Saoirse's Primal Journal page 146

[Saoirse]

i bought more clothing today. oh dear, how is it even possible to spend $50 at a thrift store? one of the impulse buys was a halter-style red dress; hubby thinks all women look great in red. we'll see. i also bought a number of cute tops, 2 skirts, and a pair of corduroy pants.

[Urban Forager]

I've been finding some great stuff at thrift stores lately.

Canio and FW I would love to cook with you two! We just need to find some one to do the dishes and keep our wine glasses filled. I used to get paid pretty well for my cooking skills now I just do it for love.

[canio6]

Canio- can you be, like, hired out or something?

I'll cook, you walk around in the chainmail bikini. Win-win

yeah canio and FW should form a team of hotties who cook.

I hope FW is packing enough hotness for two or you will be disappointed

Canio and FW I would love to cook with you two! We just need to find some one to do the dishes and keep our wine glasses filled.

^These are very wise words. Sounds like a plan!

[Saoirse]

good cooking skills can easily take a guy from a 6 to an 8. but i'll be happy to fill the wine glasses and wash the dishes!

i haven't done this in a while, but today i measured a few wobbly places to see if my little experiment makes any difference.
starting:
thighs 24.25"
widest part of butt (hip?) 40"
natural waist 30.5"
right under my belly button/above my hip bones 34.75"

my ab measurements should reduce a little just from alternating cobra pose/pushups. i have been sitting too often and my lower back is sore because of it. if i were to set a goal, it would be to lose around 3" off my thighs and several inches off my butt. then the new goal would be to add inches back in the form of muscle.

dinner was a salad, burgers, and an artichoke with lemon butter sauce. i'm starting to get hungry again but i've brushed my teeth already. i have been waking up ravenous, which isn't always a good thing as i have to get the kid out the door in the morning before i can eat breakfast.

[Saoirse]

grouting helps you stay on plan? silly spammer.

eyeballed: 3 cups rainbow chard, 1 1/2 cups cauliflower, 2 bratwursts, maybe 1 T butter; not pictured is my decaf coffee and cream
DSCN0127.jpg

this is where it would be handy to have one of you creative chef-types. i cooked it well, but it lacks seasoning. i tried a little srirachi sauce and that just didn't do it for me. oh well.

[naiadknight]

grouting helps you stay on plan? silly spammer.

eyeballed: 3 cups rainbow chard, 1 1/2 cups cauliflower, 2 bratwursts, maybe 1 T butter; not pictured is my decaf coffee and cream
DSCN0127.jpg

this is where it would be handy to have one of you creative chef-types. i cooked it well, but it lacks seasoning. i tried a little srirachi sauce and that just didn't do it for me. oh well.

Add more butter, lots of garlic and onion, salt, pepper, and a tetch lime juice.

[drssgchic]

Pepper and/or garlic will fix anything. Yes, I do bachelor cooking- why would you ask?

I've done $50 at a thrift store. My downfall is books and costume pieces.

I wouldn't have guessed you as a red person, but whatever makes him happy?

[Saoirse]

the red dress- i put it on, it fit, and it will give me an excuse to use my strapless bra. we'll see if he likes it, will probably never see the light of day. on the downside, maybe i'll need one of those body gloves thingies to smoosh down all the bumps and "contours" because this dress doesn't hide anything. the books in the thrift stores are usually boring cookbooks from the 70s and such, so not very tempting. you should help me pick out costume pieces, i'm not very good at spotting that sort of thing.

i thought about garlic and onions, but i'm lazy. hadn't thought about lime juice though, that would go well with the srirachi. and i have some fresh limes in the fridge from that time i had intended to make margaritas. ah, maybe next time. it's all in mah belly now.

[Saoirse]

looks to be WHAT?!? i'm biting my nails in anticipation!!

[Finnegans Wake]

Yay! I'm... an 8!

For me, the kitchen is just another man-space, with different tools. Things that chop, sizzle, and bubble. During the bachelor years, had my share of nasty food: the frozen pizzas, Kraft macs, etc. When I met Mrs. FW, decided to pull out the stops and cook her a dinner, based on some scant newfound confidence and interest in cooking. Verrrry rudimentary. Just stuck to it and kept trying new things, but basically we don't eat out a lot and I've gotten better. My amateur cooking career would have started in 1995, and over that time frame it's hard not to get better. No particular specialty or cuisine, just try stuff out and see how it goes.

I will say that I have a very good sense of taste and smell, supposedly men are not as sensitive as women, but I can pull out ingredients when smelling a dish at a very nice restaurant. And am spoiled for going to most places around here. I can do that better. The Mrs. agrees. We host (I cook) for all Thanksgivings, some Christmases and Easters, bunch of other stuff; dinner parties for friends; generally I'm pretty confident that I can bang out some decent stuff even if the recipe is new. If I read a recipe, I can generally synaesthetically "taste" it from my mental combination of the ingredients. Tried making souffles for the first time last year - actually very primal, and not as difficult as I thought they'd be. Only ever took one cooking class (Indian), but watch the Food TV chefs, occasionally get a good suggestion from them, though too much of their schtick is personality. Cooks Illustrated is usually very instructive. Favorite chef is probably James Beard, if you can find his books it's a very solid basis. Some chefs I admire (J. Child, J. Pepin) but don't have their cookbooks. After a while, too many cookbooks is just... too many cookbooks. Have a couple of the Joys. Once you have the essentials, that gives you license.

Saoirse, have you tried roasting the cauliflower? I do that sometimes and then make soup, but you can get some nice flavor from it as a side dish. I'd toss the florets with some olive oil, S&P, and some red pepper flakes if you like heat. Sometimes I'll throw in some turmeric, makes 'em funky yellow. Whack 'em into a 400F oven for about 30 minutes, flip the buggers when they show some dark spots and get some color on the other side. You can add other stuff to the mix too, like onion, garlic, broccoli. Whatever moves you.

With greens, if you just wilt them, again, I keep the seasoning simple, some S&P, maybe a tiny bit of a mesquite smoke flavor, add some acid (lemon juice or rice wine vinegar), and be generous with the butter. Another way I like to cook greens, and most people cringe but it's very, very tasty, is to cream them. I don't mean cook them until they're soggy and should have been buried in the back yard. Get some cooking fat of choice heating in a skillet - I typically start with olive oil and/or butter, but bacon fat would work nicely, too. Add in about 2 T. of chopped shallot (onion is OK too) and 1-2 chopped cloves of garlic. I don't mince the garlic, don't want it to brown. Once soft, add the greens (chard, kale, collards, spinach, mustard, turnip) with leaves chopped and fibrous spines removed. (You can chop up those colorful chard spines and add them back in though!) Dainty greens like spinach will wilt down pretty quickly, but with greens like collards and kale, I usually add a little water and cover to steam. When they've given up with will to fight but aren't yet completely soft, sometimes I'll add a splash of white wine for some sweetness; once that's mostly cooked off, I add some heavy cream. Judge that by eye based on how much the greens cook down, but you can always add more, just want it to start coming up amongst the greens, so maybe 1/2 c. to start? Keep it on low to low-medium and add S&P and a pinch of nutmeg. If you add salt too early, the proportions will be out of whack when the greens reduce. The cream should get nice and thick, and how thick is a personal preference. I usually cook it down, taste for seasoning, add a bit more if needed, and bam. It's like an Alfredo without the cheese.

BTW, bad Alfredo sauces piss me off. How fucking hard is it to make Alfredo? You can serve it with your pasta replacement of choice, but say you're splurging and go to a restaurant and order pasta Alfredo. 9 times out of 10, it's pure glop, kindergarten glue. How hard is it to turn cream, butter, and Parm into a dandy little combo? It's not. It's also not hard to make salad dressing, especially Caesar. You never get good Caesar dressing dining out, and it's so easy and delicious when you make it from scratch. So many shortcuts that restaurants use just make me glad I can shake out some basics.