November 2019 – Life in the Cheese Drawer

foodie friday – tday edition

November 29, 2019 kate Comments 1 comment

as promised, here are some pics of the food from yesterday!

that butterscotch tart was probably the best thing i’ve eaten in a long time. it’s a pecan shortbread crust with a homemade butterscotch pudding in it. the pecans on top are candied. maybe if i were really fancy, i would add some sort of fruit compote to it – either underneath the pudding layer or just a thin layer on top. maybe a raspberry!

anyway, thanksgiving was a success! the gravy was smokey flavored from last year, the dressing was in excellent shape for being a year old, and the turkey was delicious with the dry brine. the fancy carrots and broccolini were a ncie touch!

10/10 stars. would make thanksgiving dinner again.

oooh yeah

November 27, 2019 kate Comments 0 Comment

kudos to last year me when i made turkey stock out of the smoked turkey i got from famous dave’s. my gravy is delicious.

also, that butterscotch tart is going to be a party for my taste buds. might be my new tday dessert. or my anyday dessert.

the dry brine for my turkey smelled awesome. turkey is currently absorbing the smells into its meaty, spatchocked goodness.

tomorrow will be foodelicious! food pics forthcoming!

pre-thanksgiving shenanigans

November 26, 2019 kate Comments 0 Comment

nate took this entire week off, so i was feeling bummed that i didn’t get to partake in some nate time while he was hanging out at home, so i ended up taking today and wednesday off to join him – a WHOLE WEEK’S STAYCATION.

last night we finished up some thanksgiving meal shopping, then today we headed down to the cities for some MOA time. the main reason i wanted to go to the MOA? it’s time for my lindt advent calendar! this, along with my cheese advent calendar, should mean the best lead-up to christmas ever (because BEFORE christmas is ADVENT; AFTER christmas is the 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS. get it right!).

(this isn’t the usual illustrated version of their advent calendar, but the chocolates in it are more to my liking and it was $20 cheaper. i’ll take it!)

mmm chocolate and cheese. while we were at the moa, we went to the new duluth trading company underwear-only store and i stopped at the silver jeans store to get in on a deal and get me some jeans that fit and are the right length.

then we headed over to black sheep pizza in uptown because i’d heard good things about it. nate wasn’t a huge fan, but i liked the crust and sauce. the salami was a little gamey and weird, but the olives on it were top notch.

we headed home before the SNOWPOCALYPSE. (and stopped at the st. joe meat market to pick up some lard, because it’s PIE TIME, BABY!!!)

*****************

pie time baby, indeed! i invited my family to join me for thanksgiving, and only jane is showing up, and good for her because here’s what’s on the menu! the rest of you losers are missing out.

dry-brined turkey. i got a yummy sounding brine recipe from bon appetit, and every article i’ve read about brining has said a dry-brine is the way to go. my turkey is just a jennie-o this year, but i’ll still try to make it decent. gonna spatchcock the bird. i MIGHT try grilling it! (i intended to just buy a turkey breast but when i saw that the 3-lb breast was twice the price of a whole 15-lb bird, i decided to go all out.)
mashed potatoes and gravy (nate’s request). i haven’t decided yet if i’m going to make some gravy from scratch or from a jar. we’ll see how ambitious i get.
leftover dressing from LAST YEAR because i made so much and had 3 pints leftover that are still in my freezer! (i’d make more if more people were coming, but this just turned out so handy.)
roasted broccolini with pepitas and ricotta cheese, which should be a nice refreshing dish!
roasted carrots with lemon zest ( i love cooked carrots)
SQUASH
pumpkin pie made with lard and love!
butterscotch tart with pecans to replace the pecan pie. i’m really excited for this one. i found it in a martha steward magazine.
breakfast for me will be oatmeal/chia before the wishbone run. lunch snacks of cheese and crackers. no galette this year (it’s a lot of work).

i’m making 75% of the meal tomorrow and warming it up on thanksgiving. i think that’s the key. i’m also going to try to take more pics of food because foodie friday is coming up and this is the ultimate foodie friday.

ok, i’m out! time to lie on the couch and watch netflix. this staycation is already turning out to be great.

recap monday!

November 25, 2019 kate Comments 0 Comment

last night i drove down to the cities to see megan and to go to a third eye blind concert! first we headed to hell’s kitchen for supper (i had some tasty walleye tacos) and then drove over to the myth to see the band.

do do do – do do do dooo

3eb was a popular band in the 90s, and if you were under 30 in the 90s, i’m sure you heard semi-charmed kinda life aka the crystal meth song. (there’s a line in there: doing crystal meth’ll lift you up until you break). that song will forever remind me st. ben’s and driving along main street in st. joe during the end of spring semester. i don’t even know what year or who i was with, but i remember “I believe in the sand beneath my toes; The beach gives a feeling, An earthy feeling; I believe in the faith that grows”.

i digress! we had to stop and pick up some earplugs because we’re old and care about our hearing, then we headed to the venue and had a good listen. there were a lot of younger people there (younger meaning they were toddlers when 3eb was in their prime), which i was surprised at considering that i was in college when they had their hits. although i can’t complain too much about that since i would for sure go see a neil diamond concert.

overall i’d give it a good review! the music was fun and i had a fun time with megan! the only down side was that i didn’t get home until 12:30 and today at work i was not having fun!

a few things

November 23, 2019 kate Comments 0 Comment

i got disneyplus and i just watched the first episode of the mandalorian, which wasn’t bad. it intrigued me enough to get ready for the next episode! it’s basically a western, from what i can tell. another GEM on D+: kitbull just wrecked me. so lovely. as far as something weird yet interesting on D+, you can check out jeff goldblum’s show, which touches on really different topics and their origins. jeff goldblum is just a weird dude, so the show is weird.
tomorrow i’m going to a concert! i’m seeing third eye blind, which will be a blast from the past. so excited to hear the meth song*. heading down there with megan, and it should be a grand old time!
i’ve got a plan for thanksgiving, even though jane is the only one coming. nate has the whole week off, so at least he’ll be around too. but it’s not going to be stressful because i’m going to try to make almost everything the day before so we’ll just have leftovers, hahaha! that way at least everything doesn’t have to be done at the same time.
stan just instigated snuggle time!!! gotta go!

*semi-charmed kinda life

that was fun

November 21, 2019 kate Comments 0 Comment

remember when i went to california?

that was 3 years ago! i’d be ok with being back there now. what a fun time!

on the plus side, i have a conference in orlando in march, and my boss and i are already planning on going to HP world while we’re there 🙂 i invited jane, so i’m hoping she’ll be able to come for a couple days. liz has already declined and i’ve told her she can’t complain about not going to HP world twice.

brrr

November 20, 2019 kate Comments 2 comments

i was doing a little poking around to see if there were some weird word origins for word wednesday, and i ran across “give the cold shoulder”, which we all know. like the silent treatment. passive aggressive ignoring. we’re minnesotans. we’re good at this.

but, turns out the origin also made me think of another minnesota thing: the long, minnesota goodbye. you know. ok, gotta go! but first, it was great to see you. do you want anything to take home? when will i see you next? gotta hug 40 people 3 times each. oh, maybe i can stay for another 15 minutes for some ice cream (my dad hahaha). yeah. we’re NOT good at goodbye.

the origin of giving the cold shoulder comes from medieval england when people would visit eatch other. when the host was like, hey, you gotta leave, now. s/he would give the guest a cold piece of meat from the shoulder of beef, pork, or mutton. it was actually a polite way to say “get out.”

so i can see where it’s a little similar, but also different? i would also like to know more. was the lunch meat a way of saying “hey i don’t like you that much you need to go”? or was it “ugh you offended me with this thing get out of my sight because i can’t look at you right now and i’m mad”? and did these medieval peeps give the cold cuts to their loved ones just whenever? can you imagine in the middle of a serious fight, a wife just starts flinging pieces of meat at her husband! or what if poor people just show up at houses so they can get some food?

this just opens up so many more things i want to know about this saying.

all the birds in the sky: a book review

November 19, 2019 kate Comments 0 Comment

i just finished up “all the birds in the sky.” have you ever read a book where every time you set it down, you think, man that’s a weird little book. and then you continue to pick it back up because you want to see what on earth happens in this weird little book? that’s how i felt with “all the birds in the sky.”

it’s a melding of two genres and somehow, it works. it’s got the old-school fairy tale vibe going on with the female character in the natural world and witchy powers, and then it’s got a techy/futuristic vibe with the male character holding fast to his intelligent AI he’s built and a 2-second time machine on his wrist. somehow, the two end up falling in love in a world that’s creeping closer and closer climate disaster (oh yeah, it’s also borderline environmental apocalyptic genre too!), but when disaster strikes, the way they deal puts them at odds.

i wouldn’t give this five stars. i think i’d be hard pressed to give it four stars. it’s an entertaining read and fascinating how the different genres come together, but the story didn’t compel me like other stories have. i’d recommend it for how it messes with your preconceived notions of how storytelling genres work and to get your mind to wrap around how storytelling can shift between them and still work.

ice ice baby

November 18, 2019 kate Comments 0 Comment

growing up in austin didn’t afford a lot of opportunity for culinary excursions, but the one thing that was always a summertime trip was a visit to the dairy queen a couple times during the hot months. one thing you must know about my dad: he loves ice cream. like, dreamily so. he will poopoo pizza for its fatty content and then slurp down a big bowl of vanilla ice cream in the same evening. while his reasoning isn’t sound, at least the man knows where to spend his caloric intake.

so a trip to the DQ was not out of the question in the summer months when it was open. it didn’t happen very often, so when it did, it was a real treat. (don’t take this to mean that we were deprived of ice cream growing up. see above about one NL wallace. we ALWAYS had a gallon bucket of ice cream in the freezer. since we rarely splurged for anything beyond vanilla [and if we did it was usually gross neopolitan], we became deft at mixing our ice cream with a teaspoon of cocoa powder to create a sense of chocolate soft serve. liz was especially the expert at this, probably because she was the only one patient enough to wait to eat the ice cream.) the DQ in austin was on the west side near the old-school mcdonald’s, so it was always a trip to get over there.

the menu was always so appetizing, with the meal options and all the different ice cream options. but we never went there to eat a meal; it was always ice cream. and since there wasn’t much money, it was almost always a dipped cone (sugar cone – never waffle). ah, how i longed for a peanut buster parfait or a reese’s blizzard. BUT the dipped cone was better than homemade chocolate soft serve.

we always got ice cream on hottest of days and sat outside on the blistering red picnic tables, hauling our cones and handfuls of napkins out with us. ice cream started sliding out of the space between the chocolate shell and the cone as soon as we stepped outside, and either you had to be vigilant with eating the ice cream or watch the melty goodness run down your fingers. my favorite was when it was so hot, water beads started to form condensation on the shell and ice cream started breaking through in little white pinpoints.

of course it was a giant mess, trying to keep up with the meltiness of the ice cream in the heat. it wouldn’t be odd to see one of my siblings covered in ice cream and give the cone up to the trash (yeah, probably charlie cuz he was 1. young and 2. distracted). but it was always fun and it was always a treat.

these days i don’t get to DQ much, but i do frequent the ice cream shop in town a few times a summer (which has some delicious flavors and excellent waffle cones). i have an ice cream maker so i can make my own ice cream whenever i like, and any ice cream i buy is a flavor that i enjoy eating by itself, no cocoa power mixing necessary.