The Salad Spinner Report

Kevin! The comments were from me!

Well, it's been a hunnerd years since I've written anything professionally it seems, but in the last week I finished an article for www.chefs.com, had an aricle proposal accepted by Eat & Drink Austin Magazine, and have been chosen to be a contributor to www.austinist.com. That's new and exciting.

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

Still no movement on those articles.

Yesterday went to Porchlight Popfest with Rose and Roman and ran into a million of the usual suspects. Man, was I grouchy! Sometimes I get that way ... surrounded by a million fun people I just get bored.

Porchlight is cool though. SXSW (So by So What) is so not my deal, but Porchlight is a cool oasis in the middle if the mayhem. There were 14 bands playing 30 minutes sets - an ADD dream. Beatty's new band kicked ass, and as usual it was awesome to see Prescott Curlywolf and the ubiquitous Fivehead. Good times.

Aftwerwards, we went to Hut's Hamburgers for ebola.

Forgot to mention that we started the day with a trip to the Pedernales Lofts pavilion for a Butler Brothers party. Nice guys.

I’m attempting to write an article for chefs.com about food related books that don’t fit neatly into the cookbook category or that offer some narrative beyond a recipe listing.

So far my loose list includes:
• Food Lover’s Companion – Sharon Tyler Herbst
• Wine Lover’s Companion – Ron Herbst
• The Cheese Primer – Steven Jenkins
• Kitchen Confidential
• Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
• On food and Cooking – the science and lore of the kitchen Harold McGee
• Alton Brown – I’m Just Here for the Food
• Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
• Spice – a history of temptation – Jack Turner
• Salt/Cod - Kurlansky
• The History of Food - Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat

The issue is, I am suffering from horrible writer’s block.

In other news, I ate dinner at a little Pflugerville restaurant called Mangu last night that, while somewhat delicious in some respects, caused some nervousness and bellyache via swimming-pool-flavored tilapia.

My new policy is that I won’t eat at an ethnic restaurant more than 15 minutes from any major metropolitan central business district.

Duh.

Speaking of pretty:

I remember, quite clearly, making funnel cakes with my grandmother. Summers in Dublin, Texas, were full of simple activites - making funnel cakes, walking to the creekbridge with my cousins, playing with the Bible Stories Felt Board in the game room on the north side of the house. I don't know what made me think about these things this morning.

I had a wonderful dinner with Jane and Kevin the other night at the Clay Pit. I drank wine and they drank brightly colored tequila drinks and we all ate Naan and dishes that were so spicy, but none of us were willing to eschew any flavors for the simple inconvenience of a burned tongue. I thought about their families a little while we ate - creative Kevin with his beautiful husband Jack, their big baby-dogs and unconventional gardens, and erudite Jane's two smart, smart children and her kind husband, strange little dogs and soon-to-be-adoptive-daughter from Colombia, Nataly. As I drove home I was compelled to evaluate my own family, but my gears slipped past my brash lesbian half-sister, my man's man step-brother, my four parents (simultaneously buoying and damaging), and my niece and newphew - little packagesl of pure potentiality - to my family at home - my best friend, Boston Rose, and her boyfriend, the ubiquitous genius Roman.

As I worked over my thoughts of everyone I started to think of us all as not really parts of different families, but instead all members of one enormously huge family full of tons of people who haven't yet met one another.

It's not very often that I have thoughts like that lately, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it.

Last night was First Saturday Mass and I drank lots of wine. Tonight is the Oscars, come what may.

A full day of work, followed by trout meuniere, arugula salad with duck, and profiteroles, then a quick trip to the Long Branch for Rose's thing for the mayor. Angela and Shawn, Matty and Roman, as well as surprise visits from HEather (who is doing Guerilla versions of Six Feet Under) and a Courtney-Brandon-Jericho-Amy-Ratgirl drive-by. Wicked cool day.

Thursday is dinner with Kevin and Jane at the Clay Pit, or as I have been known to call it, the Pay Clit, Yay!

Tomorrow though, that's what it's al about baby. Project Runway.

Quick! Everybody make out with Danny V!

Friday is First Saturday Mass. Everybody come.

Rose and I just went to Central Market for a little weekly shopping. We threw our fists in the air and parked in the "Customers with Children" parking spaces.

You may have chosen to experience the miracle of life, which is very exciting I'm sure, but that doesn't mean I have to park on the other side of the parking lot so you can wrangle your snotty little brat into the store with more ease. I have decided that if anyone should ever challenge me on the decision to park in the customers with children parking spaces, I will just tell them that the kids are at home. Or were abducted.

I'm starving!

My friend Mikey in Houston (http://www.mikeypod.com) requested my recipe for oat cookies with oregano which, I claimed to be baking for this afternoon's festivities which is going to include Texas Hold 'Em and movies. But not doing laundry - or baking these cookies. Again, le yay.

Nevertheless, here is the recipe, lifted from The Herb Bible: A Complete Guide to Growing and Using Herbs. I've decided it looks like too much of a pain in the ass to make these today, but knock yourself out!

OAT COOKIES WITH OREGANO
Serves 10

INGREDIENTS
Generous 1 cup whole wheat flour, plus extra for sprinkling
Generous 1/2 cup oat flakes
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 tsp dried oregano
3/4 stick butter or scant 1/2 cup margarine
3 tbsp milk

METHOD
In a bowl, mix together the flour, oats, baking powder, salt and oregano.

Rub in the butter until the mixture is like fine bread crumbs, then slowly stir in the milk using a fork until the ingredients are well worked together. Sprinkle flour on a clean counter and roll out the dough until it is 1/4 inch/5 mm thick.

Use a pastry cutter to stamp out 18 cookie shapes. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake on a mid-to-high shelf at 350 F/ 180 C for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Lift the cookies carefully onto a wire tray to cool, then store in an airtight container.

VARIATIONS
Instead of the oats, try 1 1/2 oz sunflower seeds for a crunchy texture or 1 1/2 oz sesame seeds for a milder, sweeter taste.

So, while I was taking the GRE yesterday morning, my roommate Rose had many of our friends and family over for her house blessing.

The priest came early and sprinkled holy water in the rooms, and luckily nothing in my room caused the holy water to sputter and steam ... le yay!

I arrived home to find tons of visitors, which, after a morning taking the GRE, was initially shocking, but there was coffee, mimosas, fruit and sausages, chocolate cherry bread and mini frittatas, yay Rose!

Most importantly, Roman's mom made a cheesecake like no cheesecake I have ever had. It has ruined me for all other cheesecakes that may try to win my love.

Today, I will (most likely decide not to) make savory rosemary and oat cookies and pretend like I might do laundry.

I'm such a goof, I made Pad Thai for dinner but I'm going to lunch with Erin to see Dr. Foo at Satay tomorrow. Something tells me her Pad Thai is better than mine.

I was also thinking about howgood my musical tastes were when I was in high school, which is funny because I was so not in the know about anything, yet somehow in podunk Round Rock, Texas got turned on to the Smiths, the Sundays, the Sugarcubes, Echo and the Bunnymen, PIL, Joy Division, the Cure;s Kiss Me album, Nick Drake. Thank God for that. Then again, there was a lot of coolmainstream music in the 80s- Culture Club, the Pretenders, the Police, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys.

Whatever, I'm sleepy.

I just made rice and steamed veggies with a sauce of coconut milk, serranos, brown sugar,garlic, shallots, peanut oil, soy sauce, cilantro and onion.

It was pretty good, but it would have been really good with peanut butter.

One of my students just brought me a Panna Cotta. It is so beautiful I can't stand to eat it.

[PAHN-nah KOH-tah] Italian for "cooked cream" panna cotta is a light, silky egg custard, which is often flavored with caramel. It`s served cold, accompanied typically with fruit or chocolate sauce.

This morning's grumpy festivities began with a trip to El Chile with Rose and Roman. We decided it was most appropriate to take three cars instead of just the one, so we jumped in our respective coches and rolled up on el restorante at 10:30 sharp to find Iris there doing this crazy low-key dance that I could only interpret to mean, "El Chile doesn't open for half an hour and why are y'all driving three cars?"

We got out of our cars and stared at one another blankly until Roman asked, "Do y'all want to go to the lab and help me transfer liquid helium?" We decided that was the logical next best thing to do so we rolled up on the UT chem building and the science began in earnest. My duties in the experiment included playing with a really short screwdriver I found and blankly smiling at a really short Asian man who came in to see what was going on.

An hour later we were back at El Chile, sucking down coffee and mimosas, corn tortillas and other asorted items of deliciosity.

Later, Roman and I went shopping for tonight's hamburger dinner/ Texas Hold 'Em party. While shopping, we noticed a five piece mariachi band in front of the Lunchables. They seemed wicked professional - too professional to sing in front of Lunchables anyway.

Rose went to meet with a priest who's going to come bless the house. She feels that he might be from Africa or Haiti. She also feels that I should clean my room for the blessing next week. It happens at 10am, and I'm scheduled for the GRE during that time.

What would Jesus do?