I figured this commercial out!

 

Everyone’s trying to pass off the crap beer!

Things I Learned Cooking Indian Food, part 2

 

That would be last week’s version. I cooked dal tonight because… I dunno. Hungry? So here’s what I learned:

• This is really left over from last week, but if you’re lactose intolerant, you’re yogurt-intolerant too. So use the strained yogurt sparingly. Your tum and your coworkers will thank you.
• I’m out of the weensy red lentils that go mooshy, so I used only the big green ones that keep their shape. It’s vaugely annoying for some reason. Must buy more mooshy weensy lentils.
• Whole cumin is nummy in this.
• I followed the onion cooking suggestions here, and let me tell you, the not-nonstick pan suggestion is brill.
• Deglaze pan AFTER toasting popping seeds and curry powder. Otherwise there will be no popping.
• Mixing popping seeds in a spice jar saves time.
• This is a three-pan dish. Four, if you use one for the rice, one for the lentils, one for the oniony-oil thingamajimmmie, and one to smush-peel the garlic.
• This is vegan, if you don’t add the yogurt. 

Things I Learned Last Night Attempting Indian Food, part 1

Monday nights have become “Attempt to Cook Indian Food Night” in my house. Here’s what I learned this week.

• Even if my grandfather was raised in India*, that means naught-all in my ability to cook Indian food. 
• Must. Steal. Grandpa’s. Chutney. Recipe. No internet ones have come close.
• Yogurt cheese tastes like yogurt. I don’t know why I expected anything different. It also is pretty awesome mixed with dal.
• If you have no cheesecloth, a scrap of old t-shirt works fantastically.
• Before beginning dal, ensure bedroom doors are closed and fans are placed strategically to immediately draw cooking smells out of the house through as few rooms as possible. 
• Cook onions on medium heat. DO NOT TURN UP. Learn patience.
• They’re called ‘popping seeds’ for a reason. Get a pot lid handy. And they  burn instantly on high heat. 
• Burnt popping seeds taste okay. 
• Coriander seeds are frickin’ AWESOME. They’re like tiny crunchy lemons. 

*Yes, my grandfather is white. He also has absolutely nothing to do with my genetics. HA! Wrap your head around THAT one!

Strange Cravings

I have had the strangest craving for soda pop lately. It was either a deficiency in my HFCS intake or my carbonation intake. I hate drinking pop, by the way. It tastes all chemically and HFCS makes me go WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!*keee-rashboomsplat*

I attempted drinking still lemonade sweetened with everything from sugar to agave to, uh, salt (don’t ask, okay? I’ve got a sharpie, the containers are now properly labeled.) After popping in to New Seasons, I have lots of Crystal Geyser sparkling mineral water, now, and that seems to be soothing the savage craving.

Additionally, I made a big pan of what I call my hippy rice crispy treats (margarine, marshmallows, puffed brown rice). I really, really like using the puffed brown rice, because it creates more of a chewy treat than a soft-palette slashing crunchy. And they’re not as sweet as those made with the sugar-added Rice Krispies, which is awesome blossom in my book.

There’s still a half a pan left, but my buddy Snoe is rolling over tonight for 1980s Japanese cartoon viewing. If he’s lucky, I won’t have had the others for dinner.

Oh, Doug Fir, NO!

No, I just can’t. I can’t eat there any more.

I’ve eaten at the Doug Fir for brunch at least once a month for the entire time it’s been open. I always sit at the counter, because I am a singular diner and it’s busy on weekends. I get that. I cut them a lot of slack. I find the hungover hipsters and the slumming out-of-towners amusing. I’ve written half of my current novel at that counter. Come to think of it, I’ve written that counter into one of my novels, along with the extra-cool former weekend AM bartender. She rocked, remembered my likes and dislikes, and no matter how crazy, always had time to swap stories with me. We both busted our ankle at the same time. Not in the same incident, though.

Yes, I totally had a crush on her. Shutupnow.

These last few months the food has been sliding downhill in quality. Culminating today in a La Luna Scramble (eggs, cheddar, ham, raw onions, red potatoes) that had been liberally doused with a salt shaker before serving. On top of the salt in the ham and cheese. Someone had also seen fit to pour a quarter cup of melted butter over the whole thing. I left the Doug Fir and drank a litre of water in my car and my mouth still tastes like salt.

Then, there was the side. “White, wheat, or english muffin?” the server asked. “Wheat,” I replied. He wanders off. He wanders back. “You said muffin?”

“Wheat,” I replied. It’s busy. It’s Pride weekend. The Jupiter and Doug Fir are Pride Central East. Hell, I was on my way down to Pride on the Waterfront. Slack is being cut for the poor guy.

My food comes out, there’s an english muffin on the plate. More slack, see above re Pride weekend. I take a bite of the english muffin. It is burnt. Not kinda blackened around the edges, but charcoal tasting turns to ash in my mouth. I reached for something to wash the ash out of my mouth.

I was really happy about a year ago when they switched from the 8oz coffee mugs to the 12 oz ones, because even when you get refills, $2 for an 8oz cup of coffee? Seriously? Oh, wait, I didn’t get any coffee refills today. Or water.

And the server got real snippy with me after I was finished. I was reading a book, see? And it was noisy, see? And I’m 25% deaf in one ear. So when he all but whispered a mumbled question at me and I said, “Excuse me?” he got a real put upon look on his face.

I did something I have never, no never done before.

I did not leave a tip.

And I’m not going back.

I wish I’d gone with my first instinct, Sckavone’s. Or even my second instinct, The Screen Door. But I am assuredly not going to the Doug Fir again.

Tacos and Comics Day, Making a Comeback

I first moved to PDX in ‘05, and I lived in NoPo. I walked to Mississippi every Wednesday for what I called Tacos and Comics Day. Bridge City Comics to clean out my box, then over to Por Que No for tacos. Ah, life was sweet then, when I was often the ONLY PERSON IN THE TAQUERIA!

Now, such is not the case, and everyone and their sister is crammed into that tiny space. Plus, I live in SE, so I don’t get up there as often…

Oh, wait, Por Que No Otra Vez is going in near my house. And it’s not going to be teeny-tiny.

AWESOME!

Belmont’s Thai Restaurants

The joke around my office is that I consider anything that’s not within walking distance of my house as another state.

I live smack dab at the end of the foofy section of Belmont. It’s half a mile to Hawthorne’s kooky goodness. Why would I need to leave? *is puzzled*

I also live smack dab between two Thai restaurants of exceeding yummy.

Pad Thai Kitchen is the older restaurant, and it shows a little. The food is excellent, and sometimes the little grandma who mans the cash register will start singing along with the radio (my favorite time was when she started singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads”). But I will only go there for takeout any more, after I got rushed out several times. I presume it’s because I was a single diner. *shrug*

Mai Thai, though, is the new kid on the block. They took over an existing place and did a very thourough renovation. It’s a cloth-napkin place, but they don’t treat me weird when I show up in my Cinderella hoodie and messed up jeans. The food is a little more expensive than Pad Thai, but it’s larger portions and a slightly better balance of flavors and spices. Plus, unlike Pad Thai Kitchen, if you order a side of sticky rice, Mai Thai won’t serve it still in the plastic wrap. Mai Thai also does takeout, but it is worth it to have a sit-down dinner, too.

Rouge’s Chipotle Ale

It’s been on tap at Chance of Rain cafe for a while now. I see it on the chalkboard, but I didn’t ever have the guts to order it until today.

(by the by, I spend A LOT of time at Chance of Rain nowadays. Look for the fat girl in the corner on the teeny tiny booger-green laptop)

It smells… like beer. What can I say? Other than I insist that ‘chipotle’ is Spanish for “Crap, I burnt it, oh, hell, feed it to the white people”. Nothing distinctive in the nose.

Tasting, though, it comes across as bright and bold, more a red with some nice hoppy citrus notes… and then the finish washes itself across your palette,  and let me tell you what that finish is.

Every year my family burns an entire cord of firewood* in 24 hours. We then cook, and call it the 4th of July. But my jacket and jeans and sneakers and hat and backpack smell like smoke for weeks afterwards, even after washing.

That is what this beer finishes like.

I’mna going to sit here and eat my chili and think of home.