trusted peers.

So that's the thing - trial and error, mistakes and recovery, and hope and optimism are the three Donkeys of Dating Discovery, and 'twas ever thus.

Or is that six donkeys?




Bottoms Up, Eternal Learners.

Orzo Pesto Salad

So...  I've been in a funk lately, sorry about the lack of posting here!  Luckily I already had some dog therapy scheduled for this weekend  :)

Sampson! (cell phone pic)

A 5mi hike with the boys, cake baking (details to come), spectating, another good run, and I'm feeling more like myself.  I bit the bullet and signed up for a few tri's this season on Friday, so that helped too!  I guess that means I'm officially in training?  ;)

When I was making some lunches for last week, I recalled reading a post about an Orzo & Broccoli Pesto Salad from Heidi's new book.  I hadn't written down the recipe, but I had picked up some broccoli.  Here's what I came up with...

Orzo Pasta Salad
inspired by Heidi Swanson
serves 2

2c broccoli, cut into small florets  (this was one head for me)
1/2c whole wheat orzo, cooked
3-4T pesto (jarred or your own, I happened to have some from Italy!)
2T greek yogurt
chickpeas or smoked salmon
lemon zest (I didn't have any on hand, but this would be a great addition)

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil.  In the meantime, fill a large bowl with ice water and set aside.  Add broccoli to the boiling water, cook a couple of minutes.  Remove the broccoli and immediately plunge into the ice water (this will stop the cooking and retain the bright green color).

Add a healthy shake of salt and the orzo, cook to al dente.  Drain broccoli and cooked orzo, then transfer to a large bowl (use the same one from the ice water, emptied & dried).  Add pesto, greek yogurt, lemon zest (if using) salt and pepper.  Taste and adjust seasonings.

If desired, add 1/3c chickpeas or 1oz smoked salmon for a little extra protein.  I tried both, and I preferred the chickpeas ;)

Battle Orzo Pesto Salad

Who will be watching the Boston Marathon tomorrow?  I'll be volunteering at the 10k elite water stop after riding some of the course in the morning.  Any runners out there???  Let me know what you're wearing and I'll be sure to keep my eyes out for you :)

An Early Tell

Amber's photo from here.

I opened the car door for her. She got it, I closed it. I walked around to the other side, got in, put my seatbelt on.

Funny, she said. I pictured you in a BMW Five-series.



Oh, my. Talk about Red Flags. Had I been thinking straight, I would have said good-bye then and there.







Bottoms Up, Paragons of Hope Over Experience.

Galletti With Peas in Pepper Sauce with Tapenade

I really need to go grocery shopping. Every night Heather needs to be fed, but we have fuck all left for ingredients, so I end up making these random-element meals and hoping they aren't gross. Tonight I boiled the last of the galletti and made a tomato-free sauce of butter, onions, red pepper, peas and garlic. The sauce was rich and had a nice heat, but was a little dull and one-dimensional. I made a quick tapenade by chopping some wine-cured olives, capers and honey, and piled a little on top of the dressed pasta. I garnished with some toasted pumpkin seeds, which added a nice crunch.

I didn't have any fresh herbs, or I'd have chopped some and with a little olive oil and black pepper, might not have needed the tapenade. We're also out of olive oil. (vg)

IRL v Online Dating

Photo credit.

Serendipitously, my media maven friend Annalis Clint sent me a link to a very good article about the virtues (or not) of online dating.

I have never been a fan. If for no other reason, paid onling dating sites are a rip-off:


Marcus Frind, CEO of PlentyofFish.com, crunched the stats on his blog and found that 1 in 1,369 dates leads to marriage on Match.com. That’s $83,000 in subscription revenue for every marriage. If someone told you those odds at the beginning, would you still want to sign up? Considering the ratio of marriages to revenue, we think most people would expect a higher delivery rate.


Mr Frind is hardly a disinterested observer, but doubtless the numbers are representative.

In any case, I heartily recommend you read the article. Online dating does not work.



Late edit: In news just unearthed, it seems the online dating experience deserves a lawsuit. My, my.

LA Woman Sues Match.com




Bottoms Up, Real Lifers.

Springtime Pasta

Wow, it's been quiet over here!  I guess a couple of presentations in as many weeks can get me behind on posting ;)  The good news?  It finally feels like spring!!  To celebrate I decided that the fate of the two meyer lemons seeking refuge in my fridge were going to become pasta.

The zest of the two lemons made it into the dough and I reserved the juice for a sauce once the pasta was cooked.  The pasta came together in no time, and in under an hour I had my pasta drying so I could use it another night.  (If you want to see the awesome pasta drying rack my dad made for me, scroll to the bottom of this post)

Now, I went and made a pretty good pasta dish.  But....  there's always a 'but', no?   Well, bear with me.  I added shaved asparagus to the pasta in the last minute or so of cooking.  Once drained, this mixture was tossed with goat cheese, the reserved lemon juice, and a bit of the pasta cooking water to make a sauce.  Some sundried tomatoes and smoked salmon, and a tasty dinner was had.  But I couldn't taste the lemon :(

Moral of the story?  Sometimes simple is best, and I should've left well enough alone, dressing the meyer lemon pasta with some good olive oil, meyer lemon juice and perhaps a shaving of parmesan or grana padano.  Next time!!


Meyer Lemon Pasta
Serves 2-3

150g Italian-style 00 flour
50g white whole wheat flour
zest of two meyer lemons
generous pinch of sea salt
2 lg eggs

Mound the flours on your work surface (a granite countertop or a large wooden pastry board work well).  Make a well in the center and crack eggs into the hole.  Add a generous pinch of salt.

Beat the eggs well with a fork, then slowly begin to incorporate flour from the inside perimeter of the well into the eggs.  Once enough flour has been incorporated, knead dough until smooth and elastic.  If the dough is too dry (maybe your eggs are a little small or the mushrooms are absorbing more liquid), add water, a few drops at a time, until it is easier to knead.  If the dough is a little wet (eggs a little large, etc), add a little extra flour until the dough is not sticky.  Wrap the dough ball tightly in plastic wrap and let rest for a few minutes.

Divide the dough in half, and wrap one half back up as you work with the other.  Roll out one part of the dough on a slightly floured surface.  Fold in thirds, roll out with rolling pin.  Repeat two times.  I really wanted to get more pictures while I was doing this, but I needed another pair of hands.  To get the idea, check out this post!

Run dough through the widest setting of your pasta roller (this was a 1 on my machine), fold in thirds, and repeat twice more, almost like you were making puff pastry.  Adjust your pasta roller to the next thinnest setting and run dough through.  Continue this process until your pasta dough is nice and thin (I did this to 7 or 8), the dough will start to ripple a little bit and if it was regular dough would almost be transparent.   To finish the pasta, cut your pasta sheets into desired shapes using appropriate cutter (I chose fettucine).

At this point you can cook right away in boiling, well-salted water for a few minutes.  Or, you can dry overnight and then cook one night when you're more pressed for time!

Inquiring Minds

Evan Rachel Wood photo credit.

First dates are a stressful beast, best avoided. All very well, but unless you're already with someone or have taken a vow of celibacy, skipping the Big Number One is impossible.

Oh, we could try some word-play, by calling it "meeting for coffee" or "getting together for a cocktail" but we all know a first date by any name is still a first date: in essence, it's a job interview.

Separating the first date from merely meeting someone is the unspoken fact that sex is on the table. Perhaps not immediately, but at some point, both parties are sizing up the other as not only a potential day-to-day partner, but a sexual partner as well. Let's say that if sex isn't on the table, it's certainly lurking under the table.

Subtext. Sex is the subtext on all first dates. Which is a pity, because we all know that thinking about sex - even peripherally - leads to dumbing down the rest of our thought process. When Mr Penis or Misses Ovaries take over, deep thought is deep-sixed. That's my experience.

In any case, I'm trying to re-formulate the First Date, thinking of ways to make it less charged, and more like two people spending time in new company. If you have any ideas about the kind of questions you would like to ask, or would like asked of you on such a date, I'd be keen to know.

How can we connect and communicate better?





Bottoms Up, Thinkers.

Tomato Ditalini Soup and Toasted Cheese Sandwich Soldiers

I love tomato soup. I made this, like virtually all meals lately, after midnight when Heather reminded me that neither of us has had dinner. I chopped a small sweet onion and softened it in a heap of butter in a heavy pot along with a couple mashed cloves of garlic and about a tablespoon of grated fresh ginger. Once the onions were soft, I added some rice flour to make a sort of roux and about a teaspoon of dried Mexican oregano, crushed. When that had cooked a tad, I threw in four plum tomatoes and a canned chipotle pepper, cut into 1/2-inch dice. I let them all cook until just shy of drying out, then added a can of whole peeled tomoatoes, a tablespoon each of Worcester sauce and thai fish sauce and about a pint of chicken stock. When it all came up to a boil, I  buzzed it with a stick blender.

How did people make soup before stick blenders? They are the absolute stone cold nuts. You can fuck up a soup real bad and a stick blender will totally make it presentable. Having a stick blender is like a cheat code for Call Of Duty: Soup.

When the soup was fantastic, I added about a cup of ditalini pasta, which are the little tube segments about the size of a pencil eraser and brought it back to a boil. The ditalini add a nice toothiness to the soup and the pasta texture goes nicely with the butter. Ten more minutes on the simmer and boom, great soup.

Made a couple cheese sandwiches on Italian bread in the toaster sandwich basket and cut them into little dunkable sticks. I didn't dress the sandwich with olive oil as I do sometimes because we were out of olive oil. Note to self: get more olive oil. A little grated parmigiano on top and my reputation was safe. (vg without fish sauce, v also substitute oil for butter and no cheese) 

Intel Inside

Photo credit.

Being a bloke I sometimes feel that I'm a molecular computer running a software loop that goes something like this:

hips pussy skin smell belly round soft bumfluff warm breast curve nipple reaction breath sweet wanting heartrate arch desire wanting touch lips quiver...

...and so on for ever and ever and ever until I think I'm gonna burst.

In the most literal way this is a BASIC male program, pretty much always running in the background. Yes, that was a computer joke. This least subtle of routines loads when we wake up in the morning, and is only shut down when we go to sleep. And sometimes not even then if my recent dreams are any guide.

If we are just a mushy biological processor, we run all kinds of weird and sometimes incompatible software. For instance, there's the code that allows us to blog about the fact of the many disparate inputs to attraction and sex, which is a pretty high-level thing. Then there is the code that compels (dudes) to hip thrust and ejaculate.

No doubt which of those instructions to the CPU has precedence.

Anyway.

Did I tell you that my current fascination with the female form is hips? Goddam, they're good.




Bottoms Up, Hipsters.

Potato Tomato Galletti

Tonight's pasta was an exercise in making food out of nothing. We had a couple of tomatoes, a couple of new potatoes and some other pasta standby stuff, so it wasn't too bleak, but I didn't have anything substantial in the larder.

While the galletti were boiling I fortified some Irish butter with some olive oil, peeled and chopped the potatoes and started them cooking, a sort of half-saute, half-poaching in a significant amount of butter, along with some diced sweet onion and a couple smashed garlic cloves. When the potatoes had some color, I added a couple of chopped plum tomatoes. I like the combination of tomato and potato, but I was never able to make a decent pasta sauce that combined them until I abandoned the convention of using peeled, canned tomatoes for the sauce. Fresh tomatoes sauteed seem to hold together better, and with some black pepper, the vegetal brightness of the tomato seems to work well with the rich combination of butter and potato starch. That combination is what makes the sauce come together nicely when I add the pasta and a little pasta water. The starch from the potato and the starch leeched into the pasta water act as a thickener while the butter forms a nice emulsion. After tossing the pasta to coat it, I added some shaved parmigiano and finely chopped chives. These were not winter chives, just normal from Jewel chives. I don't think I've ever used chives on pasta before, but they have a natural affinity for both potatoes and butter, and it tasted great. (vg)

Friday Fluffer - The Over/Under

Jayne Mansfield photo credit.

My Friend Tim: So, did those girls from the tiki bar on Sunday call you?

Wombat: Yep. Vicki, the older brunette called on Monday night.

My Friend Tim: Hmmm, it's always the ugly one.

Wombat: Pity it wasn't the cute blonde.

My Friend Tim: I guess, but you don't want her either.

Wombat: No?

My Friend Tim: No, dude. Fierce overbite. You can do better.




Friends always see what we cannot, no matter how irrelevant.





Bottoms Up, Friends.

Hominy!

Out of curiosity, I purchased two cans of hominy and they've sat in my pantry for...  well, I don't want to admit how long ;)  Hominy, it turns out, is maize (corn) that has been alkali-treated to remove the hull and germ.  When dried and ground into a flour, it is the basis of masa harina (think corn tortillas).

white hominy (Image Source)

I made two recipes, and enjoyed the different texture hominy added to the stews.  I'd throw it in every once in awhile to mix things up, but to be honest I'd probably throw some quinoa in there next time or make some cornbread ;)  They were solid recipes though, so if you're looking to try it out these would be a good place to start.

Green Chile Pork Posole

The first recipe was a Green Chile Pork Posole from Bon Appetit (recipe here).  My only change was to use a jar of tomatillo salsa instead of fresh tomatillos (couldn't find them at the store).  The second was a Turkey & Hominy Chipotle Chili from the NYTimes (found here).

Turkey & Hominy Chipotle Chili

Have you ever tried hominy?  I'm thinking Joanne has the right idea with her hominy puree, maybe I'll have to give it one more shot!

Plan B Croquettes and Green Goddess

Heather was hungry, and I had some chicken thighs in the fridge. Chicken these days isn't that tasty unless you get an expensive artisanal hand-raised bird, but in a pinch, I'll use supermarket chicken thighs, the only part of a modern commercial bird that still tastes like a chicken. Thighs are a nice balance of meat, skin and fat, and the knuckle of bone in there is why they have better flavor. Normally I like to brine chicken overnight before cooking it to improve the flavor, but there was no time for that. I put the oil on to heat and made a breading by mixing a little smoked paprika and vindaloo curry powder into rice flour and cornmeal, and added a little shredded coconut, which goes nicely with curry. I made an egg wash to dunk the chicken and bind the breading with a couple of eggs, Siracha, Worcestershire sauce and minced garlic. I set-up a breading station on the countertop and went to retrieve the chicken. Unfortunately the chicken was still frozen. I had moved it to the fridge from the freezer the day before, but it was still rock hard.

With the oil already getting hot I needed a plan B, so I decided to make croquettes. I quickly chopped some ham, salami, prosciutto, onion and parmigiano and loaded it into the food processor. I pulsed it dry for a while, then added the flavored egg wash and pulsed it to incorporate. I turned the mixture into a bowl, and added enough of the breading mix to give the croquette some body, then formed balls, dredged them in the coconut breading and fried them. The coconut darkened more than I would have liked, but otherwise they came out okay and tasted pretty good. If I hadn't started out on a chicken trajectory I would have put more thought into the croquettes, probably processing the meat finer and adding cream, yogurt, ricotta or another enrichening element, but for an emergency plan B they were fine.

They needed a sauce, but I didn't have anything prepared, so I made a mock-green-goddess dressing with some mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, honey and chopped parsley and cilantro. I would have liked to include some tarragon, mint or basil, but I didn't have any. The dressing was okay if a little bland, but it kept the croquettes from being too dry, which was its main purpose anyway.

Grapeshot of Wrath

Women dumbfound me in all kinds of ways, but the one way to completely flummox me is to get angry. Behind every pissed-off woman is a fearful and clueless man. That would be me.

Anger is one emotion that highlights the power a woman can wield over a man, should she so choose. Get wild-eyed and emotional, and your man will do anything to make it go away.

Now this might strike you as being counter to type. You know, blokes are supposed to be the violent ones - we make war, we play bone-breaking games, we kill to eat. While we're out being destructive, women are at home being nurturing, compassionate and seeeeeeeensitive, right?

That's right as far as it goes. But there's a difference between violence and temper. One can be violent without emotion. Civilization is in part the history of men creating rules and conventions that channel and codify our inbuilt aggression. Boxing us in like that prevents us committing dopey violent acts in a fit of pique, and a good thing it is. Brawls never seem as compelling the next morning.

Which is why a lot of us are unsure what to do when our beloved is shouting and being volcanic. There are no rules. There's no tribunal to consult, no referee to coolly determine who's offside and what the penalty is.

Any tips from woman on smart courses of action are welcome.




Bottoms Up, Plate Chuckers!

Penne with Plums, Bleu Cheese and Ham

Got home from poker and Heather was trapped under Bacon the cat. She could barely see her crime TV and barely get to her laptop. When she saw me her eyeballs opened wide like I was the allied army liberating her from Dachau. She was so weak she was barely able to whisper "...starving..."

Lately I've been experimenting with rich, strong flavors balanced with lighter, acidic fruit. I made a nice pasta with gorgonzola, apples, bacon and onion, and I thought plums would work in place of the apples, being similarly tart. I got water on for pasta and made a base for the sauce with some olive oil, chopped sweet onion, garlic and diced smoked ham. When all that was hot and sweating, I diced a plum and added that. I was concerned about the color running and getting muddy, but the plums basically kept to themselves and caramelized nicely. When the pasta was still a little firm I transferred it to the skillet with the sauce ingredients, along with about a third of a cup of the pasta water, which helps to bring the sauce together. I could have used a little white wine or stock, but the ham, garlic and bleu cheese were such strong  flavors that to have any hope of tasting the plum I should avoid any more complicating elements. I cooked the pasta in the sauce for another few minutes, and once I added the pasta water the plum color did start to run a little, which may explain why people don't use plums in pasta that often. When the pasta water was mostly absorbed, I added the bleu cheese and tossed it until it softened and became partly incorporated as a sauce.

I plated the pasta and dressed it with some chopped parsley, toasted pumpkin seeds and a coddled egg yolk. I put an egg in with the pasta for the last few minutes of cooking. I did that because the eggs were in the refrigerator, but if I had a room-temperature egg I may have just floated the yolk on the pasta and let the residual heat denature it a little. I like using egg yolk to help bind a sauce that has chunky elements like the ham and plum dice in this one. A little snowfall of parmigiano was the last bit of business before I served it to Heather.

The reviews were unfortunately focused on the toothiness of the pasta, which was apparently a little too firm. Prior to tasting the pasta, one of the customers reported "hating" it, while another said "you know I hate raw pasta all I can taste is raw pasta," but the harshest comment was "Why did you make pasta I can't eat? You should have tested it." There were a few other comments, and possibly even some returned after trying the pasta, but unfortunately I missed them as I had left the room to watch Baseball Tonight on TiVo.

[edit] Late-returning reviews were much better. Flattering even.

One Fine Day

Photo of Rosemary DeWitt from her website.

The downside to singledom is not knowing if you'll ever meet anyone. The upside is that you will. Or at least you might.

Aphorisms abound:


...you will find someone when the time is right...


...someone will pop into your life when you least expect...


...act like you don't care, and you'll find the person who will...


etcetera.

Trouble is that none of this advice helps with the actual meeting of new people, the lifeblood of we on-our-owners.

Given that finding people takes actual effort - as opposed to sitting on your duff and scrolling through yet another dating website - it helps to reframe the argument, viz:

Being single isn't about being without; it's a hike through interesting countryside, sometimes barren, sometimes lush, sometimes completely unremarkable. But one day the most wonderful vista will open up, and you'll want to stay.





Yeah, I know. Pathetic, eh?




Bottoms Up, Searchers.

Special Ramen for Late Dinner

We had a fantastic dinner at the Midytte - Hunter house, ribs done in the bourgeois style Tim has been experimenting with, smoke-braised in the barbecue with a fantastic rub, served with baked potatoes dressed with sour cream and winter chives and some delicious spinach, finishing off with excellent espresso and homemade berry-citrus ice cream. We then came home and did nothing for the rest of the evening, which made Heather hungry. Knowing I can't compete with the ribs she politely asked for 

special ramen. Special ramen is regular four-for-a-buck ramen noodles with the broth dolled up a little. While th noodles are cooking, I fortify the broth with some soy, thai fish sauce and vegetable boullion. In the bowl, I beat an egg yolk with a little Siracha, vinegar, minced garlic and sesame oil. When the noodles are done, I drizzle the soup into the egg, beating it to incorporate it. This is where it sometimes goes wrong and the egg curdles into a sort of stracciatella, but last night it worked fine and the broth just got slightly thicker. The egg has the effect of holding the flavors in suspension in your mouth so they linger a little longer, particularly the garlic and sesame, and combined with the fish sauce and soy, gives the soup a nice umame quality. I loaded the noodles in and chopped some fresh ginger, parsley and cilantro for a garnish and the soup made its way into Heather. If I'd had some scallions or winter chives, they would have been cut very fine and scattered on there too. Heather uses a fork for ramen, which I find really awkward so I use takeout chopsticks, but I used to have a couple sets of nice Japanese hashi that were perfect. I lose everything don't I. I wish I didn't lose everything little and cool.

I've had magical ramen in Japan, and pretty good ramen in the US at a few specialty shops and Japanese markets, so I know this is not legit ramen, but I've always liked the way a couple of extra ingredients and five minutes can make even pre-packaged bachelor fodder like this into something tasty. Tonight I'm playing poker until pretty late, but when I get home I could make another one of these in a few minutes. (vg without fish sauce, v without egg)