Bits and Pieces

[fredericks]

thefridayfive
1.Given a choice, and imagining that money and time were no object, would you rather cook dinner, eat out or order in?
2.What is the most elaborate meal you've ever prepared yourself or purchased at a restaurant?
3.What food do you find yourself making and/or eating way too much?
4.What was your most disastrous cooking/eating out experience?
5.Would you rather cook for someone else or have them cook for you?

1. Given a choice I would much rather cook dinner. I enjoy cooking. In my opinion, it's an activity that calls for creativity and grace. For me there's is no greater pleasure than to sit down with a meal that started out as raw ingredients in my hands a couple of hours prior. I've never wanted to cook professionally, but I've wanted to take culinary classes for a good long while now. I keep hoping someone purchases some classes for me at a local culinary institute for birthday/Christmas, but I suppose I have to be explicit about these things.

2. "Elaborate"? Time intensive might be more applicable, as form isn't as important to our family eating experience. Last Thanksgiving mom was in the middle of a breakdown so I prepared our entire meal by myself. I didn't go fancy, although as the fanciest thing I usually do is Chicken Kiev, but it took a helluva lot of effort. Also, my favorite meal experience to date - I made dinner for a couple of friends up at school on my 23rd b-day. I prepared my favorite meal: dahl, curry chicken, basmati rice, and peppery tomato and cucumber salad. Rather bungled the dahl, but it was fun to call home and ask mom what I was doing wrong.

3. We're a rice and beans family. I think it's a typical cuisine type for those from the Caribbean islands closer to the South American mainland. Most meals consist of rice, beans, some sort of chicken/meat, and "provisions" (casava, sweet potatoes, plaintain, spanish yam, things of that nature). Our diet is lots of carbs, lots of protein. Too much, on the occasion.

4. To be honest, I've never had to live through a "disastrous" eating experience. I guess the only thing that might fit the bill was Thanksgiving 17 years ago, where my grandmother's gas oven blew and burned mom's face a bit. It wasn't serious - 1st degree, some periphery skin loss and discoloration, short stint at the ER - but noteworthy because she was eight months pregnant at the time.

5. I'd rather cook for someone. Growing up in this household has taught me cooking for people = love (we aren't a vocal lot, you see, so you express it where you can). If I offer to cook for you chances are I've spent time writing your name in my notebook and drawing hearts around it. 'Sides, I just enjoy it. Of course, cooking *with* someone can be just as fun if you're both on the same page.

*
Stake out a piece of the leaf. Neil Gaiman has a short story collection coming out, and in anticipation there's this piece of randomness. Go on over, click on a square, and post a bon mot. I spent a little time going through reading what people had put up; it's fun.
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Have I mentioned how amazingly awesome Guitar Hero is in my journal? I mean, awesome. I love getting my brothers into various bits of rock music. It's *such* a kick to hear the youngest one sing along to More Than A Feeling. You wield that fake guitar, strum along, nail some killer passages, and you feel ready to pick up a real one. I've also taken a shine to two of the songs in the game. One is Hey by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives. The closest group I can compare them to is They Might Be Giants (chip off the old block, even), but the music is fun and, dammit, I want to buy their CD. The other group is Graveyard BBQ. Having listened to their Myspace offering the only song of theirs I'm fond of is the one from the game, Cheat on the Church (clicking on the link leads to a page that cues the song automatically). Very fun to play.
/pimpage
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The new Entertainment Weekly features BSG, which is a big plus. Of course, in typical EW fashion the article is laced with spoilers. I mean, frak! And God forbid you try to avoid the spoilers in the actual words, the pics they choose to use are spoilers as well. Publicity for the show is definitely needed but stop hitting me over the head with shit I want to avoid, EW. All the time with that bloody magazine. They need a good talking to.
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TNT's been playing Kill Bill 1 & 2. I'm remembering how much I loved those movies, over-the-top dialogue, stealing (homage?), and all.

Comments

[xioley.livejournal.com]

1. My answer to this one would pretty much be identical to yours--except that occassionally I would want to eat out, mainly for the service and decadence of it.

2. I once had a six-course prix-fix tasting menu dinner at a very nice restaurant--it would have been about $150 or $200, but Dan won a 'free' dinner (we still had to cough up about $40 each for tax, tip, coffee--which was $6!!! by itself!, and the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu). The meal included (not in order) a 'Japanese breakfast', scallop stew, orange roughy with some kind of veggies, cornish hen stuffed with foie gras and more veggies, a sherbert, and some pastries.

3. At the moment, at home, I have about six kinds of cheeses (grated parmesan, chive cream cheese, regular cream cheese, some kind of high-quality non-brie--but some similar type cheese for serving with bread and crackers, fresh mozzarella, and sliced cheeses for sandwiches). And tomatoes in four forms (roma tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, pizza sauce, and marinara sauce).

4. Once when I was making potato soup, the blender kind of exploded. That was SO MUCH FUN to clean up.

5. I love cooking for others!

Tonight, I'm doing a really simple dinner of brown rice and caprese salad.

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

What's a "Japanese breakfast"? I'm curious.
And how does foie gras taste? I always assumed it'd taste like chicken liver only with more fat and a consistency like cheese spread, and as that's not exactly appealling to me I've given it a pass.

*grin* I find it funny you consider cream cheese to be an actual cheese.

[1x2foralways.livejournal.com]

Nice answers to the Friday Five. :)

OMG Guitar Hero! I've been meaning to get my hands on that for the longest time, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it or not. Now I know. :)

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

DUDE! Totally worth it. It's so much fun. When you play you notice your improvement, which is so very amazing.

[brooklynknight.livejournal.com]

EXECELLENT! *air Guitar*