Gross

Fuck you, pickles!!! Get out of my sandwich!!!

Pancakes

This recipe took about a week of shitty tries and really gross clean-ups to finally get right. And I have to say, I think I did a damn fine job.

Combine these:
Cup of Flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda

Combine these in a different bowl:
Cup of Milk
1 Egg, whisked
2 Tablespoons Melted Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract *Secret Ingredient Alert*

Once you’ve got those mixed together, slowly mix the liquids into the solids. I usually melt the butter in the skillet and add it last so the skillet’s greased. This recipe makes four large pancakes (or 8 dollar pancakes) that should be flipped pretty much the second the edges start to look dry. That is, the pancakes should be bubbling for a short while (20-30 seconds) before you flip them.

Also, don’t ever—ever—put in more than a teaspoon of salt. That was a terrible, terrible day.

Let Down

After extended aisle pacing and deliberation I finally bought my first box of Cookie Crisp back on Friday. When I was a kid, there was just so much hype on TV and yet so much restriction. The commercials made it sound like it was perfectly okay to live on the wild side and eat an entire bowl of cookies for breakfast. But then even eying a box of cereal in the grocery store that was touching a box of Cookie Crisp induced strong rebukes from my Mother. Somehow, Reese’s Puffs were okay but Cookie Crisps were an unforgivable sin in a house that never attended church unless it was a holiday.

So I figured, I haven’t even really been eating cereal much lately, I’m going to buy this and enjoy bachelorhood at its finest. And then I found out it doesn’t even really taste like cookies. I went in expecting a bowl full of chocolate chip cookies but I didn’t expect they would be tiny, stale chocolate chip corn meal things. When I got to the end of the bowl I even found out I preferred the milk to the cereal. I guess I was just really thirsty.

Maybe my mom knew all along it tasted gross.

Hamburgers.

Here’s a story that’s way too long for this recipe:

I had Saturday off so I took the subway into town and walked from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Last summer I walked to the first tower and turned back (n00b tourist move) so I could get back home and make myself some dinner. Back on Saturday I felt the time had finally come for me to finally go the distance and walk the entire thing.

On the way up to the first tower the crowd was pretty much half Euro[tourists] and half gigantic families. I passed a ton of people and felt good about being a local instead of slow tourist. Past the second tower, everyone was pretty much walking towards Manhattan and beyond it, well, there was no one. To be honest, I don’t think many people have ever seen the “Welcome to Brooklyn” sign simply because the whole tourist venture seems to end at the second tower. I however love DUMBO, so I exited the bridge and found my favorite wine store where I purchased a bottle of red as my reward. The bottle said something about tasting great with meat on the label and I realized I should whip up some delicious hamburgers because the only way I know how to cook steak is on a grill (and since cooking on a grill would be 1) both ridiculous and hazardous in my apartment and 2) kind of too much effort for one steak for one dude).

Beat this meat:

• ~1 lb of Ground Chuck
• Less than a tablespoon of Cayenne Pepper
• Dash of Salt
• Dash of Pepper
• 1 egg
• 2 minced garlic cloves

Pretty simple preparation: mix it all together with your (clean) hands, shape it into patties (3-4) and cook ‘em. Tastes delicious in a little less than 10 minutes when you broil them. Also, about the Cayenne Pepper: I made these for my mom—who cannot stand anything spicy at all—and she thought they were delicious. It just adds a bit of flavor, not heat, to the delicious garlic topnotes.

If you don’t want them to shrink up, you can take a cookie sheet, place it on top of the meat and then put a brick on top of that. Usually that keeps them skinny like fast food hamburgers. Usually.

Drinking, Simplified

I have always hated looking up recipes and seeing stupid measurements like “Add 1 teaspoon vermouth and 1.25 ounces gin, then stir in a quadrant of ice and 1 and three quarters of a jigger of finely chopped peppermint sprigs.” So I’ve reduced some of my favorite recipes to simple measurements and all in whole numbers so you can measure with a shot glass, pimp cup, tea kettle or cough syrup cup without doing something stupid like measuring half a shot glass. Easy.

LONG ISLAND ICED TEA

• 1 part Vodka
• 1 part Gin
• 1 part Tequila
• 1 part Triple Sec
• 1 part Whiskey
• 1 part Rum
• 1 part Lemon Juice
• 1 part Simple Sugar (See recipe below)
• 1 dash (or equivalent, see directions) of Coke

The best part about this drink is it’s pretty much 75% alcohol and all you can taste is sugary lemony tea. Unless you don’t make the Simple Sugar, in which case it’ll taste like someone made you a lemon tequila and threw some sugar on top. Another great thing about this recipe is if you actually invest in all the ingredients, you can make pretty much every basic mixed drink there is except a White Russian. Take everything on the list and shake it with an ice cube in a cocktail shaker. If you’re making a punch bowl’s worth, you could probably skip the shaker and mix everything in the punch bowl with a spoon or a whisk. Whatever you’re into. Pour over excessive amounts of ice. Add enough Coke that your beverage turns from light yellowish to iced tea color. Consume, but in moderation; they’ll sneak up on you.

Bonus summer game: Make a punch bowl’s worth and split with your friends on the driveway. Drink 3 and see if anyone can get back inside. Whoever places their hand on the door handle has the strongest liver and the highest chance of incurring alcoholism. Hooray!

SIMPLE SUGAR

• 1 part Sugar
• 1 part Water
• 1 part Stiff Drink (See recipe below)

Prepare your Stiff Drink of choice. Honestly, if you’re cooking up something that’s only good for mixing drinks, why not take advantage of the mood? I’m right handed so I generally place the drink in my left and whisk with my right. Heat the water on the stove and gradually stir in the sugar until you have a pot of clear, delicious sugar water. I stir in gradually because I get to enjoy my Stiff Drink and because it just feels like more of a complicated recipe than it actually is. Place your Simple Sugar in a lidded container and refrigerate. No one wants hot sugar water.

MARGARITA (MAN STYLE)

• 3 parts Tequila
• 1 part Triple Sec
• 2 parts Lime Juice (Alt: 1 part Lemon juice, 1 part Lime juice. Your call.)

Shake it, ice it, drink it. Sometimes I just throw the salt directly in because I don’t really want to salt the rim. Whatevs.

WHITE RUSSIAN

• 1 part Kahlua (or other coffee liqueur, but why wouldn’t you just get Kahlua?)
• 1 part Vodka
• 2 parts milk (or cream, I guess)

Pour in listed order over ice, mix if you like. Now there’s a beverage involved here. Man.

GIN AND (TONIC, GINGER ALE, SELTZER, SPRITE, WHAT HAVE YOU)

Guess.

WHISKEY AND (COKE, GINGER ALE, ETC)

• 1 part Whiskey
• 1 part Mixer

Pour in listed order over ice and imbibe. Even better, if you have Jack Daniel’s and testicles (optional) take 1 part whiskey, pour it over ice and imbibe. You’re welcome.

A Complete List of Things to Do on Vacation

1. Hang out with the Dick Clique

1.a. Drink Shiner.

1.b. Drink at another round of high school reunions at the only bar in town that anyone goes to.

1.b.i. Say hi to everyone you hoped you’d never see again.

1.b.ii. Remember why you haven’t talked to most of these girls since high school or–on rare occasion–sometimes regret not keeping up with some of them.

2. Play guitar every night from 7 to 10 PM

3. Reminisce about all the different kinds of horns you haven’t heard since leaving the City of a Million Car Horns.

4. Never wake up a minute before 12:15PM.

5. Watch all five Harry Potter movies in chronological order. Repeat.

6. Wish everyone a “Happy Ramadan,” particularly after they wish you a “Merry Christmas.”

7. Participate in American consumerism and overconsumption in order to prevent a recession. And to get gifts for your family.

8. Practice my Brooklyn accent by repeating everything my Grandma says (“I’m ole!!!” “I cowled Mahgret yestahday.” “I tawlked to Johnathan. He gets me Netflix.”).

9. Drive to downtown Houston and do something.

10. Make my sister uncomfortable by being overly affectionate.

11. Cook dinner for my family.

Dissertation

Yeah, so I woke up Saturday morning and I was more dehydrated than I’d ever been after playing a summer game of lacrosse in the South (more to come in this department as we go along). I told some of my co-workers this afternoon that I’d broken my liver.

That’s a) not possible and b) not true because all I had was moonshine in my apartment and a White Russian (insert your own “Why not a Black Russian? Racist.” joke here. My response to all is, “Not Funny. Heard it already.”) at a bar. While we’re talking about that, the bartender was a dude dressed as a girl who danced only when Madonna played, giggled at me for ordering a White Russian, asked for an ID even though you have to present an ID to get into just about any bar in NYC–particularly on a Friday night Halloween–, put a cherry in it and charged me $11 dollars for it. Never before has my favorite cocktail been so gay. To be fair, it was half Kahlua, half vodka and a dash of milk. Well played, man-girl (Madonna?).

Anyway, I think the reason my night was so good was because of how terrible my day was. I was sick, full of coffee, Sudafed and not nearly enough sleep. That was actually the situation that had been compounding for the whole week. The office is incredibly business-oriented, so no one wore a costume except me. My costume was basically my business-attire, so it’s kind of cheating, but I still felt like the odd man out. When I was leaving, I told someone to have a Happy Halloween and she looked at me like I had just threatened to hide ratoncide in the deli-style buns of her ham’n’swiss. It’s a hard way to experience your favorite day of the year.

At my retail job, the dress code is just as strict and the costumes were just as disappointing. When I walked in and asked one of my friends what her costume was, she said, “I’m you.” We laughed a little and I said, “Well, you’ve definitely got to work on your 5 O’Clock shadow, but other than that, it’s pretty good.”

But back to that morning–at one point, I was attempting to remove a staple from a incorrectly-stapled collection of papers and, since I don’t have a staple remover, the staple dug itself into the tip of the pointer finger on my right hand. About 4 hours later while retailing it up, I was sorting through those tags that set off the alarms when you steal everything I’ve been working on for the last two hours, when the pin dug itself under the fingernail on the same finger. The good news is, no arteries appear to have been severed, but the bad news is, I now understand why the Vietnamese used to stick bamboo shoots under fingernails as a form of torture back in the ’70s. Typing, the least difficult exercise known to man, is now very, very difficult. Fuck you, “Y!”

Beyond physical damage, I sustained a fair amount of mental damage while at the office. I finished everything on my “To Do List” (more to come in this department as we go along) and went to update my boss. She told me she was looking forward to it, but that she was busy at the moment. When I asked if I should start some more tasks that could easily be inferred from the indications of the “To Do List,” she told me not to start them. She assured me she’d be ready in 10 minutes and, when she got back to me an hour and a half later, I’d sent an email to my dad detailing how I felt “like a fourth grader; Nap! Now you can’t because you don’t have your mat…but don’t go get it!”

We had a meeting where everyone was pissed off the entire time and our boss basically just scolded us for not listening to her, even though every time she gives us directions, she comes back an hour later to tell us that what we have done is wrong because she’s just changed the directions. She gets pissed we didn’t know these directions would change. So, she basically told us to anticipate that, on every project, she would change her mind and that we should be able to read it. When I got out of the meeting to head off to the world of retail, panties and jokes about regional managers (“She’s a fucking bitch.”), I sent an email to the researcher who was working remotely with a subject line that read, “that meeting.” The body consisted solely of, “was like watching a porn without sex scenes; terrible dialogue and everybody involved already knew where it was leading (in this case, next week, not the bedroom).”

So I left, deposited the check (“Yeah, sure! Can’t wait to see you next week!”) and got on the subway again.

Alright, that about does it, let’s skip all the retail and beyond the third subway trip. Got home, made coffee and ate dinner: Mac’n'Cheese Spirals. Too good. This must be the beginning of a good night, but also a stretch in cognitive abilities in retrospect. It turns out the roommate has gotten a bottle of Moonshine for free at work, but we have ice and no idea what something that tastes like bubblegum could mix with. We christen her, “The Bazooka Joe.” (The recipe’s pretty labor intensive, be careful: 1. Catdaddy, 2. Ice.)

So our mutual friends are in town and I have college friends that are in town, too. We get off the subway, urinate in the Union Square Starbucks–like half of Lower Manhattan–and attempt to find my friends. On the way, my roommate proceeds to get, approximately, 117 compliments on his costume. I, on the other hand, receive no recognition for my Stay-At-Home-Dad costume (more to come in this department as we go along) and I begin to assume that everyone thinks I’m Rene Magritte. Updates with my friends from college reveal that S_____’s in a bar on 23rd (9 blocks north), Co______’s not going to tell me what her plans are because she hasn’t saved my phone number and thus does not know who this is and Ca____’s in a McDonald’s on 6th and 16th with other friends from college. The police won’t let us go North, so we decide to wait for them to head South. They get caught in the parade and head North. We stand on the corner while my roommate gets more compliments and a discussion from a girl in a dress with a picture of Freud around her neck (Freudian Slip).

Discussion over and abandoned on this suddenly large island, we decide to head South to our favorite cheap bar. On our way, the roommate makes a “your kind” joke that is intended as ironic racism, but is interpreted as racism. It’d been ten minutes of healthy, hilarious conversation until this misstep, at which point we part ways with the young lady who took offense. We are both sad but persevere and get to the bar. Once there, I greet a random friend from college, attempt to order beverages but can’t get to the bar because everyone else in Lower Manhattan knows this place is cheap too so we leave. We stand on the street corner and wonder what we will do for the rest of the night.

Then our mutual friend walks by (easily the most crucial “then” in this essay. But, again, that insight only comes from knowing where this night goes way in advance). I grab her by the shirt sleeve and start yelling. Everyone else is right behind her. It’s E____ (front runner), C____, D____ and her boyfriend G___ and, finally, two new girls. S________ and A__ are Peter Pan and something I’ve forgotten, respectively, as well as crazy sexy. I initially think, “Hey, this S_______ is pretty cute and she’s very funny, but that A__ seems to want nothing to do with me. What a shame; she’s rather cute, too.”

But then, for some reason, A__ decides I’m Todd Palin. I think it was because I told her I was a Stay-At-Home-Dad, but really have no idea why. She and I start waltzing to whatever-the-hell-bar-it-was-we-went-to-that-night, the whole while speaking like we’d just tag-teamed a polar bear with CO2 emissions, hanging chads, shotguns and hunting knives. I later realize she looks like Kristen Wiig and come that much closer to never seeing my heart again. If my memory serves, at one point I decided I loved her so much that I bit the side of her face. Like a nibble, not really like a, “Hey, gotcha face, ya bleedin!” bite. The things you’ll do when you’re dancing in the street. Or in a bar.

We left (and waltzed again. If you saw a guy and a girl being totally and obnoxiously metropolitan by waltzing on a street on a Friday, I’m sorry I ruined your night) and had to split ways (Uptown and Brooklyn are surprisingly far apart; also, N.B my dating habits) but while we were talking and waiting for the subway, I met a man who’d been recruited by and played for Butler and later got drafted by the MLL. He confessed that he’d done my weight in blow, probably two times over. I told him that was just another one of the reasons I’d quit, but that didn’t stop him from giving me his phone number so I could play some lax.

We transferred trains to get back home but–surprise!–had to wait for the other train for a while. So we talked and examined my costume. I had the Enchanted DVD in my pocket, a bag of cough drops and some Sudafed (really for me, but also) just in case the kids get sick, two condoms in case the wife gets frisky (she is extremely powerful and does not tolerate mistakes), keys to the Minivan and a Moleskine with a checklist, schedule and notes in it. The writing got increasingly sloppy as you moved your way towards the end, but I have transcribed it for you below:

• Friday Night Movie Night (not done)
• Empty trash (check)
• Clean toilet (nope)
• Schedule minivan check-up (check)
• PTA Meeting Agenda (check)
• Schedule dinner with the wife (nyet)
• Pick up Tommy 2:30 Sally 2:45 (check)
• Burp Jimbo at (no): 10AM (check), 2PM (check), 6PM (check), 10PM (negatory)
• [chicken scratch] Call the mistress, tell her to fuck off (no check)

The schedule said:

10/31: bake a pie
11/13: Minivan to JiffyLube
11/14: 4PM tie pick-up
11/20: get bag of Starbucks wholebean for the wife
11/4: resubscribe to The New York Times

Tommy wear contacts [someone had the audacity to accuse Tommy's goaltending inabilities on his not wearing his glasses in the goal, so I made a note to tell him later to wear his contacts]

The Soccer Schedule said:
Soccer
10/20: Tommy: The Bandits, 4PM
11/4: Sally: Cowgirls, 3PM
11/5: Tommy: Bandits, 6PM
11/14: Sally: CGs, 4PM
11/17: Tom-boy: Goal for Bandits–defense for the Tigers’ defense pretty strong.

Other notes from that night said:
2. alcohols
In love w/E___’s friends.
[phone number and name for dude who loves coke and lax]

We all agreed that #2 made absolutely no sense and moved on. Then we got on the subway, got off the subway, went our own ways, and I wrote the post below.

Lessons learned: Moonshine is a good reason for Nascar to exist,  but the connection’s not strong enough anymore for me to want to watch left turns. Biting is never a good idea. Showing up at the stock room is oddly reassuring after a day at the office. My pointer finger is a piece of shit right now. I like redheads. Even more so when they want to waltz. I still don’t want to do coke. Halloween remains one of the most hallowed of holidays for me. I like “South” as a direction in general. I still like my friends.

You will need

So I realized that I’ve praised and made jokes about risotto in multiple posts and yet provided absolutely no recipe for you to understand what I’m referring to. Try this on for size:

Risotto alla Chrisese

• 1 cup arborio rice
• 1/2 medium to large onion, finely chopped
• 2 cans of beef broth (approx. 4 cups)
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• dash of salt, dash of pepper
• Parmesan and Pepper Jack (aka Hot Monterey, Monterey Jack, etc.) to taste

A lot of these measurements are educated guesses. If you need more or less of one thing or another, then by all means, fix it.

Start with a medium to large saucepan or skillet. At the very least, start with something you can cover (if you have a skillet and don’t have a lid for it, try some aluminum foil). Put your gas on high and leave it there.

Melt the butter in the olive oil and saute the chopped onion for three to five minutes. Apply liberal amounts of cayenne pepper (or 1 teaspoon if you want. pansy.) and then as much salt and pepper as your heart desires (as you can see above, I tend only to use a pinch of each). Add the rice and saute for about three minutes.

The next step probably the most essential part: Add one cup of broth at a time, stirring occasionally. Don’t add another cup until the broth has been absorbed. The stirring is really only important towards the end of each addition; that is to say, you can just let it boil until most of the broth is absorbed and start stirring to make sure it doesn’t film over and stick to the bottom of the pan. It turns out that this is actually most important and most helpful when you’ve added all four cups of broth (hard to explain but you’ll definitely see what I mean. This kind of takes some time to learn when to start stirring and when you can sit around and read Playboy).

When you’ve reached the end of the broth, keep the gas on and definitely keep stirring. This time though, the rice should start sticking to itself. I tend not to stir it more than two or three minutes after it starts sticking to itself. From my experience, the rice tends to be a little too soft and doesn’t quite taste as good when you overcook it.

Once you’ve got your ball-o-rice (not necessarily the case), you can turn off the heat and add the cheeses. This probably doesn’t matter but I always start with the Parmesan; I usually put enough on that there’s kind of a film of Parmesan over the rice. Then I add three to four slices of the pepper jack and leave it covered for about five minutes, strictly to let the cheese melt (a lot of recipes say you have to let it sit while covered to make sure it finishes cooking properly, but I don’t buy into that. What’ve I been doing for the last 30 minutes? Cooking it). Then stir it again and you’re good to go.

Serve and give yourself a pat on the back for making something more sophisticated than macaroni and cheese but equally delicious.

This recipe makes one serving of extremely filling delicious goodness. It’s the kind of full that, if this is your dinner, you will probably be skipping breakfast–if not lunch. If you’re serving this for two, I’d really only suggest vegetables and coffee on the side. Maybe a bread roll if you’re daring. I’m assuming “for two” means for a date, so I included coffee because the risotto’s so filling you’ll want to be asleep to let your stomach process it in peace. But if you’re on a date-type-thing, you’ll want to be awake to process the goodness together.

Be well, eat well and vaya con los gatos, putas.

Sweat-Inducing Good

Let’s say you’ve had a rough day and that you’re feeling so much like a piece of crap that you actually want to sweat the crappiness out of your system. Then tonight’s your lucky night, because I have just the recipe for you!

You will need:

• 1 lb of ground chuck (You can rock sirloin if you really want)
• 1 can (~15oz) of petite diced tomatoes
• 1 can (~15oz) of drained kidney beans
• 1 cup thick ‘n’ chunky hot salsa
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (also called red pepper flakes)
• salt and pepper to taste (I usually just use a pinch of each)

It’s surprisingly simple: Cook the beef, drain it, put it into your large skillet (or something you can cover), mix, bring to a boil then simmer while covered on low for 15 minutes. Serve hot and with hand towels so guests can mop their brows.

Swear to god, every time I make it, it feels like I’m purifying my soul (or like I’m burning my tongue–I’ll get back to you on that). So good.

PB & CC

I hereby invent a new recipe and it shall henceforth be known as “PB & CC.” You’re welcome.

You will need:

• 2 slices of bread
• Enough peanut butter to spread across one slice
• However many chocolate chips your whimsical heart may desire
• An oven at 450 degrees

So it’s like making a PB & J, but instead of putting on jelly, you put on chocolate chips and cook it. I don’t really know how long, but I should say that you do need to take it out before it catches fire. Let’s ballpark it and say no more than ten minutes.

Realistically, you could chop up a Hershey bar, but that’s just so much more work than just throwing on a bunch of chocolate chips. You could even use Nutella, but what’s the fun in that? Also, I only have chocolate chips right now. Even beyond all of that, if you don’t use chocolate chips, you can’t call it “PB & Double C,” which is totally lame. “PB & N?” Oh, hell no.

CAUTION: This recipe may contain peanut butter. Peanut butter may contain peanuts, which may be processed on the same machines that process nuts. If you’re allergic to nuts, you’d be nuttier than voting Republican to eat this delicious, delectable sandwich. Also, if you’re allergic to voting Republican, don’t go nuts like I will in November when people continue to vote Republican even after the last eight years.