Hey, I know I can't bake. I hate making pastry dough, and pie crust, and all that. Too much work. But one I thing I can do right is make fun of myself. I decided it would be absolutely hilarious if I used the scraps of dough to form a penis shooting a projectile onto the top of the pie, a la the foursquare folded paper fortune teller in Eastbound and Down the other night.
A delicious chicken pot pie with potatoes, carrots, celery, peas and corn and some dried "gourmet" mushrooms for good measure, in a savory chicken gravy, baked in a buttery, flaky pastry.Suck on it.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Chicken Pot Pie
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Heather
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8:20 AM
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Labels: Comfy, I Drink Too Much, Poultry, Vegetables
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Rumple Minze hot chocolate
I got your Holiday Cheer right here. Ghirardelli Double Chocolate cocoa with Rumple Minze peppermint schnapps and marshmallows. Serve with Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate-Covered Peppermint Joe Joe's for dunking. They taste like a cross between Girl Scouts Thin MInts and Oreos, with crushed candy cane on top.
This tastes like the holidays.
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Heather
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5:33 PM
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Labels: Dessert, I Drink Too Much, Potent Potables
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Crawdad Sliders with Hot Sauce and Fennel Frond Mayo
Our good friends Jeremy and Alicia have an annual crawfish boil, since Jeremy is from New Orleans and they have what might actually be a full acre in North Portland. Okay, this wasn't really my food event to post, but you know how it is: you walk into a party and you own it. You just have to. Besides, Alicia always upstages me in the tits department (her ass is pretty stellar too), so it's only fair that I try and cook at her party.
This year it was 100 degrees out (no joke), so instead of baking cornbread and making my famous skillet beans™, Scott and I spent the day at the beach and just brought a sack of soft potato rolls, a jar of dill pickle slices and a bottle of mayo so people could make crawdad sliders.
Crawfish meat tastes like a rich, buttery prawn, but with a slightly meatier texture (less "bouncy" in the mouth, if that makes any sense). If you're keepin' it real, suck the good stuff out of the head. I was not drunk enough to suck orange goo out of the head of a bottom feeder in 100-degree heat.
People weren't really catching on to the whole slider thing, so I mixed some hot sauce and mayo, and picked some of the fronds off the giant shrub of fennel (then picked into little bits) in the yard to make a zesty, herbed mayo. I mixed this with some of the tail meat that I painstakingly harvested, and loaded the mixture onto split potato rolls with a couple slices of pickle. Young bamboo twigs made excellent picks to hold the little sammies together. Enjoy with an ice-cold Abita Turbodog (but not the Purple Haze, it tastes like bong water).
Happy summer, y'all!
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Heather
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8:32 PM
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Labels: Downhome, Epic Undertakings, I Drink Too Much, Sammiches, Seafood
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Further Complaints on Being in the Field
I've been stuck out in the boondocks since Sunday night, and will be here until next Monday night. I intermittently entertain thoughts on how I would handle an intruder, should one happen upon my room. Since this place is only $58/night, the rooms all face out to the parking lot, and anyone can just drive in from the (immediately adjacent) freeway and waltz right up to your door. Last night I opted for leaving the window open while I showered because I figured the fork next to the sink by the bathroom door could gouge out an eye pretty easily. Usually I just think about channeling my freakish upper body strength to throw someone over the 2nd-story banister outside my room's door, but other scenarios include throat-kicking a dude with my steel-toed Frye boots or tearing out a trachea with my rock-hard talons.
Besides the obvious annoyance of living out of Shittown hotels (which is underscored by missing Scott terribly and the general isolation), the work is grueling and the food options are limited. Whenever I get home from the field I'm bloated, sunburned and my face is broken out.
My "healthy meal" options are usually limited to a microwavable Lean Cuisine or the odd bag o' salad (though fitting a bottle of low-fat ranch in the 1-cubic-foot fridge is a challenge), and if I'm hungry and out in the middle of nowhere, my penchant for Deli-Mart corndogs and jo-jos always wins. I'm not made of stone, y'know.
You'd think that I'd get enough exercise to burn off all the calories, but most of my day is spent driving terrifying dirt logging roads up in the mountains and I only end up walking about a mile or two a day. Today I had to hike through thick brush up a 20% slope (that's a gain of 1000 feet in elevation over only a mile of hike) in sleet and hail, and I slipped on a muddy slope and fell on an exposed root right on my hip bone so now I have a huge bruise up the side of my ass.
I always manage to put on enough sunscreen to clog my pores, but never enough to prevent sunburns.
Tonight I plan to get hammered and watch America's Next Top Model. I invented a drinking game for the show. It's called "Whenever a Bitch Cry, Drink". I can plow through a whole Maker's & Diet Coke in like, half an episode.
Posted by
Heather
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6:39 PM
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Labels: Dieting and Other Self-Improvement/Obsession, I Drink Too Much
Monday, January 08, 2007
Careful What You Ask For, or Duck, Duck, Goose
Friday night Scott and I were at a wedding, talking to my cousin Nathan about bird hunting and whatnot. Since the wedding had a no-host bar1, I was taking frequent nips off my flask of fine Kentucky bourbon with great aplomb. It should be noted that anything I do with aplomb gets me in trouble.
So I’m talking to Nathan about hunting as I’m wont to do (since he’s only 25 and wildlife is a topic we have in common) and I tell him why doesn’t he bring some duck over on Sunday and I’ll cook him dinner. A fair trade, right? Note I said “bring over some duck” not “bring over some ducks”. Last night at 7:45pm he shows up on my doorstep with six dead ducks, sodden with blood and wetland, heads dangling limply from the firm grip he has on their spindly necks.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with these?!” I ask, perfectly honest about the trepidation I’m feeling about the task before me. “I’m feeling daunted, Nathan. Daunted.”
He tells me I can “either breast ‘em out or if you want to pluck ‘em dunk ‘em in boiling water first to loosen up the feathers but I usually just breast ‘em out and dump the rest. If you’re gonna try to cut ‘em up just cut around the asshole first. You’ll figure it out. You said you wanted to do this!2” I had obviously pictured neatly plucked ducks arriving in a freezer bag, all clean and bumpy little skin waiting for score marks from knife and maybe a little light disassembly before going into the roasting pan. This was not what I asked for.
But I’m a fucking trooper, right? If I can’t even clean a dead bird how do I suppose I’ll ever take up hunting3? So I go pour myself a stiff drink and ready the front porch with spotlight and bucket. Leonard graciously helped pluck the birds (I think it may have been more exciting for him than it should have, but I’m not complaining), bare-handed, even. Scott helped pluck, too, but more importantly, he refreshed drinks and manned the camera to shoot a little video.
How to deal with a dead duck:
Tie duck up by feet under spotlight so your vegan hippie neighbors will know that they should never come talk to you, not ever.
Pluck fistfuls of feathers out, working tail to head. Careful not to tear the skin off in the process. Rub down off body (this task is made easier by wearing those yellow rubber kitchen gloves). Begin to regret that you started doing this so late on a work night.
Have your buddy grasp the head while you chop it off with garden loppers. Similar treatment of wings and feet. Drop extremities into bucket and watch blood drip all over the damn place.
Wash birds off in cold water. Take smoke break. Pace around muttering “I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this at 11 on a work night.”
Cut out breast meat using approach similar to that for dispatching a chicken or turkey. If feeling ambitious, remove legs as well. If duck was shot by your cousin, i.e., did not come from a farm, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO GUT THE BIRD BEFORE ROLLING A CONSTITUTION CHECK. The guts will be a bloody shred and full of buckshot and the smell is garishly acrid and biotic.
Take a moment and come to terms with the fact that there will be no terrine of duck liver in your near future.
Dump carcasses into garbage. Ask husband to please, please take this away right now for the love of god. An ashen pallor will emphasize that you are as serious as a fucking heart attack.
Awaken at 4am in a cold sweat and the smell of duck blood still in your nose. Don’t get back to sleep for at least an hour. Go to work bleary-eyed and brag to co-workers about what a fucking trooper you are.
The front porch still smells like a killing floor, even after having been hosed down and despite being in the open air. Feathers are matted with blood in little clumps all over the lawn. The legs are too small to confit. I don’t even want to think about cooking the 12 breasts.
…But tonight I think we’ll have some seared duck breast with a molasses-juniper jus and parsnip puree, with a wilted endive and anchovy salad. Oh! Here it is already:
1No offense, but very bad form to make your guests pay for their own drinks, particularly when the “hors d’oeuvres reception” literally consisted of some bags of Doritos and Ruffles (with onion and ranch dips that may have been from dry mix packets or Nalley’s tubs, I couldn’t discern) and some type of sandwich-y pinwheels, the recipe for which was likely found in some Impress your guests with these easy finger foods!! page of Family Circle magazine. You just cannot expect people to bring you a gift and sit through a sermon for like 20 minutes and then make them buy their own drinks and serve them this dreck. That’s just bad etiquette.
2 Nathan talks like he has a chaw in his mouth, even though he hasn’t chewed since high school.
3I had been tossing the idea around last summer when I was seeing flocks of delicious-looking turkey families and coveys of quail running around all over the place while out in the field. Yeah, that’s pretty much over for me now.
Posted by
Heather
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9:26 PM
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Labels: Epic Undertakings, Hunted / Gathered, I Drink Too Much
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Oh shit I am married!
Holy shit I am married! Scott and I are killing time in the Westin LAX before our flight to Fiji, so I blog.
Here are photos of the bachelorette party.
Posted by
Heather
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4:46 PM
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Labels: I Drink Too Much
Friday, July 21, 2006
Dang but it is hot.
On the drive home from work the bank by my house said it was 104 degrees out. I got home and drank some tequila, then moved on to vodka. I watered the garden, and sprayed myself a bunch. It felt so good! It felt so good, in fact, that I ordered Scott to put on "Feel So Good" by Chuck Mangione (yes, I own that record) and we rocked it while we played in the sprinkler. It feel so good!
The birthday party last week was hell of fun. yay, I'm 30! My girlhood dreams have come to fruition. Houxy made it up from LA, and the party was lively and such. The karaoke machine rental paid for itself, a $150 value! Not a whole lot of people sang, but the few karaoke whores I know (Patrick, Houx, Danno and myself) made it a worthwhile endeavor. Even painfully shy Joe sang a few! Yes, Joe, I'm talking about you on my blog! You are shy, yet you sang!
Scott gave me a sweet digicam for my brthday. Here is a pic of me at Germanytown (the Rheinlander) on my birthday proper:Update 7/28/06: it took me over a week to figure out why I couldn't upload my pictures, and during said heatwave I literally couldn't stand being not-in-the-basement. Now it is lovely out, and I am back.
I bought some new CDs today: Muse - Black Holes and Revelations; Deltron - 3030; Girl Talk - Night Ripper; Blackalicious - Nia; and J. Zone - Experienced. The last one is some guy who mixes beats for some folks and has a thing, but he made a Hendrix tribute album that is decent. Muse is the new Thom Yorke-cum-Emerson, Lake and Palmer and is hell of good. Deltron is, of course, Del the Funky Homo Sapien all rapping about some sci-fi and such. The Blackalicious is old (2000), but shit, I'm driving to Medford tomorrow and need some tunes. Same goes for Girl Talk, which miraculously and seamlessly mixes Rush, James Taylor, Paula Abdul and 2 Live Crew (among myriad others) into their own flow. Good stuff.
Tonight I'm making rock fish fillets with pink prawns and mango-habanero salsa, grilled polenta and wilted spinach.
Some more pictures for posterity:Me and Scott at Germanytown. East SIDE (Scott messed up but it's okay)!
Patrick is warming up the mic.
My dad bought a fucking Harley with the money he made from selling his house.
Greta is painfully shy, but is no match for the Houx. We tried varied mustards that night.
Posted by
Heather
at
7:47 PM
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Labels: I Drink Too Much
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Adventures in Klamath Falls
OMG I had so much fun tonight. I ate at a sketchy Vietnamese place that was located on the highway, the only Vietnamese joint in town. They had like 175 kinds of beer proudly displayed in the fridge case immediately at the entrance, and you just grab one and they open it for you and put it on your tab. The decor was like bad Jamaican-tropical (think fake palm trees draped in plastic flowers) with Bruce Lee posters and these tapestries that could only be construed as Japanese Patrick Nagel - graphically hot chicks with neck-to-ass Yakuza tats all demurely looking over their shoulders and shit. Their menu was dauntingly large, so I just asked for the waitress to bring me whatever it is her favorite thing to eat. I ended up with a seafood combo that was pretty decent. Then I went and pranced around in front of Klamath Falls' web cam for fifteen minutes.
Later I went to the trucker bar Mollie's and instead of karaoke they had an okay blues band. Then all of a sudden the most awesome old timer came into the bar. He was 85 if he was a day. He was wearing the cowboy shirt with the embroidered flowers on the breast, huge-ass belt buckle, suspenders and a dark blue kerchief tied smartly at the neck, the greased-up pompadour and little black loafers with white socks (a fashion don't, but give the guy a fucking break. He's like 85!). Be still my beating heart!
As soon as he walked in and sidled up to the bar, I ran over and told the bartender that his drink was on me. (His beer is delivered in his own fucking personal stein that the bar keeps for him - this crusty old dude is hell of punk rock!) After receiving such information from the bartender, he looks around the place all confused. A burly dude to his right points me out, and Bob comes over and asks, "Do I know you?" I said, "No, but I thought you looked like a guy who should have a drink bought for him." He shrugs his shoulders and goes to his table where a woman probably in her 60s gives him a "you got some splainin' to do" look.
After awhile of wondering if I could ask to have my picture taken with this Johnny Cash's dad, Bob all of a sudden comes up and asks me to dance. Dude's still got it! How could I say no? So I go up and dance with him, gettin' a little freaky when his back is turned, and finally the song is over after what seems like a million years.
He then has the elephantine stones to ask me "Who're you here with?" I point to Greta and say "my coworker". He asks if there's a man, and I just thrust the bling in his face. "Oh, you're engaged." I gave him a hug, thanked him for the dance, and returned to my table.
Then he returns to the table after a few songs and asks Greta if she'd like to dance. She politely refuses, but he won't take no for an answer. She admits that she's not the dancing type and so he offers to teach her. This dude is so hardcore that he should be teaching classes on how to be a badass ladies' man.
And that was my awesomely fun night.
Posted by
Heather
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12:04 AM
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Labels: I Drink Too Much
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
New Favorite Drink
I am currently loving my latest concoction, the Gayhound. It's like a Greyhound, but with ruby red grapefruit juice instead of regular.
*Gayhound*
1-2 oz. good vodka (we use Monopolova)
4 oz. pink grapefruit juice
coupla ice cubes
sprig of fresh rosemary
Stir together in a heavy tumbler. Sip. Curl toes.
The pink grapefruit juice makes it special, but the rosemary makes it magical.
Posted by
Heather
at
1:00 PM
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Labels: I Drink Too Much, Potent Potables
Monday, July 25, 2005
Beachtastic fun
This weekend was Emily's bachelorette party at a condo at Cannon Beach. Here is a picture of me buzzed off my second Sex on the Beach Friday evening (cliche, yes, but it was a fucking bachelorette party), blissfully unaware of the hangover I would have the following day.
Unfortunately, it hadn't occurred to me to apply sunscreen to my legs or belly (in the narrow strip where my shirt rode up a little). I actually had come to the beach wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt. I mean, I grew up in Oregon and I know the coast weather pretty well. I was even wearing my boots, which I eventually took off so I could put my feet in the sand.
It hurts so bad that I can only take lukewarm showers, and the first ten minutes of my day are spent hobbling around as my burned skin stretches out to give beneath the muscles. I obviously can't shave, which is making matters worse, as I now have stubble poking its way out of my scorched follicles, and scratching the burn when my legs brush against each other.
Posted by
Heather
at
12:15 PM
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Labels: I Drink Too Much
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Birthday pics
I've added a few pictures of the birthday party that Danno took. The food pic I just stuck in The D and Me post below. Enjoy.
Scott and I are enjoying the music of Jean-Jacques Perrey, moog master.
Scott looks really sexy next to Angeline.
Our exotic friends: Angeline and Eloine (French) and Shinichi (Guess).
Satan loves you!
Posted by
Heather
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1:15 PM
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Labels: I Drink Too Much
Friday, July 01, 2005
How To Draw Blank Stares From a Crowd of Vietnamese People
Go to a Vietnamese karaoke bar and do "The Humpty Dance". Give a shout out to your SE Asian peeps by throwing out a "Cám ón" at the end of your performance.
Sit at the only table of white people and have your buddy Danno do "America" by Neil Diamond.
Do your rendition of "Aqualung", Jack Black style. Be a female wearing a short skirt, and bust several running jump-kicks and a friction burn-inducing knee slide for your air guitar solo.
Tell the only chubby girl in the joint that she's got a great booty. While you're holding the microphone. And mean it.
Posted by
Heather
at
11:35 AM
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Labels: I Drink Too Much