Raging Red

This little guy is the result of an egg-boiling mishap during the preparation of a Cobb salad.

It’s three blog memes in one!

I snapped the cutest picture of my cat this morning. When I walked into the bathroom and saw this, I just started cracking up. I even made H.K. wake up so I could show him the photo on the digital camera. (Sorry, babe!)

Also, in honor of my iPod getting a new lease on life thanks to ipodjuice.com, I feel like doing a Friday Random Ten.

1. “Dirty Knife” - Neko Case
2. “I Was a Landscape in Your Dream” - Of Montreal
3. “Company in My Back” - Wilco
4. “Lullaby” - Pink Martini
5. “Mother, the Queen of My Heart” - Scott Miller & the Commonwealth
6. “In My Life” - The Beatles
7. “I’m Not Afraid of Life” - The Ramones
8. “Wild Packs of Family Dogs” - Modest Mouse
9. “Mr. Grieves” - The Pixies
10. “The Spirit of Giving” - The New Pornographers

The battery in my iPod had completely gone kaput, but for a mere $39 I got a new one that they say has twice the playing time of the battery it came with.

Finally, I feel compelled to food blog because I made the most delicious dinner last night. I get a real sense of satisfaction when I can manage to throw together a really good meal using the random assortment of things I already have on hand. So when H.K. brought home two salmon filets last night, I got the wild idea to make a berry sauce for it so I could use up the strawberries and blackberries that were in the fridge before they went bad. Google turned up a recipe for Brown Sugar-Chipotle Salmon with Honey-Berry Glaze. Damn, was it good. The sauce wasn’t too sweet, and in combination with the spicy rub on the salmon the flavor was to die for. The recipe only calls for blackberries, but the strawberry/blackberry combo was really nice. I want to try it with raspberries the next time I make this.

Also, I got a good tip for making yummier sautéed mushrooms from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, which my dad gave me for my birthday. We make sautéed mushrooms fairly frequently, just sautéeing them with olive oil/butter and finishing them off with white wine and garlic. But Bittman’s suggestion of adding a handful of reconstituted dried mushrooms really kicked up the flavor. I used a combination of fresh creminis and shiitakes and a handful of dried portobellos.

Sorry, no pictures of the food — it was gone too fast.

So . . . cats, mp3s, and food: Discuss.

When I noticed yesterday that the New York Times’ most emailed article* was called “Strict Vegan Ethics, Frosted with Hedonism,” I got excited. I’m not a vegan. I’m not even a vegetarian. I don’t eat only natural or organic foods. I’m just a person who enjoys any kind of good-tasting food, whether it be a big, juicy hunk of meat or something from a Moosewood cookbook.

When I lived in Portland I occasionally shopped at a natural foods store just a few blocks from my house that had the most delicious scones I’ve ever eaten. The raspberry scones were my favorite. I was amazed that they were vegan, and since moving away I’ve looked around for a good vegan scone recipe but haven’t had much luck. (I admittedly haven’t looked all that hard.)

A headline hyping both veganism and hedonism (and frosting!) led me to believe I might discover something good in the way of vegan pastries. I was not disappointed. Did you know there is a cookbook devoted entirely to vegan cupcakes? If you’re dubious about the tastiness potential of a vegan cupcake, feast your eyes on these mouth-watering beauties, from the Vegan Cupcakes photo pool on Flickr:

I really want to know how to make frosting that can be all swirled up like that and not ooze all down the sides of the cupcake. I tried to do that with a rather thick cream cheese frosting once, but once the chilled frosting warmed up to room temperature, there were no more swirls.

The authors of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, Brooklynites Isa Moskowitz and Terry Romero, have a public access cooking show called Post Punk Kitchen, presumably only aired in the New York City area, but also viewable on their web site. They do more than just cupcakes. Their first book, Vegan with a Vengeance, has a little bit of everything sweet and savory, including . . . SCONES! And if I’m not sure I want an entire vegan cookbook (though it’s only ten bucks), they’ve got a recipe for Strawberry-Coconut Scones on their site, which can probably be adapted with whatever you want in your scones. Or, you know, whatever I want in my scones. Which would be raspberries.

* I love this statement from Isa Moskowitz on her PPK blog: “As of right now our Times article is still the most e-mailed story on their website. What’s wrong with you people?! Don’t you know there is a war going on?”

Make cupcakes, not war.

Via a highly classified super top secret source, I have scored two more boxes of Samoas. Did anyone else watch 60 Minutes on Sunday? Andy Rooney dedicated his weekly curmudgeon report to Girl Scout cookies. Turns out they’re made by Keebler, which makes perfect sense - only the magic of elves could create something as transcendent as the Samoa.

Damn. Well, I’m a day late on this bit of news, but there was a fire in the building adjacent to Delish, which is on the short list of things I genuinely love about Charleston. They might have to close permanently. I really hope that turns out not to be the case. I still had never tried their hot dog!

Two local bloggers, Rick Lee and Bob Coffield, have photos.

(via Oncee)

ca·rouse (kə-rouz‘)
intr.v., -roused, -rous·ing, -rous·es.

1. To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
2. To drink excessively.

Head’s up for any drunk drivers out there (for shame!) - the Charleston Police Department is setting up a checkpoint on Kanawha Boulevard from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. on this lovely St. Patrick’s Day to crack down on “mass carousing.” But will they be pinching people who aren’t wearing green? I didn’t wear any green today, but I figure I get a pass since I kind of resemble a leprechaun in some respects.

I believed in Santa Claus a little longer than most kids. I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until I was nine years old. I got a cell phone and an iPod well after those things had become “trendy.” I didn’t lose my virginity until, well, late enough that I’m not going to tell you. So I suppose it’s unsurprising that it took me twenty-nine years to discover the beauty of Samoas.

I was a Brownie, then a Girl Scout, and I probably sold hundreds of boxes of Girl Scout cookies during those years. (That might be a stretch. I wasn’t one of those go-getter cookie sellers. I’d procrastinate, then walk around my neighborhood only to find that some more ambitious girl had already canvassed the area.) Samoas were my dad’s favorite. In case you’re late to the party like me, Samoas are “tender vanilla cookies, covered with caramel on top and bottom, and then rolled in toasted coconut, and striped with a rich chocolaty coating.” It was the coconut that turned me off as a kid. I never tried them.

That all changed last week, when a co-worker brought in the cookies everyone in the office had ordered from his daughter. I had ordered two new kinds (well, new since the time I was a Girl Scout) - All Abouts and Lemon Coolers - and a box of Samoas at someone else’s request. Now that I’m an adult with a more refined palate than I had as a kid, I figured I should finally try one.

Holy cow. I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on these delicious cookies all these years! And I only bought one box! And they only sell them once a year! The caramel is so yummy, the coconut is so toasty and good, and the chocolate is so dark and delicious. Mmmm. On the “Little Brownie Bakers” web site, there’s even a recipe for shrimp coated in crushed up Samoas. That sounds a little strange, yet also intriguing. Guess I’ll have to wait until next year to try it out.

While dining at the bar at Soho’s, a slender bald man sitting next to me and my dining companion struck up a conversation about the drinks that the bartender was making. They were hot coffee drinks with whipped cream piled on top. The bald man was named Bill and he had recently arrived in town to do some consulting work. After asking the bartender about the drinks, Bill ordered three B-52’s, one for himself and one each for his “new friends.” We all said “cheers,” then took our first sips of the B-52. Hot damn. It’s coffee with Kahlua, Bailey’s Irish Creme, and Grand Marnier all topped off with thick whipped cream. It’s delicious and it definitely packs a punch. As big as that punch was after just one, we couldn’t resist ordering another round, again courtesy of Bill.

We had an entertaining conversation, during which my d.c. wondered aloud if a person could drink one of these laced coffee beverages in the morning, before work. Bill said, “I believe that would be a CLM.” We gave quizzical looks and he said, “Career Limiting Move.” We discovered that all three of us fair-skinned Anglo-Saxons have Cherokee not too far back in our bloodlines, so we pondered that for a bit. Then, after sucking down his second B-52, Bill was on his way. We told him “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Birthday,” because he was a Christmas baby. We finished our drinks then walked outside, where we hardly noticed the freezing temperature due to the delicious mixture of alcohol coursing through our veins.

Ah, the B-52 - bringing strangers together and keeping them warm over the holidays. I strongly suggest that you ask your friendly bartender for one.

In Gmail, you can now opt to have RSS feeds from various news sites, blogs, etc. appear at the top of the page. I was just emptying my spam folder and I noticed that the RSS feeds at the top of the page are all for Spam recipes. Heh heh. French Fry Spam Casserole or Ginger Spam Salad, anyone?

There’s an upscale bar in Chicago that’s selling a cocktail called The Ruby Red that’s served in a martini glass and has a one carat ruby plunked down in the bottom of the glass. It costs $950. The target market for this item is apparently guys with money to throw around (and probably small penises) who want to superficially wow their dates. So far, they’ve had three takers:

The first was to an out-of-town businessman who quietly ordered it for the woman sitting with him at a table.

The next was a Reserve regular who bought one for his girlfriend.

The third was an extravagant club promoter in his 20s who bought it to impress a first date. The man made a big show of handing it to the woman and warned her to watch out for a surprise at the bottom of her martini glass.

Barf. For any would-be suitors out there, you could win my heart by buying me a Dead Guy Ale and one of these. That’s almost a $450 savings!