December books

As you know, I've been on a cozy mystery kick lately, so I picked up The Glass Is Always Greener by Tamar Myers from the same thrift store I got my Agatha Christie books from (it also cost 50 cents). It's a Den of Antiquity novel, which is a series of cozy mysteries about a mystery-solving antiques dealer in the Southeast. (I refuse to call it the South; that would actually be the bottom third/half of the US. The south of the eastern part of the US should be called the Southeast, to be correct.) That sounded intriguing to me, as I like antique shops and cozy mysteries. Read TGIAG's synopsis here. Anyway, this is the type of book whose calling card is EXTREME ZANINESS. I was choking on it. Everyone is very South(east)ern and insane. I couldn't keep up with all the characters and their weird names and who they were to each other. Barnes & Noble says this was the last book in the series (there were 16?!?!), but I should still not be this lost. With a series this big, a newbie should be able to pick up any book and be able to keep up. The way Abby (the antiques dealer/mystery solver and narrator) described people's physical appearances was weird. Her petiteness (she's 4'7") and that of her mother was remarked upon way too often. The murder wasn't really explained that thoroughly, and even though it's the last? book of the series, it ends on a cliffhanger. I will not be keeping this book and I won't be reading the others in the series. 

Cover notes: The cover has nothing to do with the book at all. I don't think the artist read any of it. Abby's cat (who doesn't even come into the story at all) is shown in front of a broken window of green glass. The green glass in the story is not that of a window. I mean come on.

Trigger warnings: murder, death, corpse found in a freezer near food, stabbing mention, poison mention, homophobia, racist/transphobic character, lots of food talk, touching without consent, characters ignore boundaries

 

 

Next was a Savers find, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy by Frances Mayes, another Southeasterner. Mayes and her boyfriend Ed purchase and restore an old Tuscan farmhouse, and learn how to live and eat in Italy. The book is based on the journals she kept while doing this. Mayes was the head of Creative Writing at the university where she works, so of course this book was written beautifully. Her voice is soothing yet intelligent and interesting, and I liked seeing everything through her eyes. She's one of those writers who is familiar with all sorts of literary and historical sources/works and casually mentions what they say about what she's talking about at the moment (Virgil is mentioned the most). My mouth watered reading about the food they cooked and ate there in Italy. At least once in my life, I need to eat at a dinner party in Italy, surrounded by friends, conversation, laughter, and delicious food. She also talks about the churches, architecture, history, art, etc. of the places she and Ed visited there. It made me long to go back to Tuscany, and while I only lived there a month, I feel like she really captured its essence and light. The book also includes some recipes! Highly recommended, and guaranteed to inspire both wanderlust and hunger. 4.5/5 stars because I didn't want it to end lol

Trigger warnings: corpses of human and animals described, death, car accident(s), sex mentions, some Ugly Americanism, lots and lots of food and cooking talk 

 

 

The last book I read in December was The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes by C.S. Lewis, which is a compilation of things CSL wrote about reading and books. I had wanted it for ages and asked for it for Christmas. It was a fairly quick and enjoyable read, as of course I love CSL and books and reading. It made me want to read his books again. Highly recommended if you're a CSL fan and/or love books about reading. I cannot think of any trigger warnings, although he is scornful of people who only read "the right" and "modern" things (aka nonintellectuals). That does come off as a bit classist. All in all, I really enjoyed this book and am glad I asked for it for Christmas. 4.5/5 stars

I also reread Christmas with Anne, as I do every holiday season.

long rambly 2020 post, mostly about a restaurant

 I miss Souplantation. My family ate there at least every other month, sometimes up to a couple times a month, ever since I was small. I know the layout of that restaurant--the buffet sections, the tables and chairs, the shitty bathrooms that were somehow untouched by the decor update in the 2010s--better than I know most of my relatives' houses. We sat at the corner round table in the side/front of the restaurant as often as we could, calling it "our table". Dad would sit with his back to the corner, mom would sit at his right with her back to the side parking lot, I would sit at his left, and my siblings would sit between me and mom. We usually had to forgo our trays, as there were six of us crammed at that table. I loved the muffins and cookie bars, the pizza and focaccia bread, the range of possibilities at the salad bar (even though I'd pretty much always get the same thing). Their ranch and blue cheese dressings are the best I've ever had. Even the dull plastic plates, cups and trays were familiar to me. I always seemed to get a fork with bent (inward) tines. 

When the pandemic began, I thought everything would go back to normal in a month; two, tops. I never dreamed that restaurant would close. Small indie mom & pop restaurants? Yes, sadly. But not successful salad bar chains like Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes. There was a Sweet Tomatoes in Walnut Creek, which we ate at a couple of times when visiting my brother and sister in law, and a Souplantation near the LA airport! I can't believe we're never going to eat at Souplantation again. We last ate there for mom's birthday in February, the whole family, including my siblings and their spouses who live far away. None of us had any idea. Nobody did, really. I honestly kind of feel like a family member has died. 

This is what I would get whenever we went to Souplantation: the Chinese wonton salad, because I only like salads other people have prepared for me, and all the other prepared salads had meat; peas and corn, cucumber slices; other vaguely ethnic side salads that were either cabbage-based or quinoa/other similar grains-based; the flavored croutons; and a little waxed cup each of ranch and blue cheese dressing. Then I would get pasta, usually macaroni and cheese or occasionally fettucine alfredo, or a different pasta if it sounded better than the mac & cheese; and a soup if it wasn't too hot outside (usually the unhealthiest vegetarian soup). I'd get four little slices of pizza, two little slices of focaccia bread, and a cup of water. We always got water because it was cheapest, but occasionally dad would have a coupon (we always used a coupon) that required one person to get an actual beverage. I had their strawberry lemonade a few times; it was delicious. I'd eat the salad first, to get it over with, then the vegetables, then the other salads (which were usually tastier). I'd dip the foccaccia bread and the pizza pieces into the dressing cups, alternating bites and dressings. For dessert I'd always get a brownie muffin, or the lava cake if we stayed until their dinner menu (lunch was cheaper so we often went right before the cutoff time), as well as a gluten-free muffin (mmm, coconutty) or occasionally a blueberry muffin with honey whip butter. I got ice cream a lot when I was younger, from a soft-serve machine that always had chocolate and vanilla; the middle one was always a choco-vanilla swirl. I can also recite my other family members' orders by memory, but I'll spare you that. When I heard the news, I panic-pinned a bunch of copycat Souplantation recipes, but it won't be the same.

This year has really taken a lot from us, hasn't it? I really didn't think it was a big deal, at first. I had lived through the H1N1, swine flu, avian flu, several other scares like that. I was actually excited to work from home in my pajamas, sprawled on my purple chaise lounge with my laptop. I enjoyed sleeping in, too; it is now kind of impossible for me to wake up before noon. I miss putting together cute outfits and doing makeup looks and shopping without worrying about contracting a deadly disease. I miss going to church and seeing my friends. I miss hugging my friends and family. I miss my extended family; I haven't seen them since my mom's birthday party. Some were sick and couldn't attend, so I haven't seen them for longer. I haven't seen my dad's side of the family since... maybe my dad's birthday? Did we drive up then? Or maybe my uncle's 60th bday party. One of my cousins and his wife had a baby, and I haven't been able to hold her because I was getting over a cold before covid. I haven't seen her since I dropped off a pasta dish a few weeks after she was born. She's 6 or 7 months old now, and doesn't know me. We used to get together with my mom's side of the family (the CA ones) every month or so, since there was always a birthday or holiday to celebrate. This is the longest I've gone without seeing them. 

I miss seeing my family without feeling guilty about it. I always drove to my parents' to have lunch with them every Saturday, and usually stayed until the evening (I stayed the night if I had laundry to do). I decided to socially isolate from everybody except them, but then my sister and her husband came to stay with our parents for the summer (which of course I'm happy about) and my aunt and other brother and sister in law come over and have lunch with us a lot and then my brother in law's sister will come over to hang out with him and my sister, and none of us are wearing masks or keeping our distance. This pandemic must be so hard on all the other latinxs and POC. I know people who hadn't seen their families in months, because they all lived in separate apartments/houses. I feel bad about that, but I don't want to wear a mask around my family, and I don't want to stop seeing my parents and sister & brother in law. My mom is going to start working with covid patients in September. I should probably stop coming over then, but I don't want them to be alone. My sister's working in a nursing home, and that's dangerous too, not to mention my brother and sister in law are doctors and work in hospitals. What can you do, though? To round up this paragraph of things I'm doing wrong during the pandemic, I've also eaten at restaurants a couple of times with my family (sit in, for my dad's birthday), shopped more than once a week almost every week since May, and had a pedicure a month ago.

If Lotus Garden closes down too, I'm going to lose it.

Recipe: easy breezy healthiful salad

I'm pretty sure I got this recipe from HelloFresh, or possibly Pinterest. It is my favorite salad to make because there is minimal chopping.

• garbanzo beans
• diced or cubed cucumbers
• corn kernels (optional)
• avocado, diced
• feta cheese, diced
• drizzle of olive oil
• lemon juice (optional)
• salt and pepper (ground if possible)

I like to have an equal ratio of garbanzo beans, cucumber pieces, and corn if I'm using it (1:1:1).  The amount of feta cheese and avocado will depend on the amount of veggies* you have, but I definitely don't recommend overdoing it on the feta cheese. Maybe do two-thirds to half as much feta as 1 ratio** of veggies, and at least half a veggie-ratio of avocado, if not more. The size of the drizzle of olive oil will depend on how big your salad is and how oily you like things, and if you're adding lemon juice, use an amount that is roughly equal to the amount of olive oil. The salt and pepper are to taste. You can omit the feta cheese to make this vegan!

If using canned garbanzo beans or corn, drain and rinse them, then let them drip dry. You can peel the cucumbers if you prefer, then chop them up however you see fit, although I don't recommend slices, and throw them in a bowl. Cut up the avocado and feta cheese and throw that in too, along with the garbanzo beans and corn if using. Drizzle the olive oil and lemon juice (if using) and add the salt and pepper. Stir vigorously so that the avocado and feta cheese will get mushed and mix with the oil and juice. Eat.


*yes, I'm aware garbanzos are legumes and cucumbers are fruit. Also avocados are technically berries because this is a world that we have to wrest good things from. idk.
**no I don't remember how ratios work. Leave me alone.

Recipe: super easy avocado toast

an avocado toast of my own creation.
the bread is homemade!

Despite having grown up with a Mexican father who slathers avocado on his bread all the time, I hadn't tried avocado toast until my sister took me to  Little Collins for brunch when I was visiting her in New York. It was delicious, but rather too spicy  due to the chili flakes they use in their recipe. Their topping mixture included feta cheese as well as avocado, and they sprinkled pepitas on top. Anyway, I was hooked and started incorporating avocado toast into my diet. A recent blood panel showed I'm a little low in good cholesterol, which basically means I'm medically mandated to eat avocado toast, right?

Here is my recipe, the simplest thing in the world:

• half an avocado
• 1 slice of bread, any kind (I prefer whole wheat)
• salt and/or pepper, to taste (I like both)

Put the bread in the toaster to toast, at whatever setting makes it toasted but not too hard. While the bread is toasting, use a knife to halve the avocado and slice up one half in the shell, then scoop it out with a tablespoon. Put the avocado slices in a small bowl, then grind sea salt and black pepper onto the slices (my grinder contains both). Mash with a fork, unless you're out of silverware because you haven't washed your dishes yet, in which case just use the tablespoon, but it will be harder. Take the toast out of the toaster and put it on a plate or napkin, then scoop the avocado mixture onto the toast with the spoon, smoothing it out so it covers the toast evenly. Lick the bowl and utensils clean (recommended). Eat the avocado toast.

Obviously this is a very bare bones avocado toast recipe, but you can use it with various toppings, such as a fried egg, as my brother had on his visit to Little Collins last week (I shed a single jealous tear, watching the Instagram story), or vege- or real meat, or anything, really. I tend to use the avocados that are about twice the size of a hen's egg, but if you use the big ones, you can possibly get two avocado toasts out of one half, depending on how thick you like your avocado topping. Once my parents' avocado tree starts producing fruit, I'll probably use one avocado per bread slice since those are tiny. The size of the bread will affect your avocado toast, too. I tend to buy bread with small slices (~3.5 in. square), and I brought home some thick avocado slices from the cafeteria, and one slice was enough for my little slice of toast. The avocado toast at Little Collins was delicious, but there was just so much topping piled up so high on the toast that it was difficult to eat. I kept worrying the topping would spill. One should not feel worry while eating avocado toast; one should only feel bliss.

I really love avocado toast because I'm a decadent yet lazy millennial, and it's the easiest of my two favorite avocado dishes to make. I also love guacamole a whole lot, but it's way more time-consuming to make, and I rarely have cilantro on hand because it wilts almost immediately and I end up throwing it away. I actually used to not like avocados at all growing up, except in guacamole. I still can't really eat avocados by themselves, and even putting avocado by itself in tortillas isn't enough. The whole wheat bread provides just enough texture and crunch, and balances the creamy rich avocado nicely.

Mac & cheese dishes that are not actually mac & cheese

The name macaroni and cheese (mac & cheese or mac 'n' cheese for short) is, or at least should be, self-explanatory. However, it appears that most people forget the very first word in the name and proceed to throw together any type of pasta with cheese and call it mac & cheese. This, in my opinion, is wrong.

The following is a list of so-called "mac & cheese" dishes that, alas, were not.

• Evol Truffle Parmesan Mac & Cheese: this dish, while delicious, is made with tubetti pasta. Tubetti means "little tubes" in Italian. Macaroni noodles are also little tubes, but tubetti resembles uncurved large macaroni cut into even shorter (straight) tubes. Verdict: not mac & cheese.
• Lean Cuisine Marketplace Vermont White Cheddar Mac & Cheese: it just amazes me how brands will market their dishes as "mac & cheese" and then brazenly list the ingredients below the name, including the type of non-macaroni pasta in the dish. I mean hello??? That's like saying your brand's leather jacket is genuine leather and then putting 'man-made materials' underneath. This entree is made with cavatappi pasta, which is like if macaroni noodles were all connected into ribbed spirals. It does not count as mac & cheese.
• any boxed mac & cheese mix made with shell or character-shaped noodles: this one is especially frustrating because usually these are by Kraft, the gateway for most of us to the world of mac & cheese. Shells are not macaroni, and character-shaped pasta is cute, but neither type counts as mac & cheese. 
• Panera Mac & Cheese: literally small shell pasta in alfredo sauce. Not mac, and while technically their sauce is not alfredo but white cheddar, it is not the right color. They barely tried. Not mac & cheese.
• Chili's Pepper Jack Mac 'N' Cheese: First off, macaroni & cheese should not be spicy. This dish was hot enough that it was hard to taste the cheese, which is a minus in my opinion. Secondly, this is rotini pasta!! Rotini doesn't even look like macaroni in the least! At least tubetti and cavatappi noodles sort of look like macaroni noodles, if you squint a little. This outrageous insult against mac and cheese gets this star:

Here are some food blogger infractions: This cookbook writer on The New York Times whose recipe called for any type of pasta; Martha Stewart, who should definitely know better; Ina Garten, ditto (plus it sounds too fancy and kinda gross); this food blogger who was led astray by Kraft's shell mac & cheese; another using big shells; slow cooker big shells; medium shells; another "any shape"-er; this student who used PENNE and rightfully deleted the webpage; this hypocritical website; oh look another cavatappi recipe; several AllRecipes offenders whose recipes contain fusilli, big shells, mini shells, and rotini; and my personal favorite: this food blogger called Mac and Cheese Chick who made a knockoff recipe for Panera's mac (shells) and cheese using rotini!!! There are probably tons more but I got tired of looking for them.

So in googling pasta charts for this post, I realized macaroni (the type in boxed Kraft mac & cheese) has a different name in Italian, and probably the other types of macaroni noodles do as well. What does this mean for my pedantry? Well, since mac & cheese is an (I'm assuming) American invention, let's go with the English names for the proper pastas used in mac & cheese dishes. Mac & cheese dishes can be made with:

1. traditional macaroni noodles (like in the Kraft m&c boxes)
2. elbow macaroni
3. that big smooth macaroni that is just like elbow macaroni but a bit bigger

That is all. Thank you for your time.

Update: November 23, 2016
A few weeks ago I went to Panera and ordered their mac & cheese, and it appears that they have changed their noodles. They are short, very wide versions of macaroni noodles and are no longer small shells. I texted my BFF, who is basically a Panera expert, and she confirmed that the noodles indeed used to be small shells! It appears this blog post has brought about positive change. Bravo, Panera!

Super easy bread pudding

So I had some old pieces of cinnamon swirl bread (the heels of the loaf, which I don't typically like eating) and decided to pull a Nigella and make bread pudding for dinner. I used this recipe but quartered it, since the loaf pan I used is like 3 by 6 inches and the recipe was for an 8x8 inch pan.

Ingredients:
2 slices cinnamon swirl bread (old), torn into small pieces
melted butter (I actually forgot to quarter this so it came out really buttery and delicious)
1 egg
1/4 cup milk (this should have been a 1/2 cup. I used coconut almond milk, which tasted fine)
3 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 I put the pieces of bread in the pan, melted the butter and poured it over them, then combined the egg, milk, sugar and cinnamon and poured that in. Then I baked it at 350 for about 20 minutes or so (I'm not sure of the right time since I kept checking it every 5 minutes, paranoid it would burn).

IT WAS SO GOOD, YOU GUYS. I ate the whole thing.

A typical Sunday breakfast with my dad

My dad wants to eat a bolillo so he gets me one too, disregarding what I say. I cut up the half he gives me and put half the Big Frank and cheese omelet he made me into it, adding a prosage sausage patty and some homemade guacamole to make a sort of vegetarian Egg McMuffin. "Wow," my dad says judgmentally, spooning more guacamole onto his spinach/mushroom/cheese/onion/Big Frank omelet. Then he makes me split a banana with him.

Rainbow Meal

Red tomato
Orange sweet potato fries
Yellow mac & cheese
Green peas
Purple shirt
and I am blue.