Never tell your boss you’re macerating in the kitchenette.

Seriously. You have to explain yourself and he winds up giggling and making you say ‘macerate’ over and over to other people. I just wanted some sweetened blackberries for my Greek yogurt, damnit!

Anyway, HI! Feliz Dias de los Muertos! Has to be my favorite time of the year, because it involves food, church, and skeletons everywhere!

 Let’s deconstruct the Spanish:

Dias – days, as in at least three and depending on where you’re from, up to eight.

de los – of the

Muertos - Dead. As in, dead means dead, ghosts, spirits, cemetaries, et cetera.

I could get on my moral high horse and say how much this holiday rocks and counters the modern “omg death yucky keep it far away!” thing, but this is a food blog, so– FOOD!

Alas, I’m flying out to Washington, DC tomorrow, so I actually haven’t cooked any of this food. *cries*

There are hundreds of bazillions of recipes for pan de muertos, but the one I’ve had the best results with is this one.

But pan de muertos is boring! EVERYONE makes that! Here’s something you won’t hardly never see, recipe from here:

Calabeza en Tacha

1 4 to 5 lb pumpkin
8 cinnamon sticks
Juice of 1 Orange
4 cups water
2 lbs brown sugar or raw sugar

Cut the pumpkin into 3″ squares. Remove seeds and strings. With a sharp knife make diamond designs over the pulp.

Put the sugar in a pan with the cinnamon, orange juice, and water. Bring to a boil and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

Place the first layer of pumpkin pieces skin side up in the pan. Place the second layer pulp side up. Repeat as necessary. Cover and simmer. The pumpkin pieces are done when they look golden brown and the pulp is soft.

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In other news, tonight at midnight kicks off anotherNational Novel Writing Month. This will be my fifth year, and damn it, I WILL WIN THIS YEAR OR ELSE! So, expect more posts about fish sticks and frozen fish sticks (and possibly Pok Pok, because I discovered quite by accident walking to its location on Division and back to my house is exactly one mile).

That’s right, folks.

I’m back.

How To Make Fake Cojito Cheese

I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that people keep coming here from search engines to find out about cojito cheese.

 It’s cheese. It’s white. It crumbles. It has little to no flavor. The end.

It’s also a bitch to find if you don’t have a large Hispanic population around. So, this is something I discovered quite by accident, and if you’re the kind of food blogger who goes into vapors easily over ‘improper’ foods, best look away now.

How To Make Fake Cojito Cheese

1. Obtain a brick of Monterey Jack cheese. Which is Hispanic in and of itself, because, hey, Monterey is in Mexico!

2. Put brick in a large ziploc bag (I use a gallon sized bag for 1 lb of cheese), squeeze out all the excess air, and place in freezer for at least 24 hours. You wanna make sure that bad boy is froze solid.

3. Remove brick from freezer and place in refrigerator to thaw. This usually takes about a day or so.

4. Open the bag and let some air in, then seal it back up tight.

5. Grab the brick in both hands, imagine it’s your little sister’s arm, and perform a rattlesnake bite, twisting both hands in opposite directions. The cheese should crumble into a billion wee pieces, although some additional smooshing might be needed.

I do this with all sorts of cheese. I really, really like the texture of the crumblies, and I think they’re neater than shredded.

Hot Diggety Damn!

So, everyone remembers when my camera was stolen out of my house, right?

(I miss North Portland, but I sure as hell don’t miss that house)

Anyway, I’m going to Washington, DC next week and was telling my parents about how much it SUCKED I was going to be witnessing history and not have a camera. And how I was flat broke because I spent all my money to go to DC, but oh, well, I will have memories and a disposable camera. Stiff upper lip. Bla bla bla.

So I get this call this morning and my mom says, “I’m sending you $200 to get a new camera and to take a Duck tour. Merry Christmas”

I love my mommy and daddy. So much.

So, why am I posting this in my food blog?

BECAUSE THERE WILL BE FOOD PORN AGAIN!!!! YAY!!!!!!

::insert Gordon-Ramsey-esque cussing here::

So, I’m thinking of throwing a Thanksgiving Throwdown for my Housemates (and anyone else who wanders by that day). I’m going to try and cook my very first turkey all by myself. Yay me!

 However, like all houses in Portland, I’ve got a couple of vegetarians. Which, you know, all is well, I can cook for them, too, no worries, no tofurkies.

One of my vegetarians can’t eat dairy, wheat, ground nuts, or belladonna vegetables.

…

I’m part Italian. All of my recipes call for a can of tomato-something. I am at a total loss.

Help?

Feed my craving!

I asked the Damn Portlanders, but just in case someone here knows– where can I get Japanese-style brown curry in this town?!

Anyway, some quick food stuff, because I am lazy.

• Shanghai Noble House, John’s Landing (dinner) - Huge portions for medium price, charge you 50 cents for rice, but well worth it.
• Tabor Hill Cafe, Hawthorne and 38th – Winco food for McDonald’s prices.
• Red Hawaiian sea salt goes well on baked potatoes and chicken and caesar salad, but not corn.
• The Gold Door – Don’t sell food, but the nice guy at the front desk not only dug out a huuuge bag of milagros for me to dig through (I’m going on pilgrimmage soon and was despairing being able to find any), but also gave me some recs for ‘real’ Mexican and Cuban restaurants. So, go see them and buy things. Because they ROCK. Although stay away from the Ethiopian hand and processional crosses, I’m totally going to save my pennies and buy ALL of them.

Movie review – He Died With A Felafel In His Hand

(Will you all freak out if I mention fishywaffles one more time? Because I just had some omg yay!)

 Anywhooo, MOVIE! Yay! It’s food related ’cause it’s got felafel in the title and I can blog about whatever I want BECAUSE IT’S MY DAMN BLOG!

 Anyway, He Died With A Felafel In His Hand is a blog about some guy (whose name I don’t remember because I am the WORST blogger EVER) who keeps bouncing from one shared living situation to another. And, as anyone who has lived in houses with 6 or more people know, the arguments always revolve around food, television, money, the bathroom, and existential angst.

 This movie has it all. (Yay! Existential angst!) It also has pagans, Nazis, gansters, bullimic actresses, lesbians, and drug addicts. Which makes it indistinguishable from my living situation about four living situations ago.

The food in the movie is rarely more than a prop or a plot device (see title), but it’s typical poor-bastard fare (fishsticks figure prominently in the main character’s diet). There’s a great scene with an argument about the biscuit shelf and the pineapple shelf that made me laugh so hard I fell off the couch.

HDWAFIHH isn’t some great, change your life movie. But it is kinda funny, and I suggest watching it with your housemates. Alas, Fate conspired against me last night; none of my housemates even walked into the living room while I was watching it!

All the Things I’ve Eaten These Last Three Days While I Was Ill

1) Toast and tea. Lots of toast and tea.

Okay, so it was organic green tea with a fresh ginger infusion, and slices of organic french bread with local sourced butter and a sprinkle of Turkish Black Lava salt. But I ate a lot of it.

2) FISHYWAFFLES! and soup.

3) Chicken Caesar Salad.

4) French Toast.

5) Safeway Select Cola. I don’t know why, I’m not a huge fan of pop, but I’ve got an open one in my hand RIGHT NOW!

Which I just spilled down the front of my shirt. Great.

6) Ricola Honey Lemon Herb Throat Lozenges.

Blech.

I’m feeling sick and I am watching time crawl by at work. Tonight I’m going to pick up some soup and fishywaffles, and crawl into bed.

I do have to share that someone got to my blog by typing “roll sweet potatoes fart” into a search engine. I think that made my day.

(I just scrolled to the very bottom of my page and noticed the teeny weeny happy face. Hee. It’s the fever what’s making me wacky, honest!)

Chocolate and Salt. And Poptarts.

Oh, my. Is this what it is to be a foodie? Rolling over groggily at 6.30am to peer blearily at the alarm clock and the first thought that filters through your cotton-filled head is: “Did I really spend $28 on a few ounces of salt yesterday?”

Hells yes I did. And I’ll probably do it again.

Someone from the Portland food blogs I read (and I can’t remember whom, eep! I am the worst food blogger ever!) pointed out Salts of the Earth, which is all about salt. And I was intruiged. Then I noticed the links a familiar name: The Meadow. Why was it familiar? It is right next door to Bridge City Comics, where once a week they put aside a stack of hand-selected comics just for me.

Food geek and comic geek. I know, I’m surprised I’m still single, too.