Sweet Pickles

Midday Thursday

Vodka gimlets might be on their way out of Sweet Pickles' world.  I love vodka gimlets as much as I love cocaine and unsafe sex, but as with those two, it's hard to know when to slow down.  Now that I'm nearing my 30th birthday, I have to realize that my body just can't do what it could when I was 20. 

Have you been seeing Wal-Mart's television commercials in which they promise to rock your world with how many check-out lanes they're gonna have open during the holiday season.  This, however, is a bald-faced lie.  Not just an exaggeration, but an Orwellian opposite of reality.  There were a grand total of 7 check-out stations open at lunch time today:  1 was the cigarette lane (10 items or less), 4 were express lanes (20 items or less), and 2 were for the rest of us poor suckers.  I was fifth in line behind four other customers, none of whom had less than $200 worth of merchandise to be checked out.  Uh, hello... it's DECEMBER!  I felt like leaving my shopping cart in line, marching over to the manager's desk, telling him or her "Don't piss on my head, and then have your national advertising campaign tell me it's raining," and then strike him or her across the face with an open palm. 

Headed from Wal-Mart to campus, I sat in traffic behind an SUV with plates from Anderson County, Tennessee, that had a blue-and-white bumpersticker in Hebrew language and with a Star of David.  I couldn't get close enough to make out what it said (not that my Hebrew is good enough to read it, unless it was something simple).  I don't know where Anderson County, Tennessee is, but I like their style.

I'll be heading back home in a while.  Before my 4:00pm final exam (in which we're sharing an international potluck dinner), I've got to cook.  I'm bringing latkes! 

I need to calm the hell down!

I'm up at the office, waiting to administer a final exam at 7:30pm (who makes this exams schedule?), and eating a takeout box of food that I ran in and got from the campus cafeteria.  All I got was some meatballs and gravy over rice, some lima beans, and some corn, but all of it is so GOOD!  Especially the lima beans and the corn.  It's better than anything I've had at a restaurant in quite some time.  I'm like, what did they put in this?  And tonight of all nights (i.e., continued-ugly evening of the year's ugliest day), this food is really hitting the spot.  Or, is that it, I wonder... has the weather got me so down that I now get horned up about corn and lima beans??  Regardless, I will not be posting a status-update on Facebook about how yummy they were.  Just here. 

Just a Quick List for Early Saturday Morning

 (Yes, 10:25am constitutes 'early'.)

Good news:  Snackbar can make my new favorite drink, vodka gimlets.  Bad news:  Snackbar can make my new favorite drink, vodka gimlets.

Last night's dream:  I was drinking the soft drink 7-Up and delighted to discover there were real chunks of actual lemon and lime in it, then pissed off when I woke up this morning and realized it was only a dream.

Today's testimony to the suckitude of new music in 2009:  The last 4 artists in my download history from iTunes = Bryan Ferry, Donna Summer, Romeo Void, and Prokofiev.  As some slut (M-Shan? L-Hane?) recently asked, isn't it about time that Justin Timberlake brought something back again?

Question 1:  Anyone up for a late lunch at the Turkish place later?  Sext me if you're interested and we'll get a plan together.

Question 2:  Anyone got any ideas why there's a post-it note that says "SLUTS 4 FREEDOM" inside my freezer?

-FIN-

My New Favorite Thing

Minestrone!  Sweet Pickles just made a bigass pot of it.  And it was easy!  Preparation and cooking time = less than 15 minutes altogether.  And there's a lot of it, so I'll be able to enjoy some for the next several days.   Considering the ingredients, it strikes me as both low-cal and healthy (the former the more important).  It tasted great, and I am pleasantly surprised by how filling one bowl was!  Now, I need a nap. 

Enough Already (Again)

I had a very nice weekend, until Sunday.  A relaxing Friday evening... stayed in, ate my favorite nachos for dinner, and read.  Saturday was a spontaneous daytrip in to the Bluff City with M-Shan and D-Hug.  We listened to D-Hug's This Ain't No Disco mix that she burned for me (get yours at WCFC while supplies last!), had Ethiopian food for lunch, joked about buying 'quinn-noah' at the hippie grocery store and about buying thongs at Old Navy.  Met friends at Snackbar that night for drinks.  Then sometime Sunday morning, rolled over in bed to hear rain outside.  Again.  All day.  All night.  And still today.  My whole Monday was off... my mood was just shot.  It's too early in the fall for it to be this chilly, this wet, and this dark for this long.  The whole month of September has looked and felt like January.  And to add insult to injury, it's supposed to be like this until NEXT Sunday!  That will make it a full month with less than a week of sunshine.  I just can't.  I'm starting to think I should be pursuing a faculty-exchange in Dubai.

On a totally unrelated note:  When I logged in to Typepad a few minutes ago, this was their Question of the Day:

Reagan had bowls full of jelly beans; Obama, M&M's. If you were elected President, what would you choose as the official White House candy?

I can't decide whether mine would be Jordan Almonds or Maple Nut Goodies.  What would yours be?

Trivial Facebook Rant

The word "yum" is starting to make my ass hurt.  I never hear anyone actually say it in real life, but it's in 85% of all status updates on Facebook.  And if you really want me to kick your ass, try "yummy!" 

Sure, there are some things I like to eat.  Recently, I was compelled to spread the word about the pickle plate at the Snackbar, for example.  Or Don Beer (does that count, since it's alcoholic?).  But I have NEVER used the word "yum," in speech or in print.

At a conceptual level, I understand that some people enjoy food.  I also recognize, that because I tend to view food as the ultimate enemy, I don't always 'get' it when people get all orgasmic on Facebook about the muffins they just baked, or the iced tea they just brewed, or the gouda they brought back from the gourmet grocery store.  And part of me wishes that homegrown yams or a cappuccino was all it took to get me off.  I do sometimes wonder, wouldn't my life be a better place if all it took to get me tantric was homemade oatmeal cookies with raisins?  It's a deviled egg, people... not an all-night coke-fueled celebrity orgy in the VIP room of some hot new club in LA.  Which is about what it would take for Sweet Pickles to go on Facebook to tell every 'tard I went to kindergarten with that something was "yummy!"

Your Zen koan for the day...

Riddle me this:

At what point does a muffin become a cupcake?

This morning on the way to the office, I stopped at the campus cafeteria to get some take-out for breakfast.  I had an omelet made, which took up 50% of the interior space of my to-go box.  I got some a serving of hashbrowns (which were actually just tater tots), which filled another 25% of the box.  So I looked around for something else to put in there, and decided to get a muffin.  There were three different kinds of muffins, but the most delicious option appeared to be a 'chocolate muffin'.  If it's chocolate, does that count as a muffin?

Mark your calendars!

March 25th is the grand opening of the new Thai restaurant (in the same jinxed location as the previous Thai restaurant).  That's just a week and a half away, on a Wednesday.  Any local readers wanna round up a group to go check it out?

April 18th is the annual "India Night" extravaganza on campus.  M-Shan and I saw the date on the sign in front of the performing arts center when we were driving back from seeing Slumdog (how coincidental is that!).  This is one ticket that never disappoints.  I'm ready for some bhangra!

Saturday mornings gnaw.

Sweet Pickles is having one of those Gatorade+Pedialyte kind of mornings.

A sure recipe for you-know-what!

Earlier this month at the local film festival, Sweet Pickles and the Texas Women Art Travelers were introduced to sweet tea vodka.  Mixed with lemonade (or better yet, diet lemonade), this delicious elixir makes stuff happen.  According to eyewitness T-Bagg (and to borrow a phrase from Dlisted)...

sweet tea vodka + lemonade = sexy times

[You should try it!]

FINALLY!

Old El Paso salsa is now available at my local grocery store. And my happening upon this treasure was entirely accidental. I was so excited! I wish you all could have been there to see me doing my ‘happy dance’ (it looks a lot like the Lambada, but with just one person) in the aisle.

For years now, I have been making due with Pace (the kind of stuff that people in places like Indiana, or Delaware, or Oregon buy). And I wouldn’t be caught dead with a bottle of that Taco Bell salsa in my hand.

Trust your favorite Sexan (Sexy Texan), this is some good stuff. Maybe not Guadalajara-good. But at least Austin-good. Which is better than Minneapolis-good or Nashville-good when it comes to salsa.

For my local readers, your assignment is: go out and buy some every week, so that maybe they’ll keep selling it here!

'Supper' tonight

I guess Texas really is where the South meets Mexico.  Tonight, Mama Pickles (who feels it's yankified to refer to the evening meal as 'dinner') made fried green tomatoes, which we ate with tamales for supper tonight.  Da. Lish.

Top 3 List: Sweet Pickles' favorite Thai dishes

Pad Thai

Massaman Curry

Khao Pad

Mmmmm! Better than Jergens!

Guess what Sweet Pickles is having for lunch right now.  One of my all-time faves... massaman curry!  And I made it myself!  Actually, it's very easy, and I've had the ingredients since the last time I went to the Asian grocery in Memphis.  I'm just too lazy to cook it (or anything else, for that matter) more often.  When I do make it, I do it with turkey (instead of chicken).  You can buy turkey breasts in the same section of the grocery store that you find chicken breasts.  But they're so much easier to cut up, compared to chicken breasts.  Besides, turkey is probably my second favorite meat (after fish.  Beef is #3).  As I savor the delicious flavor, I am reminded of the time I tried to introduce my sister and an old family friend to Thai food.  While they sportingly tried everything (pad thai, massaman curry, et al), I could tell that neither of them would be seeking out any Thai food in the future.  My sister kept describing the massaman as "the one that tastes like hand lotion."