A Southwest War on Oil

So my sister, Patti’s, southwest-themed bridal shower was successful.

It was a day of menu planning and grocery shopping. Which straight up brought me back to ISU’s FCS 113: Food Preparation.

Then it was another day of catching up on some seriously good music while ruining my roommate’s (parent’s) kitchen.

Taco bar. Quinoa salad. Egg soufflé.

An entire tin foil pan of black beans, in all their rigged up glory, gave options to vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.  And possibly some heat later on. The kind that makes your significant other irritated. When you share the couch. And the air.

But at the end, my FCS 113 failed me. I overestimated the bean consumption of Midwesterners. And gave way to leftovers. For some later heat-ing up.

My sister’s bridal shower was followed by my cousins wedding in Ole Milwaukee. Before the big event, my wedding date and I had brunch at a sweet little spot called Beans & Barley.

The menu was danger and so was my date. We couldn’t decide.

All the Beans and all the Barleys looked too good.

We got quiche. We got almond French toast. We got biscuits and gravy. We got fruit cups. We got coffee. We got carried away.

We overestimated our stomachs.

The menu had a walnut burger. I almost got so carried away that I thought about getting both breakfast and lunch at the same meal. Isn’t that what brunch really should be? C’mon.

But I didn’t. 

But it did give me an idea..!

Back at the roommate’s, I opened the fridge and thought to myself… “Self, you must use the beans up. You spent all day listening to Neko Case and cooking them!” And then I said to myself “black bean walnut burger bingo!”

So I gathered up my vegetarian cookbook. I gathered up my beans. Walnuts. Texturized vegetable protein-planned on barley but didn’t have any in stock. Bread crumbs. And trusted the vegetarian cookbook-and did not gather up an egg.

I should have gathered some trust in my instinct. Because these black bean “Pattis” just did not stay together well without that egg emulsifier. So the goal was to emulsi-fry them together. 

Let’s back up a second.

I don’t fry. Because I never did. Because it would bring some serious heat to the kitchen-and not the stovetop kind.

But rather in the form of anger.

From mama murph.  

And thus born (into my Murphy family) my inability to judge when oil is hot.

Sooo I quickly grabbed my apron. Because things were really heating up in my roommates kitchen. 

And by up…I mean in the air…

It was dangerous. Literally. I felt like I was in war with oil. Not to be confused with war over oil. Although, I guess I was standing over it before war began. And let me tell you, oil won.

As I recounted my black bean burger mishap with Danger (the date), he brought up grape seed oil. Apparently it's a magical oil that allows even non-fryers to fry! With a high smoke point and an ability to sear the outside without seeping into foods, it may just be a non-fryer and dietitian’s dream alike!  

But until I buy grape seed oil I’m going to leave the heat in the kitchen to the ingredients in southwest cooking. And their byproducts-the kind that make roommates irritated but not mama murph's angry. 

...Or I may have to reinstate the FCS 113 syllabus prolicy that required a signed clean up sheet at the end of each lab.

I Get Around on Good Vibrations

I attended a wedding with my dear friend Charlie Hall last weekend.

Charlie is going to be a farmer one day. His cousin has a farm. It is a beautiful place. Let me stress this again. It is a beautiful place.

I often ask Charlie if his cousin will host weddings in his barn. Because that would be beautiful as well.

This wedding was at a garden in Sycamore, Illinois. It was moved inside due to acclimate weather-so it felt a bit more barn-like than garden-like. A rustic wooden building with delicate charm held the very blue grass, hipster, green, attention-to detail wedding.

Eclectic. Relaxed. Vintage. Perfect. Obsessed.  

The groom previously studied abroad in Manchester and had 4 British guests in attendance. They sat at our table and my mind brought me back to my cafeteria and accommodations at Leicester Uni.

Sycamore, UK? Fun Fun Fun.

I couldn’t get over how tiny they were. British men. I tell you. They are small ones.

Is it the genes? Is it the food? Is it both? Is it society’s gender preferences and norms?

I don’t know. But if there had been an open-bar fight, I might have been able to take em.

Charlie drove me back to my roommates (parents) and hung around a bit. Unfortunately for the newlyweds and fortunately for us, the weather turned gorgeous. So we sat on the deck, at sandwiches and talked. I found out that Charlie and the groom bounded in high school over psychedelic beach boys.

His passion for beach boys was unparalleled. And slightly infectious-in that way that you’re more intrigued with the enthusiasm and knowledge one holds for something rather than the thing itself. But I mean, who doesn’t love a little Beach Boys? God only knows.  

Charlie played a song on the Smile album entitled Vega-Tables.

“Sleep a lot eat a lot brush em like crazy,

Run a lot do a lot never be lazy.”

The background soundtrack is Brian Wilson, I presume, eating carrots. 

Snap. Snap. Crunch. Crunch.  

 Brilliant.

Apparently the Smile album was released much later than expected due to band discrepancies and Brian Wilson’s growing mental illness. I mean, even wikipedia follows the subtitle “Smile, group tension and Brother Records” with “Mental illness” and goes on to say “Wilson spent the majority of the following three years in his bedroom sleeping, taking drugs, and overeating.”

But the real question…was he brushing em like crazy?

It’s clear he was not running like crazy. Nor was he never being lazy. Because according to Charlie, he reached 300 plus pounds and allegedly wrote a detailed song giving direction to his house-which gave his home health nurse the added job description of shewing off crazies that showed up at his door.

Yesterday my sister’s future mother-in-law and I bought food for the upcoming bridal shower. We started at the Cosco, Sams Club, superstore kind of places and ended up at Garden Fresh Market. What a good find. This store had good vibrations. Brian Wilson could surely eat a lot of vega-tables with the market’s plethora of produce.

As I unpacked the bridal shower groceries, a song played on the family room TV.

“We’re sooo fresh (so fresh) Sooo fresh (so fresh).”

 It was an advertisement for Jewels’ produce. A northern Illinois grocery store. One that Charlie thought was a jewelry store-possibly triggered by all the wedding talk. And songs.

The animated carrots were singing. It was so fresh.

...Possibly a frightening image for vegetarians.

Is this why Americans are heavier? They have some meat in their produce?

Or, is it proof of Brian Wilson sanity? I mean, they’re both good singers. No wonder he wanted carrots for the background track.

People don’t get hooked on carrots or broccoli.
People get hooked on caffeine and sugary foods.
We are wired all sorts of crazy. Maybe Americans are more susceptible to sugary temptations than the Brits? But I’d like to think, walking down the [grocery] aisle, that Americans prove we can compensate with fluoride, pearly whites.

That we brush like crazy. And [Brian Wilson] present with a 'Smile.' 

Mad Good Man Made Meal

I just got back from NOLA.

And by “just,” I mean like a week ago.

And by “NOLA,” I mean New Orleans. Said “New orlans” or if you’re real local, more like “N’orrlans.”

A beautiful trip. Just lovely.

I’m almost certain I ate the best meal I’ve ever eaten there.

Let me paint a little picture:

Pink painted wood façade building with a hand painted sign that did not scream “best food ever” to me but this is N’orrlans, places never appear how they appear until you’re inside.

Tablecloths, wine glasses, dim lighting, low ceiling, rosy walls, several eclectic plates hung haphazardly-like the old building had been knocked around by a hurricane or two and a bar that lined an entire wall within the restaurant like a true European establishment.

Now, a little picture of the meal:

Pecan encrusted, freshly caught redfish garnished with fresh crab and diced red pepper atop a bed of sautéed arugula paired with rice mixed in the most amazing earthy, sweet, buttery, nutty sauce you can imagine. Oh yea, and served with a fine glass of pinot noir. And eaten with exceptional company.

So good. So So good. Brains shut down for 10 minutes. Easily.

I never thought fine dining, casual dining, local cuisine, American and European would make sense but this place, I swear, epitomized it all. And did it well. Exceptionally.

Okay, enough about the meal. What I really wanted to say was that I went to NOLA and saw my best friend.

And I saw her new apartment. Charming.

And I saw her kitchen. Also charming.

And I saw the lack of Microwave. Can one see that?

I asked sweet Melissa, “do you guys have a microwave?”

SM: “No”
Me: “Is it a like a health thing? Is it a radiation thing?”

SM: “No…I don’t know. We just heat things up on the stove. Things just taste better.”

…I’m convinced everything tastes better in N’orrlans anyways.

I always thought microwave ovens were odd. Food gets hot…but how?

That’s why people dropped the word “oven” after the word microwave…

It seems trippy and like the cause of a future 1^st world country pandemic. A disease only known to the affluent western country. Like wastefulness. Is that a disease? I think it might be.

When I returned home, mama murph was doing what mama murph does. Cleaning out another cabinet. Why? Because she is mama murph.

She found a booklet entitled Corning’s Microwave Browners. 

MICROWAVE BROWNING

                With CORNING WARE® microwave browners you don’t have to sacrifice the goodness of foods grilled to a golden brown anymore. In just minutes you can prepare an entirely new line of meals in your microwave oven-browned just the way you like them.

                MICROMATE® browners function much like conventional skillets or grills. With them, microwave cooking is capable of browning, grilling, or searing small food items such as hamburgers or chops due to a special coating on the outside bottom of the browners.

Other Cabinet Treasures!

I’d like to slip in that I just started season one of the TV series Mad Men-reading this, makes me feel like a 1960s house wife. 

I wish I looked like one too. 

The style is killer.

It’s so Western. We create a fake oven for convenience and then we create a fake browning technique to make it look like it’s from an oven. In a way, those three sentences summed up the first 5 episodes of Mad Men. Trying to cover it all up on the surface.

I’m not saying I don’t use microwaves. Because I do. But as my mom said “It’s funny you find them bizarre since you grew up knowing and using them. There was  a real scare when they first became commercially popular. I never used them to heat a baby bottle. It was very much frowned upon.”

I’m guessing the chain-smoking Mad Men did all they could to banish the fear and propaganda in their push for CORNING WARE ®

If Mad Men had to sell my Man Made, non-microwaved New Orleans meal, they wouldn’t bother advertising more than that weathered, pink painted wooden building and that small hand painted sign. They wouldn’t need to. 

Mama Murph. 

With Cabinet. 

Take notice: The Mad Men calendar hanging

beside the microwave oven.

 Found in the community cookbook.

Fine Print: Meg Murphy, Age 4

Maybe not a 1960 but definitely a former favorite

...and Meg Murphy, Age 25, a favorite of formers.

Eras.