Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Dear mom...

Dear mom:
Thank you for making things like sticky rice cereal for breakfast growing up. It's kept me from getting too sick of cheerios in college.

Thank you for teaching me that the washer can't eat my socks unless I do laundry.

Thank you for sending me cookies, and ignoring the irony of the fact that you are also sending me to culinary school.

Thank you for being short. At least I have someone to blame it on.

Thank you for teaching me to have a sense of humor. It's saved people who shoot my windows with airsoft guns from suffering an untimely death.

Thank you for buying me pepper spray, and reminding me to lock my doors.

Thank you for being kinda scary. When I pick up my phone and say "Hi mom!" I can get out of almost any situation.

I love you =)

Monday, October 19, 2009

How to Dismember a Chicken

For most of my life, I believed that chicken came in two varieties. The normal kind:




The normal check-for-eggs, Disney channel chicken:





And the kind you ate.
Pre-barbequed, edible chicken:






There was never any of this monstrosity:






However, photo 3 is an illustration of the monstrosity that confronted me from my cutting board.

You want me to do what? Cut it up? What IS it?

What I wanted more than anything was to refer my chef/instructor to Photo 2, and a Sam's Club membership. As far as I could tell, what he wanted was the caveman way of aquiring drumsticks.



Step 1- Figure out which end once had a head. This is important, since there are similar holes at both ends of the poutry.



Step 2- Flip the chicken onto its, um, neck, spread the mounds of fat that once were legs, and remove the giblets. (Giblets being the collective name for all vital organs)



Step 3- Realize that you are a slightly cruel person, and that chickens live in a cold, cold world. Come to terms with that.



Step 4- Using brute force and a large chef's knife, remove the backbone, starting at the tail. Be careful not to drop the thing. Live chickens are stupid, but dead ones are stupid and slippery.



Step 5- Once the backbone is out, repeat step 3.



Step 6- Remove the breastbone, cutting off as little meat as possible. Repeat step 3 if neccesary but you should be over it by now. I guarentee what now sits on your cutting board no longer looks like a naked little animal.



Step 7- Remove the wings, seperate the thighs from the drumsticks, trim the fat and, if neccesary, cut the breasts in half. If it's an American grown chicken they're probably as big as Dolly's.



Step 8- Sell the parts to Tyson, wash your hands thoroughly, swing by Safeway on the way home, buy a large bag of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and a bottle of barbeque sauce. Smile.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Winter Already?


Bread, veggies and cream cheese: $8.49;
Coffee maker: $34.99;
Going to school for culinary arts and realizing the only skill i've perfected is how to make a toasted panini sandwich on the hot plate of my coffee maker that sits on the floor of my dorm room: $Priceless.

I really wish the snow would stop just threatening Seward from the mountaintops and fall already. As you can see I'm prepared.

Got up this morning, realized I was completely out of ground coffee...it struck me that Zach would probably be peeved if i woke him up at 7am on a Sunday morning to get his coffee grinder..so I ended up stumbling out of bed and a few blocks down the street for some coffee. It was a wee bit chilly.

Went to a new church this morning...discovered some random people I happened to know also go there. The electrician at AVTEC and the receptionist at the dentist office. Really miss mom's piano playing the most on Sunday mornings...didn't realize how great it is to hear the Sunday songs practiced all week beforehand, cause then by church I can usually keep up.

Friday, October 16, 2009

You Know You're from Tok When..

1. Sam's Club/Costco is an all day shopping trip, and you have spent more than 6+ hours wandering around, trying out the furniture because every few hours your ma will need you to push a flat cart out the door, so you can't leave.

2. You go squirrel hunting out of boredom.

3. No matter how many identical, quarter shaped shiny blueish shells there are on a beach, it's still a treasure hunt.

4. Very very few things can successfully interrupt my runs..

Among them are earthquakes, lattes, terrorists attacks, broken legs...
And sea otters.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Notes to Self

As I've said before, not all knowledge is from books. I've never found a book titled "Common sense for dummies". I may have to write one. Because as I've come across tidbits of common sense that hadn't occurred to me, I've been writing them on notecards and sticking them on my door. Here's a few.
PS: Be sure to buy my book.

#1- Note to self: Jellyfish are extremely slippery. Like Crisco of the Sea.

#2- Note to self: If you put a fishing hook in your pocket, don't forget.

#3- Note to self: Backward glances before shooting pool are entirely optional. You might be sparing the world from the children of whatever idiot happens to be standing behind you.

#4- Note to self: Time does not heal everything. Not cavities anyway.

#5- Note to self: If hungry enough, cold oatmeal can be reasonably digested. However, not even a Cambodian refugee would eat the stuff frozen, much less a college student.

#6- Note to self: If you live in a school with 150 males, chances are at least one of them knows how to fix your fridge and at least 140 of them are willing to try.

#7- Note to self: 5 hours is much too long to spend making tomato sauce.

#8- Note to self: Going running in the gym when you have the stomach flu is a bad idea. Bad idea being defined as making enemies with the janitor.

#9- Note to self: Nyquil makes life peachy. Too peachy.

#10- Note to self: Close your windows before passing out. Rain does not always confine itself to falling vertically...

More to come, knowledge is continually bombarding my life lately...

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Visit from Traci

Okay...this post is a lil late, but my big sis Traci came and visited me and it was sooo fun!
We drank RedBull, went to the Arts Festival, walked on the beach, got coffee, got Gelatto's (fancy Italian ice cream) and took lots of pictures. Obviously. Camera happy friends are the best! =)

We took a drive around the side of the bay..Traci interrupted my jellyfish counting to take a picture. It was a lot colder out than it looked! Sunshine in AK does not neccesarily equal warmth..
The beach in front of the sea life center.
Pretty much a fancy rock pile that we had to pose in front of. That's me and Sharaya, who came with Traci.
We even saw sea otters playing in the water!
Traci and I!!
So on 4th avenue there are alllll these fancy lightposts! Eventually I'll find the way to Narnia.
The face is not a reflection of the quality of the ice cream...
Nothing like ice cream for breakfast!
Phone booth! Maybe not as good a one as the big red one...right Dana? But we make it look pretty not bad.
We're missing the third angel, but someone had to take the picture!?