Veggie Pasta

When I left the house, I had every intention of ordering takeout for dinner tonight. I ran up the street to the organic market to grab a few things for tomorrow night, because my lovely friend D. is coming over for dinner. My plan was to run in, pick up two or three things, and run back out, but I saw spinach fettucini and got inspired. What I really wanted was fettucini alfredo, but milk and milk products have not been agreeing with me for some time and I wasn't really willing to suffer tonight. So, I backtracked to the produce department and picked up a couple of things.

This is my mother's recipe--I've made it several times, and it's a little different every time. It's so incredibly easy that it's not really a recipe at all.

Cut up some vegetables, put them on a cookie sheet, and spray them with Pam. I usually use a squash, a couple of peppers and a red onion.



Toss the vegetables in the oven until they're tender and brownish. While they're cooking, boil the pasta. I usually use angel hair but the spinach fettucini is what inspired this little endeavor, so I used that instead.

Drain the pasta. Add a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes (they've got jalapeno peppers in them, so they're spicy) the vegetables and whatever seasonings you want. I usually use oregano, because when I don't know what to use oregano is almost always the answer. You can be a little more creative, obviously. What you should NOT do is add red pepper flakes, because combining those with the Ro-Tel tomatoes makes you wish your tongue were detachable. I only made that mistake once.



Toss it all with olive oil. That's it. Voila-dinner.



With the pasta, I had a slice of the Brown Rice Bread I made a couple of days ago. It wasn't really the right kind of bread to serve with pasta, but it's what I had around and it actually tasted quite good with it.

In other news, this is actually the third time I've cooked this week, and I'm doing it again tomorrow. I don't really intend to turn this into a cooking blog-God knows there are other people more qualified for that-but it's making me cook more and write more, so we'll see. I am planning to blog about my cookbook project, since that will make it (slightly) more likely that I'll actually, you know, do it. Slightly.

The Cookbook Project

This is my cookbook shelf.



I counted them today, and I have 50 of them, plus a couple of years worth of Everyday Food and random other recipe magazines. I bought two of them yesterday. Out of the 50, I've cooked a recipe out of six.

Yeah, six. I buy cookbooks-I don't cook from them.

Until now.

This is my project for the summer: cook one thing from every cookbook I own. Correction: one good thing from every cookbook I own. If the recipe sucks, I have to try again. After all, if I can't find one decent recipe in a cookbook, it probably deserves to go.

My first attempt was from this book.



I haven't got a clue why I bought this in the first place. I assume that I bought it at a yard sale back when I was in the habit of buying every single cookbook I could possibly find. It was published in 1984, and it hasn't necessarily aged well. It's full of recipes for congealed salads and many other things that I have absolutely no interest in making. Because it's a cookbook written for family gatherings, all of the recipes are scaled to serve between 12 and 20 people, and I never cook for that big a crowd.

I was a little skeptical, I'll admit, but there are some really interesting recipes here. I've found several that I'd like to try, even though I'm going to have to pull out a calculator to scale them down to more reasonable quantities. The book is organized by different types of gatherings: a wedding breakfast, a bar mitzvah, a Greek New Year's dinner. One of the gatherings is for a (University of) Arkansas Tailgate Picnic. This gathering had a recipe called Razorback Roast Sandwiches, including a recipe for Brown Rice Bread. I wasn't particularly interested in making a pork roast, but the bread looked pretty good, so that's what I decided to try.

I've been looking for a good sandwich bread recipe for quite some time. The lovely Jenni sent me one that I've used quite a bit, but I've been having trouble getting it to rise the way it's supposed to (user error, I'm sure) so I wanted to try a different one.

This recipe was fantastic. The original one was for three loaves, so I cut it in half and made one slightly larger loaf.



I couldn't be happier. It was easy, it looks good, it tastes good...a perfect Sunday project.

I want to reprint the recipe here, but my little librarian heart won't let me break copyright. I've actually emailed Southern Living, who published the cookbook, to ask for permission. If they give it, I'll post an update.

Question and Answer

The first thing you need to know about my father is: If you have a question, he has an answer. The man does not know the words "I don't know." He's pretty famous for this among friends and family, which is why a few days ago as we were all in the car on the way back from my sister's girlfriend's concert, my aunt asked him why the Pigeon Hills were called the Pigeon Hills.

He immediately launched into an answer, and this is the second thing you need to know about my father: About 50% of the time, he is full of shit. If he doesn't know, he'll make it up, and he is good. On a long ago family trip, we passed a sign for a fort. Someone said "I wonder what happened at that fort." Dad launched into a five-minute lecture on the role of the fort in the Civil War and the definitive battle that was fought there, etc., etc., etc. When he was finished my mom asked "Did you see that on the History Channel?"

Dad's answer? "Nah, I just made it up."

That is the good thing-if you call him on it, he'll always admit when he's made something up. The problem is, you have to recognize that you need to call him on it-and when he's giving one of his bullshit answers, he's fairly indistinguishable from a history professor.

Years ago, when I had first started driving, I asked him why some traffic lights have those flashing lights inside the red light. He told me that it was to draw your attention, so you'd always see that the light was red. Years later, we were sitting in the car together, and Dad mused, "I wonder what those flashing lights are for." I stared at him for a moment, then gave him the same answer he'd given me. His response? "Oh, I must have been making that up. But it sounds plausible, doesn't it?" I still don't know if he was right.

So as we were in the car and Dad was giving his response to the Pigeon Hills question, I immediately challenged him. What possible reason could he have for knowing that piece of information? I was absolutely sure he was making it up. But that brings me to the final thing you need to know about my father, which is that if there is a sign or a plaque to be read, he has read it. Going to a museum with him is completely maddening, because he will read every single word that is posted anywhere. And he remembers it all. So on the one hand, when he gives an incredibly detailed answer to an obscure question, you want to think that he's making it up. Yet there's that other 50% of the time that he knows exactly what he's talking about...and he can almost always cite his source.

In this case, it was a historical plaque in Codorus State Park. Apparently passenger pigeons used to roost in the Pigeon Hills, and there were so many of them they'd block the sun when they all flew. Who knew?

My dad, apparently.

Walking Tour

This past weekend was the most relaxing one I've had in ages. I feel like I got a lot done, but in a very laid-back, unhurried way. And the best part-I walked or Metroed everywhere. My car stayed parked all weekend, except for a very brief early-morning trip to take a friend to the airport.

I haven't spent a whole lot of time just walking around my neighborhood. I'm not really big on hot OR cold weather, and I'm really likely to retreat into a climate-controlled car when temperatures are extreme. But I always feel so freaking virtuous when I walk somewhere, and I don't know why I don't do it more often.

On Saturday I walked to the library to return some books. From there I walked up to the Brookland Cafe for lunch, then over to the Franciscan monastery for their plant and herb sale. (Aside: WTF do you do with French Sorrel? I don't have a clue, and I'd better figure it out because I'm currently growing some.) On the way home, I dropped in to the organic market for some milk. All told, I was out for about 2 1/2 hours and walked about three miles, and I felt awesome afterward.

Why don't I do that more often? Now that the weather is nice, I should be taking the bus to work and walking the mile from the bus stop. I should be out enjoying spring while it lasts, and I should be getting to know the neighborhood. I have a slightly half-baked plan to leave my car at my parents' house for part of the summer to force myself to get around without it.

I'm going to try setting my alarm early enough to take the bus to work tomorrow. Getting up early is going to suck, but I know I'll feel better for doing it.

Skill Set

This afternoon, as I maneuvered my car out of a parking lot that looked like a badly played game of Tetris, I reflected on the fact that the one good thing to come out of a miserable summer working for my Dad at a car dealership is that I can get a car out of almost any tight spot. At work we have a tiny parking lot with only about half the number of spaces we need for all of our staff, and street parking is by residential parking permit only. Since the people in the neighborhood will call parking enforcement on your ass, people pack into the lot like sardines, which makes getting out of your space difficult. Somehow I can almost always do it, which is hilarious because I’m notoriously bad at backing up. My parents have actually on occasion come outside when I’m leaving their house, for the express purpose of laughing at me as I back up their (not very long) driveway and almost take out the mailbox. But somehow it works when I’m trying to get out of a tight spot.

That made me think about all the other jobs I’ve had in my life, and the extremely random skills I’ve learned from them.

Radio Shack
I worked at Radio Shack for one year in college, and I wasn’t great at it. I could sell you a TV, but if you were coming in looking for a tiny little part to fix something, you were SOL if you got me as your salesperson.

But.

I can hook up an AV system like nobody’s business.

It all goes back to something my manager told me. He said that when he was trying to connect something, he would pretend he was the TV signal. Stay with me here.

“So I’m the signal, and I’m hanging out in the wire in the wall,” he said. “But that’s pretty boring, so I go out through the coaxial cable…”

It’s crazy, but it makes me think about it linearly so it works. So when I’m hooking up a DVD player, what I’m really doing is thinking, “So I’m a TV signal…”

Waiting Tables
Until this year of teaching, I waited tables longer than I’d ever done anything else in my life. As a job, it had its up and downs, but I definitely learned a lot. I learned to deal with complete f&$@ing idiots on a regular basis. I learned that people are happiest when they can feel superior to someone else. I learned that you really never know who can overhear you, which is a lesson the mayor of Laurel could have used as he sat at a table talking about someone I know very well.

And I learned how to carry three or more glasses at a time without a tray. This is incredibly useful when you’re out at a bar with friends. I can also carry three or four full plates at a time, which is less useful but still comes in handy sometimes.

I can calculate a tip in about four seconds.

I can mix pretty damn good drinks, even though I have to look up the more complicated ones.

Public Relations
I did PR for a bunch of different organizations, in a bunch of different venues. While I didn’t much care for the work, the lessons are invaluable.

I can put a positive spin on anything.

I can translate tech-speak into something an average person can understand.

I can write 3000 words on a concept I don’t really understand myself.

I can speak at length on just about any topic, with no preparation, whether I know anything about the subject at hand or not.

I can be diplomatic even if what I really want to do is hit a person with a shovel.

Plus, it’s uncanny how many skills translate directly from working with high-level executives to working with kindergarteners.

Librarian
I feel like all I do is learn, honestly. But if there’s one thing this job has taught me, it’s that I could actually do the whole parenting thing.

Frightening, huh?

Excuse me, your sign is dumb.

DC instituted early voting this year, and I voted today for the first time as a District of Columbia resident. I'm not going to launch a political discussion here, and anyone who I've talked to for thirty seconds about the DC mayoral race probably knows who I voted for anyway, but let me tell you who I did NOT vote for.

Carlos Allen.

I submit that being best known for being that other White House party crasher probably isn't going to help your campaign, but that's not why I'm bringing him up. One of his signs is on the corner near my condo, and every time I walk past it, it irks the hell out of me, because one of his slogans is "The First Afro-Latino in history." For one thing, what the hell does THAT have to do with anything? And for another, it doesn't even make sense. He may be the first Afro-Latino candidate for mayor, but that's not what it says. And I think the many citizens of the Dominican Republic, among others, may take issue with the idea that he is the first person in all of recorded human history to be both of African and Latino descent.

On the one hand, I can take solace in the fact that his crazy ass got bounced off of the Democratic ballot. On the other hand, he's apparently now planning to run as an Independent in November, and while he still doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell it means that I'm going to have to look at his stupid signs for another two months.

In other DC politics news, the most annoying person I've ever encountered on the Internet was caught on tape stealing campaign signs, and I rejoiced. I have never met this woman in person, nor do I care to, but every time one of her emails comes over a community listserv, I gag a little. And because I am a bitchy, vindictive person, I thoroughly enjoy seeing hypocrites exposed.

Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, or How waiting tables saved my sanity

The Ruby Tuesday in Laurel closed last Monday, very suddenly. My understanding is that they called the staff together Sunday night and told them, and that was it. (That's fairly typical of chain restaurants, I understand.) While I never intended to work there again, I have to admit I was a little sad. I spent three and a half years of my life working in that restaurant. That's longer than I've ever worked ANYWHERE else. And if I have to point to the part of my life that changed me the most--and the part for which I have the most dynamic memories--that would be it.

I was always the good girl. I always did exactly what I was supposed to do. I graduated from high school and went right to college. I did college in four years with a fairly minimal amount of partying, and I went right out and got a "good job." And I was miserable.

Partly, it was a poor career choice. Partly it was just a general desire to rid myself of responsibilities. When I was laid off in January of 2004, I said a great big fuck you to all of that. I'd already been working at Ruby Tuesday for a year and a half, part-time. I looked half-heartedly for a new job for a month or two, and then I just stopped trying. I waited tables and bartended exclusively for two years, and in the beginning it made me happy.

It's hard to describe to someone who's never worked in a restaurant, but the atmosphere there is completely different from any other workplace I've ever had. Go rent Waiting. The writers of that movie clearly worked in a chain restaurant for awhile, because that movie is the most true-to-life depiction I've ever seen of those three years of my life. (The one exception: Messing with the food. I never saw that, really. But you'd probably be disgusted by the number of people who touch your food before it gets to you.) I was totally Naomi, the angry girl who would be as sweet as pie to her tables and then turn around and bitch about them at the top of her lungs. It was an atmosphere in which I could be completely irresponsible, and there were very few consequences.

It was exactly what I needed.

Going to work was like going to hang out with all of my friends for awhile. We'd slog through the shift, leave at around 11:30 at night, and go to the bar. We'd close the bar down at 2 a.m., and then often as not we'd go back to someone's house and sit around drinking and playing games until 4 or 5 in the morning.

I have tons of stories from this time in my life, but the best of them are a little too good to put out there onto the Interwebs. Some of the tamer ones include...

...the time I opened the storage room door to get the vacuum cleaner and immediately did the girlie dance of screaming as roaches scattered everywhere. I thought the cook was going to pee himself, he was laughing so hard.

...the look on D.'s face every time I went into the office around that time. She'd look at me, sigh "Another one?" and then go out to buy my table's check because they'd just seen a roach.

...the karaoke parties at C.'s apartment every week. The cops broke up just about every single one...I can't imagine why. I mean, a group of 15 drunk people singing karaoke at midnight on a weeknight in an apartment couldn't possibly be a problem...

...the time we definitively did NOT graffiti the wall behind the beer cooler during a late-night bar clean. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I wouldn't go back to this point in my life if I could; two things I'm really not cut out for include dealing with stupid people (customers) all day and living in poverty, and I definitely did both of those things during that period of my life. But I am so, so glad that I did have these experiences, because they changed me for the better.

At least until the end. Then I was really, really bitter. But I've gotten over that now, I swear.