Saturday, January 26, 2008

Misery Loves a Cowboy Ribeye with a Side of Suitcase

Not much to talk about since my last update. I've had a horrible cold this entire past week - the whole upper respiratory goodness with a little mid-week mingling of myalgias, chills, fever, and splitting-headache-that-kept-me-up-all-night-on-Wednesday. Good times.

I've been living on orange juice, green tea, and Zone bars (the Chocolate Almond Raisin is my favorite, for you curious types out there). Can't taste or smell anything anyway.

The Dinnerman was away, adding lack of attention to my list of complaints. He's back now, but his luggage ain't.

On the Saturday agenda, after the suitcase arrives:

-Do some laundry.
-Buy more Mucinex.
-Perhaps buy some clothes so I look less like a homeless person.
-Indulge the Dinnerman's craving for a cowboy ribeye by dining at some upscale steakhouse chain.
-Inform the Dinnerman that it's gonna be sushi tomorrow, baby!
-Finish laundry.
-Watch figure skating (Nationals! Ladies' free skate, live on NBC!)
-Pass out on couch.
-Transfer to bed.

Doesn't get much more exciting than that, now does it?

Monday, January 21, 2008

And The Beat Goes On...

Well, yeah.

We've been eating, sleeping, blowing snot from our noses, coughing up loogies from our lungs.

We've been working, drinking, cursing the ground we walk upon.

We've been making sweet loving down by the fire, and boiling eggs for breakfast.

It's been the best of times and the worst of times. These are the times of our lives.

Afflicted with some run-of-the-mill garden variety cold this past week, the Dinnerman and I are not silent in our suffering.
But we continue to indulge that grumbling in our stomachs with whatever strikes our fancy.

This week it's been much of the usual with a jimmy-sprinkle of something new.

Monday
We ate takeout from our old standby A Taste of India. I love when you get to that place with a restaurant where you only have to say your name and nothing else - they know the rest. We're so predictable with our orders at this place. Sometimes that's ok.

Tuesday
I roasted a chicken, with carrots, potatoes, garlic, and parsnips (which the Dinnerman shunned)...served with a simple salad.

Wednesday
Cavatelli (locally made at Gem, my favorite pasta place) with a gravy (made on Monday - it's always better after it incubates for a day or two) with sausage and lots of pork: boneless ribs and butt. Mmm.

Thursday
I think we got takeout from Parkside but I can't remember. Isn't that terrible?
What can I say? We've been a little under the weather and more than a little stressed. I do know that we didn't starve.

Friday
Our usual Sakura takeout, nothing innovative, just fast and fresh sushi. After a drink at the Hot Club. Early night.

Saturday
I convinced the Dinnerman to try El Rancho Grande, after my talking about it for weeks.
Wow. What a place! Red sangria, Tecate beer, chips with deliciously spicy salsa and guacamole, warm hospitality and delicious food. He had the goat; I had spicy shrimp in a tomato-ey sauce. Both came with yummy refried beans, a salad, tortillas, and rice.
Maria, the owner, came over and introduced herself. There was a party going on (birthday? christening?) with a huge cake, and they gave everyone dining in the restaurant a piece of cake. Where else do you get that?
In the future, I will try the tamales, enchiladas, and the mole. Maybe all at once, maybe not.

Sunday
Madeira. Pork and clams, enough food for 5 people. Grilled swordfish. Bread, shrimp in a butter garlic sauce, portuguese soup.
Pats game, food coma, sleep.

Lather, rinse, repeat. We're already back at Monday. And we just ate our Indian food...
Good night everyone!

(What's for breakfast?)

Monday, January 14, 2008

Anthony Bourdain, I'll Wear Your Assless Chaps...

I have long thought we'd be a perfect team. I am the cute, petite, trash-talking, testicle-eating female counter to your manly, insatiable outspokenhood.
Je t'aime. Take me, I will be your slave. I'll make you proud, and bring you to your knees.

I'll do anything, speak my mind, eat all manner of animal parts, travel willingly to all recesses of the earth. I am passionate, funny, intelligent, sarcastic, detail-oriented, musical, physical, and hungry for more. I have OCD. I travel well. I sleep with earplugs. I drink bourbon. I will eat bees.
I'm nuts. I'm funny. I'm outrageous. I'm yours.

It'd be a match made in heaven! Your ratings would soar! We'll co-write a book! It will be beautiful.

(Andrew Zimmern, I'm not ruling you out! Give me a call!)

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Stickyfingers Meh

I hadn't been to Stickyfingers in maybe 6 or 7 years; before that I was a regular. I suppose this was initially because I went to PC and/or lived closeby, but then I became a genuine fan.
The menu was slightly different from what I remembered on today's visit. It seemed to me that the Mexican side of things had been minimized, and there was no separate sheet of daily specials. It all seemed somehow more polished and less homey. I don't know if the place changed hands because I never knew the owner. The man who greeted and waited on us today seemed like the owner and was certainly gregarious, helped by his own admission by an early afternoon of indulging in his friend's homemade limoncello!

The jukebox is still cranking, too.
The food was good, mostly. It was not great, and certainly not what I remembered.

We decided to start with the Rocky Mountain Oysters, because we'd never had them and we've been watching an awful lot of Anthony Bourdain's and Andrew Zimmern's adventures involving these treats. What a surprise when they arrived - instead of resembling their, uh, original form in situ these were little fried bits. The Dinnerman thought they tasted like liver; I thought they tasted like little fried bits of nothing, or anything, or air. Meh. The horseradish dip they were served with was just, well, prepared horseradish. It wasn't a dip. Not even a sauce. Just horseradish.

Chips and guacamole came simultaneously. Double meh. This was one thing I really enjoyed at the Stickyfingers of my past. The chips, salsa, and guacamole were fresh, flavorful, and clearly homemade. The salsa in particular was a standout. It was on the thin side, made with plenty of roasted tomatoes, onion, chilis, and cilantro.
Today the guac was ok, but not really possessing any flavor beyond avocado. It seemed to have jarred jalapenos in it. The chips did not seem to be handmade. The salsa was from a jar and it sucked.

The regular pork ribs were not available at the time of our visit, since they had run out the night before and the new batch was still smoking. So the Dinnerman got a combo of baby back and beef ribs. I got a quarter chicken/baby back combo.
The ribs were ok. Nothing like what we love at Wes's! Of course, we were comparing apples and oranges here because we always get the regular ribs at Wes's...we're not much baby back fans - so that's probably an unfair evaluation.
But, the chicken was dry. I always get a quarter chicken at Wes's, and it is without fail so juicy and delicious. At Wes's it has a wing attached. At Stickyfingers, it was dry and wingless. And not hot and kind of shriveled up. Here's where I really started to wish I had gone to Wes's, our go-to place for bbq.
The Dinnerman said the beef ribs were good, but by now he had started to feel queasy...

...and he is still feeling rather queasy. The differential on that is a mile long, and probably has nothing to do with eating Rocky Mountain Oysters at Stickyfingers any more than it has to do with today being Saturday. But I know I will make that association heretofore. I will eat testicles again, however. I hear they are creamy. I want to taste creamy; I want to be texturally challenged. I never again want to taste fried bits of meh with prepared horseradish.

It also kind of pissed me off that the owner balked when I ordered my margarita on the rocks with salt, and proceeded to tell me that I had to try it without first so I could really taste how good a margarita it was. Um, what? I went along with it. This drink definitely could have benefited from salt because it was too sweet and I hate sweet margaritas. Is this a ploy to get people to order a second margarita so they can have it the way they like it?

Go Pats!

Happy Times

The Dinnerman just asked me why my last post was shrouded in darkness. Sorry for the recent negativity in the land of Steph. I promise more interesting material to come, including some food-related drama.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day! Each day the sun comes up and we another chance to move forward.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Greatest Interest...

What a year so far, and not in a good way.

My dad said to me once, "The greatest interest is self-interest."

That statement has never been more clear and relevant to me than it is today. There are the lines that divide, and that's that. No one cares about you, unless you have a family that cares. Or unless you pay someone to care. Money talks. It is what it is. It sucks to be on the bottom in this world, to have no power and no leverage.

Perhaps you think that I am referring to the situation with the cigar smoke in our condo. That's true, at least in part. I see the bigger picture too, though. More clearly than ever.
This world is a cruel place, and if you are on the outskirts it's hard to break through to the other side. Money goes to money. It's easier to get a job if you have a job. The cliches abound, but they are true.

It's not fair. And there is not much you can do about it. I'm having a big problem accepting that tonight. We went on the news; I've filed a formal complaint with the Department of Health; I've been in touch with our condo board, our condo board's lawyer, my city councilman, my state representative. And still this misanthrope opens his doors each night inviting all the displaced smokers of this area to his bar. They pollute my air, and that of every other condo resident in this 70 plus unit building, to varying degrees. He goes home, kisses his wife and/or kids goodnight, and lays his head down each night to sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I know how fucked up Rhode Island is, and how everyone passes the buck, but really, people, how is this okay?

You got some splainin' to do, my peeps.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Oh, yeah, I have a blog...

Happy New Year, people. It's been quite a holiday season. I ate and drank more than I thought I ever could, and my boobs hurt.
Now I'm getting ready to be dazzled to the tune of Seal on Ice, Dinnerman by my side. Just the way I like it.
Smoke in the halls, and that man will rot in hell for his crimes against humanity.

In the new year, I'm happily taking matters into my own hands. We all know I can't leave anything alone. I'm crackin' skulls!

Look for us on the channel 10 news - Thursday at 11.