Soup soup soup!

I got sick on Friday, so after classes I went shopping and came home with around $25 of vegetables. Potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, shallot, parsley, celery, turnips and mushrooms were all gathered from Redners to be made into delicious soups. On the menu were a chicken vegetable soup and a vegetable soup (for my vegetarian friends). Unfortunately I felt like crap and forgot to take pictures.
I have had a whole chicken in my freezer for a couple months now, and decided that it would be perfect to make stock with it! I took it out of the freezer and pulled out the bag of guts or whatever, then chucked it into the oven for an hour or so. After this I put the whole bird into a pot with salt, a cluster of oregano and water and proceeded to make stock!
While the stock was working its magic on itself, I started prep for the two soups. I sliced up the mushrooms and onions and then roasted them in a little bit of veggie oil. This was the first time I tried it and I'm definitely going to continue to do so, it really brings out flavor in them! For the potatoes I diced them up and threw oil and some lemon pepper on them and roasted them after the mushrooms and onions were done.
I diced or sliced up the carrots, garlic, shallots, celery and turnips and set them aside. By now the stock was chickeny enough, so I took out the bird and let it cool down. I put water into another pot and threw another bunch of fresh oregano, as well as some salt, into that. I chucked the carrots, turnips, garlic, shallots into both pots and cranked the heat! After a little while I dumped in the celery, onion, mushrooms and potatoes and lowered it down to low.
An hour later these soups were sooo delicious! I cracked some freshly ground pepper into them and ate and slurped away.
I also decided to make "bruschetta" out of tomato, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, parsley, oregano and basil. I just sliced up the tomato and finely diced the onion and garlic and mixed all of it together and let it sit in the fridge for an hour or so. Then I threw it on some bread slices and toasted that in the oven. I know it isn't traditional bruschetta at all, but I really don't have another name for it. It is amazingly delicious though, and whenever I make it at parties it gets devoured so quickly.

That's all for now. Hopefully next time I'll be able to throw some pictures up for you (whoever is reading this) guys. Later!

A Cautionary Tale of Vision Impairment and a Bicycular Debacle

Last night I fractured my right knee, and here is the email I sent out to my brothers about it:

Dearest Brothers,
Let me entertain you tonight with a little cautionary tale of extreme stupidity. It all started when I was helping Larissa and Other Girl clean up Jazzmans....

So I found these aviators under the counter in Jazzmans and decided to wear them around. So I'm looking cool as shit, cleaning stuff up and strutting around like I'm king of the world. After we're done, I head out to go home while Reeves and Larissa take pastry stuff and keys over to Wismer. As I'm walking out the library I decide that I should ride home wearing the sunglasses because, after all, John Beluci and Dan Akroyd drove 300 miles to Chicago at night wearing sunglasses, so a simple trip down Main St. shouldn't be a problem at all right? WRONG WRONG WRONG!

It starts off fine, I bike down to the gate and cross the street at the crosswalk since there aren't any cars in sight and head down the sidewalk. As I get to the church I see some people on the sidewalk, so I go into the street and pass them. Here's where the fun begins! Since I was wearing sunglasses I couldn't really see the curb, so I guess I hit a bad part and/or at a bad angle. My bike lurches onto the sidewalk and I flip over the handlebar. Now if you haven't had a thing like this happen you might not have experience something like this, but time felt as though it had slowed down and I distinctly remember thinking "Ok this sucks a littlOH SHIT I'M IN THE AIR"

I tumble around in front of Commonwealth and see these 2 kids sitting on the porch who ask if I'm alright. I try to maintain as much dignity as possible and reply "Yeah, how are you?". Not in a sarcastic way, but definitely trying to keep my guard up. They probably said something, but I really wanted to be on my way home since my left elbow was bleeding and my right leg was trembling. After I turn the front wheel completely around I get on and begin a tender and slow ride back to 424. My right leg is sore, but I'm not thinking anything is seriously wrong at this point.

I get to the back of my house, dismount, and my right knee decides it wants to slide out to the right when I put pressure down on the leg. "Awesome!" I think, "it might be broken or something". I sit on the bottom of the steps up to our apartment and call campus safety who dispatches SERV out to me. While I'm sitting there waiting I call almost all of my housemates, hoping one of them would be home and bring me down some BAND-AIDs. Unfortunately, they don't answer their phones at night or something, because eventually Molly (who was in Ricter) had to IM one of them to tell them to come down.

By this time the safety officer had come down and took my story. Then who should walk around the corner but Captain Fantastic himself, Mark Smedburg in the flesh! He whips out a colorful pair of gloves and begins poking my leg, asking about pain values. During this time, Lloyd and Cristoph (spelling? I'm pretty sure it was him) show up and Lloyd starts teaching him how to answer SERV calls. Mark determines it isn't broken and gives me an ice pack. I make a joke about taking a picture for MCS and then head upstairs. As I'm going up the steps the knee joint pops back into place and starts feeling 100%-135% better. After spending time swapping stories of being stupid and/or getting hurt I call my parents and head upstairs (again woo!) to tell you all this:

Don't do anything stupid that someone ever did in a movie. Seriously.

Fraternally yours,
Yogi Bear

All in all a pretty good story I think. I'll update with news after I see an Orthopaedic Surgeon this week.

First Post

This blog is probably not going to be updated very often. I'm not sure what I'll be using it for, but probably a lot of food stuff I do. For my first post I put up The Omnivore's Hundred from Very Good Taste, which is a blog I've heard good things about. The idea is to bold the things that you've eaten, and hopefully you can work through the list before you die.

To round out this post, here's the books I got at Wolfgang Books today!

The first thing that caught my eye was "Pita: The Traditional Way" by Ann C. Cessaris. It's a booklet that comes in at a little over 30 pages about pita and traditional food things that can go in and around pita. I'm really excited to start making some of the recipes in here as they all sound delicious. I'll probably make pita this week as it is literally flour, water, yeast and sugar or honey. If I remember to I'll take pictures and put them up here. If you're interested in picking up a copy for yourself, the only mention of it I can find on line is here, and it's $6 more than I paid, but I think it's still worth it.

The next book I got was a little hardback titled "Hugh Johnson's How To Enjoy Wine", again only $4. I didn't actually look through this, but I literally know next to nothing about wine, so I figured I might as well grab it. I'll read through it eventually and probably post a review up here then. It seems that no one has a picture of the edition I have (1st? dunno, but its from 1985) so the link goes to the newest one I found on Amazon.com from 2006.

The third book I grabbed is a collection titled "Best Food Writing 2007". This, honestly, was a compulsive buy. It was sitting in the 40% off section right in front of the register and I figured that it would be worth it. Looking through the table of contents right now, I can say that it was. There are some amazing titles such as "Waiting for Asparagus", "In Search of the Transcendent Taqueria" "The Frying of Latke 49" (yeah, I know) and, my favorite title, "Death by Lobster Pad Thai". I'm really excited to have the time to crack this one open.

I bought another anthology of food writing, this one titled "Endless Feasts: Sixty Years of Writing From Gourmet". This is basically a collection of snapshots from the past 60 years. Some of the names I recognize from the back cover include James Beard, M.F.K. Fisher and Ray Bradbury. This is another book I'm super stoked to dive into, once I have the time.

Finally, my favorite book from today's outing! I found this delightful book, "Openers" by Amy Nathan, with amazing photography done by Kathryn Kleinman. I love the pictures so much, that it now ranks directly below the French Laundry cookbook in the Most Beautiful Cookbooks I Own Category. This is a collection of small entrees, similar to tapas, that can either be served as appetizers or be grouped with 2-3 others and served as a whole meal. I wish I could find some examples of the photography in this book, because it is absolutely amazing. When I first opened it and saw the picture for "Wild-Rice Pancakes with Shredded Duck and Gewürztraimer Sauce" I knew I had to get it. Luckily, Wolfgang is amazing and it was only $5! I went through all the pictures and I can't wait to start cooking from this! I'm thinking of asking these people who live a street over from the house if I could have 2 of their pumpkins for the "Pumpkin-Leek Soup" that opens the book.

I guess that's all for now, hopefully I'll remember to take some pictures when I make pita this week, but who knows.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred

Originally found at Very Good Taste

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (Apple, and it was delicious!)
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi (Not sure if it was salted, but it was delicious)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

47 is pretty good for a 21 year old I think. I'll update this post whenever I do something on here.