Random Thursday: Random Edibles*

It’s Random!  It’s Thursday!  It’s Random Thursday!

This is a bit shorter than usual, because I still haven’t caught up on the sleep I gladly lost Tuesday night (and a bit of Wednesday morning) doing this. 

The general theme is probably due to the glucose tolerance test I had yesterday, which ensured that I didn’t eat anything before I visited the doctor’s office (because I had to fast) or for a eight hours afterwards (because the taste of flat orange Fresca mixed with corn syrup is less tolerable to my tastebuds than the actual glucose is to my system—bluuuuurgh). ‘Cause when I skip a meal or two, my focus narrows.

And yes, I already had a HobNob tag.  Why is this a question?

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Reason #683 why my friend Dee is Awesome

When she arrives at the weirdly cool restaurant she suggested for dinner before the amazing concert she made arrangements for us to see, she brings me these:

Hey, Dee:

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Twenty-Nine Seconds of Cake

 Is this awesome . . . or am I just projecting?

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Grootcake!

 You know what makes this even better?

It was created by a place called Tattooed Bakers.

Go check out their gallery, which ranges from elegant and whimsical to . . . um.

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Dancing Cookie Cake

 Julia M. Usher, whose website gives Martha Stewart a run for her money,
(ba-DUM-dum)
created this for the 2013 Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show,
which is now on my list of Dangerous Places I Must Visit.

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*Get your head out of the gutter, Kevin; this ain’t that kind of show.  Anda  limerick about HobNobs is too easy for you.  Do one on barszcz and we’ll talk.

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Random Thursday: Random Dietary Oddities and Assorted Cats.

Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s been sent by friends or has otherwise stumbled upon this week in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.

The unofficial theme of this including the interview I had yesterday, Jane’s unexpected attack of bronchitis, and my MIL’s cancer surgery tomorrow.

Wish us all luck, please—the good stuff, if you can spare any.

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I suppose a free-range Boca Burger is out of the question?

My friend ‘firstmausi is visiting the States from Germany this month
and is currently in Oregon.

When she sent me this awesome pic, I thought she’d accidentally arrived in Texas . . .

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The thing that really bugs me about this?

Lamyong is based in Australia.

But at least the “u” in “flavour” makes sense.

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My Cat’s Birthday

This is for indy’s Miss Kitty and my Toby, who are both sixteen
(though they aren’t being particularly sweet about it).

I love Cheryl Wheeler.

I love her so much, I’m gonna share my favorite version of my favorite of her songs.

Yes, again.  ‘Cause it fits the theme.

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Hold it.

You mean, I’ve been a vegetarian this whole time?

(thanks, Siobhan!)

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The Answer: Nineteen Seconds

The Question: At which point in this video does Simon Tofield
justify my core belief
that the toilet paper should always go under?

There you go.

Foodmusings

This is not true.

I would no sooner sully an Oreo with cow juice than pile dill pickles on a HobNob.*

But I do like peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, as long as the peanut butter is creamy and the pickles are crisp and kosher—not that I care much about the religious preferences of the vegetable kingdom, but I firmly believe that garlic is essential for pickles** in the same way sugar really, really isn’t.

I also like cheddar cheese slices between Pringles.  And dried pineapple in salted popcorn.  And coconut M&Ms with dry roasted peanuts. And herbed croutons in my Mac & Cheese.

And fresh, crisp apples.  Spinach, cooked or baby. Snappy jicama and mellow kohlrabi, both of which are all Mom’s fault—not that I like them, but that I’m so picky about quality and prep.

Most fresh fruit—hold the durian.  All possible hummus—hummuses? hummae?—barring the ones with black olives, as I’m mildly allergic.

Pico de gallo trumps salsa, though not by much.  It’s probably the onion.

The worst tortilla chips I ever had weren’t that much worse than the best tortilla chips I ever had.  Saltier, though.

My MIL’s chili is perfection.  So are steak fries with real melted cheese on them—not sauce. And cheddar cheeseburgers with burnt bacon, red onion, and tomato on them.  Green salads with cold veggies, warm grilled chicken, a little cheese, and croutons.

Veggie burgers yes, notdogs NO.

I will admit to poking vanilla ice cream with the handle end of a mixing spoon and pouring in that waxy-chocolate Magic Shell® stuff, so it runs into the holes and goes solid.  Down to the bottom of the container.

I love crab, but I don’t like lobster.  I’m weird about pork products, unless they’re bacon or pepperoni.

Beer-battered fish is amazing, tartar sauce is an abomination—mayonnaise is for cooked recipes, not sandwiches, and don’t get me started on the crying disappointment that is garlic aioli.

Oysters or clams are the rubber boogers of the sea. Artichokes and grapefruit are meant  to be enjoyed by other people. Caramel does not belong in coffee.

Gefilte fish is a marriage of food preservation and cultural pride gone tragically wrong.  Matzoh is the exact opposite.

And I hold Very Strict Opinions about tuna salad, which is my exception to the mayo rule, but NOT the kosher pickle rule.

 

What are your food quirks/rules/habits/inexplicable cravings?

 

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*That sounds a bit dirtier than I meant it to, though I’m now imagining Jim Carter flicking slices at Maggie Smith, which is ridiculous, as it’s far more likely to be the other way around.

**And many, many other things.  When my MIL and I see a recipe that calls for a single clove or teaspoon of the granulated, we laugh.

A Randomly Mathematical Thanksgiving Thursday

It’s Random Thursday time again, even though the little map on my stats page suggests that most of you probably won’t be reading this until Friday, what with all the cooking and carbo-loading and the tryptophan overdosing and dishwashing and so forth.

But that’s okay, since this post isn’t going to be all that random, either.

Jane, my ten-year old, who is addicted to the Youtube offerings of mathemusician Vihart,* showed me this video a couple of days ago:

“That’s perfect!” I said.  “Does she have any side dishes?”

“Sure,” she said, clicking. “There’s Mathed Potatoes . . . ”

” . . . Or a Green Bean Matherole.”

“Wow,” I said. “Let me guess–Pi for dessert?”

“Well . . . Yeah, but that one gets really complicated. I want tau, instead.”

“What’s tau?” I asked, having passed trig by the grace of an extremely generous bell curve.

She grinned.  “TWO pi.”

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*And ASAPScience, MinutePhysics, and, unfortunately, Myfroggystuff, because she likes math and science, but her heart and piggy bank belong to the American Girl® Company.

The Five Minute Post

The title is a lie; I have no post today.

What I do have is a trip to the Midwest Writing Workshop in two days; a suitcase half-packed mostly of separation-anxious cat and the odd stuff Sunny thinks I should bring so I don’t forget her (which could be a post in itself); a query to finalize and print; a pitch to figure out; a decision to make about printing off extra Pigeons pages just in case (good strategy or naive optimism? Discuss); directions to finalize; a workshop schedule to devise; a car that desperately needs an oil change before I go; purple nail polish to obsess about ; a stomach full of pre-workshop anticipation-butterflies; laundry to do; and hair to pull out.

Oh, and a photo of a heart-shaped fish stick that showed up on Janie’s plate last night. I was saving it for Thursday, but oh, well.

Enjoy.

I’ll do better tomorrow. Probably.

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Photo credit: Watson