a Gut Rot cocktail, a problematic taco, and Mrs. Chippy the Antarctic explorer
Hello friends!
It's Thursday night and I just got home from work and I'm sprawled out on the bed with a whiskey on the rock (big rock) and a bowl of cold macaroni and cheese. Not an especially winning combination, but not the saddest dinner I've ever eaten.
I'm so bored with food, you guys. The what-do-I-feel-like-eating? and the grocery shopping and the goddam cooking and the do-it-all-over-again-tomorrow-ness of the endeavour. It's relentless.
I don't always feel this way. Sometimes I get really into cooking. Remember when I went on that trip about how I wanted to eat "seasonally," and plan all our meals around what I found at the farmer's market?
HA.
Clearly I was underemployed at the time.
Maybe I'll just buy a whole bunch of cottage cheese. Cashews. Cucumbers. Are they in season? Who gives a fuck! That Whole Foods tuna with the cranberries in it.
Ricky would happily subsist on nothing but granola and yogurt, but I have this thing where I hate to eat the same meal twice in one day....
My this month in print is Alfred Lansing's Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage about the disastrous Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton. Speaking of food issues. If I'd been forced to eat nothing but penguin for months on end (with the occasional bit of seal blubber thrown in) and ring in the new year with a cocktail known as "Gut Rot, 1916," a concoction of water, ginger, sugar, and methylated alcohol borrowed from a cooking stove, I wouldn't be complaining right now, would I?
I got the book as research for the new project I'm working on, and I tore through it. It's fascinating. And so skillfully written. These dudes were trapped in the ice and on the ice and on a tiny frozen island for YEARS, and Lansing manages to make the story a total page turner.
Warning to cat and dog lovers: There are a couple of small moments that might upset you. Oh, Mrs. Chippy. Apparently Mrs. Chippy has her own book. I probably need to read that too.
*****
This month in print: (see above)
This month on Netflix: On My Way (2013) co-written and directed by Emmanuelle Bercot. Catherine Deneuve plays a 60something former beauty queen in the midst of a three-quarter-life crisis. It's meandering and surprising and super compelling. The scene where she finds herself in a bar in a pink synthetic wig, flirting with a guy half her age! Every movie should have a pink synthetic wig.
This month in tacos: I'm never bored with tacos. I present to you.... the double decker potato taco from Trois Familia, an airy new "French Mexican" lunch/brunch spot where Allegria used to be. RIP Allegria. I have mixed feelings about this taco, which is sort of an upscale-y version of a trashy Taco Bell creation. Melty mashed potato inside a crispy corn shell INSIDE a soft flour tortilla, cemented together with melty cheese and topped with 👌 carrot pico de gallo. I didn't anticipate the flour tortilla—I had to peel the glutenous thing off—so I probably wouldn't order these again. But I have to admit they were tasty.
*****
xoxo,
Laramie
p.s. Pls forward this to your favorite cat lover. (Or not?)
It's Thursday night and I just got home from work and I'm sprawled out on the bed with a whiskey on the rock (big rock) and a bowl of cold macaroni and cheese. Not an especially winning combination, but not the saddest dinner I've ever eaten.
I'm so bored with food, you guys. The what-do-I-feel-like-eating? and the grocery shopping and the goddam cooking and the do-it-all-over-again-tomorrow-ness of the endeavour. It's relentless.
I don't always feel this way. Sometimes I get really into cooking. Remember when I went on that trip about how I wanted to eat "seasonally," and plan all our meals around what I found at the farmer's market?
HA.
Clearly I was underemployed at the time.
Maybe I'll just buy a whole bunch of cottage cheese. Cashews. Cucumbers. Are they in season? Who gives a fuck! That Whole Foods tuna with the cranberries in it.
Ricky would happily subsist on nothing but granola and yogurt, but I have this thing where I hate to eat the same meal twice in one day....
My this month in print is Alfred Lansing's Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage about the disastrous Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton. Speaking of food issues. If I'd been forced to eat nothing but penguin for months on end (with the occasional bit of seal blubber thrown in) and ring in the new year with a cocktail known as "Gut Rot, 1916," a concoction of water, ginger, sugar, and methylated alcohol borrowed from a cooking stove, I wouldn't be complaining right now, would I?
I got the book as research for the new project I'm working on, and I tore through it. It's fascinating. And so skillfully written. These dudes were trapped in the ice and on the ice and on a tiny frozen island for YEARS, and Lansing manages to make the story a total page turner.
Warning to cat and dog lovers: There are a couple of small moments that might upset you. Oh, Mrs. Chippy. Apparently Mrs. Chippy has her own book. I probably need to read that too.
*****
This month in print: (see above)
This month on Netflix: On My Way (2013) co-written and directed by Emmanuelle Bercot. Catherine Deneuve plays a 60something former beauty queen in the midst of a three-quarter-life crisis. It's meandering and surprising and super compelling. The scene where she finds herself in a bar in a pink synthetic wig, flirting with a guy half her age! Every movie should have a pink synthetic wig.
This month in tacos: I'm never bored with tacos. I present to you.... the double decker potato taco from Trois Familia, an airy new "French Mexican" lunch/brunch spot where Allegria used to be. RIP Allegria. I have mixed feelings about this taco, which is sort of an upscale-y version of a trashy Taco Bell creation. Melty mashed potato inside a crispy corn shell INSIDE a soft flour tortilla, cemented together with melty cheese and topped with 👌 carrot pico de gallo. I didn't anticipate the flour tortilla—I had to peel the glutenous thing off—so I probably wouldn't order these again. But I have to admit they were tasty.
*****
xoxo,
Laramie
p.s. Pls forward this to your favorite cat lover. (Or not?)
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