Smoreboard

I got extremely hungry just looking at my keyboard after seeing this for the first time. I'm afraid of wot I may do in my sleep, accidentally. On the bright side, there is food in the fridge (because I'm back in the Motherland, as opposed to at home in New York where the only food seems to be week old leftovers, some bell peppers, and healthy cereal), so if I'm really desperate, I could slink in and get me a 4am snack.

TARDIScake

I've finally gotten a new computer, to replace my apparently completely dead and not restorable Loveburger, but other than downloading google chrome on it, I haven't been able to bring myself to use it consistently. I know, I'm being really stupid, but it's weird using a computer when all the information/pictures/documents that I've owned since middle school is not on it. It's on the external hardrive which was (thankfully) used to extract Loveburger's memory before he was put to rest, but that's not with me at the moment so I can't transfer everything. I get weirdly nostalgic in the most ridiculous ways, I can't help it.

But as soon as that harddrive is in my possesion, and that information has been put onto my new computer (which I'vd decided to name Loveburger...officially the fourth, if the Doctor can do it, so can I), I'll feel much better.

On to the title of the post, this wonderful, delicious looking thing I've found on tumblr today.

Source: xannakidd.tumblr.com

Food: A Love Story

You know wot really ties things together? A coconut milk based sauce to drizzle over the chicken and rice. It's times like these that I wished I could plate nicely, so that I would actually want to take a picture of my glorious concoction and post it up for all few to see. My moon has this magnificent ability (mashallah) to plate things so that the colours and smells coexist on the plate in perfect harmony. I tend to just put things on the plate and go at it, my method lacks a bit of artistry necessary for it to look good and photogenic.
          In the meantime, you'll just have to take my word for it when I say it came out delicious. The chicken was marinated just long enough, so that yoghurt wasn't too overpowering, and the last minute sauce added the ingredient that made the two elements of the dish work. I used to want to be a chef, work in a restaurant....just make food. I love cooking because I feel like it combines so many things into one room. It's art and math and science. You have to invoke so many different sense and so many different parts of your brain to make the dish come out right. You need to know when to be creative and eyeball it, and when to be precise with the measurements. You need to trust your instincts, rely on the smell and taste and look of the food to tell you when it's done, when the spice you've added is enough. You need to know when to let loose, and when to reign in the temptation to experiment.
          There's beauty and precision and life in cooking. It allows you to connect with so many cultures, both past and present, simply with an addition of an ingredient or two, or with a slight change in method of cooking.
It's history and tribute and therapy.

Foodstuff and Dreaming Big

So the chicken is baking in the oven...as is the rice. I decided to get a little creative with the rice, instead of just boiling it in water/salt and serving plane basmati rice, I took half of the marinated chicken and fried it with some onions/garlic/cilantro, added water and then added the rice to that before putting it in the oven. Hopefully this way the rice will get some flavouring off the marinade and the chicken that's cooking with it.
          The rest of the chicken I just put in a foiled lined baking dish with some roughly chopped garlic and onion and some olive oil. I want to add some broccoli and cauliflower florets in the last 10 minutes or so of the chicken's baking time so I feel less bad about the lack of vegetables in my dish so that they don't over cook.
          I've finished with my reading! I think I'm going to go through the regular class readings and see if there's anything else interesting/helpful that I could possibly use, but at least my low-standards/pathetic goal of the day has been accomplished. Next accomplishment? Typing out the quotes.
DREAM BIG!

Unnecessary update on my doings

I love food. Naturally, that means I love to cook (stay with me here) which meant that, if I actually wanted to engage in the physical activity of the thing I love to do, I would need groceries.
Problem: I'm also really lazy.
Solution: Fresh Direct!
          I don't know why I haven't tried Fresh Direct sooner, but it is a magnificent creation that might make the people of this world all the more obese, but makes the stoners and sloths of this world ecstatic, and that's wot counts in the end. Because of the amazingness of Fresh Direct, I was able to put some boneless chicken breasts into a mixture of yoghurt, coconut milk, cilantro, lemongrass, lemon juice, onion, garlic, curry, turmeric, ginger, salt, pepper, cinnamon, olive oil, stewed tomatoes, and cayenne pepper to marinade over night. Why would I want to do that? Why to brown them on the stove and then bake them in the oven tomorrow, and to serve them with a perfectly shaped mound of parsley-garlic infused Basmati rice of course.

The Roast. I know the picture is a bit unclear, but I think the point of how delicious this will soon be comes across.

          Also, Fresh Direct means that my mate of the room and best variety was able to dry rub a roast, and have it cook in the oven with onions and garlic among other deliciousness which I'm not privy to. Not to mention the boiled corn, and blackbean salad with homemade blackberry vinaigrette. It smells absolutely fantastic in this apartment.

Häagen-Dazs

So despite my desperate need for Coke causing me to trek down to Duane Read at 2 am (another reason I can't see myself leaving this city, how will I be able to be a fiend at all hours of the night if there's no where to go and be said fiend?) I never actually drank any when I got home.

Instead I indulged in a Haagen-Dazs vanilla and almond bar and some vitamin water. Clearly I'm a rebel.

I also happen to be a slave to my impulses and desires.

          Still, I think I deserved it. After all I wrote a fairly decent, nauseatingly academic paper about the concept of order and disorder in Ancient Egypt and how their idea of the nonexistent worked within the framework of the society on both a cosmological and socio-political level. Now we just have to see wot Professor Sean Connery thinks about it.
          Not that it makes it any less delicious, but anyone else feel cheated when they found out/were told that Haagen-Dazs is actually just an American company and not Dutch or German or something? I mean, your ice cream is good as it is and should be able to speak for itself, why do you need to pretend to be foreign to get it sold?

And this is why I never considered going into marketing or advertising.

Cake or Death?

You know wot's absolutely, borderline orgasmic-ly delicious? German chocolate cake and a glass of cold milk. Which is wot I happen to be having right now. Even the combination of textures, is mind-blowing: the smoothness of the cake itself, the crunch of the walnuts in the frosting, the chewiness of the coconut flakes. Can't get enough of it. 

Source: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg97haSPfN1qeolcio1_500.gif

Cake makes me thing of Eddie Izzard (like ya do), therefore I give you a link to Dress to Kill, cause it's awesome (and I can). It doesn't get to the 'cake or death' part till 4:47, but the whole thing is wonderful, so it's all good.

And since I fell back into How I Met Your Mother love/on a youtube spree anyway (yes, I count one youtube post as a 'spree'), I'm going to post one of my favourite scenes from HIMYM ever: Jesus & The Three Day Rule.

And, of course...because I heart Doctor Who, and Matt Smith gets sexier by the minute:

Source: www.coronacomingattractions.com