Crowded House

Hey now
Hey now
Don’t dream
IT’S OVER

I had a super fun idea that someday when I had nothing else to do I would start writing again and it would be brilliant and you guys would think ‘it’s so great. we missed her awful editing didn’t we?’ but instead I tweet all day long and my brain is a jumble of grocery items I shouldn’t forget because I won’t be going again for a week, and trying to remember which email from which teacher is for today and the floor is very dirty all of the time so I try to vacuum twice a day and it’s a lot.

Since I can’t think of anything fun or profound to say I am just going to tell you how I make chow mein really fast on a Monday night when we’ve been eating a lot of deep fried foods and grilled meat because I cannot pass up a two-for-one rib sale to save my life. Did you know that you can turn burnt ends into rillettes and fry rice using this as both the fat and the meat ? This is a story for another day and depending on how many typos this has.

You know I can’t type to save my life so bear with me.

You won’t get this wrong as long as the ingredients are right and it will save you a lot of Panda Express money in the future.

Boil a pack of spaghetti until it’s done come on you guys know how to do this much at least but the directions are on the back of the box just in case. Is it a pound? I don’t know I use Barilla. Thick spaghetti. I LIKE IT THICC.

This is how the kids spell it these days and why I should not be homeschooling anyone.

If you don’t have a well-stocked vegetable bin, get one of those packs of preassembled salad mixes at the store. Pick the one that’s full of broccoli and other sorts of slaw/kale type things (you’re not going to use the packets so don’t worry about them. You can throw them back in the veg bin until you make another salad someday)

Get your biggest skillet. You need sesame oil, only a teaspoon or it will overpower everything and your food will taste like burnt vomit. Add 2 tablespoons of a neutral oil. Not extra-virgin olive oil or your food will taste like vomit and olives and that is not what you want out of this process. Heat oil on medium whichever kind of stove it is, medium is the middle, but electric and glass top are harder to predict so crank it until you can really smell the sesame and then turn it down pronto.

Throw in about 2 cups of chopped vegetables or the bag of salad mix give it a stir or two. I use some kind of onion, cilantro, cabbage, carrot and some kind of pepper. Do you thing, kids, are there is no science here. You don’t even have to use vegetables if you don’t want to.

Find really dark soy sauce. It’s best for things where you aren’t going to use any salt and it really caramelize nicely so if you can get it, do that. Add a few splashes of this to the veg, tablespoon or so of rice vinegar, Give it a couple stirs and dump the boiled noodles on top.

Now comes the part that will seem weird but you just have to trust me. Pour about a cup of the soy sauce over the noodles let it soak the vegetables until you really hear them sizzling then stir it to get as many of the noodles on the bottom and let it sit on the medium heat for about five minutes. Do check it though, I don’t know what your stove is like and I don’t want you to blame burning it on me.
Stir it a few times after this until it really seems sizzly and if you need more soy sauce to completely soak the noodles and make them a nice dark color, do that.

Turn off the stove and put them in a dish and add a lot of chili crisp or some kind of spicy thing because it will kill the coronavirus. I’m just fucking with you. You gotta get that disinfectant, Jack.

What Color is Your Cream Pie?

Hi how are you I am fine. I've been busy doing nothing but shopping at the Pig and planning my escape to Germany but I got all hackered up this morning so I thought I'd see if this thing was still signed in without me having to reset passwords and voila! I'm on my little soapbox shouting into a black hole.
There sure is a lot of talk about the empire crumbling. It is good talk, fine talk, but it keeps generalizing certain things in order to avoid finger-pointing and things that could be percieved as racist in an industry that is more inclusive of misfits and outliers than most others, which is why those of us who did it and do it, love it.

The nice and superly educated people who never have worked in a kitchen a day in their lives sorry but you haven't so please stop right now just stop, write these pieces after pieces after pieces my god how many white raper chefs are there for Mariossake that seem to omit descriptors for everyone but the white people and that is fine because BeshBataliChiarelloIuzziniFriedman but there are all kinds of people in the kitchen and they all possess their own specific traits that make them oh my god stereotypes, which is what we morons who sit at home watching Netflix comedy specials use to figure shit out. I've been in absolutely every kind of kitchen and even though I now spend my days trying to get my kids to eat brussels sprouts (dip in mayo) I'd lay dollars to dick-stuffed doughnuts that the typecasting is the exact same. Certain guys, certain pies.

What about the pie-fucking, Marisa? All dudes do it. Maybe not the pie, but yeah, the pie. And wouldn't you expect that the guys who make the pies maybe metaphorically fuck them more than the guy who sort of likes the idea, but his mom would kill him if he fucked her pie so he eats it a slice at a time or whatever. It seems that cultural differences in pie-fucking exhibit themselves in different manners and perhaps are based on the way they were taught to regard pie. In some families, pie is sacred and you can only fuck it if it's a neighbor's pie, maybe one you won't get in trouble for. In others, it's expected of the son to carry out the fine tradition. This is probably how the custard pie was invented. So much less work for the mom who has to bake it and then throw away a perfectly good pie because it's been ruined by a man.

No. I have no evidence. No, I don't know what a praxis is but I see that word a lot and think it means to keep engaging in the pie-fucking of your ancestors. I think intersectionality means everyone fucks everyone else's pie gently and with permission and positive terminology. I think if this wasn't a thing there wouldn't be 17 movies based on this very concept.

I wish there were 45,000 Daniel Pattersons in kitchens all over America. You guys need that many cooks to keep the industry you make your money on going. But don't expect the pie-fuckers to go away until the supply-demand of pie goes back to the way it was in the olden times when pie was for special occasions and not something to Instagram every nine minutes.

Treat the pie like it's special. Eat a bag of dicks instead.

.

Hot Tang

I've been avoiding Ina Garten for 16 years now. It's not that I don't see some similarities. We're both Winters and we share an affinity for a nice chambray to bring out the blue in our eyes. We like hostessing, though here in BFE, all I ever host are the lizards who lurk in the bushes outside my door, and dart in when I open it.  Sometimes a few 10 year-old boys who want Takis and juice show up and gulp a few glasses of whatever I hand them, and run back outside, which is what I really wish the lizards would do as well but they are reptiles and have no manners.

The Barefoot Contessa came out when I was doing private catering which is a nice way to say I was terrible on a line because the PTSD and THE TICKER are a bad combination, and I'd found some nice ladies down in Madison Park who would pay me twice as much for half the work. Lost my street cred, gained a car and a nice collection of Cole Haan loafers. 

It seems like Ina and I would be a perfect fit but I didn't think much of her recipes. All the ladies I worked for and all the girls who stole the boys I wanted to date away from me were instantly smitten with her but I thought she was just ripping off Martha and Lee Bailey and none of their recipes worked anyway so whatever and I'll just save my money for pot, thanks.

She endeavored and you all loved her. Each season brought a better-fitted shirt. I'm sure by now they're bespoke. There is possibly a tailor on Long Island whose entire shop is full of bolts of french cotton in varying shades of indigo, a rotund dressmaker dummy in each corner, waiting for a call "Ina is on The Chew and Meredith next week, she'd like Sky 14 and Bora Bora. Snaps on the 14 and knots for the Bora". And the mice start sewing.

Now that she has 170 million shirts, one for every cookbook sold, she can give it a rest. She can call down to someone and ask for a beverage. I don't doubt that Ina can't make some lemonade, but why would she? She has people for that. I have no people. I make the juice.

I don't buy cookbooks because most of them are awful. Even ones by people I like. I can read a recipe and tell you without trying it if it works or not. It's maybe the only thing I'll brag about besides Abe's cuteness. I'm a really great cook. I have technique. I'm researched in a variety of cuisines and methods from all over the world. I don't need cookbooks for anything but inspiration. My kids wear me out and I just think 'tacos' all the time or Guido Pasta  I look at the pictures in books I check out on library day. I've hardly ever tried a recipe that worked without adjustment and I hate that some crackerjack got paid to be wrong while I sit at home with scaly creatures under my couch.

But you love her. More specifically you love Barefoot Contessa. I get the draw. It's cozy, just like Ina wants it to be. It was one of the first to use pretty pictures and capture the essence of the place it came from. Workman books like China Moon and Silver Palate were useful but boring to look at, Martha's still had that weird 80's pastel vibe and her big cookbooks were like Joy of Cooking. A sliver of photos in the middle of a deep forest of dull teacakes and bean salads. Collectible, but not useful or appealing. Ina was Instagramming in 1999. Every one of those shots is as modern as anything you'd find before last year when we started gong backwards with matte pages and kale and black garlic salads.
And then Eater did a feature and you guys know how I feel about all the stories about food that don't help feed other people whether it be spiritually or really actually get the food inside of their mouths.

You guys went nutty and share-bukkaked all over her. And I didn't get it again. How could some lady who wrote a check for her future and her Lehman Brother of a husband make such smart people act like fools? What is it that makes her so lovable that every single book she churns out with a new kind of butternut squash soup and brownie sells more than the last one?  Look how happy she makes all of you. I want that kind of joy in my life. I want to be converted. And I went to Goodwill on my Friday night date with myself and there it was. Somebody, somewhere let go of a piece of heaven and the cosmos delivered it to me for $1.99. Such a small price to pay for happiness.

I don't want to pick Ina apart, I don't want to judge her but I DO want to see if this book that you hold so near and dear to your hearts is, in fact, any good. At all.

The first thing Ina wants me to do is make a nice glass of lemonade before I peruse her dips and spreads and 32 pages of tidbits about her and Jeffy-baby, who creeps me out a little to be honest. Tiny little hands. Just. No. I'm happy about the lemonade. I've got all four ingredients and don't have to go anywhere. Lemon juice, sugar, ice and water. Blend all ingredients and pour over ice.

Slow your roll, lady. Is the ice an ingredient or is the ice different from the ice I pour it over? This is pretty unclear if a person doesn't know about ratios. Four cups of water is almost too much for a cup of lemon juice so adding an extra cup of ice is going to make it almost tasteless five minutes later.  If it's the third thing listed, it's an ingredient, as far as I'm concerned. If it's the ice you're pouring it over, you save that for the service part of the recipe which comes at the end. Not third.

I did it no ice and it's fine. Still a little watery. Whatever. My hopes aren't dashed. The kids didn't mind and I heated mine up with some rum and more lemon juice.

She and I are making roasted eggplant spread this afternoon. It has a whole red onion which is problematic but I'll try to find a small one and pretend that's what she meant so that we can save the world with our Ina love together.

Pleasantville

When Sue was in seventh grade she took Home Economics. The first half of the semester was spent watching movies about procreation and the lady with no arms who drives with her feet and has a good attitude.

The second part of the term was the practicum. Socks were darned and hole-in-ones (AKA 'bulls-eyes')were constructed on the white Amana stove-tops using Wonder bread and eggs from Mrs. Reed's own backyard.

The satisfaction Sue got from flipping that piece of bread over and making her own breakfast was immense. At home she wasn't really allowed to touch ANYTHING, because her dad was very worried that any of his belongings would be ruined, so at 13, Sue had yet to change a channel on the television, or put an album on the stereo. She most certainly had never turned on an oven or used a mixer.

So when she slid the spatula underneath and turned it to reveal the whitecooked just through enough to hold it into the center of the buttered toast, she had a vision. A vision of herself in a tiny kitchen in New York, cooking a meal after a long day in the office of somewhere literary and elegant. Beige leather. Boxes tied in pink grosgrain and delivered to her Central Park-facing desk.

By the time she was a senior, she and Larry had already talked about getting married and she had started trying to decide which tract of the new development next to the mall they should move into after graduation.

Mrs. Reed would have been very proud of how well Sue adapted to the drudgery of mending all the metaphoric socks and making the equivalent of a bulls-eye three times per day for four people for over 13 years which meant somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000 skillets to clean and counters to wipe after the last dish had been loaded.

Mrs. Reed would have been proud. Not Larry.

Larry called her lazy and told her she forgot the baseboards (she didn't forget) and that he preferred his chicken tacos with cheddar and not jack cheese and why did she always leave the separated laundry on the floor instead of taking it in and out of the basket (redundant and who comments on other people's chore sensibilities, anyways?)

It turned out that all those dinner dishes were perfect training for Sue's part-time gig at the Waffle House. The mats are a trick, with her slipped disc, and cleaning the toilets is her least favorite part of the job, but at least it's something, she tells herself when she takes the Advil at the end of the night and turns on the heating pad.

At least it's something.

Sue Gets Paper (work)

"I need your name, an ID number, and a copy of a current utility bill as proof of address." That's what the receptionist said to Sue this morning when she got to the front of the line that began forming at the front of the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry an hour before the stocky woman in the floral print skirt unlocked the glass door and propped it open with a sandbag.

It's what the clerk at the Department of Public Welfare had asked for the week before when she applied for rent assistance and food stamps. Also, the librarian, when she went to get a card to avail herself of the free internet services and computer workshops.

Had ANYTHING been in her name at all, she might not have been at their mercy, she felt like screaming, but silly old Sue had truly believed that staying home with the girls would turn out just fine so she never really questioned Larry being the only one to sign the papers. It worked that way for all the other moms on the block.

Larry is a real prick, sure, but he has a good job so there was no reason for her to go back to work when the girls were born. He's regional manager of a furniture chain and she gets got to pick out a new couch or armoire every Christmas. Things were great, financially. Plus, she figured, if they ever split up, she'd get half the house and the assets. She'd never thought about what happens if your husband leaves without bothering with the divorce part. He's still legally on the hook for all the payments, but he likes delaying them a bit, just enough for the creditors or mortgage company to start calling, which sends her blood pressure through the roof.

The good news is that since he hasn't made it official, she still has health insurance even if she doesn't have cash for the co-pays.  If she has a heart attack and lives through it, she won't have to declare bankruptcy.

Banana Bread. No. Really.

I worked for a freakishly rich family once who had a nanny, a chef, two maids, and this girl named Meredith who was an aspiring actress (Notebook) who came once a week to put pictures in photo albums. They were pretty self-made and not celebrities, did normal family things, and were as WASP-y as it gets. Where they were excessive was on staff. One of us for every one of them.

I replaced a girl whose previous job was asst. pastry chef at Spago so supposedly this is Sherry Yard's recipe although I've Googled the shit out of a bunch of connected words and cannot confirm this to be true. It's worth noting that there aren't that many recipes using mascarpone, which makes me believe it is indeed a unique spin, and that the Sarah girl was a goody-goody, but not a liar.

She told me to that get the kids to love me, I should make them this banana bread. The mascarpone and sour cream make it like a cake, not a quick bread. It makes a lot and you will house every bit of it, sometimes with butter, heated up in the oven, sometimes with honey-roasted peanut butter whipped with cream cheese or whatever. You can maybe give a little to someone you like so they think you're a person who has some secrets to tell them about life.

Those children were entitled shitheads, who were only ever going to love prissy Sarah and her ribbon headbands, but she was right about the bread, and now that I'm a mom and I'm faced with about 40 rotten bananas a month, here is where you put them.

preheat oven to 375

2 sticks butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar (I know. Beauty is pain)
1/2 tsp. each, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground clove
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder (Rumford is the only one I can't actually taste)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature
1/2 cup mascarpone
2 bananas

I don't use nuts but if that's something you enjoy, don't use more than a 1/4 cup or it might affect the texture. Stay moist.

With a mixer or if you're fancy, IN a mixer, cream butter and sugar for 3 minutes until well-combined.

Scrape down sides of bowl and add spices. Add eggs one at a time.

In separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Add to butter/sugar mix in stages. Don't overwork.

Fold in sour cream and mascarpone.

Puree bananas however you see fit. Smooth, no chunks.

Fold into batter, again, be gentle. No overworking.

Spray 2 loaf pans or a 9 x 13 baking dish with evil death spray (Pam or something like it) This is why it was invented. Butter will dry the edges out in a not-good way.

Pour batter into dish or dishes

Bake until slightly set in the center. This will not carry-over cook by much so between 35 and 50 minutes depending on the size pan and type oven.

$30 Carrot Waffles

Sue is married to Larry, who left her a few months ago for Gloria. Didn't divorce her, just took the new truck and moved into Gloria's condo on the bay, leaving Sue at home with her two daughters, Cindy and Wendy. If Larry were a decent fellow, he'd give Sue some money or sign the divorce papers allowing her to apply and receive social services like food stamps.

Larry is an asshole. So when Sue goes to the local welfare office she is told that on paper she has too much money to qualify for any assistance. Today's funny joke comes at the expense of our girl who only has $11 in the bank with the mortgage due next week, and Larry is on a fishing trip, and not returning calls.

Thank goodness Sue's daughters are in middle school and can be taken care of by the public education system while she goes and gets a job with her multitude of coding experience. Or that dental hygienist program that Larry wouldn't pay for, for fear she wouldn't be home to make his dinner. She can easily lean right the fuck into that shit, AMIRITE?


Okay but see really Sue ends up at the Waffle House off exit number 3 in Bumfuck, because luckily Larry's sister knows what a shithead her brother is, and as senior waitress and sometime night manager, she is able to get Sue a dish-washing gig on the weekends. This is also pretty great since she gets a shift meal. It hardly matters to her that it's whatever the cooks deemed too rotten to throw onto the brunch buffet.

My Name is Sue, How Do You Do?

The thing about a restaurant is you have to have a dishwasher. Not a machine. That's the easy part.  Finding the person to put the plates and glasses and silverware onto the trays to send through. Who will also put all those dishes back onto shelves and behind the bar. Then fill the pans with ice because the sous chef is always magically doing the produce order during this part of prep, peel the case of potatoes between washes, and clean the vomit from the bachelorette party off the bathroom floor, walls and toilets. There are 20 other tasks the dishwasher is laden with during the course of a shift, and the finale is dragging several 30 lb. rubber mats covered with the scraps of the entire service out into the alley to spray and scrub clean. You let these dry while you mop. Sometimes you get to leave them for the am person, sometimes you have to drag the wet mats back into place.

It SUUUUUUCCKKKSSS to be the person who does this, but it makes you the unsung hero of the restaurant business because no place with barf on the walls is getting past Yelp these days.

You'd think this person would be one of the first considered. When building, when hiring, when planning menus and deciding what kind of service you're going to have. That's a funny joke.

The dishwasher is usually hired eleven minutes before the soft opening after somebody's cousin or brother flaked during menu-testing. I've worked for chefs who were in the dining room drinking wine while I hurled pans across the kitchen into the sink because they couldn't be bothered to lead their kitchen (thanks Lenny Rede) and I've found myself dragging those filthy mats outside plenty of times
because a kitchen is a kitchen and shit has to get cleaned no matter your rank. (Chefs find a way to avoid this always, though. Cop to it, you dicks, you do)

The dishwasher is not always named Hector.

I want y'all to meet Sue.

Hector Goes to College

That's a joke.

Hector being able to afford college or having the time to go acquire skills so he isn't a lowly $8 an hour you-deserve-it-for-being-an-immigrant dishwasher* anymore is a funny, funny joke.

Hector can't do anything but work and die and eat a couple tacos in between.

American Hustle, my ass.

*this is one of the two stupid reasons people give to avoid giving Hector more money. 1) He is an immigrant. Fuck those fuckers and the fruit they pick for us and shitty jobs they do so we don't have to. HOW DARE THEY. 2) Dishwashing isn't worthy of a living wage. Only people who can code deserve to live in something besides a sewer eating turds and feathers.

Yo Jabba Jabba (or Why I Believe in Raising the Minimum Wage)

Oy. You fucking people. Let's do this math so I can stop talking about it.

Hector is my favorite non-existent dishwasher. He makes $8 an hour, which his boss either doesn't consider, does consider and feels bad, but oh well, I've got a mortgage, or thinks Hector's salary is just fine because he knows a guy who only pays his dishwashers $5.

Hector works 2 jobs a day that are 7.5 hours each so that his employers can avoid paying his insurance which means 15 x 8, or $120. After taxes, and assuming Hector has a nice wife and two lovely children, we'll consider it to be an even $100 that Hector brings home per day. Do that 25 days a month (we'll pretend he also has a few hours of OT) and look at that huge pile of cash he made. All $2500 of it. That means Hector is a median-income earner in America.

Hector's wife stays home with the kids because childcare tends to be at least $8hr. if not more, and this is a better choice for them both.

They live with her sister and her family in a 2-bedroom townhouse and their share of the rent is $750. It's not really that cheap, because there is no townhouse in any major city that is 2 bedrooms and only $1500, but I don't want to argue, so let's say after $750, Hector still has a whopping $1750 left, and his family has a WHOLE ENTIRE BEDROOM TO THEMSELVES.

Hector and his wife have a used mini-van. They live in a part of the city where there is no reliable public transportation, and with no real credit and a minimal down payment, the car costs $400. Some of you will find it impossible that a used Caravan can cost the same as a Mercedes payment, I assure you that it's true. So now we're at $1350. Good thing Hector works sun-up to sundown or he might notice how screwed he gets on things like this.

Take that $1350 and subtract car insurance and the very minimum health plan offered, because you made that $10,000 emergency room mistake once, and you're at an even $1k. It's time to feed and clothe the fam damily.

If you go to discount stores, and outlets, buy bulk, and cook every meal at home (mostly vegetarian) you can do three meals a day for a family of four for about $150. That's providing you have those stores, and know how to cook healthy meals, but Irma (Hector's imaginary wife) is very resourceful and does it. 21 meals divided by $150, no snacks, is $7.14, divided by four, giving them a very generous $1.78 per meal. Good thing Hector earns the median. Can you imagine what the lowest end of that sliding scale have to spend on food. Or people who aren't lucky enough to have TWO JOBS like Hector?

Now that we've subtracted $600 for food because $1.78 per meal isn't starving for fuck sake, you can figure out how to leisurely spend that last $400 on clothes and other fun stuff. Oh. Wait. I forgot gas for Hector to get from Job A to Job B. Something is always getting forgotten. Now that it's back up to $2.50 a gallon, it costs $60 to fill, and he uses a tank and a half per week so that's $90 x 4 and we have $40 for whatever the children need. Or dental work. or a used couch. Again, good thing Hector is never home, or he might notice how the TV doesn't come in on certain channels anymore.

Now Hector is broke, even though he worked all day, every day. Hector doesn't qualify for any social services. Hector would love to participate in all these exciting things the commercials show like paddle-boarding and $4 cupcakes, but he can't. The worst part is how we act like he's doing okay and should be out there in the 'Bu with the rest of us except NOBODY IS IN THE 'BU but the McConaughey and he probably owes someone a fuckload of money too.

It's a lie we tell, we don't want to break it down like I just did or we'd have to admit we're all kind of fucked when takeout for a family of four, from the taqueria Hector works at part of his day, costs $40, which is almost half his daily take home. We don't want to admit that this game of LIFE is running out of the white money and promissory notes are all that's left.

Life is cheap, living is expensive.

It's really as simple as 3rd. grade math.

#49. I've Seen the Brightness in One Little Spark

They just don't make musicals about exploited, blind factory workers like they used to.

#45. You See What You Want to See

Collect yourself

Be cool

Be steady as a rock

#44. I'm Nobody but I am Someone

Ani gives me winsome, wistful, hopeful truth.

Alana gives me curves.

#40. These Days I Barely Wander

Back when I used to wander, I was always out looking for signs

But they were never there, so I'd pull 'em from the air
We all believed in something, but like you I can't say why
It's just a whisper in our ear, or a bottle for our fears

Hold me to light, let me shine
Come hold me to the floor and say it's alright
Come hold me 'neath the water's skin until I'm new again

And I said what I was thinking: now you can't see what's good 'til it's gone
Then there's something to be said for a place to lay your head
You told me I was simple, and you envied me that peace of mind
Then we listened to the creek and it did much more for me

I'll hold you to the light, let you shine
I'll hold you against the floor and say it's alright
'cause down beneath the water's skin where we will swim
Those diamonds on the surface then
And, they'll come clean us, we'll both live again

These days I barely wander, and I don't need no more of them signs
I'll just breathe in all that air and be happy that it's there

   

#23. I Love You, Bronco Billy

and also you, Scatman Crothers.

#20. Jim Norton Part Two

There's still a lot to cover about urine and I know it's not as sexy as some comedians want it to be but here is a public service announcement:

You may find yourself at a Target in the men's underwear aisle and you may have opened half the boxes to feel if the lycra is scratchy or smooth and see if the waistband is separate or one of those blended deals. You could be lucky enough to score the last three boxes of the extra-long, large boxer briefs in a non-offensive color like grey or black.

You'll cringe at the register when 6 pairs of men's underwear costs $60 which is approximately 10 times what your Hanes white grannies do.

When you get home there will be twenty other chores to do, so you'll probably unwrap the new man panties, take off that little piece of tape they affix to each one to keep them tidy in the box, and throw them into the washer.

Once folded and put away you will not think a thing about them until three days later when your husband is yelling loudly from the bathroom and you go to see if there is a rattlesnake in your toilet and he tells you there is no pee-hole in his underwear.

That's right.

Sometime in the last year some manufacturers have either decided that it was too expensive or just an unnecessary accessory and now you have to add that to the never-ending list of things you are supposed to remember as June Cleaver because if there is one thing I am not going to explain to the return lady at the Big Red Bullseye, it's about my man's need to easily remove his dick at a urinal, so there goes that cash right down the toilet with his wobbly pee.

Somebody call Consumer Reports.

#15. Spackle

Sometimes you can't hold it together.

Sometimes the base is thin and tasteless and you wait and wait for it to have body and depth and salt and spice and it is just a formless pan of watery nothing.

Sometimes you have to fake it.

I don't like faking it. Never have. Not my scene.
I don't like pretending something has history and affection and breadth and range and it really is just Office re-runs and more complaining about All That is Incorrect About Marisa Miller.

Sometimes when you don't have the energy to wait for things to get thick and rich you need spackle. 

There was a guy named Dave because there is always a guy named Dave. This one was tall and red-headed and in my class at cooking school. His dad owned a fishing boat in Bellingham and he worked in the summer throwing salmon into a tank, and spent the rest of his time going to cooking school, where I met him, and working the line of a tiny, weird Italian restaurant in Wallingford.

Lots of cooks won't tell you about the hundred awful places the worked on the way to the French Laundry. Like, they went straight to ordering truffles and sampling wine and they forget all about the time they flipped patty melts at Jumbo's Clown Room for a year while the other cook puked into a trash can IN THE KITCHEN right next to the line.

Delusions of grandeur are not my thing, and it wasn't my vomit, so I'll tell you all about my guts and glory and expect you to hang in there with me. Everybody wants to bang the shit out of a crazy person. They just don't want to admit it.

I digress.

The tiny, weird kitchens I cycled through on my way to all this fame and fortune taught me some stuff that I've used on royalty, presidents, and my mother. Never knock. Just learn what you can and give back to the people.

Bizzarro Italian Cafe in Wallingford was built by its owner, David (not my BF, who was chef when he gave me the job and then told me he'd just given notice?!?) for a very small amount of money using his very own tools and buckets. The kitchen was a replica of a Eurovan, right down to the tiny under-counter refrigerators that required you to bend over every two minutes and keep your neck angled so you didn't end up head-butting someone in the dick when you came back up.10' x 10' MAYBE, and a crew that consisted of Darren and Dave, the chef and sous, Jose, the prep/dishwasher, and yours truly, pantry bitch, because I was a girl and this is where they put us on the come up. It's a testimony to something that in Seattle, the city of ever-changing eateries, that it's still in business 25 years later.

Kitchen size is no big deal if you have an 8 seat place and all the time in the world. This place had 40 seats and humped through 300 covers a night on a Tuesday. For basic pasta, a choice between Caesar and balsamic, and either Bananas Foster or bread pudding for dessert.

A few things can be done to accommodate so many in such a short amount of time.

You can serve pre-made food, which means Newman's Own dressing or sliced cheesecakes from Sysco. These are expensive and it is unlikely that man who builds his own restaurant is going to spend that money on such nonsense when there are stale bread ends everywhere.

The game is figuring out the fastest way to get the food into the dining room because Kathleen, the ancient waitress in Baby Jane Holzer/Hudson make-up who thinks she is Edith Piaf, singing for her people (they love this shit, btw, ask any old Seattleite who has been and they will have witnessed it) is timing your ass and if she isn't pulling 25% every 35 minutes, you will hear about it from Jose, whose plates will be all off and he won't have enough of something and Darren will have to come in from the alley where he smokes after every set is pushed through and rip you a third new one in addition to the two you just got.

This is spackle.

Either roux that is 'thinned' by cream, or bechamel that is cooked to death. You pick.

You've been waiting for it to make you look good at a dinner party. It's for mac and cheese and alfredo and rigatoni with butternut squash, sage, prosciutto, and walnuts if you need me to have a flashback with you. It is a perfect base for the sugar and booze sauces that are perfect on, yup, bread pudding and Bananas Foster, and also whatever else you pour bourbon caramel on. It stabilizes the food. That's it. It's like a good bra, not a fancy one. No one knows it's there, but your boobs look great in that dress all day because it is hiding underneath.

C'est voila:

1. In a heavy-bottomed dutch oven or saucepot, no bigger than 4 qt. melt 1 stick (1/2 cup, 4 ounces, 8 T, this is what I mean) of butter on low heat and add a cup of all-purpose white flour. Bleached or not doesn't matter.

2. Stir quickly until smooth and cook for about 5 minutes. If it starts to turn brown or get nutty, turn heat lower.

3. Slowly incorporate 2 cups of room temperature half-and-half, stirring constantly, so it doesn't break. Keep stirring frequently until it has thickened enough to resist the spoon. It will take about 30 minutes. Scrape into container and let cool.

If you did it right, it will have the consistency of firm ice cream. Throw a large spoonful into a hot pan, add some more cream and start experimenting with all the things that you use bechamel for and are always sorry about when you wonder how that discharge got in your mouth. A good start is spackle, cream, brown sugar, a shot of whiskey, and a bit of orange juice. Just spooge it all in a pan, crank the heat, stir a bunch till it reduces and bubbles and pour it on something sweet. Cooking is science, but not rocket science. I only seem like a genius.

This isn't meant to take the place of veloutes, beurre montes, and other a la minute methods we use in kitchens but if you don't know what those words mean, or are cooking for 300 tonight, I think you're really going to love it.

#14. Not Going Out Like That Bird.

#12. The Second Agreement

"The horse is going to do what the horse is going to do" says Michael, matter-of-factly, as if this is very deep and explains anything AT ALL.

"but what if the horse is really thirsty? Why is the horse so stubborn it won't get what it needs to survive?"

"The horse is going to do........."

GRRRRRRR

The easiest way to make yourself crazy is to try to figure out what goes on in people's heads.

I'm a total stress-case about all kinds of stuff, including the sky literally falling, and the likelihood of my hair growing back out in a year.

And I get my feelings hurt. I do. But I don't spend a minute worrying about the WHY of what someone else might be thinking. About me. About life. About the sky falling or my fucked-up hairdo.

It's that horse's own fucking problem if it dies of thirst.

#7. Jam

I made a resolution two years ago to never buy jelly or preserves or pickles ever again. It was partly because we were poorer than we are now and partly because I liked the idea of using fruit that would be otherwise wasted and being able to control the amount of sugar my family was eating. I am proud to say I have, for once, stuck to my damned guns about SOMETHING, and achieved this very tiny goal.

During the summer, it's easy to glean and forage stone fruits and purple berries and there are terrific things happening on the door of our fridge, but by January, I'm busted. There might be a few jars of marmalade for making orange chicken and the kids aren't fans.

I bought 6 lbs. of conventionally grown strawberries for $6 and made a few pints of jam this morning and I feel good and bad about this but mostly okay I guess since the myth of tasteless berries doesn't apply when they are from 120 miles away and only few days old.

It's not hard, if you don't currently jam, and it's a great saver of the mushy fruit (GRAPES!!!) that your kids don't eat. Save the ones from the bottom of the bag that you throw away every single  time. Freeze them even.

#incaseyoudontdrinksmoothies