Random Esquire

1. I got a culinary chubby the other day.  Here’s how it happened.

I walked down the hall toward my loft and smelled… Cake and bacon.  Cake and bacon!  I think that if I had smelled coffee, I might have flopped around on the ground.

2.  There’s something satisfying about eating food *off* of something.

Like, ribs.  Or corn on the cob.  Or food on a stick.  Whatever.

3.  Instigator was in my office today and we were talking about a recent dinner out after which… we hugged each other.  See, we’re co-workers.  So we don’t hug each other – despite the fact that Instigator is my work girlfriend.

I asked Instigator,  “Is that the first time we’ve hugged?”

Instigator stared at me.  She said, “What?”

I repeated, “Is that the first time we’ve hugged?”

Her eyes got larger and she said, “WHAT?”

I said, “I asked if that is the first we have ever hugged each other.”

Instigator said, “Oh my God, I thought you asked if that was the first time we fucked.”

I burst out laughing and then I said it a few times outloud again and sure enough, it does sort of sound like I asked her if that was the first time we’d fucked.

I’ll see if HR calls me tomorrow.

You may recall the ordeal I went through known as “Where’s my blender?”

This is when I got my parents a $300+ blender because they liked fruit smoothies.  Whatever.  It was Christmas.

Well, as you may have heard… Chicago experienced quite the storm today.  Windows flew out of the Willis/Sears Tower, Chicago turned dark as night in the daytime, hail fell and, generally speaking, everything went to shit for a while.

It is now 10:30 p.m.  My parents have texted me a few times to let me know that their electricity is still out but that they are comfortable and it should be fine.

My father said it was generally okay outside and so they were not too warm.  Still, not entirely comfortable.

I texted back, “That sucks.”

My father responded, “It sure does. Mom just got her Vitamix Pro 500 and we never got to try it!”

Yes.

Unfortunately, I am serious.  They upgraded.  To a $600 blender.

I don’t get it.  They both have all their teeth.  What the hell are they doing over there?!

1.  Remember how I got my parents new phones and an unlimited text plan?  My father has been trying to teach my mother how to send text messages.  By “trying to teach”, I mean “forcing her to learn”.

Today, he forwarded a message to me and said, “This is mom’s first text message to me.”

It said: “You drive me craze.”

English is her second language.  I sort of think it’s the best text message ever.

2.  A friend of mine recently lost her father.  This is the same close friend whose cousins drove their father’s ashes around in a Nieman-Marcus bag in the trunk of their car.  Needless to say, the family has a wild side and a very good sense of humor.  Her father was also quite the character.

I had flowers sent for his service and was understandably upset when a friend told me that they had not arrived.  I called the florist, left a message and a half hour later, got a call back.  The flowers had been delivered to the wrong funeral.

See, the thing is - I had them write a message on the card.   And this means… that someone else’s funeral had flowers at them with a card that said:

“WHAT A PISTOL.”

All I could think was that I hope it wasn’t a gunshot victim.

3.  My dinner last night – fondly nicknamed my Lady Date by Dysfunction Junction – was awesome.  The restaurant is always so gracious and awesome. Kitchen / Back of House tour ended the evening.  Evening started, however, with a gift which shall heretofore be known as LADY DATE PENELOPE.

It’s a heart picture frame in which they’d placed a picture of Penelope Cruz.  I shall be taking her to different locations and taking picture of her like she’s the Travelocity Garden Gnome.

I used a mandolin this weekend to slice something.  You know what I ended up slicing?  The tip of my thumb.  Not clean off or anything. Instead, I had a trashcan lid of flesh hanging off the end of my thumb.  I put band-aids on it.  And then I decided my thumb was lonely and I managed to slice open the tip of my middle finger. Worse than my thumb.  Again, I left a hanging chad.  Again, multiple band-aids.  Then, at some point, after it had stopped bleeding,  I decided to peek under the flap on my middle finger.  That was a mistake.  More band-aids.

I had to put clean sheets on my bed.  So I took the sheets out of the dryer and made the bed.  And my band-aid mysteriously disappeared during that process.  Didn’t find it.  More band-aids on finger.  This time made sure they couldn’t come off.

The next day – today – I realized that the band-aids had been on my middle finger for more than 24 hours.  Wet, dry, whatever.  I decided to peel them off.

No bleeding. That’s good.

And then…

I noticed a smell.

I brought my finger up to my nose and took a hesitant sniff.

holy.

crap.

Well, now, look, here’s the thing.  If you smell something bad, what’s the first thing you do?  You have someone else smell it, right?  Except, no one else was around.

Except Little Filthy.

Okay, now, lemme just explain what you’re about to see.  I had been relaying the unsavory nature of my rotting finger on twitter.  The result was many suggestions that I had gangrene.  However, I can tell it’s just wet-fleshy-open-wound-band-aid smell.  But none the less, I thought it would be funny to take a picture of the dog smelling my rotting finger.

No.  I have no idea why these things occur to me.  I can not explain it.  I realize it is ridiculous.

So I grabbed my camera phone, pointed it at my finger and then called Little Filthy.

He jumped up on the couch, leaned in and I snapped the picture.

And then I yelled out loud.

See, I intended for him to *smell* it.

But this is what happened right when I snapped the shutter.

(more…)

I come from a family in which everyone cooks.  While my mother prepares the dinner on Thanksgiving, on Christmas, everyone brings along additional food.  The result is that we have roughly 5 times the amount of food actually consumed.

This year, I was tasked with dessert.  I am more of a savory type (har har) but I gave it a whirl.  Result?  Banana bread pudding, chocolate sauce, fresh berries, dulce de leche ice cream, and a caramelized banana.  Picture below.

I hope you had a great dinner!

Torchin’ a banana.

Here’s my eye.

Here’s a piece of Toffifay candy.

Now you know.  Toffifay is made out of eyeballs.

Little Filthy has tried corn.  And peanut butter.  Today, he tried watermelon.

A sniff.

Give it to me, please.

Looks promising.

(more…)

I have previous written about why I enjoy cooking – especially why I enjoy cooking for others.  This past weekend, I decided to exercise that muscle and it began by going on the hunt for some good ingredients – an adventure to which I invited my mother and father as they love to get into the city and hadn’t experienced the meat packing district before.

We began early on Saturday morning by making our way to a local fish monger in town.  There, we picked up some fresh red snapper, oysters and sea scallops.  Then on to the butcher where we froze, walking up and down the rows, picking out some fresh bacon, bratwurst, and various other fresh meats.  Into the cooler everything went.

Then off to the Green City Market for fresh vegetables.  And fresh, hot apple cider donuts, eaten as we wandered.  Then back to the loft where we made quick salads, boiled some fresh fingerling potatoes, steamed green beans and pan fried the red snapper.  While all that was being prepared and cooking, I shucked oysters for the first time in my life.  Quite a meal.

This brought me to the next day when I realized that I had never made sea scallops before.  Out came the All-Clad, sea scallops, salt, pepper, oil and butter. 

And you know what?  Not gonna lie.  I’m sort of sick of seafood. Gah.

1.  It’s been a nice weekend.  Besos and I had a very nice dinner of French food with another couple on Saturday night.  And we woke up this morning to a beautiful day in Chicago.  Within moments of waking, we decided to walk to a nearby breakfast restaurant and eat outside.   Here’s Little Filthy under the table hoping his sad faces will convince another diner to give him something to eat.

2.  I sent Besos a text message tonight to let her know that CMC wanted to know what color lipstick she is wearing in her pictures here and here.   Then I asked her what I should write about tonight.  Here is how that conversation went:

RE:  What should I write about today?
Besos:  I don’t know. What has happened?
RE:  I molested you.
Besos:  Yeah, yeah, but that’s not news, especially in QT’s blog!!!!!!!!! Don’t think I did not notice!

Oops.  Okay, so, I may have said something in the comments here.

RE:  I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Besos:  Poking my colita!
Besos:  I am over chocolate.
Besos:  Ok, so brand is Estee Lauder, the color is 732 Darling Diva.  Heh, that’s the name.
RE:  No more coffee for you at breakfast.  How about I just blog this conversation? Okay? Okay!
Besos:  Hey! What part?
RE:  You know.  Molest, colita, lipstick, chocolate, and coffee.  Just the standard stuff.

*pause*

RE:  You love me.

Besos:  Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’re not rotten.

3.  I suspect that Little Filthy may have licked my sandwich tonight.

A friend, upon hearing this news, said, “Five second rule!”

Which really makes you have to wonder how liberally people apply this rule.

And the answer to your question is yes.  Yes, I did.

I decided to indulge a little this morning.  This means I decided to eat a breakfast sandwich.  The ‘a little’ means it was on a whole grain english muffin, had turkey sausage, egg white and low fat cheese.

I can deal with this.  It tastes just fine to me.

But you know what ruined it very quickly?

That little bit of toenail you sometimes find in sausage.

GAH.