ubiquitous non sequitur

history of THAT cookie!

2009-03-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

OK. I love food. I love food history. I love vintage cookbooks.

But how do I feel about this? I'm not so sure. While I would love to know where the hell we got some of the food we eat, and I would be happy to tell you how Campbell's cream of mushroom soup became a staple in 'American' cooking (but only if you have an hour), this is a scooch over the top, me thinks.

http://justinsomnia.org/2009/01/melt-in-the-mouth-cookies-a-brief-history/

OED Word of the day

2009-03-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

Today's word of the day from The Oxford English Dictionary: "purvey"

I worked in the food industry for 5 years before I learned it was spelled 'purveyor'. I thought it was 'proveyer'. As in provide. But I never had enough confidence so I just used used 'vendor'.

If only my writing were legible...

2009-03-02T12:33:00.000-08:00

This would be so cool - but only if I could read my own writing :)

http://www.fontifier.com/

I'm Back!!

2009-01-29T15:57:00.000-08:00

In an effort to do a few things (conveniently listed below), I have decided to put more of an effort back into this blog.

I intend to:

stop spamming my mom (as well as others) and filling up their inboxes with weird random stuff
write more (I love it!)
do something more productive with the endless hours I spend sitting in front of a computer (... after a long day at work also sitting in front of a computer. something is not right here)

This means more fun! Excitement! Recipes! Pictures! Not too many of my dog, though I promise! And a potential site overhaul to...well....update the thing a bit.

new faves, new phone

2008-06-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

As it has been quite an odd time for me in my personal life, I am noticing some changes...

For one thing - I am addicted to the dehydrated strawberries from Trader Joe's. For a long time it was the mangoes, but now it is most definitely the strawberries. It's as if you purchased a box of overpriced healthy fruity cereal of some kind, and picked out all the strawberries and put them in a bag. It's wonderful. It may be the fact that I dump them in a bowl of Tapioca pudding (also courtesy of TJ's). I think for my next trick I'm going to mix them in the pudding and then freeze the whole thing....

And! I'm getting the new iPhone!! Yay!! July 11th can't come soon enough... GPS, iPod, phone, email, internet bliss here I come!

**Currently Addicted to:

2008-05-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

Burger Shop. It's just SO addictive...

My Life as a Musical

2008-05-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

Not sure why, but my life is a bit of a musical at the moment. I was recently introduced to possibly (as my friend 'The Pants' puts it) THE BEST guerrilla-style indie musical EVER. While you may or may not have heard of Colma (the place or the movie - like how I did that?), I can not get the catching tunes out of my head and I absolutely adore it.

To top that, I was listening to NPR on the way home from work yesterday, and the Swell Season were being interviewed on Fresh Air. Which made me remember another current favorite movie of mine : Once.

Oh so very very good.

OUCH

2008-04-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

Yes - that is the sound of me filing my taxes. While it may seem like pennies to some, I owed the government $1300. Which I just paid. I am seriously wondering how I am going to eat until payday...

On February 13th, 2008, our glorious government passed an economic stimulus package to 'stimulate' the economy. I believe the exact words were 'to give it a shot in the arm'. Does that metaphor sound odd to anyone else? As if the people passing it have a frightening familiarity with intravenous substances? Anyway, I filed my taxes today and found out that lo and behold! (all rise Hoyt Axton fans!) I qualify for the full $600 rebate provided in this package.

The point of this stimulus package is to give people 'free money' that's not taxable that they will go out and spend, therefore boosting the economy. I get why it's a cash rebate, and not a tax credit. BUT - what if the fact that I just practically cleared out my checking account to pay the taxes makes me unable to pay for food and therefore starve to death before I get that check? OR what if I have to go in to debt to survive until I get the check and I end up relying on the government for help in the meantime? Wouldn't have just made more sense (and be cheaper, too) to give a break on taxes? If I didn't have to pay so much in taxes, I'd be much freer to go out and spend money and **gasp!** boost the economy!

Somehow I know Bush is to blame....

oh yeah - I'm getting taxed to pay for the war in Iraq, and not basic government provided services. That then mean there are a lot more people unable to get what they need, and the become reliant on what few government services are still available to them. Which then means that I pay more in taxes to support them. which means......

And thus I have become one of those ranting people.

And wait! Don't my taxes pay for he economic stimulus package? Or did they get private investors for that?

I have not posted in almost a year

2008-04-09T07:52:00.000-07:00

It's very sad. I have not posted in almost a year. and so much has happened! Most importantly - my Doggie!! All hail the cuteness!!

And no, thaht is not my house that is trashed - it's a construction site :)

And the out at Fort Funston:

Bush, Homeland Security & Google Maps.

2007-05-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

Hate is a strong word. Most people that I talk to frequently know why I use this word when describing a certain multi-billion dollar search engine company (never mind the hypocrisy involved in the fact that I use Blogger..).

Here's the latest reason: Google Maps.

For my job, I spend A LOT of time on Google maps helping people that work for us get to where they're going, helping the clients figure out where their events are, etc. They recently added a 'Street View' function for SF, Vegas, Denver, Miami, and NY. Since I really don't want the address of the company where I work for up here, I will not post the example, but when you search for the office on Google Maps, my car is parked right out front. And you can make out the license plate numbers. Need to know what a building downtown looks like so you can find it better (and addresses seem to be inadequate these days?). Throw up a picture. But what is the point of being able to zoom in on a residential street close enough so that you can make out the numbers on people's plates? What if I was washing the dishes naked? Or taking out the trash in clothes that are oh-so yesterday?

And why the hell are all of the Google employees (yes, they refer to themselves as 'Googlers') out front as the picture is being taken? Don't these people have Internet to police? Businesses to buy? Technology to take over? And who said you don't have to be evil to make money?

The bad news is some people like it (like these folks). The good news - some don't.

Despicable

2007-05-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

I work for a company that provides an employee benefits related service to corporations nationwide. We have one client that is HUGE and spends millions on various benefits for their employees nationwide. They are a multi-million? Billion? dollar company, and we are a small family-owned business (national as we may be...).

I had a meeting at their offices today. I went with one of my employers (one of the two owners). We walked in to an ambush that was absolutely despicable and ridiculous. Business may be business, but our contact at this company is downright unprofessional and a bully. If I had someone working for me that misrepresented my company in that way I would absolutely not allow it. I feel kind of dirty... Our contact their barely let my boss (the CEO of the company I work for) finish her sentances...

In my short time since college, I have tried really hard to work for businesses that were small, and had some sort of good thing to offer the world. After working at NTT in Japan for a stint, and suffering through my mom working there for a few years, I cam to the conclusion that life is just way to short to put yourself in a position where you are compromising your morals for the sake of a paycheck. And probably not even a great one, at that. Today's meeting completely reminded me of why I have taken that stance, and showed me that once again, the folks that I work for rock. We do what we can as a small company to get by in this day and extremely biased age, and not only do we strive to treat our clients well, we really try to treat the people working for us as employees and independent contractors, as well as our vendors with respect. And we respect their integrity.

I suppose there's the whole karma/what comes around goes around view of things, but I really hope our contact at this company gets their comeuppance. AGH!

HMM??

2007-04-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

As you know, I have a (most of the time) hellish commute over the Bay Bridge every day. Today I got stuck behind a car that looked waaaaay worse than mine with an odd yellow bumper sticker on the back. While I am getting over the shock of seeing a crappier car than mine actually moving and being driven by some (poor crazy) soul, I realize that the bumper sticker says the following:

"My Other Vehicle is the Mahayana"

(For those of you unfamiliar, go here)

While staring at his dilapidated car (think hood and doors are different colors than each other or the main body of the car, the windshield is held in with duct tape, the antenna is a hanger, you get the idea...), I am realizing that while this guy is probably a very strong believer in the teachings of Buddhism, he's not doing a great service to it in terms of PR...

It just goes to show you that now matter how hard you try, and no matter how liberal minded your audience is (i.e., me), you can never escape being judged by the car you drive.

I gotta get me a new one.

I'm glad I didn't have to memorize this stuff...

2007-03-07T06:51:00.001-08:00

Grill cook cheat sheet....

Embellishment

2007-03-04T17:27:00.000-08:00

I realize that not everyone watches the food network, nor is nearly obsessed with food as I am. To help my mom understand why exactly Anthony Bourdain's post was so funny, I wrote an explanation of who the people he was talking about:

Alton Brown - wow geeky food science meets sesame street for adults TV show. But you DO actually learn shit.

Emeril - "kick it up a notch!!" involves adding salt and 'essence of Emeril' by throwing them vehemently AT the food. Preferably over your shoulder with a loud 'BANG!' and lots of flair and flourishing Why does 'essence of Emeril' sound like something I DON'T want to eat?

Mario Batali - I think this guy knows more about Italian food and the regions and food history of Italy better than anyone in the US, and possibly Italy, too. Fat red-head dude in shorts and clogs. And his fingers look like Vienna sausages.

Bobby Flay - what a load of horse shit in a guy. They've made a caricature out of guy by stylizing him into the tough-talking red head from Brooklyn who can cook.

Ace of Cakes Guy - aka Chef Duff. This dude is cool. He makes these designer cakes in these shapes that are totally outrageous. Like the one with the hand of rock coming out of a flames adorned with mini sock monkeys. And the cake in the shape of a Highland Yak for a Scottish Wedding (he wore a kilt and had a bag piper come in to the bakery for that one). The only show on the food network I would watch regularly if I could remember what time the show is on. And he uses power tools because the 'cake tools' don't cut it. Literally. He has a band saw in his bakery.

Giada - Italian-American hoochie mama who's hair never moves when she does, and who is Italian and uber-skinny.Not that there's anything wrong with skinny Italians, don't get me wrong. But she's like an anorexic baker - I just don't trust her. And she always has perfect nails, her wedding ring/engagement rock combo looks like it will break her finger, and her face looks painted on - it's scary.

Rachel Ray - the most annoying non-cook ever. If you don't know what she looks like, she's often on Triscuit and Ritz cracker boxes. Her first show on the food network was '30-minute meals'. Where she told everyone that you can put a delicious meal (???) on the table in under 30 minutes. What she doesn't tell you is that you would then have to eat the shit she calls food. And she has the most annoying nasal voice ever.

Paula Deen - Older portlier woman from Georgia. Southern cooking done by a white woman with big hair, a big heart, and a big laugh. Never-you-mind that the 3 potato casserole with sour cream, cheddar cheese, bacon bits, cream, mashed potatoes and potato chips and slices is not something I will be putting in my repertoire.

And that leaves us with Sandra Dee. Oh Sandra Dee. If Barbie were to meet a bone fide Nabisco brand Keebler elf with an endorsement from Satan, got drunk and spawned a mentally challenged child with aspirations to become the next Martha, that being MAY be comparable to Sandra Dee. Need a new cookie recipe to impress the neighbors? Buy store-bought sugar cookie dough (I always have some in my freezer, just in case!!) and roll in some crushed Hazelnuts! Et Voila~! Add a bow and it's the perfect welcome to the neighborhood gift! make sure that the apron you are surely actually wearing matches the drapes in your kitchen perfectly! Buy frozen food, microwave it yourself and call it home cooking! Shoot me! Shoot me now!

Not to sound pretentious, but it appalls me that these people make gazillions of dollars a year, and, more frighteningly, that people actually copy these people!

The Food Network

2007-02-28T17:53:00.000-08:00

If I could have said it better myself, I would have. Anthony Bourdain's take on the Food Network.

Daily Bay Bridge Saga

2007-02-26T20:09:00.000-08:00

I have a major issue with California drivers. I don't know if it's the high ratio of luxury vehicles (on a good day it's only a ton of BMW's... I'm usually one of the few POS cars on the road...), or the high ratio of selfish a$%hole drivers. Hard to say. But when you want to merge into a lane, say the one I'm in, there are a few rules that should be followed:

if I am where you want to go, speed up or slow down. DO NOT try to merge anyway. I am cranky when faced with congested freeways and low blood sugar. This applies to the morning commute (haven't had b-fast yet) or the afternoon (hungry for din-din)
if I will be where you want to be by the time you are going to get there, DO NOT try to merge anyway. See #1.
If you don't signal, I don't know you're going to try to usurp my place in my lane.
do not try to compensate for the lack of signaling by a) drifting slowly into my lane, or b) darting quickly into my lane. You;re still an ass, and I can not be held responsible for the angry look on my face, nor for the profanities issuing forth from my otherwise innocent face at 7:20 in the morning.
no matter what the current issue of whatever magazine's currently in vogue, road rage is NOT attractive. You will not get a wealthy and good looking mate this way. I am in the right lane because half of the Bay Bridge is an uphill incline, and my POS car gets tired. If you want to pass me, feel free, just do it the way the rest of the world would - IN THE PASSING LANE. The asshole that tried to pass me on the non-existent shoulder this morning in their black BMW SUV! You will get your comeuppance! And you didn't succeed anyway - did you miss the fact that there IS NO SHOULDER?!?!

Follow these simple rules and we may or may not get along just fine. Leave me alone to my bad 70's and 80's rock station and my tea on the way to work in the morning - and no jostling, please, I have no cup holders, and have o clutch my tea all the way to work. Do all of this, and I will forgive the fact that you bought a $50,000 car that emits the same amount of pollutants and eats up almost the same amount of gas as my 1990 Jeep Cherokee with no muffler, instead of a sensible car that could at least make it look like you're trying to make an effort. Ass.

Time Suckage

2007-02-19T16:09:00.000-08:00

I have been busy. Mostly with recovering from getting my wisdom teeth pulled. Wow. That sucked. Still swishing gaping holes in my jaw, but now able to keep food down. Just to sum up.

Post wisdom teeth pullage - I had a BF birthday to deal with. So I baked a cake. A chocolate cake with pear filling glazed with chocolate ganache, and with milk and white chocolate decorations. I ground up pecans and substituted some of the flour. The filling was so volumous the two layers wouldn't meet, and I couldn't glaze over the gap. In a nutshell, if decadence wanted to indulge, this would be its cake.

I made the decoration on top by scanning a tile that Craig has of his family's crest. I cropped out the lion, enlarged it, printed it out, put a piece of parchment paper on top of it and traced it out. I hate white chocolate, and so I'm extremely happy to be using some of the 3lbs I had in my cabinet (even if I did only use 4 oz...).
OK - so the letters are freehand. I couldn't trace through chocolate.

And somehow as I couldn't find my round cake pans, and octagon seemed yummier than a square...

I finally live here!

2007-01-23T07:34:00.000-08:00

Almost a year to the day exactly since I moved to San Francisco, I finally managed to join the residents club and get myself a residential parking sticker. This means that I can park in my neighborhood ALL DAY LONG without having to move my car every two hours. I am so so super psyched. It means I finally live here...

Odd Trivia

2007-01-05T14:55:00.000-08:00

In case you were wondering what happened today in history, here are some juicy tidbits:

1592:	Shah Jahan, Moghul emperor of India, builder of Taj Mahal born
1914:	Ford Motor Co. increased its daily wage from $2.34 for a nine-hour day to $5.00 for eight hours of work.
1923:	The Senate debates the benefits of Peyote for the American Indian.
1928:	Walter Mondale, 42nd Vice President of the U.S. born ( i had to put this one is as we went to the same college. And I felt bad for him in 2003)
1933:	In San Francisco, construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge. (Did they mention that the toll was supposed to go away after the bridge paid for itself? Which it did a while ago? And now it pays for the bus system, which runs itself further in to debt every year).
1993:	The 103rd Congress convened. (This one just seems slightly random - not unlike this post)

LOTR; Fellowship enters Moria (If you don't know what LOTR stands for, and te hint 'Moria' didn't give it away. Go away. Seriously. You are not dorky enough to be here.)

Who finds this stuff?

MUSHROOMS!!!!!

2006-12-03T19:42:00.000-08:00

I was so absolutely bummed to hear that mushroom season 'was ending' already this year. Mostly because this is my first winter since I got bitten by the mycological bug that I have lived away from where there are many. I.e., I now live in the city and am bummed that I can;t go crawl around in the pine needles and mud that is my 'back yard' and come out with several pounds of yummy fungus that I would have to pay upwards of $12/lb for in the city IF I could find them.

So I was very happy to find this morning that my land lady was sorely mistaken - mushrooms were still out in abundance. I didn't even have to crawl - I just walked around the property and in about 20 minutes picked up nearly 15lbs of Boletus (relative of the Porcini - and often what they are called). I gave half to my land lady, and brought the rest home. I cleaned them all up and sliced them up for drying like I do every year, and then remembered that my oven here in SF is new, and doesn't have a pilot light... which has always been essential for mushroom -drying. Hopefully they'll be OK. If I'm really lucky there'll be some still around next week when I go back up...I gave most of the #1's to my land lady (tight little baby Boletuses that are mostly light colored and a bit wet because they haven't even emerged out from the ground yet - hard to find.), so these guys look a little old, but dried they'll be awesome. Hopefully the pepper grinder gives some sort of perspective.

Why I quit the Restaurant business

2006-11-25T11:51:00.000-08:00

People ask me that all the time. I have many answers, but this is definitely one of them: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=26&entry_id=10982 & http://www.chow.com/grinder/323.

Thanksgiving Post

2006-11-25T09:43:00.000-08:00

Turkey Day. As one who never ate Turkey on Thanksgiving growing up (thanks, Dad!), somewhere in the back of my mind I never really understood what all the fuss was about. As far as my inexperienced self could tell, it was a lot of fuss over an over-sized, under-moist bird. And the concept of eating at 2 or 3 (does nobody appreciate that this means you really do have to get up at 5 to put the damn thing in the oven??) is totally foreign to me.

Enter my experience with my old boss, Rob. After 3 years of eating yummy brined, de-boned, stuffed and trussed Turkey (or 'Turkey in Bondage'), on my first Thanksgiving solo I could not stray from the concept. I was hooked.

So - I ordered a Turkey from the local butcher's ( a real old school butcher's), and brined it overnight in a garbage bag lined 5 gallon bucket (good thing the BF is a contractor and has these things lying around). Getting that puppy in the fridge meant I had to pull out 2 shelves to get it to fit, but these are the things that you do... we were going to host Thanksgiving at ours, but my co-cook, David, has a Kamado in his back yard, and this is what we wanted to cook our bird in, so to his house we went. I was still convinced that de-boning was the way to go (besides, it's really fun in a carnal sort of way). I let David do all the butchery, and I have to again say that for one who has never done that sort of thing before, he is really good! I only showed him a couple of tricks, and like the enthusiastic Canadian that he his, he totally rocked it. I put the Turkey in it's merry bondage, and cinched the hell out of it, as we found out that the thing would not fit on the grill. We decided to hang it from inside the lid instead, and I was cinching to try to make it shorter. Added a bit of cooking time, put came out phenomenal. As I ended up with a 16lb bird instead of a 14 (long story), our timing was off anyway. And we managed to eat by 7 (only 2 hours off of the planned 5pm!!). I also have to add, that if you take our the rib cage, etc, carving the bird is much easier, as you just cut off slices (like if you were serving a pot roast...). That way the man of the house can take his self-proclaimed proper place at the head of the table carving the bird, and you don't get the whole fight over whether or not he knows what he's doing (which often, I have found, they don't).

Good friends, a lot of great food, and free-flowing wine. A good time was had by all. And the Turkey is awesome! Even re-heated with no gravy, it is extremely juicy and yummy, and the left overs are not at all tiresome. I am only slightly pissed that David got all of the bones for soup.... Can't wait until next year.

Boredom

2006-11-21T07:41:00.000-08:00

The things we do for....boredom. I had about an hour of it the other day, and so www.craigcummings.com was born. It petered out about the time I was figuring out how to do automated photo galleries, so that'll be incorporated soon. As will some animation bits. (And yes, I know about the broken links....). Still not bad for a closet geek who doesn't have any web software (and refuses to use iWeb - I find it damn useless...).

Those of you who HAVE visited, will know which kitchen's mine...

California Emissions

2006-10-25T17:56:00.000-07:00

My Jeep. It has been quite the topic of interest in my life. Many hate it, some love it, I refer to it as 'The Albatross'.

I got my registration renewal notice in the mail a little wile back, and I have to get it smogged this year. Major pain in the ass. So. After the requisite amount of freaking out, I take it to a mechanic that I drive by everyday, does smog checks, and has a stellar reputation on Yelp. Literally 10 minutes after dropping it off dude calls me and tells me that he couldn't do the smog test on my car because the check engine light didn't light up when he plugged in the computer. He goes on to tell me that it will cost about $200 to rip open the dashboard and determine whether or not it's a burnt bulb, or (more likely) if the electrical system is failing in the dash. This, to me, is the death knell for my car.

Craig is not convinced, so he calls his mechanic (the guy who has been taking care of my car for the past almost two years, and who doesn't do smog checks). His mechanic confirms that you have to have a check engine light to get a smog check done, but tells us that he'll figure out what the deal is with the light for $75. Craig and I figure it's worth it to know whether or not I need to scramble to buy a new car and agree. We take it in, and he proceeds to call me periodically throughout the day to ask me strange questions: did the other mechanic run my VIN number through the system, what exactly did the other mechanic say, and so on. Finally his assistant calls me that afternoon to tell me that my car's ready and I can come pick it up. But, of course, she can not tell me what the hell's going on with it.

So the next morning I walk in to the mechanic, where he hands me my keys and a smog certificate. Evidently, he never had to tear open the dashboard - after some research, it came to light that my car was manufactured 2 months before the Clean Air act took effect in 1990. So I didn't need a check engine light. And he only charged me $100 for the whole ordeal (smog checks run from $35 - $50 a pop).

3 days later my registration sticker arrives in the mail from the DMV - and the whole time I have an exhaust leak and a whole in my muffler so big that I set car alarms off as I drive down the street. I take comfort in the fact that the world is a better place with California cracking down on air-polluting cars like mine. ::grin::

2006-10-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

Smaller Is Better

My good frined made this. And the cat's name is Lucifer - possibly one of my favorite cats of all time.