Out Damn Box
Imagine, if you will, a secret wing of your house. Accessible only through an air tight, easily swinging door (say one which could be operated by cats), this wing would be down a long hallway. At the end of the hall would be a single small room with a slightly convex floor with a square plateau in the middle and thin vents flush with the floor that led straight outside. The window of this room overlooks a dumpster with a shoot on top through which bags of cat poop can easily be flung. The convex floor allows any orphaned cat litter to slide outside so it doesn't stick to the carpet outside my shower, or worse, in my shower when Clayton comes in to lick my legs while I'm trying to grab my towel.
Yes, that's right, I would love someplace other than my bathroom to keep the cat box. If I have to visit the bathroom then, by god, so does Midge. And if I have to be in there for more than a few minutes then the fact that Midge pees upward onto the wall of her specially designed (by my sister) cat box, doesn't drink enough water, and makes no effort to cover it up removes any enjoyment I might derive from hanging out on my toilet. Not that there was much to begin with.
But seriously, Midge - nobody can stink up a cat box like you. If you didn't let me rub your cat bag all the time you'd be out.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Cooking with Michael - Part Ew.
On the menu this evening was a tried and true childhood mainstay: pork chops slow cooked in vegetable soup, with rice and steamed broccoli on the side.
My track record with food is sorry at best (though I did just recently kick the ass of a Valentine's day lasagna), so I thoroughly follow all instructions when I'm aiming at edible. And when a recipe is non-specific or tells me to use a setting I don't have, I ask for help. In all other areas of life I plug things in, turn them on, and try to make them go. It's only cooking that gives me pause and has me calling epicurean tech support.
While making the pork chops I found myself in just such a situation: My extremely brief recipe called for cooking the chops on low for 90 minutes. My little electric skillet goes from off to warm to 200 and then on up from there - low was not an option. So I called my sister who used to whip up this very dish on this very skillet and asked her what low meant. She suggested a little under 200.
With the pork chops bubbling away I started work on the wild rice, then after Flannery got home, on the broccoli. Part way through readying the broccoli to be steamed I heard the rice making popping noises so I took it off the heat to find that it was slightly undercooked on top and burnt on the bottom. Luckily it was not so undercooked as to be inedible, and I didn't want to make the bottom of my pot more permanently scarred with carbon build up than it already was. This a marked improvement, however, over my usual rice: burnt on the bottom, pudding on top. (This is also how one might describe me if I spent too much time outside on a sunny day in shorts and a long sleeve shirt.)
Anyhow, Flannery was home, the rice was finished (if not totally done), and it was time for dinner. I made a big show of dishing up the meal: Packing the rice down in the bowl and comparing it to building a good foundation for one's dinner house. Then I stabbed a pork chop and moved to set the meat walls on the rice foundation, planning later to add the broccoli roof and the vegetable soup chimney. Alas, the slump in the housing market had infiltrated my dinner. The solid caramelized armor off pork and soup juice had joined everything in the skillet into one cohesive unit.
Flannery maintains that it was fine if you ate the top of the meat, but the fact that one has to approach the meat from one direction and stop before getting to the other side is a little disheartening. The cats, however, think caramelized vegetable pork armor is delicious and found it very frustrating that I wouldn't let them put their heads into my bowl.
At least somebody enjoyed it, stupid food.
On the menu this evening was a tried and true childhood mainstay: pork chops slow cooked in vegetable soup, with rice and steamed broccoli on the side.
My track record with food is sorry at best (though I did just recently kick the ass of a Valentine's day lasagna), so I thoroughly follow all instructions when I'm aiming at edible. And when a recipe is non-specific or tells me to use a setting I don't have, I ask for help. In all other areas of life I plug things in, turn them on, and try to make them go. It's only cooking that gives me pause and has me calling epicurean tech support.
While making the pork chops I found myself in just such a situation: My extremely brief recipe called for cooking the chops on low for 90 minutes. My little electric skillet goes from off to warm to 200 and then on up from there - low was not an option. So I called my sister who used to whip up this very dish on this very skillet and asked her what low meant. She suggested a little under 200.
With the pork chops bubbling away I started work on the wild rice, then after Flannery got home, on the broccoli. Part way through readying the broccoli to be steamed I heard the rice making popping noises so I took it off the heat to find that it was slightly undercooked on top and burnt on the bottom. Luckily it was not so undercooked as to be inedible, and I didn't want to make the bottom of my pot more permanently scarred with carbon build up than it already was. This a marked improvement, however, over my usual rice: burnt on the bottom, pudding on top. (This is also how one might describe me if I spent too much time outside on a sunny day in shorts and a long sleeve shirt.)
Anyhow, Flannery was home, the rice was finished (if not totally done), and it was time for dinner. I made a big show of dishing up the meal: Packing the rice down in the bowl and comparing it to building a good foundation for one's dinner house. Then I stabbed a pork chop and moved to set the meat walls on the rice foundation, planning later to add the broccoli roof and the vegetable soup chimney. Alas, the slump in the housing market had infiltrated my dinner. The solid caramelized armor off pork and soup juice had joined everything in the skillet into one cohesive unit.
Flannery maintains that it was fine if you ate the top of the meat, but the fact that one has to approach the meat from one direction and stop before getting to the other side is a little disheartening. The cats, however, think caramelized vegetable pork armor is delicious and found it very frustrating that I wouldn't let them put their heads into my bowl.
At least somebody enjoyed it, stupid food.
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