insaneneko

Ugh. I made some dry-rub chicken to take for lunch this week and had the most awful experience. Luckily the food turned out fine (despite some major mishaps along the way). First, I mistakenly used 1-1/2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper instead of chili powder and had to carefully scoop out most of it (I had other spices and things already in the bowl). I then sloshed the brining liquid around and spilled it all over the place, including on my iPhone which I was using to read the recipe. I don't get totally freaked out about raw chicken contamination, but I still cleaned everything that got splashed pretty well. Then I spilled a bunch of the cooked chicken juices all over the place, including on my clothing, so I got to clean greasy liquid from the floors/counters AND my clothes (as well as the dishes and utensils). The entire time I'm dying from the heat and humidity and I just want to flop over somewhere, but the only cool place is sitting on a pretty uncomfortable chair out on the balcony to catch the breeze (no AC in my house). I ate a thigh for lunch, tho, and it was good. I don't know what I would've done if I'd gone through all that and had crap food at the end. ^^;

Last night I saw Pacific Rim, which was about as fun as I thought it'd be. Giant robots battling giant monsters! Very, very anime-influenced, also very, very shallow and cliched, and with lots of stupid science. But it was fun!! The only thing I really disliked was the dynamic of the two main males and the main female. Wish she wasn't so…vulnerable. I understand that her backstory does support her being the way she is to some extent, but it was annoying. However, the Japanese spoken not only by the Japanese actress but by Idris Elba and by…er…the other main male amused me (also, why does the other guy even speak Japanese? I can understand Idris Elba's character speaking it due to his backstory). I definitely enjoyed this more than Monsters University (it wasn't bad, it just wasn't…awesome? Too cliched in a way I didn't love) and possibly as much as Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing (I liked the B&W modern updated setting, and the actress playing Beatrice was wonderful--plus Nathan Fillion was as funny as all the reviews said).

Saw the second episode of Free!, and am still confused as to what this anime is going to be like. I enjoyed the "build the club/team" thing in this episode, though. I almost always do like club/team-building (H2, Chihayafuru, Hikago, to name a few). And it continues to be pretty. We even get a female proxy ogling the half-naked men for the audience.

Erg, haven't posted in forever. Unfortunately my laptop is not working properly (battery life is shot and it heats up like crazy pretty quickly) and my ipad is awesome for consumption. Instead, I've been collecting Generation Kill fics that I'm just going to post without reworking the blurbs for the fics (some are just cut and pasted from the author's summary ^^;). I got on the recent kick thanks to thefourthvine's rec of a fusion with A Companion to Wolves. XD

I've also been rereading my manga/books and been finding out that some just suck. One that was particularly distasteful was Keijijou na bokura by Kawai Touko. Holy crap those kids are emo woobies...I doubt I liked it all that much when I first read it because it reminds me all to much of Cut, another emo manga by her I have never warmed to.

( cat and food pics )

( Generation Kill fanfic dump )

The Fresh Air interview of Harold McGee, writer of several cooking books (such as On Food and Cooking and the upcoming Keys to Good Cooking) was absolutely fascinating. He's like Alton Brown in that he explains why things happen the way they do while cooking, but without the cheesy shticks (which sometimes work and sometimes so do not work for me). He gives lots of good tips that I can totally use in my own daily life, just in the interview. I'm going to have to check out his books at the bookstore/library and see if they are something I want to own. He also has a column at the New York Times.

I'm not sure if anyone that reads this has iPod Touches/iPhones, but I figure it can't hurt to throw a question out there. Is there a way to load zips or folders of jpgs of books for on-the-go reading? I have seen pdf readers (figuring out which one to get will be tough--I don't deal well with choices sometimes) but just wondering about jpgs. Any other cool/useful/awesome apps to recommend? I just got a new iPod Touch as my 1st gen Touch was getting a little too slow for me, so it feels like I can finally indulge in apps. XD;

I am sleepy and lethargic. I hate stress-induced insomnia so much.

I'm quite excited about the upcoming release of Kansha: Celebrating Japan's Vegan and Vegetarian Traditions by Elizabeth Andoh. She wrote the excellent Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen. I'm interested in eating vegetarian food at home. It's perfect! I hope it's as good (or better!) than Washoku.

She's launched two "on-line culinary classrooms," KANSHAcooking and WASHOKUcooking. According to the sites, she'll post recipes from the books with tips not in the book at somewhat regular intervals. She already has PDFs of several recipes. I downloaded the one for Dark Miso Soup with Sweet Potato (Satsuma imo no aka dashi), and found explanations about soaking the satsuma imo before using with pictures of several brands of the stuff you're supposed to soak them with (along with other good info). I love this kind of detail, personally.

I heard a hilarious quote credited to Ernie Kovacs today: "Television: a medium, so-called because it is neither rare nor well done." XD;

A friend gave me some tasty wildflower honey as omiyage, and now I want to make Honey Toast. I just need to buy some good Asian-style white bread and overload on more carbs and sugar. Lately I've been inhaling carbs like there's no tomorrow. So good. So, so good.

I've been coming across eggplant hate lately. Whenever people pick a vegetable as an example of something they dislike, eggplant shows up a lot. I adore eggplants, and don't understand the specific hate. So please tell me...

[Poll #1604824]

Please share any favorite recipes, eggplant lovers! (I hope there are eggplant lovers out there...) There are such lovely eggplants in the markets right now.

Wow. "The Last Airbender" is getting a bashing from the critics. I spent some time reading a bunch of the reviews, and now have a morbid curiosity to watch it. In 2D.

I spent some time after work getting lost looking for a particular library branch to borrow a particular book (Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, as I'm interested in trying to eat a lot less meat but have no clue how to cook meatless non-salad meals). First I was on the wrong street. That was easily solved with a quick look at the map and two right turns. But then even on the right street I couldn't find the dang thing. I finally saw a small sign on a fence, "Library Parking -->." I passed it and had to turn around to get back to the sign. I realized when I went into the parking lot that the library branch is actually two portables on school grounds. One portable is for staff. The other is the "library." So small! But I still ended up borrowing five books, including the one I wanted to borrow. Going to a new branch is dangerous since it's so easy to randomly find interesting books. :P

seperis asks for tea recs and gets A LOT. Oh man, now I want to order tea! Check out both LJ and DW. I can't wait for the shincha to start arriving in my local tea store...

Via The Splendid Table: There are a couple of guys in NYC with a truck farm, as in vegetables grown in the back of a pickup truck. They even have a CSA. For $20/year you can get miniscule amounts of veggies delivered right to you by the farm itself. The concept is so cool, but how do you make sure people don't steal the food?

( pics of food I made yesterday )

It's sad how much I post about food and not about books lately. It's not like I'm not reading any books. It's just that I'm either reading non-fiction books, which I almost never post about, or crappy books that aren't worth posting about (like, not so awfully bad it requires a post talking about how bad it is). I want to read an awesome book that makes me do a post with lots of exclamation marks...*sighs*