Monthly Archives: May 2009

May 17, 2009 · 9:00 am

I’d see Star Trek again, even without Nachos

I’m a dork.  Not a geek or a nerd, which seem to imply intelligence, I’m just a dork.  My brother and I grew up watching Star Wars, Star Trek, basically anything with the word “star” in it – what’s up Last Starfighter!  You’d think that would have made me more astute when it came to Physics AP, but to this day, I still cannot remember 1 single moment of that class.  Perhaps Mr. Cowing should have related our problem sets to how it would have impacted the trajectory of the USS Enterprise…  alright, alright, shutting up now.

So yeah, I was excited to see this movie.  So was my brother.  I think my husband, Chris, and his wonderful brother, Alex, were amused, but nowhere near as ridiculous as my brother and me.  We would have gone opening weekend, but my brother locked himself in his room all last semester and wouldn’t come out until Finals were over.  We all agreed that today would be the day.  I picked up my brother from Penn Station (he had to come in all the way from Jersey) and we met up with Chris and Alex at the theater.  Lights dimmed, previews started (by the way, the Transformers & GI Joe previews played back-to-back and BOTH featured shots of the Eiffel Tower being destroyed… what does that say about Hollywood’s love of the French?), and then “Space, the final frontier…” Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under Living the disaster

Tagged as ,

May 16, 2009 · 9:15 am

Sabotaging my diet, one cheese at a time…

For the last 2 weeks, I basically lived at FCI.  It’s not all bad though… wait, where was I going with this?  Just kidding…

Right now, FCI’s restaurant, L’École, is carrying 3 cheeses from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont.  I tasted them while having dinner one night at the bar on the recommendation of Matt, one of my favorite bartenders and fellow blogger.  He began the “sell-spiel” about beautiful 22,000 state-of-the-art cheese cave, yadda yadda yadda, family owned, yadda yadda yadda… Uh, Matt?  You had me at “cheese.” Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under How to sabotage your diet

Tagged as , , , , ,

May 15, 2009 · 4:25 pm

2 for 1 Friday!

Here’s just a little quickie that I couldn’t help but share.  Have you seen the Skoal pictures of Teach and his best bud, Alan Richman that I posted on Cooking Issues yesterday?  Well, I had the pleasure of taking Alan Richman’s photo and just feel compelled to describe how it happened.  Yes, the picture is worth a thousand words or maybe just the absence of words.  Nothing compares with what it was like to be there, though.  It’s one of those moments that you wait your entire life for and when it’s over, you instantly miss its fleeting presence in your life.

We shoot the Skoal photos in Dave’s lab, which is quite small.  In order to get the lighting, backdrop, and subject all placed correctly, we need to mount the camera in the doorway of the lab and only the subject can remain inside.  I poured Dean Richmond a shot of Aquavit, then stood in the doorway while he took his mark.  I explained the process: 1) Look into the camera, your fellow Skoaler’s eyes – serious, but not intense – holding your skoal glass directly in line with your 3rd shirt button; 2) Slam back the shot, tilting your head back so that your face is parallel to the ceiling; 3) Return to roughly your first pose position, but this time, almost stare down the camera with intensity.  Alright, Alan was set, and I stared through the viewfinder while several people crowded behind me in the doorway to watch.

First shot, piece of cake.  Alan has basically mastered the art of, “Hello.  Are you ready to drink?  I am.”  Second shot, a little shaky at first, but then he tipped back a bit further and another perfect shot.  At this point, we all leaned forward in anticipation as I coached, “Ok, Alan.  Now you’re going to come down and stare me down.  Give it to me!  I’m a competitor food critic!  Show me what’s up!  Blow me out of the water!”  Well…  he did.  He came down fast, snapping his head down like an axe, and leaning forward slightly to better reach out and kill the camera with the intensity of his glare.  Literally, the power of that 3rd stare was like setting off a hydrogen bomb in that little lab.  I’m lucky I managed to press the button on the camera before everyone standing in that doorway, myself included, literally arched backwards and flew backward out of the room.  “Oh my God!” someone yelled.  People were bent over, gasping for air.  I ran back to the camera, making sure that it hadn’t been my imagination, that I actually got the picture.  And there it was…  Amazing…

5 Comments

Filed under This never would have happened in Finance

Tagged as , ,

May 15, 2009 · 11:06 am

Better Blogs Than Mine: Amateur Gourmet

Ok, I’m cheating a little. I was actually “assigned” to read Amateur Gourmet last week for Blog Class.  I didn’t discover it, but I didn’t discover Cake Wrecks on my own, either.  I rely on people better than me to do that for me.  You see, I’m a little bit A.D.D. and better at oral and visual learning.  This is really a pretty fabulous combination of attributes if you’re looking to get nowhere in life.  Luckily, I’m too busy focusing on something else every few seconds to be “looking” to go anywhere. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under Better Blogs Than Mine

Tagged as ,

May 14, 2009 · 2:19 pm

Definitely not a Stepford wife…

Here’s a quick post to satisfy my now 2 readers (I think Chef Hayley’s mom saw my post on Cake Wrecks and no longer has time for me). Every Wednesday night, I intern in FCI’s Wine Fundamentals class. Class is great. I know nothing so every word out of the instructor’s mouth is enlightening… Very similar to my everyday life, actually.  I eagerly swirl, sniff, taste, spit and jot down notes for 2 hours.  And at the end of class, I earn my keep by dumping peoples’ spit cups down the drain, fighting back the dry-heaving, and wondering whether those financial spreadsheets were really that bad.

But… After I’m done, I return to my wine glasses that I have purposefully saved from the dump bucket. I sit back, eat a couple of slices of impossibly crusty with just the right amount of inner chewiness baguette, and go about finishing my tasting… Without the spit cup.

When I’m done, I usually meet my husband at his office so we can commute home together – basically the bulk of our Monday-Friday quality time. Unfortunately, I now show up every Wednesday night with purple lips that barely conceal a mouthful of large, purple teeth, and after so much wine, I’m also a little emotional. Yeah, that’s right, I hang out in his lobby swaying from side-to-side, smelling like a vineyard, looking like I’ve been drinking grape cool-aid, and sometimes even weeping. Every Wednesday. I will say this, I used to have to wait for several minutes in the lobby for him to come down, but now he’s usually waiting for me outside…

3 Comments

Filed under Living the disaster

Tagged as

May 13, 2009 · 5:47 pm

2 Things: 1) Damn that kamikaze mango and 2) I smell like toast…

Wow, I just found out that today is the 13th and laughed… you know, one of those, “if I don’t keep laughing, the pain and tears will overtake me” crazy fits of laughter that make everyone around you start backing away slowly. You know what they’re thinking, “that’s it, she’s finally lost it, move away slowly and don’t break eye contact or she’ll attack.” Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Living the disaster, Randomness

May 12, 2009 · 10:47 am

Screw the miracles, give into the pain.

Lemon with Maldon

Yeah, I didn’t post yesterday because I thinks I gots the Swine.  Ok, obviously I don’t have Swine Flu.  Actually, my husband, Chris, wants to refer to it by its proper name as Swine Flue is a misnomer.  So I don’t have H1N1 Influenza (Really, Chris?  That makes you happy?  Really?), but I’m rocking a sore throat that’s enough to make me miserable… and miserable to be around.  So apologies to my 3 readers (shout out to my mom, Chef Hayley’s mom, and Chris) for slacking off yesterday.

This week is going to be beyond bad, so by force, all my posts will be ridiculously short.  That means they’re going to be normal post length vs. my ongoing diatribes about nothing.  I know, everyone’s thrilled.  So here’s what I want when I’m sick.  Tea.  Green Tea.  Japanese brown rice green tea.  And I want it in my favorite Car Talk mug, which has “unencumbered by the thought process” written on it.  A phrase to live by… truly.  I also want lots of lemons and limes that I will slice up into wedges, sprinkle with Maldon’s salt, and eat like oranges until my teeth hurt.  I want to curl up on my couch, wrap myself in 8 layers of blankets, and watch chick flicks like “Becoming Jane” all day until I nod off.  Unfortunately, I will be leaving here in about 2 hours to spread my joy (and germs) to all the lucky visitors to the FCI library.  Wonder where I can buy one of those face masks…

Green Tea

2 Comments

Filed under Living the disaster

May 10, 2009 · 10:30 pm

Passion fruit pain…

Ok, I’m exhausted and don’t have a lot of motivation to do anything other than sleep right now.  But… I have one, great little story to share with you.  Forgive me if this gets a little “techy” with mentions of the vacuum machine, but the end is pure and simple Mindy disaster.

I was pulled from brunch service today to help the head of my school prep for an event tomorrow night.  My last task of the day, after a full day of work, was to place these little passion fruit meringues (made with a hydrocolloid that eliminates the need for and taste of egg whites) into a glass vacuum jar and vacuum seal them.  They take hours to dry in a food dehydrator and are light, crunchy, and full of passion fruit flavor, but quickly become soggy if left to sit too long in the open, sucking in moisture.  All I had to do was place them in a jar and vacuum them, and then I could finally go home after being there since 7:30 AM.

Well, I put the meringues in a vacuum jar and put on the lid.  Unfortunately, my boss, Dave, had drilled holes in all of the glass vacuum jar lids for another application a while back (typical).  So, we had been placing the jar and lid in a vacuum bag and sealing them that way.  I asked the head of the school whether the lid was even necessary then.  He replied that he didn’t know, but he didn’t think so and then left, leaving me on my own to finish up.  I put about 100 little puffs into a large vacuum jar, sans lid, into a plastic bag and then placed it in the chamber of the vacuum machine.  I hit start and watched all the air being sucked out of the chamber.  Right about then, I started to think that maybe this wasn’t a good idea… Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Living the disaster

May 9, 2009 · 4:48 pm

Thank you, Sakagura & Karaoke for making me feel 29

Right now, everything seems loud.  The usually pleasant, tapping sound of typing is now making me close my eyes and rethink waking up this morning and deciding to post.  And for the love of Pete, that kid upstairs who enjoys just running laps back-and-forth, back-and-forth, back-and-forth, BACK-AND-FORTH on my HEAD for hours is driving me nuts.  At first we called him Speed Racer and just chuckled at the fact that we could hear him running and wondered what exactly he was doing.  Now I don’t care what he’s doing, I just want him to stop.  I don’t know what the deal is, but if his parents don’t want to take him outside to run around, I’m happy to babysit and just take that kid to the park with an extendy leash thing.  I’m trustworthy.  I’ve seen Dog Whisperer.  Exercise, Discipline, then Love…  Ok, seriously, I’m taking a break now and burying my head under eight layers of pillows. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Eating my feelings and paying for it

May 8, 2009 · 5:23 pm

Friday Disaster-Free Recap

1) Holy cheez its, the NY Times Diner’s Journal picked up my Cooking Issues Post about the Red Hot Poker AND used my photo!!!

2) Believe it or not, this is part of my job: Check out the new SKOAL page on Cooking Issues

3) I’m headed to Sakagura tonight with friends for one more birthday celebration before I officially accept being 29.  Afterwards… karaoke.  Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and parts of Long Island residents: please cover your ears between 10PM – 3AM.

1 Comment

Filed under Randomness