Hot Cranky People

Seriously, it never gets old.

My landlord (who is also the Chicken Wrangler) knocked on my door this morning and handed me these.

Fresh eggs! And they are blue!

I just received a text message from my 63 year old mother.

Apparently she saw something awesome in a store that she wanted to tell me about so she TOOK A PHOTO WITH HER CELL PHONE AND SENT IT TO ME.

Way to rock the technology, Mom!!

p.s. I am so totally on my way to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy that sprayer thing for my sprayer-less kitchen sink.

Yesterday my sister gave birth to my precious nephew.

She squeezed that little bugger out in less than 3 hours. He is wonderful and amazing.

As I left the hospital with my sister’s sister-in-law (or my brother-in-law’s sister, you pick), I couldn’t help but notice something else wonderful and amazing in the corner by the security desk as we turned in the sticker badge thingies we had been given when we arrived.

Yes. It’s a giant ball of sticker badges. After the stickers have been turned in at the security desk and they’ve checked you out, the security person sticks your badge on this ball. Why? Because it’s fun, and they are bored.

It has its own chair.

“It’s just sittin’ over there chillin’.”, said the security lady.

We were utterly mesmerized by this. “Try to pick it up!”, Security Lady said. It weighed approximately one jillion pounds.

Security Lady was so tickled by how much we loved the StickerBall that she let us put some stickers on it ourselves.

It was a good day.

Leeks.

Sliced Fennel.

Talking Donald Trump Doll.

I love my FoodSaver.

The other day I found myself at the KFC drive-thru. As it had probably been over a year since I had been to a KFC, I needed a minute to look at the menu.

KFC Guy: Hi! Welcome to KFC. Can I take your order?

Me: Um….Hmmmmm…..I…I need a minute….um…..

KFC Guy: Will that be extra crispy or original recipe?

Me: No, I…just a sec please.

KFC Guy: And what kind of drink would you like with that?

Me: Hang on! I’m still looking…I need a minute!

KFC: That will be $5.27, next window please.

Me: I HAVEN’T ORDERED ANYTHING YET!

KFC Guy: Kidding.

Stopped by the Safeway today for a few things, and as I got to the front of the checkout line I smiled and said to the cashier, “How are you?”.

“I’m here.” was her brusque reply.

This was a burly, tough looking woman. A woman who might drive a truck. Or cattle.

As she started to ring up my items, she burst into a horrendous hacking cough. The cough of a 3 pack a day smoker. With pneumonia. And a ferret in her throat.

Gross.

She continued to cough away, picking up my items one by one and running them over the scanner.

“Awwww just take me out back and shoot me”, she sort of yelled in her gravelly and slightly manly voice, to nobody in particular.

At some point she had a particularly drastic hacking fit and then winced, grabbing her neck in pain. She sort of stepped away, and coughed some more. She turned back to me with her runny beady eyes, her head at a funny angle, and said, “Great. Guess I’m going back to the hospital tonight.”

Bummer.

Wait, what?

I mentioned that that didn’t sound like a fun way to spend a Saturday night, when really all I could think was I can’t believe YOU ARE TOUCHING ALL OF MY FOOD ITEMS.

“Yeah, maybe this cold’ll finally get me to quit smokin’.”

Or maybe it will get you to STOP TOUCHING ALL OF MY FOOD ITEMS.

People, if your job requires you to TOUCH PEOPLE’S FOOD ITEMS and you are so sick you need to be hospitalized…MORE THAN ONCE…please stay home.

She did get a palmful of sanitizer from a pump by the register before she handed me my change. Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better about the whole situation.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go bathe in Purell. With my food items.

When I first moved to California, I brought some furniture I ended up not needing. I was pointed to Freecycle, which is a great way to get rid of your stuff without crowding the landfills. It’s basically a mailing list, and you can post that you have something to offer, or that you are looking for something in particular. The lists for my area get a lot of traffic, and it’s pretty amazing how much stuff gets passed along.

I soon learned that PEOPLE WILL OFFER ANYTHING.

And SOMEONE WILL TAKE IT.

Anything.

Today a friend of mine finally took my advice and used Freecyle to get rid of his moving boxes. This reminded me that I used to keep a list of some of my favorite entries. So I dug it up:

OFFER: Llama fiber.
I also have a bag of llama fiber, from a shearing. It still contains
all of the guard hairs, etc. Probably a couple of pounds (needs to be
cleaned and carded). This is really nice when carded with wool.

Llama fiber. Who knew?

Wanted: 4 Laying hens.
Any breed. No roosters please.

Mind you, this is from the Palo Alto list.

OFFER: 32oz. tub of Whole Milk Vanilla Yogurt
With cream on top.

Because just a plain tub of SOMEONE ELSE’S YOGURT might not be worth responding to, but THERE’S CREAM ON TOP.

OFFER: outdated coffee
Found several half empty sacks of coffee in the freezer. I think they
are from 2003. Also have packets from hotel stays for the in-room
coffee maker.

You can’t make this stuff up.

OFFER: Special needs pet rat needs good home
Albino female is blind, and slightly paralyzed on one side. Cage and
accessories (including her best friend – a healthy, spotted female
rat) are also available. Both rats are roughly 1 year old.

Serious offers of loving new homes only, please. If she ends up as
snake food (intentionally) karma will take care of you.

I got nothin’.

A couple of weeks ago, my sister, her husband, and my little nephew came down to spend the day with me. After a lovely lunch, we stopped by the crazy Asian grocery store that I’ve mentioned before. It’s called the Golden Phoenix, but I have lovingly shortened it to “The Go Pho”. I visit there pretty frequently these days.

My BIL was delighted to find his favorite lychee candy there, and bought a bag to take home.

Yesterday I received this email from him:

Hey, so I was eating this delicious lychee candy that I bought at the Go Pho, a big ol’ trippy Asian market near sallypnut’s house, when I decided to read the back of the bag. the warning is great, and culminates in one of my favorite lines ever:

“When you choke this in throat, lie prone and vomit it by beating back at once.”

makes me glad I made it through the bag without serious injury.

I present to you…

The Cavalcade of Bad Nativities.

One of my favorites:

Marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers. Nothing says Christmas like a batch of Jesus S’Mores.

Check out the rest. It’s good stuff.

As some of you know (because I posted about it last year), one of the Pnut Family Thanksgiving Traditions is the ceremonial Carving of the Cheese Sculpture for the top of the cauliflower au gratin.

Every year, this responsibility falls to me.

Frankly, it’s a lot of pressure.

To recap:

Historically, the cauliflower au gratin is laden with an intricate lattice made of Kraft Old English Slices. None of that real cheese. No, only “cheese food” is acceptable, because of its ability to withstand heat and still maintain its shape. The strips would puff up into hard, brown plastic-like rectangles.

It was actually kind of gross.

Sadly, no photographic record of these works exists.

In 2002, Mom left off the strips. This sent a panic through the household. NO PLASTIC CHEESE STRIPS? Sure, they may be gross, but come on, you don’t mess with tradition. Mom said, “But nobody ever eats them.” We said, “Yeah, so?”

I decided to top the cauliflower au gratin myself. Rebel that I am, I decided to try something new, shunned the lattice, and instead opted for the pastoral scene you see below.

Note the turkey, the native foliage, and the giant head of cauliflower (that’s the blobby thing on the right). The hot sun beats down on the land, and in the sky you can see the tiny airplane that carried my sister and I home for the holiday.

(Ok, fine. The plane was supposed to be a bird but it didn’t come out so hot.)

This work withstood the heat of a 350 degree oven and came out pretty much intact.

It was not only decorative, but delicious.

2003 rolled around, and once again I was given this responsibility. Being short on time, and also concerned about being able to live up to the hype of the previous year, I copped out and opted for a lame yet still relatively intricate Cheese Cornucopia. A Cheesehorn of Plenty, if you will.

This one did not hold up so well during the baking, and ended up looking more like a Blob of Plenty.

Before we move to 2004, I should mention that at some point between 2002 and 2004 there was another, non-Thanksgiving cauliflower au gratin at Pnut’s Mom’s table, at some family event which I have forgotten. I can’t find the photos of this one but I will instead describe my work. I took a scientific approach, opting to sculpt the chemical formula for cauliflower au gratin, which was, of course, a giant:

CAuG

It was well received.

Moving on to last year, 2004. This time I dug deep and went way, way back in history.

And carved a Triceratops.

He browned nicely.

Which brings me to today. I took suggestions from many friends, and decided to go with an architectural landmark, in honor of my relocation to San Francisco.

I present…

The Golden Baked Bridge.

I must say I was pretty please with this one.

I think this is the first year the cheese actually looked better after baking.

I am now taking suggestions for 2006. I’m open to pretty much anything. Except dinosaurs. They are totally played out.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the laundromat. My friend Dot was kind enough to visit me while I was doing my laundry (now that’s a good friend), so while we were waiting for the industrial dryer to finish shrinking my clothes beyond recognition, we wandered over to the Asian grocery store around a few doors down.

I had seen this store a zillion times over the last year, but never gone in. Now, I love food. I’m always one to try new foods, embrace the cuisine of other cultures, all that good stuff. I was excited to find some new and unusual things to try. WOOHOO!

We entered the store and started the adventure by heading over to what I can only describe as the “Wall of Unidentifiable Meat”. Frankly, I don’t want to eat any sort of meat with the word “flap” in the name. While I’m sure most of the items are delicious, to my untrained American eye an awful lot of them were just plain scary.

And speaking of eyes.

Near the Meat Wall was “Seafoodapalooza”. I’m surprised there wasn’t a sign saying, “Now with more eyes!” Seriously, there must have been about 900 eyes in that place. Connected to things. (Later on we found a jar of more eyes. There were at least 438 eyes in that jar alone. EYES.)

And those were just in the fresh food sections. We cautiously ventured down the other aisles. “Cans of Crazy!” was one of my favorite areas. Is that fruit or fish? I CAN’T TELL. I also enjoyed “Tapioca-rama”. I had no idea how many sizes, shapes, and colors tapioca balls came in. It was like a chewy carnival in there. Awesome. Dot called one particularly festive bag a “birthday party in a package”.

Unfortunately, the clock was ticking and we had to get back to my laundry. That, and the sheer number of eyes took its toll on us and we had to JUST GET OUT.

There was all sorts of cool stuff though, so it was decided next time we would take our time, be adventurous and find some interesting (eye-free) items to purchase and try.

I’m all for the kitchen gadgets.

But this is ridiculous.

The chicken mystery continues. This just in:

Subject: lost grey and white spotted chicken

Hi,
I live at 123 XYZ Rd and have lost my grey and white spotted chicken. Herman saw her last night but she got away. If anyone sees her tonight please email.
Thanks