Wednesday, January 21, 2009

2 things: 1 important and 1 not so much

1. Ghetto Fry's purchased new shopping carts. I now feel regal as I push my ranch dressing around.

2. I am currently the proud owner of this:



5wch_1_x


which will be home to this:


light brahma cockerel


which started out looking like this:


Felicia and babies



The chicks were raised by my stupid chicken sister Felicia (taller chicken with the red comb in the background of the picture above - you can't miss her) who thought they were birthed from her loins, when actually, their real birth mom is back on a farm in Ohio, probably still walking around wondering where her eggs went. You see, one day Felicia decided she didn't want to get off her nest, which in the chicken world means she was broody. It was at this time my/our mother purchased a dozen already fertilized eggs off Ebay, and upon arrival, they were placed underneath Felicia's bottom, and since Felicia is a chicken and chickens are stupid, she thought she laid them herself and has raised them from egg to animal under these false pretenses.


I visited the stupid, albeit slightly cute, chicks early on in their life. I had a cold that day, and I tried to pass it on to see if I could be cause to some type of reverse avian flu virus.


Giving baby a cold

It didn't work.

So, I've decided the only way to get past my aversion to my poultry sisters is to steal their fake chicken babies.

I'm taking two of them, and am hoping to purchase a third from the chicken rescue organization (of which my mother is the chairwoman, president, and treasurer).

In a month or two, my nieces should be laying an egg a day (or it's off to the fryer with them), which, when adding in a third chicken, translates to 21 eggs per week. Our household consumes no more than 6-8 eggs per week, so I will be swimming in eggs. Since I can't stand wastefulness, I am creating an egg donation rotation list. Please comment if you would like to be added to my list, and I will let you know when to bring over your saved egg carton, which will in turn be filled with organic eggs, fresh from the fallopian tubes.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The word 'fat' is in this post 15 times

I really enjoy Cafe Rio's Pork Barbacoa salad.  Cafe Rio requests their employees to sign a confidentiality agreement not to disclose their top secret recipes, so a few online bloggers have posted what they deem to be a pretty close interpretation of the Pork Barbacoa.  The recipe called for a picnic pork roast; something I've never heard of since I don't cook pork often enough to know the different cuts. It just so happened that there was a picnic roast on sale, so I purchased the 4 lb hunk of meat and stuck it in the crock pot.  This particular roast was covered in a layer of fat. I chose not to trim it off because I had (this is where the story starts to go downhill) watched Top Chef last week and the head judge critiqued someone for removing the fat from their pork loin. Apparently, the fat gives the pork most of it's taste, and stupid me thought "then this should be a great tasting picnic roast". According to the recipe, I was to fill the crock pot up half way with water, place the roast inside, and cook it on high for 4 hours, after which I would remove the roast, drain the water, remove the fat, add the sauce mixture, and cook on low for an additional 4 hours. So, four hours pass and I began the preparations to remove the roast and discard the water. When I lifted the lid off the crock pot, the stench of death began wafting out of the pot. I had to plug my nose with my lips (a choice few of you have seen this trick of mine) to stifle any gagging. I pulled the roast out, placed it on a cutting board, and began to examine what fat I would be trimming off.  After examining the meat, it didn't look like any pork underneath the fat had cooked. It's still very red, and lukewarm to the touch, which shouldn't be the case after being in a crock pot on high for 4 hours. I turned the roast over and noticed the fat is puckering in an unusual way. I tried to remove the fat, but my knife wouldn't cut through it.  As I looked closer, I noticed the fat almost looked like it had pores on it. I lifted the fat up away from the meat a bit and I noticed that there was another layer of normal looking fat underneath the layer of unusual, stinky fat. I recoiled, realizing I had just cooked a picnic roast in my crock pot with the dead pig's skin layer still attached. This explained why the house smelled of rotting flesh, the "fat" layer was impossible to cut through (like leather), and why the meat inside hadn't cooked through the 1/4 inch layer of pig skin. At this point, it's all hands on deck; I went to work, lifting up the pigs skin and cutting away at the fat underneath, which was no small feat since the skin had to basically be rolled off as I cut away it's bottom layer. Anyway, it was gross, and it didn't cook in time for dinner that night. It was eventually cooked correctly, and I now have the yummiest shredded pork for my salad. So, to recap, picnic roasts come with the dead pig's skin attached.

Whose still hungry after reading this?

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Crap Day

About a year ago, I was driving Emma to school. As usual, I was running late. Emma's school is located inside a residential neighborhood. After I turned off of the main road onto the residential street, I continued driving at the same speed. It's very easy to forget to slow down. I'm still not even sure what the speed limit is in a residential neighborhood, but I was going well above it in hopes of getting her to school on time. As it turned out, I was driving 37 mph, and a lovely man on a motorcycle drove up behind me. He was parked off to the side of the street, preying on desperate, speeding mothers. I won't dispute it in court, but I plead entrapment. Anywho, I was close to Emma's school, so I continued on while he followed me. I drove into the drop off lane, and when I stopped to let Emma get out of the car, he immediately got off his bike and walked to my window. I was hoping he would at least let me pull out of the school and drive away a bit. He was immediately a jerk (don't they all seem jerky when they're pulling you over?), which caused me to become a bit defensive. I wasn't disputing the fact that I was speeding, but I asked him, "Why didn't you let me pull out of her school and away a bit so that I wouldn't be sitting here blocking other cars?".
He replied, jerkishly, "Why, are you embarrassed?".
"No," I lied, "but I would rather not be blocking other cars."
"I let you drop your kid off, didn't I?" he retorted, smugly.

He was both smug and jerkish.

So, for the next several minutes, I had to sit in the drop off lane while he filled out paperwork for my ticket. Sometime during this, he had apparently called for back-up because another lovely, smug, jerkish man drove up on a motorcycle, and engaged his cop-friend in a conversation about which long sleeved shirts work best underneath their uniform. All the while, parents where eyeing my car suspiciously, making a mental note not to set up a carpool with the mom in the red civic. So, the ticket gets issued and I'm on my way back home. Waiting for me at home was a friend who was going to watch Lost with me. I tell you this because it will matter later on in my tale. After my friend left, I checked my mail, and wouldn't you know, I had a letter addressed to me which contained a picture of me turning left through a red light. Maybe it was a good thing I got both tickets in one day - why spread out the misery when it can just be piled on me all at once? I paid my tickets, did my traffic school, and all is well. Although, I still believe the photo radar ticket was invalid. I remember getting flashed that day. Previous to my turning left, a fire truck had gone through the intersection, and they're always messing around with the traffic lights. So, the time allotted to my green arrow was half as long as normal. I tried to fight it, but it was useless.

This morning, I woke up in a strangely good mood. I'm not sure what triggered it, but I was feeling pretty swell. As I was driving through the drop off lane at Emma's school (I was shockingly on time today), I noticed a parked car, with a lovely, jerkish, smug man on his motorcycle behind it. His latest victim's car looked an awful lot like the car of the friend who was waiting at my house last year to watch Lost with me. I thought that it would be a terrible coincidence that the same cop would pull us both over, and to embarrass us by doing his job while we waited at our child's school. As I was driving through the drop off lane, I turned my head to see inside the car, and I determined it was NOT my friend's car. As I turned my head back to look straight in front of me, I found myself to be entangled in a shiny black Tahoe's bumper, or in other words, I rear-ended a guy, who I think was a doctor because his license plate said AZOBGYN. Well, wouldn't you know, the same lovely, jerkish, smug man cycled himself over to our little accident, and gave me another ticket. My great mood quickly soured. My car is still drivable, but it looks terrible. My auto body shop won't be able to get to my car till Monday, so I need to wait until then to drop it off because I'm limited as to how long I can have a rental for. I asked about the raise to my insurance rate. I was told that as long as the total damage doesn't exceed $750, there's no raise. $750 sounded doable, since it looks like just my hood needs to be replaced, and the other guy's bumper was only scratched. Well, there's a reason why I'm not an adjuster, because mine was just here and he left me with a $5,969.64 estimated cost to repair everything.

I think you have it out for me,
you lovely, jerkish, smug motorcycle driver.