Dancing Brave

Pea Soup I Don't Hate

My mother-in-law is visiting this weekend, which has been fun -- she's very relaxing company, much like her son, so there's none of that stereotypical Monster-In-Law nonsense where she comes in and says, like, "Your hair is looking nice, considering," or, "Your house is much cleaner than I expected," or, "Kevin looks skinny -- does he not like your cooking?" Instead, I love her. She's so warm and nice. I scored in that respect.

And so, since we're taking her out to dinner for Mother's Day, I decided to cook last night. Kevin grilled on her first night here and all I had to do was steam some cauliflower, so this was my turn. For Christmas, Dad made up a little binder of some of his favorite recipes and kitchen tricks -- including three recipes for creamed spinach of varying degrees of difficulty, including "Creamed Spinach: Delicious," which reads solely, "Go to Fleming's [a steakhouse chain they love] and order some." Contained therein is a recipe he calls Smelly London Fog but which we usually refer to by its more literal title, "Cod In Pea Soup." That's what I made.

Now, I know how weird that sounds. The first time I heard about it, I envisioned whole peas and bits of fish floating around in a broth, and I gagged, because a) I don't even like peas, so the entire idea of pea soup -- especially once you slap a piece of fish into it -- sounds like fresh, green hell to me, and b) I generally hate fish, although cod and its ilk are usually fine because they don't taste like what they are. This is more like a fried piece of love in a creamy puree, the kind of meal you need more bread to enjoy because bending down and scraping your tongue against the plate isn't encouraged in polite society. Essentially, the soup is (or can be) so thick and creamy it could almost work as a dip with toasted baguette slices, and you plop a piece of breaded white fish into the middle. I almost wanted to photograph it, but I am no Grant or Carol; however, this was one of the few times where I got the plating just right, as opposed to my usual "Looks Like Crap But Tastes Good" approach to serving food, so I probably should have indulged the whim.

Here's what you do: Bring a pint of chicken stock to a boil and then -- according to my Dad's recipe -- "bung in a packet of frozen peas." When they're tender, take them off the heat and run them through a food processor. I do this in batches, by spooning out the peas bit by bit first, then slowly adding the liquid and letting the Cuisinart whir until it's relatively smooth. My Dad's recipe continues, "Because this will not work, you should then run it through a fine mesh strainer, pressing the mushy bits with the back of a ladel or whatever's handy, just to make sure all the good stuff is squeezed out." I had relative success with my Cuisinart, though. It was smooth enough; I like a bit of texture in this dish, but even so, this was fairly successfully pureed, so I skipped the strainer step and put it all straight back into the pot. Bring that to a boil, and add "as much heavy cream as you fancy" -- for me, maybe half a small carton? -- and an indeterminate amount of sherry (my Dad is apparently the Rachael Ray of our house). I can't even quantify how much I put in; I just poured a little in there, and since "a little salt and pepper wouldn't go amiss," I threw some of that in too and stirred it up, and then kept it simmering until everything else was ready.

I sprinkled some sesame seeds onto the baking sheet that goes with my toaster oven and prepared to toast them -- if you do this step, either do it way in advance or do it right at the end because they only take a minute or a minute and a half. Also, watch them, because they go from blonde to black in almost no time. We went through four tries before they were golden brown. Start small and keep toasting in tiny increments (you could do this in your oven, too, obviously) until you catch them right when they're caramel-colored. It's hard. Kevin had to devote almost all his energies just to completing this step. There was much cursing. If you do multiple attempts, like we did, remember that the hot pan contributes to them toasting even faster each successive time. It took us two batches to realize that.

Anyway: I dredged three 5-ounce pieces of halibut (cod or sea bass, or any flaky white fish, would work too and the recipe originally DOES call for cod, but they all are delicious with it) in egg wash, flour, egg wash again, and then breadcrumbs. I heated a bit of oil in a pan that I spritzed with Pam for good measure, then fried the fish for about seven minutes total, with the soup still simmering next to it. To plate, I spooned the soup into a shallow pasta bowl, placed the fish on top of it, sprinkled some toasted sesame seeds, and then added a drizzle of sesame oil because the recipe promised me it would "look like you really know what you're doing."

DELISH. If you're still sitting there feeling skeptical, trust me, I know where you're coming from, but you're wrong. I can't impress upon you how much I hate all the green vegetables that are the best for me (broccoli, peas, etc), and yet this dish is GOOD. It's also really hard to screw up, because you can just add more cream and a drizzle more sesame oil and nobody will notice anything else. But boiling the peas in chicken stock gives them a nice richness of flavor that is far less gross than I imagine when I envision eating a spoonful of them in their regular form. Now, if only someone would discover that cream is magically heart-healthy and not at all fattening, I would eat this all the time.

We also played some Scrabble, went to the Getty, and watched The Departed. I thought it was only okay -- without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, some of the cat-and-mouse stuff was all right, but I thought the storyline with the girl was kind of dumb, was a bit bored by what I felt was lazy dialogue (it felt like, "When in doubt, use the c-word, or the f-word, or better, BOTH!"), and got distracted by the bits on which the story hangs that involve really unrealistic text-messaging during times of crisis. I mean, I'm pretty sure that Jack Nicholson would NOTICE that the dude in his backseat is shifty-eyed and punching words into his phone when he's not supposed to be. I also thought Jack Nicholson was sort of terrible. I know he was a good actor in his day -- I've seen Chinatown and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, so I get that Jack Of Yore had skills -- but that doesn't mean I have to like him NOW. It doesn't give him a pass, so I have to admit it: I'm sick of his schtick, and "schtick" is really what it's starting to feel like. He's approaching Pacino levels of intolerable for me. Okay, not QUITE that bad -- I REALLY think Pacino is drastically overrated at this point in his career -- but seriously, I was never able to buy the menace in Nicholson's character because half the time his scenes were so overplayed. And the last shot of the movie was a tiny bit on-the-nose for me. I didn't hate it, definitely didn't love it, don't really need to see it again, and got bored when we hit the two-hour mark and it was still going.

Of course, I freely admit I am not the arbiter of taste when it comes to movies. More and more, I like to be idly amused or emotionally engaged in a weepy way, maybe even both at once, so this kind of film is almost never going to satisfy me completely, although I did WANT to like it. Oh well. So that we have full disclosure, I almost cried at P.S. I Love You when I saw it on a plane -- although I know it's not a good movie either, the soundtrack is great, and all I could do was sit there and think how totally screwed and depressed and inconsolable and inert I would be if anything tragic happens to Kevin. Hence, the tears. But the fact remains I was, at least on some level, more moved by that than I was by The Departed. You may revoke my membership to the human race now, if you like. I guess right now, for whatever reason, I don't dig Films With A Capital F as much as I do regular old movies. So while y'all are partaking in Things Of Quality, I will be watching Center Stage reruns on Oxygen while I slather myself in pea soup.

Pfeffernuesse

Because someone requested it, here is the recipe from Cooking Light that I followed for these cookies. Granted, I don't know what they're supposed to taste like, but I rather liked this incarnation and knowing it happened to be "light" didn't hurt. I'm sure it's possible to heavy it up if you so desire. Anyway, since I don't know if you can get the recipes online without being a subscriber, here goes, with all attributions being to Cooking Light, which is so often my culinary Bible because, well, I'm not that advanced.

Pfeffernuesse
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (about 3 1/3 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 cup butter, softened
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 large egg white
1/4 ground hazelnuts
1 tablespoon powdered sugar

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cloves, stirring well with a whisk. [I gave it an extra shake or three of cinnamon, an extra shake of nutmeg, and an extra pinch of cloves. Because I am THAT RECKLESS.]

3) Place butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar into a large bowl; beat until well-blended, about 4 minutes. [If you are like me and you get to this part and realize, "Crap, I didn't soften the butter," I had success unwrapping it and putting it in the microwave for 5 and 10 second intervals on power levels 2 and 1 until it softened up but had not begun to melt; I then cut it into pats and dropped them all into the bowl and let it beat nonstop for the 4 minutes on the 2 setting on my KitchenAid and it creamed the butter and sugar together nicely.]

4) Add the water and the egg white to the butter/sugar mix and beat well. Then add flour mixture and nuts [which I bought sliced and ground, bit by bit, in my tiny Cuisinart; grinding them all at once leaves too many big chunks] and beat on low speed until just blended.

5) Spoon batter evenly into 18 mounds (about 2 teaspoons each) 2 inches apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. [I used my Crate & Barrel version of a Sil-Pat and mistakenly did tablespoons at first, thankfully realizing my mistake when I could only fit six or so on the sheet; with the teaspoons I did indeed get about 18 or 19 cookies, which I baked in two batches of 12 and 6 or 7.]

6) Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or until lightly browned and almost set. Cool on pans 2 mins. Remove from pans; cool completely on wire rack. [I baked them this exact amount and took them right out, but didn't cool on the sheet; instead I put them on the wire rack right away, because I don't read directions. I mention this only because maybe it affected how they turned out? I don't know. Science is not my bag.]

7) Sprinkle cookies evenly with powdered sugar. [I dumped a bunch into my flour sifter and used that to dust thoroughly first the bottoms and then the tops of the cookies.]

I loved how these came out -- bear in mind that I don't know how they're supposed to be, as this was my first experience with them, but they were just the right amount of soft for somebody (like me) who prefers cookies to be that way rather than crisp discs. Maybe it was putting them right on the wire rack, but I suspect it's the combo of the cooking time and my oven. It's possible my dinosaur of an oven underdid them, since it may have been around to witness the birth of Christ and therefore could be forgiven for not being entirely temperature-accurate all the time. In all, though, they're a new favorite, sweet yet kicky and not too filling.

Open Your Mouth and Close Your Eyes...

Due to a recent spate of cooking mishaps, I've decided I should create a ghetto version of Grant's wonderful food blog. Mine would be entitled, "Tastes Good With Your Eyes Closed," and instead of the lush, book-worthy images of gourmet meals that he features, it'd be full of documentation of things that make you go hmmm, but which are actually delicious -- and instead of gorgeous prep photos, it'd probably all be stuff of me looking frazzled and all the dishes I needlessly dirty when I'm cooking because I'm the least efficient chef on the planet.

See, apparently I've become a bit of an absent-minded, clumsy cook. Sometimes I'm fine, but often I either start to get in a rhythm that becomes a rush, or I just read things too quickly and miss a key sentence, or don't read the whole recipe through before beginning; this often leads to fatal mistakes. Or, I just screw up because I can. Whatever the reason, the things I make never seem to look luscious. Ever.

For instance, I made my chocolate kahlua cake for Jess's birthday, and although I've made it 100 times without incident, this time I didn't grease the pan properly and so the cake didn't come out. I had to serve it in globs. Delicious globs, mind you, but fugly ones nonetheless.

Or there was the time I made a Cooking Light recipe for a two-potato mash and tried to improvise. This is something I should almost never, ever do. Because this particular recipe is designed to be quick and easy, it calls for frozen mashed potatoes instead of regular ones, but of course my grocery store didn't have those -- and of course, it's the rarest ingredient, and yet of course I didn't look for it first so that I could abandon ship if necessary. No, I looked for it last. With a full cart and an even fuller head of steam. And of course, instead of just going and getting some potatoes and doing it the long way, I apparently decided I HAD to stick with the instant variety and actually went looking for Potato Buds instead. Never mind that I would be incapable of figuring out how many ounces of dry flakes would make 22 oz. of actual mashed potatoes.

So I made half the packet, and of course, I brain farted and accidentally put in the amount of water required for the entire box. Furious at myself, I of course decided to throw out the botched batch. And then I made the other half of the box, and all went well until I added all the other ingredients per the original recipe, without realizing that of course those proportions were assuming you cooked a 22-oz bag of spuds, and that they might be all wrong for whatever half a box of Potato Buds yields. So instead of adding cream cheese and milk by sight, I added the whole lot, and got... potato soup. OF COURSE.

"Quick, what can I use to thicken this? Corn starch? Flour? No. Damn! Oh, no!" I panicked.

"Yeah, I think... I think at this point only potatoes would thicken it," Kevin replied, trying not to laugh at me.

So I served the mashed yams with potato soup drizzled over them, instead of mashed spuds with mashed yams swirled over the top. And the salty-sweet contrast was still there, and they tasted really rather nice, but looked about as disgusting as could be. Potatoes are not meant to be runny unless you are actually eating potato soup, and even then, there's something kind of creepy about it.

My two most recent offenses were at our New Year's party. I borrowed Grant's panini maker so that I could cook make mini-grilled cheese sandwiches (basically, a regular sandwich, cut into triangular quarters). And they were all fine -- mozzarella and artichoke spread, and chedder and bacon -- except that I didn't stop to consider that the panini maker might not require that I butter the outsides of the bread. So I did that, and they came out soggy, and although they tasted just fine, they looked repulsive.

The oreo truffles came out tasty also, except that the chocolate coating pooled a bit too much at the bases of some of them, and my decision to improvise (eye-roll) by coloring the white chocolate drizzle with green or red food-coloring led to them not drizzling at all, but forming something closer to a paste. The red was basically icing; the green had more liquidity, so I had Kevin summon all his home-ec experience and make me a fake pastry funnel with wax paper so that I could decorate the truffles. These, of course, kept falling apart, and some of the chocolate would ooze back out the top. I'm not terribly artistic to begin with, either, which is why I soon gave up swirling in favor of smiley faces (one of them looked like a she-pig... not on purpose, either) and writing things like "HO" on the tops. Which of course sounds like an insult rather than a seasonal greeting -- hence the subsequent ones that said "HO x 3."

Then I went to Grant's blog, and saw that he made picture-perfect holiday truffles. Compare those to mine:

Aside from my hideous decorating efforts, particularly on the top-left truffle, the poor little smiley face is sitting on top of a river of chocolate. I didn't have a good slotted spoon to let the extra run off, so I used two forks, which worked on some, but not so well on others.

Pardon the quality of the photo. I'm too lazy to take another one without the flash, but this one does show the sheer enormity of the poor little candy's malformed chocolate pedestal.

And yet, guess what? They tasted fine. Nice and rich. I suppose that's the important part, but it's nonetheless maddening that I can't get them to look slick.

Mmmmm

It's just come to my attention that the M&M might be the world's most perfect food.

Aside from the mighty potato, that is. But I just popped an M&M into my mouth and although the subsequent rapidly consumed handfuls might now be making me a tad ill, that first burst of pure chocolate was so effing good that I almost announced its excellence out loud.

Instead I'm coming here to write about it like it's my secret, illicit passion. And it IS kind of illicit when you consider that I have a dress to fit into, and that in January TheKnot.com wanted me to start taking better care of myself, which I have not done in any sense and we are now knocking on March's front door. Oops.

My initial point is still good, though. M&Ms rule.

Well Fed Indeed

I love cooking, but reading my friend Grant's blog, Well Fed, makes me want to do it way more often than I've had time to lately.

It also makes me want to take pretty pictures of things I'm making, but a) the kitchen doesn't look as pretty when I'm cooking as it does when he lays out his ingredients and plates his food, b) I don't have a digital camera, and c) that's what Grant does. I will satisfy my urge to blog more fully about cooking when he and I finally get to make something together.

I did get all domestic yesterday, though. Kevin went to work on his other project, so I decided to cook up a meal for when he got home. Apparently I am still auditioning for the job of "future spouse" even though technically I already have a lock on it. After rifling through my folder of Cooking Light recipes, I settled on making tuna tartare served on Belgian endive leaves, and then a roasted butternut squash-and-shallot penne dish -- the former because tuna tartare is a new obsession of mine, and the latter because of all the lovely leftovers it would yield, and I'm also really into butternut squash lately. I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that the word "butter" is right there in the name.

So, I had to go to Whole Foods, at which point I learned that creme fraiche, or however you spell it, is in fact a cheese. Which I believe I knew, actually, but had never really digested before because I didn't ever need to know where to find it until now. I also stood there in front of the Exotic Lettuce And Friends section and stared at piles and piles of endive, kohlrabe (which I think is actually cabbage), and radicchio, and all I could think of was Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally ordering the grilled radicchio, and how that scene always makes me go, "Why would you grill lettuce?" I also eventually figured out that they keep all the squash near ground-level, so when you go to the grocery store with the specific idea of making something squash-related and you can't see the key ingredient anywhere, do not panic; instead, simply look down.

The cooking went well. I roasted the shallots and the squash, after gutting the latter of all its nasty innards -- this is why I never really carve pumpkins -- and while that was in the oven, I prepped the tuna and its sauce, bunged them both in the fridge, took out the squash to let it cool, and put everything in my brand new Cuisinart that had to mix with the squash pulp, and boiled the noodles, etc. I usually really struggle to cook two things at once and have them ready at the right time -- Thanksgiving manages to be an exception -- but these dishes were good in that while one was in the oven, I could do the other, and then while the penne finally baked, I could scoop tuna into the endive leaves, drizzle the yogurt-lime-horseradish sauce on top, and we serve it up and enjoy it languidly before tucking into the rest of the grub.

It all tasted really good and bolstered my confidence -- I love to cook, but I am horrible at meal-planning, so this was an encouraging step forward in that regard. It was also the first time I'd ever worked with tuna steak, and neither Kevin nor I is dead this morning. Another plus.

So really, the next thing I need to improve dramatically: The number of dishes and knives/utensils I dirty during the cooking process. I am horrible at that. Horrible. I also use a massive number of paper towels. Beating this demon is my next step of evolution in the kitchen.

Food Coma

I had the most delicious curry this weekend at a restaurant in San Diego, and I can't stop thinking about it.

I'm something of an obsessive eater, it must be noted -- if I discover something new, I develop an immediate and insatiable taste for it. For instance, a delectable tuna tartare experience at The Vermont gave me a persistent craving for it the following week that begged indulgence; I tried once at an Italian place that unexpectedly had it on the menu, but they wouldn't deliver it. Rather than accept failure as fate, the next night I sought out the same restaurant in person so I could satisfy the craving. With food, I'm often single-minded to the point of myopia.

The distressing flip side of that fattening coin is that, upon occasion, indulging it the way I frequently do leads to me getting sick of things faster than I should. Add to that the fact that I'm hypersensitive to smells and textures, and the fact that it takes only the merest awareness of anything off-putting in either arena for me to shut down and close off to a particular food, and my switch is apparently as easily flicked off as it is activated.

Recently, I had resolved anew to give sushi rolls another chance, mostly because I'm trying to be healthier and the food options near work are only tasty if you're okay with risking a 15-pound weight gain per season. Call me vain if you like, but this is because you can more accurately call me lazy -- if I'm going to persist in being "unable" to go thte gym regularly, I have to at least resist burgers and chicken-parm sandwiches, and at work the only way to do that is to eat at the blandest, most stupidly named eatery in the universe, Koo-Koo-Roo.

I digress. From a place recommended by a colleague, I ordered and ate a tuna-and-tempura-flakes roll in soy paper. It was fine, mostly because of the crunch of the Flakes O' Fat, but I remember thinking that the thickness of each piece was a bit much for me; when I tried it again the following week, I couldn't get over the sensation that I was biting into a giant pile of mush, like shoving pre-chewed food into my mouth. I ate three pieces and had to give away what remained, and I have no desire at all any more to order that item again -- and indeed, I now need a total rest from The Sushi Experiment.

So in sum, I'm easily attracted to food, and just as easily turned off of it for life. You'd think that this might prompt me to try and stop obsessing over particular taste sensations, but unfortunately, my gut rules my brain. And this curry was divine.

I'd never heard of it before, but you can ascribe that to the aforementioned myopia, because every time I order Indian food I get chicken tikka masala and then either korma or pasanda, depending on my mood. (Two curries and some naan can feed me for days. It's divine. Unless I order it with Kevin, in which case, I'd better fill up, 'cause it's gone a minute later.)  Some of this routine you can chalk up to me being a spice wimp, and those are certainly safe dishes, but a lot of it is because I'm a creature of habit, and whenever I get a taste for Indian food, it's those flavors I imagine gobbling.

At the restaurant, which was called Monsoon, we again zeroed in on the korma and tikka masala, but I was intrigued by another called "moler," the description for which said it was made with coconut milk and a touch of ginger and cinnamon. When we asked the waiter if we'd picked the right dishes, he lauded the tikka masala and then said the moler was definitely the best second choice. We went on his recommendation, and we weren't disappointed.

Tikka masala at my favorite place in LA has less of a tomato taste to it, which is why it's my favorite; everywhere else, the sauce tends to be much more rich in its tomato flavor. That's not off-putting entirely, but it's not The Same, so if we're anywhere but that place, I always tend to eat more of whatever other curry we get. Here, I happily obliged this pattern, as the sweetness of the cinnamon and the kick of the ginger were in perfect accord with the hint of coconut flavor.

I came home desperate to find a recipe, only to search for it online and have nothing come up; I wonder if maybe it's under a different name. I'm going to comb my Williams-Sonoma cookbook of Indian dishes to see if another curry has similar ingredients even if it's called something else. Now, my limited grocery-store tolerance -- I hate shopping for food -- and my complete inability to meal-plan or, indeed, use foresight for anything, means I probably won't become fixated on recreating this curry. That in turn means I won't get so sick of it that I can't eat another bite of it for ten years. That's a good thing.

And yet... I miss it. Sad that I yearn for a curry, but there you have it. I'm a heavily cravings-based eater, I get fixated on things, and I can't stop thinking about them until I've satisfied the yen. It's a wonder I ever eat anything I buy at the store in advance, when I look at things that way.

I've solved that problem by avoiding a proper grocery-shopping spree in about six weeks.

I need to grow up.

But first I need a moler curry.

Spam SPAAAAM! Wonderful Spam!

It hasn't crossed my lips since I was a kid, but I have always had a massive amount of affection for Spam -- to the point where a can of it sat on my shelf for all four years of college and eighteen months in Austin, an allergy-free, low-maintenance, ultra-clean pork-product pet of sorts.

In truth, I don't even remember what Spam tastes like; I suspect it's bologna-esque but with a discernible ham edge to it. The flavor, such as it is, is irrelevant to my love of the tinned meat composite anyway. It isn't childhood memories that draw me to Spam, but a basic and juvenile amusement with semi-gelatinous lumps of porkish substance; its rich history as a major ration during World War II England; the fantastic and eminently quotable Monty Python sketch in which a man has the audacity to order "Spam, eggs, sausage, and Spam" without the Spam; and the equally excellent Kids In The Hall parody in which two people in a supermarket ask passers-by to tell the which product tastes more like meat: a dark cola, or "Por-eef."

Oh, and the fact that it's so deliciously uncool to like Spam that it almost wraps back around and becomes fabulous again. People either embrace it wholeheartedly or avoid it like the plague. During my freshman year of college, the editor-in-chief of The Observer and his news editor challenged each other to a Spam-eating contest to see which one of them would polish off the entire can first. Note that there was never any pretense that neither would finish the can; it was simply a race to see who would wolf it down the fastest.

Contrast that with my brother-in-law's reaction to Spam. On a visit with my sister Alison in Dallas, she and her then-fiance and I stopped at an IHOP one morning for breakfast, during which he ordered a side of ham with his eggs. The side of ham came in a suspiciously familiar rectangular shape, so when he gobbled it up, naturally Alison and I teased him about his evident adoration of Spam.

Mike grew defensive quickly. "I have never eaten Spam in my life!" he insisted hotly.

"It's okay, Mike," I said. "We won't judge you."

"But I DON'T LIKE SPAM," he swore.

"I don't know why he doesn't understand that this is an atmosphere of love," I said to Alison.

"I DID NOT JUST EAT SPAM," Mike almost yelled.

"Well, then, no wonder you're so irritable," Alison said. "I'll cook some tonight to put you in a better mood."

He stopped talking to us for a long time -- that's how rabidly he felt about this issue.

Of course, then, I gave him a Spam calendar for Christmas last year, complete with twelve full-color photos of recipes built around the wonder-meat, like Spamburgers, Spam cupcakes, and Spam pizza pockets.

Of course, then, he rewrapped it and gave it back to me on my birthday. It now hangs in my bedroom.

Apparently, the brilliant folks in the United Kingdom have decided it's time to resurrect Spam on that side of the border -- both to bring it home to people with only the fondest wartime memories, and to reeducate a new generation on the wonders and merits of canned meat-like food that never, ever expires because so much of it is artificial.

The Spam company is ready for a popularity surge. It offers a catalog of gift ideas: Camouflage gear "for the hunters," the site claims; Spam winter weather wear; a Spam ice-scraper for one's car (guess what Mike's getting for Christmas this year?); a Spam glow-in-the-dark scrunchy, and a $63.25 replica of the Spam museum, complete with working lights inside.

But the best? A pretty pink stuffed pig called Spammy, clad in a t-shirt bearing his name. Yes, you too can have a mascot of the animal whose delicious meat is replicated in this canned delight. Perhaps the folks at Spam are saving pigs by using so little of their actual flesh in this product.

Bless you, Hormel Foods. Bless all the work you do.

And bless you for your "adult" section of the online store referring only to sizes, and not to any acutal mature content. The world may be ready for more Spam, but it's not quite prepared for a Spam vibrator or Spam-flavored body oil.

Veggie Triumph

Last night, as Kevin and I lay on his couch talking and cuddling (he is so good at the cuddling), my eyes flew open all of a sudden and I shouted, "GUESS WHAT?!?!?"

Kevin jolted. "What?" he asked, interested.

"I made a salad tonight and I ate it!" I shouted triumphantly. I think I was possessed by Ralph Wiggum.

Kevin let out a breath. "That's the least exciting end to a 'GUESS WHAT' story that I have ever heard in my life," he sighed.

"Well, but it will probably never happen again!" I pointed out, indignantly.

He was mildly proud.

The Day After The Drinking

It's always brilliant to begin a Sunday examining the contents of your stomach, and musing to yourself that repurposed yellow acid/fluid on white porcelain looks rather like an egg with a broken yolk.

And there's nothing like being in the twilight months of your twenty-sixth year, kneeling before a toilet and scrambling to shove the jeans you ripped off last night -- which are still sitting on the bathroom floor -- under your knees to protect them from the hard, cold, unforgiving linoleum as you bow down to the Porcelain God and await the moment your mouth will open and some veneration will come out.

Saturday night was The Trifecta, celebrating the birth of both Jessica and Aletha, and grieving the departure of Jen, the honkiest of slut warriors, as she heads off to THE FUTURE in New Zealand. About sixty people showed up at the bar, and as it was a departure from the normally lax Memorial Day weekend, the owner thanked us heartily a few times during the course of the night.

We paid up on our promise to drink his bar into a damn profitable night. Having been a while since I went out and got well and truly shitfaced, my tolerance wasn't as high, so two car bombs and an indeterminate number of ciders were all it took to twist my stomach. See, when we began The Summer of Excessive Drinking and Inappropriate Behavior last year, we did it with great gusto and an amazing lack of concern about the effect it would have on our bellies and bank accounts. Indeed, we progressed into autumn and even winter with a similar enthusiasm, but it was spring that did us in: Our livers needed a nap, and our ATM cards -- in my case, bent into a jagged parabola courtesy of being shoved in my pocket and sat on during countless drunk outings -- begged for a respite from swiping. Our levels of drunky and funky decreased. (As did our updates on the site; Lauren and I are planning a little meeting of the minds with each other to figure out more entry ideas so we can get that booming again, with more than just boring blow-by-blow accounts of what we drank and where we went. We want it to be a tribute to drinking in general, not just a monument to our beer guts -- although that will have its place, too.)

This Memorial Day was our celebration of The Summer Of Excessive Drinking And Inappropriate Behavior, Part Deux. I hope we can set the pace again. Certainly we acted inappropriately enough -- not only did I need a little nuzzling time with my favorite bathroom fixture on Saturday night before I could pass out, but I spent a good portion of the morning cuddling it as well.

HEATHER:
I should probably eat something. I don't know if I can hold it down, but I should eat something.

LAUREN:
That's a good idea.

HEATHER:
I should probably go get the hangover burger now, right? I mean, I just puked, so there's a nice little window where I ought to feel well enough to move around, and maybe digest something.

LAUREN:
Good strategy.

HEATHER:
I can't drive myself.

LAUREN:
I'm feeling better now, so I can drive you to McDonald's.

HEATHER:
I can't get out of the car.

LAUREN:
We'll hit the one with the drive-thru.

HEATHER:
I can't promise that I'll make it there.

LAUREN:
Bring a bowl.

HEATHER:
I can't believe I'm doing this.

So I grabbed a purple Tupperware receptacle, once intended for keeping lettuce crisp and suddenly reduced to little more than a prettier, rounder emesis basin. I shuffled down to the car, but my stomach started churning almost immediately.

LAUREN:
Should I pull over?

HEATHER:
Nah, I have a bowl.

LAUREN:
I should've brought you a towel.

HEATHER:
Nah, I have a shirt.

I'm sure the drive-thru worker at McDonald's is endlessly amused by the cavalcade of boozehounds who parade through the lane buying whatever greasy goodness can settle their stomachs. On this morning, they got me with slept-on, amazingly unkempt hair, hairy -- nay, furry -- legs, and a giant bowl in my lap, into which I stared morosely as Lauren calmly ordered my food and placed the bag at my feet.

"Unnngh," I said.

I made it home, but not without chanting, "Almost there. Breathe. Almost there." And the second we made it through the front door, I tossed my Big Mac and my receptacle onto the couch and bolted for the bathroom. "I'll be right out," I burbled.

Luckily, the Big Mac -- after I'd thoughtfully tidied up my stomach to make room for its arrival -- cured my woes, so all I needed to do was lie on the couch immobile for a few hours, and all was well. During that time I gabbed with my sister, who reminded me that we have a shared history of this.

"Remember that time I had the worst hangover, and I couldn't stop puking, but K. and I had to drive home?" Julie laughed. "They had to give me a receptacle because there was no way I was going to make it. And of course I was throwing up the whole way. So when I went through the drive-thru, my receptacle actually still had puke in it."

Game, set, match.

The night was fun, though. I got the hiccups -- apparently a grand family tradition of some kind, as I've been drunk-dialed twice now by my sister's friends, begging me through boisterous slurring for a hiccup remedy for Julie. I excused myself to the bathroom to try and hold my breath, and there I encountered a girl who looked kind of familiar, but I ignored that and just tried to regulate my damn diaphragm. She tried to counsel me and help me get a pattern going, but nothing was working.

"Talk to me," she then said. "Just start talking -- say anything -- and you'll forget to hiccup."

Fair enough. I started babbling and eventually wound up asking if she'd "done anything," which is a charming way of telling someone they look familiar to you. She laughed and looked at me like I was insane as I explained that I work in reality TV and she looked awfully like someone I'd seen before, and had she ever auditioned for something, perhaps, or...

"Wait. Do you have a boyfriend?" she asked. "Yep," I hiccupped. "What's his name?" she asked. "Kevin," I replied.

Her eyes widened. "What's his last name?" she demanded. I told her.

"OH MY GOD!" she screamed. "[Kevin's sister's name]'s brother?" My eyes lit up. "OH MY GOD I MET YOU," I yelled. "Over Easter weekend! You're her college roommate!"

We screamed and hugged. We were both hammered, obviously. But it was kind of a funny small-world incident, especially when you consider that she lives all the way across town. I didn't feel bad for not remembering her name immediately because she hadn't remembered mine, either, but had been hit with the same vaguely familiar sense when she saw my face. She insisted on buying me a cider, which when I'm loaded is about as tough a thing to accomplish as asking me to drink a Diet Coke and eat some potato chips. We spent the rest of the night, up to last call, laughing and talking... oh, about something, I'm sure. I have no idea. I think I gave her my number. Kevin appreciated the story; I wonder if I'll ever hear from her.

So that was my weekend: Work, iMac lust, and alcohol. Not too shabby.

• • • • •

The air conditioning in our building shuts off on weekends and holidays, meaning that attempting to come into work on Memorial Day involved a lot of sweating and breathing thick, hot air.

So when Lauren came to meet me for coffee, and announced plans to go see The Day After Tomorrow with some friends of ours, I bailed on work -- seriously, it was so sticky and stuffy up here that I felt like I could cut the air with a knife and serve it on crackers with cheese -- and went to see the film.

It was, as expected, a bad disaster movie. Compared with 24 and its bioterrorism and nuclear bomb plots, or even Independence Day and its aliens, there's just something inherently undramatic about a weather crisis. This was aptly punctuated by my friend Carrie, who only half-jokingly refers to the flick as, Run! It's The Weather!

Some spoilers ahead, but really, there's no spoiling a movie like this, where it's pretty clear from the get-go that the Happily Ever Afters will outweigh the eulogies.

The movie's a completely enjoyable bad disaster flick. I snickered my way through a lot of it, especially when the dog skirts death and the cancer patient gets trotted out for sympathy, and the estranged couple finds romance anew, and finally -- and this one hits everyone close to home, I think -- a pack of rabid wolves hunt the kids who are rummaging for medicine in a giant ship that has sailed through the flooded streets of Manhattan.

Roland Emmerich bandied about every cliché you could imagine, though sadly stopped short of having a character stare gravely off-camera during a slow push into a close-up, only to murmur, "God help us all." There are, however, plenty of extreme close-ups of Dennis Quaid looking upset or aggrieved or confused, or confused about being aggrieved and upset about being confused. Rather than inspiring tension and empathy, though, it inspired comparisons between the size of his schnozz and the size of the polar ice caps. Truly, the most heroic moment of the film is the moment you see Dennis's nose in all its glory hogging the screen, and you realize just how big an obstacle was in the way of Dennis Quaid being hot, and how well he's managed to overcome it. And you're tempted to cheer, but you can't, because people will think you're clapping for the film, and you don't want to be one of those people, because you hate those people, especially in a movie like this.

The thing that actively bugs me about the movie is the title. What the hell does that even mean? In life, I know what it means, but within the context of the movie, it has no significance whatsoever. The weather front lasts a week. No one predicts it'll hit as fast as it did -- no one says, "The day after tomorrow, all hell will break loose," or, "It'll all be over the day after tomorrow," or some schmaltzy thing like that. Now, I'm not advocating putting a line that unforgivably cheesy into the film, but rather saying that the given name of the movie makes absolutely no sense. It might be some sort of quasi-profound statement about civilization taking its first steps in the new Ice Age, but this movie doesn't deal in profundities, no matter what modifiers you add to dilute them.

So we're left with a stupid, nonsensical name for a stupid, nonsensical movie. Maybe that's the only connection there needs to be.

• • • • •

One final thought: I'm proud as hell of my sister.

No, sorry, one real final thought: Someone by the user name of "greektamara" wrote me a note saying she was the mother of one of the girls on our show last season, and wondering if we'd met at the party. Her user name leads to an error page, so on the offchance that you're still reading, greektamara: We did actually meet that night -- shook hands briefly, and in my case, almost certainly drunkenly -- and your daughter was my favorite. She should be so proud.

• • • • •

Someone got here by searching for: GETTING BANGED IN AMSTERDAM Reading: Songbook, by Nick Hornsby Watching: The Day After Tomorrow, obviously, and also The Bourne Identity last night while I read. As such, I didn't really follow it too much.

"Eat around the banana... It's just empty vitamins."

My friend Kevin, a college pal, has a big appetite.

He was the first person I ever witnessed ordering one of the Big Value meals at Burger King -- the special multi-sandwich menus that went beyond value and straight to your arteries. It was a sight to behold. Lacking a comparable menu at McDonald's, Kevin made up his own: We ordered Value Meals, he ordered Fatty Meals.

A typical meal: One Big Mac and two cheeseburgers. Or, a chicken sandwich and a double quarter-pounder with cheese and a giant Coke, or on special occasions, a Filet-o-Fish, three cheeseburgers, and a milkshake. All of the above came with a super-sized order of fries.

Kevin's Fatty Meals represented the most beautiful thing about fast food: Sheer excess. It's what makes those places a guilty pleasure. No one goes to McDonald's because they really like the taste of the beef, the quality of the bun, or the precise way they chop their onions before slapping them onto your cheeseburger. No, you go there if you're on a road trip, or you've been good that week, or you're simply starving and you want to shovel delicious grease into your mouth as fast as it can go.

So it was with a sad smile that I thought of Kevin when I read that McDonald's is abolishing the "super-size" helping of its fries. We and Kevin are bidding adieu to 690 calories, 29 grams of fat, and 77 grams of the dreaded carbohydrate, scourge of the devil and enemy of slim waistlines everywhere -- this year, anyway. What's more, they're getting rid of the extra-large drink.

The claims are amusing: In that story's lede, it's alleged that McDonald's just really cares about the nation's flirtation with obesity, going so far as to debut an "Eat Smart, Be Active" campaign. Further down, however, someone at the company admits that "super-size" was never a hot seller, meaning the decision's a lot more attributable to the bottom line. No surprise there. Not mentioned is the fact that, however absurd the lawsuit was, McDonald's was sued by a girl who felt that the company owed her something for her enormous weight gain following a constant diet of its burgers and fries.

She is, of course, an idiot. A raving loon. The restaurant even provides leaflets with the nutritional information of its food -- it's not like that, plus basic common sense, wouldt be enough to enlighten her as to the hazards of her particular dietary choices. And it annoys the crap out of me that people think they can skirt responsibility for their own obesity. Don't blame the messenger -- in this case, the provider of delicious grease.

I've never actually ordered super-sized fries -- I tend to prefer the bigger burgers with a slightly smaller sleeve of salted potato love. It's all in the balance. But just knowing they were out there, a tower of cholesterol and taste, gave me comfort. It represented a giant fuck-you to all those people who think that it's not their fault that they're gaining weight. Unless you are the biggest, most shocking idiot in the entire world, you're aware that potatoes fried in grease aren't slimming, and that hamburgers aren't low-calorie. If you want to eat grease, you should. But it's a crock of shit to shrug your shoulders and throw your hands up in the air and wonder where the extra weight came from if you've eaten four out of seven meals in a week at a fast-food joint. So, yeah, super-size it, bitches, because you know what? You're going to love every second of it. And live with the consequences. Be mature.

The abolition of extra-large temptation from the McDonald's menu is part of that new "Eat Smart, Be Active" slogan they're adopting to rationalize adding the things that have infected the menu of America's iconic fried patty palace. Salads -- and those incomprehensible salad shakers, as if leafy greens in a glass sounds at all appetizing -- have become regular menu items there. They also sell yogurt. Later this year, the adult version of the Happy Meal will come out, featuring water, fruit, and a pedometer, as well as a diet plan conceived by Oprah Winfrey's trainer. That way, while you're sitting at McDonald's eating your fruit, you can count how many paces it is between your seat and the counter, where you will shortly sprint in the hopes of replacing your Crappy Meal with a freshly grilled Big Mac or a ten-pack of McNuggets.

That's the thing that gives me comfort, actually: McDonald's probably knows it can get you in the door with the promise of something healthy, but once you're there, you're more likely to hit your table with a host of burgers and fries on your tray. It plays right into the hands of rationalizers like me who would stop off at the restaurant on the way to Vegas and think, "Oh, a salad and fruit sounds so good, let's go to McDonald's but, you know, I did go to the gym yesterday and the day before, and it's been ages since I had a Big Ma" Ten minutes later, I'm wiping sesame seeds from my lips.

That's the way it should be. McDonald's, Burger King, our beloved In-N-Out -- they should be brick-and-mortar testaments to decadence. They're not responsible for how often we go there, or what we eat. They just want us to get rid of our hangovers with a Sausage McMuffin or a double cheeseburger. Fatburger is the one chain that's got it right: It constantly points out that, hey, it's all in the name. You know what you're getting, and if you're coming there for anything else, you are demented. Fatburger is beautiful in its simplicity. Up yours if you want it low-fat.

I realize that the chains like McDonald's are partly trying to capitalize on the market of healthy eaters and vegetarians who currently stay away from McDonald's, despite the fact that, who are we kidding, those patties probably aren't made entirely of cow. But it's upsetting that America's obsession with its own obesity, and the push to find that other extreme, has reduced our fast-food havens to lettuce-pushers. Who goes to McDonald's for its produce? Why? It's a junk-food-junkie's haven, not a health-food store. If you want to eat smart, you do not go to McDonalds, nor should it be the place that leaps to your mind. Go elsewhere. Find a Subway. If you don't, it might inspire McDonald's to unearth the next Jared, and that's an evil the world is ill-prepared to thwart.

And what might come next? This could be a slippery slope of reform. But there is no Whopper without full-fat mayonnaise; no Filet-O-Fish without deep-fried coating; and I don't want to imagine the In-N-Out burger cooked animal style but slathered with fat-free special-sauce. I refuse to accept our chains becomig echoes of the hollow fare sold at Topz, California's "healthy" fast-food joint where everything tastes joyless. Fat equals fun. Are we facing the banishment of the potato, in all its perfect forms? A tasty lettuce burger on a breadless bun? Fat-free cheese? I won't stand for tofu, you know. Don't take away my right to gorge.

Farewell, sweet super-size. I'll miss watching people scarf you in awe. I'll ache for your challenging promise of salty indigestion, and the sheer number of ketchup packets it would take to lube you up and make you complete.

We have until Dec. 31 to get our fill. Before the new cruel world dawns in 2005, go to McDonald's and eat your fill. Let the super-size fries know you, at least, loved them, and that they had a place in your stomach. Inhale them without apology and squeeze your belly lovingly when you're done. Announce that the extra artery clogs were well worth it, and proudly count those calories.

And then, start going to Fatburger. At least they know what you really, really want.

• • • • •

Someone got here by searching for: "monster balls" bowling porn Watching: Capturing the Friedmans Worried: That I might have chipped a tiny, tiny layer off one of my front teeth. It feels weird now. It's disturbing.