Almost TGIF

I'm quite pleased with myself, reader. I just made a version of this salad from Last Night's Dinner. As promised, it was quite delicious, super quick and I would add inexpensive to boot. I added some blanched green beans to pack an extra veggie punch and substituted plain yogurt, which I always have on hand, for creme fraiche, which Jennifer always seems to have on hand and I never, ever do.

To make it faster, boil the green beans for one minute, then using a handy dandy flat wide thingamabobber which turns out to be called a skimmer, chuck into a bowl of cold water. Then throw the potatoes into the still-boiling water and while they're cooking, chop the beans into bite size pieces. Then when the potatoes are done, throw them in the cold water--easy, non? Mix up the dressing, then pour over the rest of the ingredients. (I found smoked trout at Trader Joe's.) Gently mix everything up, serve on a pile of salad greens with a nummy loaf of bread and voila! Dinner quick and easy.

Though I really don't have much in the way of kitchen equipment, the skimmer has been indispensable. I originally bought it to make taralli but I do find myself reaching for it when a slotted spoon will simply not do. But for the love of God, do not plunk down $20+ for this item. Get thee to a TJMaxx, Marshall's, Ross or Home Goods and you'll be able to find one for under $10.

New media sensation in Casa de Professional Critic: The Riches! This FX series stars Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver as heads of a family of Irish Travellers who assume the identity of a deceased couple in Louisiana. It's excellent. Any meh feelings I previously had about Minnie Driver have been banished and Eddie Izzard is his usual awesome self. Sidebar: who is the father of Minnie's baby? Anyone?

I'm looking forward to reading The New York Times Magazine article about Tyra, but first can I point out that she resembles RuPaul more and more with every passing day? Embrace your hot tranny mess Tyty!

If you don't expire from cute overload when you see this, reader you're made of stone.

Happy Friday!!

Phhhhht

That's the sound of a foul weather three day weekend ending.

But to accentuate the positive, here are four good things:



Beautiful and fragrant roses from Stacey and Bernie's yard. Aren't they gorgeous?








Adorable new kitten! He doesn't have a name but feel free to suggest away, so he doesn't have to be Baby Boy forever.





Discovery of Company C, a purveyor of delicious home furnishings. I super covet the swoony Nouveau & Briarcliff combo. Since this is a positive post, I won't dwell on how stupidly expensive their stuff is, but instead just say WANT. IT.

And finally, Chris Rock on Barack Obama, in last month's Rolling Stone:

"And for those doubters out there who keep askin', 'Is America ready for a black president?' I say, 'Why not? We just had a retarded one"'

Oh yeah!

Memorial Day Weekend

Because it's a three-day weekend, naturally the weather sucks. But it's a good excuse to cuddle up on the couch with my furry juvenile delinquents and brush up on all the interwebs has to offer.

So it seems that Lindsay Lohan is having an affair with "gal pal" DJ Samantha Ronson and has been photographed wearing a diamond band. But can I say? That Ronson girl looks like a shifty-eyed no-good-nik. I don't have a good feeling about it. Oh, why doesn't Lindsay check in with me about these things?!

In other distressing news, thirty seconds after revealing her fourteen-year relationship with partner Cydney, Jodie Foster has moved on to her next girlfriend. Sure, that's life and relationships break up but next time maybe Jodie will publicly acknowledge her partner a bit sooner.

Finally, the usually impeccably dressed Cate Blanchett sported this monstrosity at the Indiana Jones premiere. I Dream of Genie meets Reynolds Wrap. Feh.

Hey, guess what? Ali over at Cleaner Plate Club tagged my post about salmon burgers. Check it out here and don't miss her new post on Vitamin Water. Grody!

I just got Marion Nestle's What to Eat from the library and am sure I'll have lots of hair-raising stories like Ali's to tell you, so stay tuned.

Over the Hump

Since I'm already a fan of Jezebel, it was just a short hop to Consumerist. Though I am conflicted about my own consumerism and think it would be cool to make everything, I can't even pretend to be one of those off the grid types since frankly I just love to shop. Indeed some things you can't make yourself--like plane tickets and car insurance. I feel better.

Anyway, Consumerist has taught me a thing or two, like how astronomical gas prices have made the formerly pathetic Geo Metro a hot commodity rivaling the uber-cool Prius, why you shouldn't trust the nutritional information posted by restaurant chains, and why AT&T should take a page from Zappo's customer service training manual.

So where the hell have I been that I've never heard of Rachel Maddow, Rhodes Scholar, political commentator, Air America host and all over cute button? If you've been in the same distant universe, check out her commentary on Republican hooker scandals. I've watched a handful of her clips on YouTube and enjoyed them thoroughly but much to my shock and dismay many of the commenters entirely bypassed her views to express unadulterated rage, homophobia, misogyny and transphobia. I mean seriously, it gave me an unpleasant jolt and a reminder that I live in an enchanted bubble where the mayor marries gays, the city's health plan covers sex change operations, and you know what? It's just the place I want to be.

Food Friday

Whew, after these two hot hot days my apartment is rather kiln-like so I'm in the hallway while Gus and Josephine enjoy some cool air after being cooped up all day (and night). I've just gotten back from hearing a talk by Raj Patel, whose book Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System has just come out in paperback. Not your typical Friday night dinner and a movie but let me tell you, the bookstore was packed, as in to the gills. Maybe because it's Berkeley, but how awesome that more and more people are concerned about the origins of our food, our health and the health of our families, how so many people across the globe can be starving and obese, and that despite the ever booming nutrition industry, we're sicker than ever. Grim realities aside, Patel is an engaging speaker: funny, irreverent and a bit of a potty mouth and I look forward to reading his book.

I guess you've heard by now that the California Supreme Court overturned the state's ban on gay marriage, which has opened the floodgates for the interspecies unions soon to follow. I'm so glad that in this uncertain economy, endless war, home prices plummeting, healthcare and food costs soaring, that conservatives are putting their energy where it really belongs: preventing disgusting homosexuals from fulfilling their secret agenda of wedding farm animals.

Ellen's announcement of her pending nuptials provides all the proof you need--but you'll need to look past the seemingly earnest and life-long desire to have her union legalized, the sweet smile of her girlfriend Portia DeRossi, and the cheering audience to see it. If you play this clip backwards, you'll hear the true message, which is, "When I say that Portia and I love horses, I mean we really love horses. Thanks for giving our forbidden love its day, SUCKAHS."

Maybe these concerned citizens might turn their attention to Lance Armstrong. The girls he dates keep getting younger and younger; I fully expect him to start hauling around a sonogram picture of his in-utero gal pal. But for now, it's Kate Hudson. Blech.

Go Whitney!

For the first time in the hallowed history of America's Next Top Model, a "plus size" gal takes the competition! Sure she's only a size 8 and all, which makes the size 12 average American woman ... Moby Dick ... but whatev! Girl's got some curves and she works 'em! No scarily jutting bones and I bet she menstruates, too!

This week I've been reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. It's a slim book and thanks to Pollan's lively style, a fun read. His book takes aim at what he calls the "lipid hypothesis," that idea that dietary fat is associated with poor health outcomes, a thesis that had been debunked back in the 60s and 70s just as it was being introduced, oddly enough, just as the "nutrition industry" was taking hold. Turns out, the only fat that's really associated with these bad health outcomes are the very fats we were encouraged to eat instead of devil butter--transfats like margarine.

Since basically everything I've been told about what to eat by my doctors and the nutrition industry is wrong: no more than one egg a week! low-fat dairy products! skinless chicken breasts, I'm feel a touch at sea. Pollan's book has been helpful and next I plan to check out Marion Nestle's What To Eat.

Oh, sad news. I snapped out of my newfound Ciao Bella Gelato haze long enough to read the ingredients list and ick. Despite the fact that it's billed as "natural" and close to $5 a pint, it's filled with creepy non-food ingredients like corn syrup, locust bean gum, carageenan and other words I don't recognize. I wrote Ciao Bella a Dear John email, imploring them to alter their recipe. I'll keep you posted.

Sideways

Not the movie. Which was good and you should check it out if you haven't seen it yet. But I mean sideways is what happens when feelings want to get out and you don't particularly want them to.

I was picking up The Mama yesterday to go for a hot tub and sushi experience. I accidentally parked myself in someone's driveway a little bit and as I got out, a man came out of the house belonging to said driveway and very nicely informed me that I was in his driveway and since he was planning to leave soon could I please move?

If you live in the suburbs or don't own a car then perhaps you're not acquainted with the giant pain in the ass it is when you can't get your car out because some nincompoop doesn't know how to park, or maybe does and was just too damn lazy to circle the block one more time or just park on the sidewalk like all the normal people do, but it's rilly rilly annoying. That he was so nice about it speaks volumes about him, or maybe he was that scary calm people get right before they go homicidal bonkers. I hadn't considered that possibility until just now.

Flustered, I apologized, got back into the car and BWAH HAWHA the waterworks came on accompanied by the ever-helpful self-flagellation: I'm such a bad parker! How could I have not seen the driveway! I shouldn't even have a license! I have NO BUSINESS being behind the wheel! etc.

All the while the tiny voice of logic reminds me that this isn't really about parking but it's so much easier than thinking about that Other Thing that I really don't want to think about: it's Mother's Day and I can't call or send a card or feel guilty because I forgot to do one or both of the above things in fact I can't do anything but be sad and frankly that doesn't feel very good at all and in no time I'll be thinking about my dead grandmother and dead cat and understand viscerally why people abuse substances.

So yeah. Sideways. Grief is tricky like that and though I know there's no way but through, sometimes I still want to fight about it. Maybe I can win if I make a big scene and yell a lot, all intimidating like, "Death, I am so sick of your ass! I don't want to see you around here anymore, you hear me?" and Death and Grief will skulk off and pick on someone else, big fucking bullies.

But I know, oh I know, you never win that fight. Not for long, anyway. Pay now or pay later, and later can mean in the dressing room at TJ Maxx where you can't comprehend HOW FAT MY ARMS LOOK IN THAT SHIRT BWAH HAWHAHW. Yup. Sideways.

Weekend Smorgasboard

Thank the Maker it's the weekend. Come Wednesday morning I have no idea how I'm going to make it through the rest of the week, but somehow, I do. We do.

A lot of folks are stressed our right now, with good reasons. Where to start? The state of the economy is hitting everyone now, whether working for corporations with tanking profits, social service non-profits losing critical public funding or simply figuring out how to feed a family in light of soaring gas, food and healthcare costs.

Right now I'm fighting what I suspect will be a losing battle with the medical group that did my breast biopsy. I received a $200 copay bill which was a surprise since I had done my due diligence (so I thought) and checked my insurance benefits on the much-ballyhooed "member services website" precisely so I wouldn't get this kind of surprise. The ensuing conversation I had with a representative from my insurance company entered the realm of the surreal, unpacked its suitcase and settled in for a long visit.

In a nutshell, I have this $200 copay because the procedure was coded as being performed in a hospital. Now, I don't know the exact definition of a hospital and maybe this is where my problem lies, but I lived in San Francisco for about ten years and feel like I have a good grasp of the hospitals contained in those seven square miles. I'm also very confident that people in the throes of a heart attack are not whisked off by ambulance to the Breast Health Center.

The rep said, "but they coded it like it was in a hospital" and further explained that had the procedure been performed in a doctor's office, it would have different copay. What would have been different about this procedure had it been performed in a doctor's office? Would the magazine selection in the waiting room not contain recent Oprahs but only tattered Good Housekeeping? Would I not receive any Novacain shots? Perhaps I would not have been sent off with my little goody bag of bandages , bottled water and granola bars?

Her answer: it would be coded differently. I gave up on this line of questioning.

I'm trying to reach the medical group. You're no doubt surprised to hear that I've never been able to reach a live person, messages left in their general voicemail box are unreturned, and a promising email with a real person's extension on it did not work, either. I'm still trying.

$200 won't break me but it stings, especially since like many people, I'm spending a lot more on everything else. But at core what sucks about this is I'm a fully insured person. I have "good" insurance, for which my employer and me together pay $400 a month. Such is the state of healthcare. I'm lucky--I'm not even sick! Can you imagine trying to wend your way through this maze when ill and scared?

Reminded me of Michael Moore in Sicko wandering through a British National Health Services hospital, trying to find the billing office, not believing all the doctors, nurses and patients smilingly explain to him, no one pays for anything, and only uncovering the cashier who did not collect money, but reimbursed patients for travel costs to get their medical care.

We're so, so far behind where we need to be.

Sorry to be such a bummer, reader. Since it's important not to get dragged down to the point of paralysis, I offer you this truly uplifting story about a Bay Area doctor. And as always, Pot Psychology can make you laugh, though always NSFW! My gift to you, happy weekend.

Miley Whatever

A little behind the curve but I just got my Vanity Fair and here's what everyone forgot to mention: it's a hideous picture. Miley doesn't resemble a femme fatale as much as the Vampire Lestat. She looks like she's had the blood drained from her, then dabbed across her lips. Awful. And the pictures of her with her achy breaky dad are even worse, downright creepy. It's way grosser to have a 15 year old laying in her dad's crotch than for her to pose alone with a sheet draped around her. And she's what ... 15? Brooke Shields was 14 when she told us nothing came between and her Calvins.



Brooke owns it and she's totally hot. None of this wussy ass 'I'm so sorry I let my fans down' bullshit. Take notes, Miley.

Kitten on a Leash, First Attempt

Gus, the crazier of the two kittens, has energy to spare, so much so that my small apartment cannot contain his nutsiness. A couple of times when he got out, he tore up and down the hallway with such cheetah abandon, I knew he needed more exercise.


I live on the third floor of an apartment building a stone's throw from a major highway and I see way too many run over kitties to feel good about letting him go outside, not just because he's the proud owner of half of one brain cell. Someday if I have a house and yard, maybe. But now, he was going to get walked.


After doing a bit of research I bought this harness and a leash. While waiting for my purchases to arrive in the mail, I was plagued by feelings of doubt and embarrassment. I really was becoming a crazy cat lady: middle aged, childless and overly indulgent of my feline babies who would not hesitate to eat me if I dropped dead in my apartment and it took a while for the super to figure out where the smell was coming from.



These were somewhat uncomfortable feelings that I figured would ease with time. But in the course of one Saturday morning, I saw one woman pushing her dog around in this and then a second woman carrying her dogs (two of them) around in something even bulkier and weirder than this. After that, I started feeling that it was perfectly normal to walk my cat if for no other reason than it made use of his God given legs.

The first step was getting the harness on him, which was much harder than it sounds. Unlike puppies, kittens are not trained to sit, and would prefer that you fuck yourself. But Gus loves attention of any kind, and though part of him suspected malfeasance, the other part of him (perhaps the other quarter of his half brain cell) loved the contact.

Eventually I got it on him and he immediately commenced to twisting himself into pretzel shapes in an attempt to chew the harness off his body. This goes on for a while but eventually we're in the hallway and he's just a wicked spazz, trying to back up out of the harness, jumping in circles to escape the harness, etc etc. After a few minutes of whirling dervish shennanigans, I decide it'll do for a start and take him inside. Since he doesn't understand treats as food, I give him lots of pets and kisses for his efforts. We can only go up from here. I think.

This Pasta Will Make You Praise the Lord

In 2001, my sister and her family rented a house for a month on Fire Island. While I was visiting, her mother-in-law made this incredible pasta dish with anchovy sauce that was so simple and yet so mind-bogglingly delicious, I've thought about it ever since.

A few months ago I attempted this dish and well, it was pretty bad. Barely edible, in fact. But I was not deterred--knowing that the basic ingredients wouldn't change: olive oil, garlic, anchovies, pasta. So it had to be a matter of proportions or maybe some tweaking to make it as delish as I remembered.

Tonight's version was much better, actually fantastic and I went back for second and third helpings and now my pants feel too tight. Of course I snarfed down my food before remembering to take a picture so I had to throw another heap on the now dirty plate so you could see it. I guess I could have wiped the plate off but oy, that's too high mai for me. Another reason I can never be a food blogger.




So here's what I did:

Put a big pot of water on to boil. The key to successful pasta cooking in my humble 1/4 Italian opinion, is plenty of water for the pasta to swim in. Salt in the water, oil and rinsing are all equally unnecessary.

In a large saute pan, saute two cloves of finely chopped garlic in maybe 1/4 c olive oil on low heat. I also added half a finely chopped shallot but it's just because it was sitting in my fridge. It would be fine without. Move that around a bit. Heat should be low here, no browning.

To this, add a two ounce can of anchovy fillets in oil--just dump it all in. I did not drain or rinse but I saw some recipes that said you should. I'm sure there's a difference with anchovies packed in salt water, but this is what my store had. I also bought a tube of anchovy paste that day, which I bet would also work but it must have fallen into the deep recesses of my cupboard because I haven't seen it since I put it away. I'll look into that someday and get back to you.

As they sit on the heat, you'll see the anchovy fillets start to disintegrate. They don't need much help, just push them around the hot oil and they'll break down. There are very fine bones in the fillets, which you do not need to take out.

Okay, this is optional but I think it was a nice addition: a handful of finely chopped toasted almonds. I had the peeled slivered kind, then put them on the toaster oven baking tray on 350 until golden brown. I dumped them onto a cutting board to cool, then chopped them pretty fine. They were just sitting in my fridge and the texture seemed to be the right thing. I was thinking of how nuts in pesto add a nice crunch to the smooth sauce and I wanted that effect.

By now your water is probably boiling and ready for pasta. You want something long, thin and smooth. Last time I used farfalle and it was a bad mistake. The super salty sauce pooled in the ridges and pockets of the pasta, creating a somewhat unpleasantly salty experience. This time I used about 1/3 pound of spaghetti because that's what I had but capellini (angel hair) is the way to go here, but if you had fettucine that would work, too. Cook it until al dente-you're going to finish it in the saucepan.

Sauce now should be relatively smooth--bust up any remaining chunks of fish. Turn the heat off, then add the chopped nuts if you used them. Then taste this--dear God, it's salty, right? Don't worry--now add juice of up to 1 lemon. Start with a quarter and taste as you go. Stop when it tastes right to you. For me, it was 1/2 lemon.

Did you know the key to juicing a lemon is to roll it over the counter, pushing down hard with the palm of your hand as you roll before you cut it open? I can't remember who taught me this but THANK YOU! This, along with "righty tighty, lefty loosey" are probably two of the most valuable things I've learned in my life.

When the sauce tastes good--salty but not unbearably so, dump the drained pasta into the sauce and really mix it up, coating each strand of pasta well. Try to avoid clumps of sauce and spots of dry pasta--they both suck.

That's it! Feel free to drizzle a bit more olive oil if it seems a bit dry. If you're a person that likes your pasta to swim in sauce, this may seem odd to you, but trust in the process--the pasta is sauced.

Reasons this dish is so great:
1. Delicious
2. Cheap
3. Makes use of small, oily fish that we're being encouraged to consume since large fish like tuna are full of pollutants and also being overfished.

Irritation, Balm

Grrr. The fleeting calm I experienced Friday night has left the building. Yesterday I read a blood-boiling article about multiple deaths of military by electrocution, due to faulty wiring in Iraq. You'll never guess who was responsible for the work. Who's our very favorite no-bid contractor in Iraq? Friends of Dick Cheney? Anyone? Oh yes, KBR, formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root, subsidiary of Halliburton.

Turns out, the $30 billion contract to upgrade buildings and electrical work where military stationed in Iraq live, didn't include basic safety, like grounding water pumps--which caused the death of one soldier in the shower.

Problem is, so much work has been outsourced to contractors that oversight agencies couldn't possibly keep up. According to this article, about 60 officers to oversee 18, 000 Iraq KBR employees.

Daily Kos unearthed something even more damning:

KBR's contract, the memo said, "only required KBR to fix the building (plumbing and electricity) as things broke. KBR did an initial survey of the building upon assuming responsibility and noted several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices.

"The contract did not cover fixing potential hazards so those issues were never addressed," the memo said.

To start, why the military keeps outsourcing work that has historically been handled by the military is one thing, but the other is, why are they contracting to agencies that do a shitty job and put lives at risk?

I know, I know. Sweetheart deals and the dark, evil heart of the administration is why. So naive. But can you just imagine if you went to the doctor for an x-ray for a sprained ankle, the doctor saw bone cancer and didn't tell you because that's not what the visit was for? Yeah, that's malpractice, a lawsuit and loss of license. This is how deep the corruption runs in Iraq.

There is a balm is Oakland and that is Ciao Bella gelato. I had this for the first time at Jac and Winger's and had to buy some. It's insanely creamy, dense, almost chewy and swoony. It's also stupidly expensive but I found it on sale today for 3.79, which I guess these days passes as a bargain.

Professional Critic, Strangely Calm

Maybe because it's Friday night but I don't really feel bent out of shape about anything right now. Cause for alarm? Maybe.

After a perusal of Perez I can muster up some mild irritation with Gwyneth Paltrow. Perhaps the combination of her starvation diet plus too much Pilates with Madonna has killed all her brain cells, but she needs to get a grip on her hemline. She's done just fine without broadcasting her cooch to the world, so why start now?

Oh, and nutwing Tracy Anderson, whose "signature strategy," is to give every woman a “teeny-tiny dancer type" body: two celery stalks with 4 teaspoons of almond butter for lunch isn't "perfectly healthy," it's anorexia you utter NIMROD and now I'm really bent out of shape that idiots like you can't keep your out of control eating disorders to yourself. TGIF.