Pho

Jason and I have discovered a mutual enjoyment of pho. Noodle houses in the Wasatch, prepare yourselves!

Burger King Barbeque Is Bullshit

Our latest couch-time venture is the Roku. The plus, great HD content with limited commercials. The minus, the same commercials over and over. Not that this would normally bother me, and it doesn’t… until the episode has been sponsored by Burger King.

I’m surprised at the venom I feel swelling inside as one of the commercials sets up. It’s a hot day. Junior is outside mowing the lawn. Dad, looking fresh and cool as a cucumber comes by, puts up his arms, and says “Hey, let’s have a barbeque today!” Cut to the next scene where they’re sitting on some hard-as-hell fast food booth seats and eating some shitty barbeque-“inspired” sandwiches. They can’t even call it barbeque! It’s inspired by barbeque! Kind of reminds me of a Mitch Hedberg line:

I like when they say a movie is inspired by a true story. That's kind of silly. "Hey, Mitch, did you hear that story about that lady who drove her car into the lake with her kids and they all drowned?" "Yeah, I did, and you know what - that inspires me to write a movie about a gorilla!"

And that’s about as close as these sandwiches look to being like barbeque. Worst of all is that really angry side of me that wants to try one of these lameburgers so that I can be more pissed about it. My luck, they’d actually taste okay.

Can anyone tell me what's going on in this picture?

What really bothers me about that commercial (and about the other “Barbecue Today!” ads from BK) is that it takes away my understanding – literal and inferred – of a barbeque. “Having a barbeque” is pretty simple concept and… isn’t it really more about the time we spend with one another while the food sizzles on the grill, while someone’s in the kitchen putting on the finishing touches to the slaw and potato salad? Isn’t it the scent of baked beans and iced tea, maybe even an ice cold beer? It’s certainly not driving down the block to Burger King.

Of course, as soon as I post this, I’ll be over it. Just as I was over the Starbucks French Roast pretty soon after I posted about it. (Oh,  hey, they finally got rid of French Roast here… we still have the SBUX offering, but the dark roast is now Sumatra… significant improvement, if you ask me).

Link to Burger King and "Barbeque Today!" related content

Liquor.com - or, How I Learned Tomorrow Is Bastille Day

I'm subscribed to emails from Liquor.com. I'm not sure how I got on their list, but it's been pretty nice to have around. I don't drink alcoholic beverages very often anymore, but their emails have had me daydreaming of wonderful champagne cocktails and more lately.

So, surprise-surprise when I see another email today titled: "A Cocktail Revolution". I'm in. Oooh la la! What is zis!? Spirited Bastille-Day Drinks?! Oh yeah, France had a revolution, too.

Again, Liquor.com has me dreaming of booze during the middle of a work day. Especially this little winner: The Green Beast

This may be cause to hit the liquor store on the way home...

I have a problem with French Roast.

I take that back; I don’t have a problem with French Roast. Maybe I have a problem with Starbucks’ French Roast. It’s actually too burnt (as even their mild blends seem to have an overdone quality to them). I love roasty. I love toasty! I love dark, and smooth; but baby, this Starbucks ain’t it. It tastes like charcoal.

The offending coffee

So naturally it’s one of the two selections available to me at work. Actually, I’m sure that even the version at Starbucks has to be better than this. It’s probably just user error; or more likely that the machine is deficient when it comes to actually extracting the flavor from the bean. They don’t have someone swirling the mixture in the basket to ensure that each ground gets the ever lovin’ attention it deserves from the water.

The offending brewing machine

And offending accompaniments/cover-up agents

It’s more likely that the majority of the coffee drinkers on my floor are more interested in the caffeine effects than the actual flavor of the coffee. Plus, I see the amounts of creamer we go through. My coworkers are only hiding the obvious – the coffee tastes awful.

The real answer probably resides with me. I think I need to be brewing my own coffee – and no, I don’t mean heading back to the old brew machine and letting it make the coffee. I need to bring in a press pot. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything that’s a good size for “a couple of cups at work”. But that can be fixed.

Time Lost in Chaos

Well, this past month and a half went a little differently than planned. So differently that I freaked out and again abandoned the things that have made me happiest, or even just the things that keep things running smoothly. Though the signs had probably been in the air for some time (above and beyond his chronic health issues) Jason's health took a nosedive this past month and we've spent 3-4 weeks in the hospital in the last month+. Fun times. 


It's so easy to forget to take of myself in all this. Whether it's guilt for enjoying something my husband cannot (I feel this guilt regularly), or guilt for just needing some alone time, it's easier to just ignore myself to make sure he's feeling better... even if it means a fight later.


On the upshot, one of the hospitals we've been in has some really great food, so good they even named their food court-styled area Windows on the Wasatch (the windows literally face the Wasatch Range). One of my favorite stations is the "Greens" area, where one of the servers mixes together your choice of greens, one protein, six veggies, a cheese, etc, and dressing for a delicious, though perhaps oversized salad.

One such salad... delicious!

They also have an excellent assortment of items to choose from, providing you can navigate around the sodium and caloric contents of the more junky food available.

Orzo and greens salad with feta, strawberries, and watermelon from a couple of days ago.
Sure makes a bad day better.

This veggie pizza was pretty delicious, as well. I think I got this early on in his stay.

All-in-all, though most items weren't photo-worthy (nor did I want photographic evidence of some of my worse choices... foot-long corndog anyone?), the food here was pretty decent. I'm still craving something a bit better from home, which I'll be able to get starting tonight. I'll also have to start tinkering around with new things to eat, things that will be both pleasing and healthful for Jason... (will be keeping an eye on Heidi's Blog for some healthy food tidbits!)

Time to get back to my regularly scheduled LIVING!

Challah!

Fridays at Harmon's means challah bread. Mmm... eggy, slightly sweet dream carbs... While I feel that challah is good to use for just about anything, nothing beats French toast made from challah bread, and that's just what I was thinking Sunday morning. 

I don't really measure, but I used approximately (and sometimes exactly):

• 3 large eggs
• ~ 1 cup skim milk
• ~ 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 lemon (I like this for a bit of brightness to the custard)
• 1 tbsp. good ol' white sugar

I'm really going to have to talk about this citrus juicers... one of my favorite tools. Squeezes until the last drop!

Soaked the bread for a couple of minutes on each side, then set it on a rack to drip off.

Browned for around 2-3 minutes on each side, then into the oven they went.

Here is the result:

Salty, sweet goodness.  

As far as tonight goes, I wish I'd whipped out the camera, but today was too much of a bummer to think about pictures, apparently. I decided to bust out the lamb chops in the freezer and threw them on the grill with rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, and olive oil. 

They did not look like this:

Is that roasted garlic I see?

But they were quite delicious.

Friend Making Mondays? Okay, I'm in...

I've been seeing this in a few blogs I read and figure I should give this a try... eh? Maybe it'll get the wheels in my head turning a bit faster.

FMM: What’s in Your Fridge?

1. List a few common items that can always be found in your fridge.  Grapefruit and orange juice are both refrigerator regulars. I typically will have one or two types of cheeses. Yogurt. Some formerly fresh produce that I don't manage to get into our bellies. 
   
   
2. What kind of milk do you drink? Nada. I do drink some almond milk from time to time.
3. Do you prefer fresh or frozen vegetables? Fresh! Unfortunately, we can't always get that here in Utah, so I supplement with frozen from time to time. I've been trying to make a better effort of working with seasonal items to keep the freshness in the diet while saving on the coin.
4. What do you currently have to drink in the fridge? Jason's milk, cranberry juice, orange juice, (I ran out of grapefruit juice), Brita water filter, IPA (1 bottle), cherry cola (1 bottle).
5. How often do you clean out your refrigerator? Once weekly for basic maintenance (throwing out of bad stuffs), every couple of months for major leaning (involving chemicals and the removal of all contents)
6. What’s the healthiest thing in it right now? Fresh red cabbage.
7. What’s the most unhealthy thing in it right now? A soft, delicious French cheese... Brillat-Savarin, perhaps? Can't remember off the top of my head. (Though I do feel that good cheese shouldn't be considered unhealthy... maybe I'll sub in the cherry cola.)
8. What do you wish you had in it that you don’t have now? Figs. Figs sound good. That would be good with the aforementioned cheese.
9. How often do you shop for groceries? Usually on the weekend. I got a little excited and went on Friday this past week. Sometimes I get a hankering for something unusual, so I'll stop off on the way home.
10. What’s the weirdest thing in your fridge right now? Nothing too weird, in my opinion. My freezer has a wonderful calamari steak that I'll be preparing sometime this week, however. Is that weird?