She went bananas with the food, as she is wont to do since she is, especially when it comes to cooking, an ambitious tornado. Lacey has taught me the most about cooking, and when we worked together I learned new things every day. Even at a casual dinner, she teaches without pretension, which I adore. Here she casually murders a crab while some dreamy, cute music plays in the background. That is the essence of why I adore Lacey: she can disembowel a living sea creature while, you know, just hanging out. What a dreamboat.

There were artichokes.

And because she is ambitious and too generous, there were oysters. And crab. And new york steaks. Strawberry balsamic salad with feta, asparagus, angel food cake, and mojitos loaded with mint. Just like in that tragic scene from Dirty Dancing, I brought a watermelon. I was Baby. Clueless! Luckily there were no swarthy, gyrating Patrick Swayzes around to make me feel idiotic.

As usual, she was gracious and welcoming. I recently picked up a hostessing handbook from the 50s at a rummage sale and ate up all the antiquated traditions listed in its pages. Not only did we break all those rules (no fingering the asparagus, elbows were all over the table, and certainly I was guilty of speaking with my mouth full), but it was positively perfect that way. If I were to write a book on hostessing, it would be a single sentence. It would read, “Just do whatever Lacey does.”

The steaks rose like relics! Look at them! They were a work of art. And when it came to oysters she showed me a thing or two.

And then we slurped them down like an underwater circus act, rolled up our sleeves and ate the grilled piles of luxury like it was no big deal. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when I grow up I wanna be Lacey.

Can we talk about Kickin’ Boot Whiskey Kitchen for a minute? Because holy god, this place haunts my dreams. It is a beacon of perfectly pulled pork, an epicenter of whiskey treats, and maybe where I’m going to get married one day, because SCREW PICTURESQUE MEADOWS, love is pork, pork is love, forever and ever I do, AMEN.

I didn’t think I liked baked beans until I tasted these. And in between mouthfuls of tender pork and the coleslaw that is now my boyfriend, I seriously scooped the beans into my mouth with their homemade salt and vinegar potato chips. I did this with zero shame, like a disgusting toddler. And then we got more napkins and I chose to believe that the servers, other diners, and my family members probably weren’t totally grossed out by my methods.

My uncle got this (Hi, Rob!):

And then the sky opened up and Jesus came down and handed us all homemade pickles and sweet mustard and perfect onion rings that don’t get all weird and stringy when you bite into them. And he said, BEHOLD CHILDREN, I have created the mecca of condiments and it is Kickin’ Boot! 

There is so much whiskey, IT’S LIKE CANDY MOUNTAIN. Candy Mountain is real guys, let’s go!

Photo by Henry Hargreaves

So uh, as an act of desperation I am flinging a picture of my breakfast at you. That’s right, I’m pulling one of THOSE cards. Lazy cards. Last minute cards. I’m-at-a-loss-for-creative-output-on-the-spot cards. This is what you get. You’re welcome, internet.

To be fair, my life has pretty much rotated around taco trucks and breakfast foods lately, so at least this breakfast was topical. Let me explain! Recently the taco truck near my house inexplicably vanished, and after several very painful and emotional days completely devoid of any asada burritos, it was decided that DAMN IT, WE’LL MAKE ‘EM OURSELVES. That was last night. This morning, said good-looking man was like, feed me! I’m insatiable all the time! So I did what I always do and fried a bunch of potatoes and onions, threw in whatever was in the fridge (leftover burrito parts!) put some fried eggs on top and called it done. “Burrito hash!” Cover that in Tapatio! Make a smoothie to counteract the greasiness! Toast some obligatorily very healthful seed-bread when everyone knows they’d rather have sourdough! Boom, breakfast.

I’d always avoided the rotisserie chickens at the grocery store because they had that weird hot-plasticy smell emanating from the hot case and their lids were always beaded in condensation which is kind of off-putting. I mean, typically I don’t want my food to sweat. Sweating isn’t delicious. But because of my recent poverty and adjustment to single life, I’ve turned to the unassuming rotisserie chicken somewhat regularly to feed myself. Granted, those wet-looking chickens festering in the red lights of the hot table reek of desperation, but there’s something to be said for them.

A) They’re cheaper than a whole raw chicken, and I don’t even have to set off the smoke alarms in my house while tampering with my lowly rental-house oven. That oven is fickle and in dire need of cleaning, and roasting a chicken is often an unpleasant affair in my home.

B) You can do pretty much anything with them.

The key with these chickens is to pick the meat immediately. If you wait until there’s a half eaten carcass in your fridge, all bone and tendons sticking out like your bedhead, you’re never going to want to finish the job, let alone eat the thing. Nothing is quite as unappealing as a cold, half-desecrated chicken with the skin all congealed and hanging onto the meat like a needy, weird boyfriend. I particularly like the job of picking the meat, since you get to get sticky and reward yourself with the tender oysters that pop out perfectly from the top of the spine. Those little morsels are the best part of a chicken, hands down. It’s also pretty satisfying to tear dead animals apart, especially if you’re about to eat them and especially ESPECIALLY if you’re feeling all weird from some funky man-problem you’re dealing with. Nothing says I AM A BEACON OF POWER like a carnage-pile on your countertop and a neat container of all the good meat-bits in a tupperware beside it. It just screams, “I was conquered by someone who knows what they’re doing!”

Or maybe I’m reading into it a little too much, I don’t know. I like to personify my food. I guess I’m lonely!? Or hungry. A little bit of both…? WHATEVER.

Anyhow, I made this soup with it and it was legit. And now I have SO MUCH CHICKEN in my fridge to make into any number of things for the next several days, so I’m frugal and healthy and efficient and a superstar of successfully keeping myself alive via food even though sometimes it totally feels like the odds are against me on that one. NO BIG DEAL! It’s the small victories, guys.

Here, make some soup! Squelch your sadness with me!

-Two heads of baby bok choy, chopped
-Handful of shredded rotisserie chicken
-Chicken stock
-Ramen noodles
-Dash of fish sauce
-Some dashes of soy sauce
-Chili-garlic sriracha
-Regular sriracha, because one kind of hot sauce is never enough
-Cilantro

Simmer the stock! Add the noodles! Add the other stuff when the noodles are done! Now eat it! Congratulations, you just kept your blood sugar from dropping to dangerously low levels for another four hours… YOU’RE AN OUTSTANDING HUMAN SPECTACLE.

I have to ask… when did Disneyland become a place of culinary excellence? Oh right, it didn’t. At what point did people spending money to go out to dinner stop caring about the quality of the food or the fact that “cooking” at Olive Garden literally consists of microwaving pre-packaged sauces and pre-cooked chicken? You know what, I have like, a million more questions, all because I typed “copycat recipes” into Pinterest. Here goes.

Why do the words “Cracker Barrel” fill me with so much rage? Additionally, is it possible to say “Cracker Barrel Hashbrown Casserole” without sending yourself into a hate coma?

What the fuck is a Sonic Frito Chili Cheese Wrap? It seriously sounds like poison.

In regards to Applebee’s Quesadilla Burger… WHY. Not even a question. Just, WHY.

Why is it that all Starbucks drinks look like giant piles of candy in a plastic cup? Is it okay to drink these as a fully-cognizant adult? Is buying one at the Starbucks inside Target for $5.50 seriously not doing it for you– you need to do it at home, as well? Additionally, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Why is Disney’s Chili and Beans called chili and beans? Chili IS beans. Chili IS BEANS! And why is Disney’s Chili and Beans the most standard-issue easy as fuck chili recipe I’ve ever seen in my life? Oh right, because Disney. 

Speaking of Disney, can you watch this video without your head exploding? Because I can’t.

Just a few more questions to throw out there.

If you combine sweetened condensed milk, chocolate milk, and frozen cool whip in the blender to resemble a Wendy’s Frosty, is there any hope that you’re not cripplingly depressed?

How come all the Olive Garden salads appear to be primarily croutons?

Why would I want to make a McChicken sandwich at home (when it costs $1 at a drive-thru) if I had to

a) even remotely desire a McChicken in the first place, and
b) purchase a deep fat fryer to do so?

Applebee’s… what in holy hell is a POTATO TWISTER?! I think it’s a potato chip? Similarly, who goes to Applebee’s and leaves being like, “MAN I WANNA EAT THAT ALL THE TIME…IN THE COMFORT OF MY OWN HOME! Internet, come at me!!!”

Until today I have chosen to believe that this sort of person simply doesn’t exist, but oh, Pinterest, you’ve done it again! Thanks for instilling within me a deep-seated fear of the majority of the population. Cool. By now I’m fairly certain that everybody just sucks at eating.

On an unrelated but equally terrible note that I must share, I found a recipe for “2-Ingredient Nutella croissants”! If you thought making croissants would be difficult, YOU WERE WRONG! All you actually need is a can of croissant dough. And a jar of nutella. And you smack those together and PRESTO CHANGE-O, a recipe!

People, please. You’re hurting my heart.

For me it’s cioppino. It’s a rich tomato-y stew originating in San Francisco that is filled with all manner of seafood: clams, mussels, oysters, cod, and prawns. It is somehow hearty yet delicate, intensely flavorful yet calming. I have eaten cioppino in a little seafood diner at Pike Place while laughing with my family. I’ve made it for Christmas dinner while my mom took videos on her fancy new phone, I of course am ruminating over the correct cooking times for the various shellfish. I’ve fallen in love, starry-eyed in a new relationship, over a bowl of the stuff, in a warm living room (in front of a fire no less… so sue me).

It is delicious and robust. It has heart. It has the inexplicable ability to make my chaotic life feel safe for a few moments. Don’t ask me how it does it because I don’t understand it myself. It’s been said for ages that the sea has healing properties, and a part of me likes the idea that perhaps eating a bowl of the creatures that reside there allows me to somehow harness their powers for myself. Pardon me for getting all universey-magic on you, but cioppino has a spiritual quality, like eating the heart of a bull.

Longhorn’s get-Sally-feeling-rad-again stew

This is all to say that lately I’ve needed that… to feel warm and safe and happy and taken care of. Thank god my friend Jesse somehow knew that and whisked me down to Edison in the middle of the afternoon to find some cioppino. We went to the Longhorn after hearing they served it, though we found it’s not quite cioppino… it was essentially the same but with spinach and parmesan and ground Italian sausage as well.

Whatever, it totally did the trick. So there in the window in a bar in the middle of all those fields and all that salty sea air, between sloppy mouthfuls of oysters and garlic bread, I got right.

]]> http://wolfsoup.com/2013/01/22/eating-the-heart/feed/ 0 wolfsoup eDSC_0416 http://wolfsoup.com/2012/12/03/hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-disgusted-food-elitist/ http://wolfsoup.com/2012/12/03/hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-disgusted-food-elitist/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2012 03:14:52 +0000 wolfsoup http://wolfsoup.com/?p=3056 ]]> Uuuuuuuuuggh, you guuuuys! When did it become totally acceptable to make/eat/blog about/advertise without any shame whatsoever your awful desperation food!?

Behold: More unseemly recipes from the terrible world of loveless marriages attempting to cure complacency with Hidden Valley Ranch packets and Pillsbury products! This, impossibly, appears to be an entire category of people, and it’s existence threatens to unhinge my fragile conception of my future life. Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not let it be this.

Cheddar Bacon Ranch Pull Apart Bread

I would die happy if I never read the words CHEDDAR-BACON-RANCH combined ever again. WHY IS THIS A THING. Buying a loaf of sourdough and stuffing it with bacon, dry ranch powder, and cheese doesn’t warrant it’s own recipe/ copycat recipes/ how-to VIDEO on the internet. It does, however, deserve to be put it the Foods for Lazy White People Hall of Fame.

Pizza Cupcakes

Stop it. Just stop.

Pizza Waffle Cones

Please, please stop. This is breaking my heart. Pizza reincarnated recipes are always followed by statements like , “The hubby goes cah-razy for these!” or in the awesome, half-drunken words of my BFF Riley,  ”The secret? Philadelphia CREAM CHEESE! My son just yums them up! …With my taco-ranch-bbq croissant rolls, he and my husband are saying ‘Mom’s#1!!!!”

(Thank you, Christina, for effectively summing up possibly the greatest Riley monologue of all time)

John calls this Dude Food. I call it a depressing, diabetes-inducing suburban nightmare of American hopelessness, but that’s just me. Other trending foods I despise: Buffalo chicken anything. “Roll-ups” (why!?). Skewered meats unnecessarily called lollipops. And this. Holy Jesus, this:

This is exactly what you think it is. This has replaced my getting eaten by dolphins nightmare as my regular dreamscape of despair.

Also, why must everything made in a crockpot have twelve descriptors in the recipe title? I found something called a Crock Pot Chicken Cream Cheese Casserole Bake. Honestly. And JUST because something has cream cheese included, it does not warrant it’s own space in the recipe title. I mean, you should probably keep it a secret. You have a terrible secret cream cheese addiction, and you should hide it from the world before you get diagnosed with heart disease. Then tell your doctor and for the love of god SEEK HELP/stop including Campbell’s cream of chicken soup in everything/go easy on the lil’ smokies.

Jesus. My internal rage with the universe is transmogrifying into internet-food-society resentment. Bear with me. I love you. Eat vegetables. Goodnight, amen, etcetera.

And drink plenty of tea.

Buy expensive treats to enjoy.

Try to find joy in little surprises.

And make yourself some goddamn waffles, already.

Waffles For One On a Weekday Morning

1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
dash of cinnamon, for good measure

3/4 cup milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons melted butter
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix your dries, then mix the wets, then mix ‘em together. Put them in an oiled waffle maker. Wait a few minutes, eat with plenty of syrup, a pear and some tea, watch Louie on Netflix, attempt to pause the near-constant stream of uncomfortable self-evaluation for a moment. Makes four waffles.

]]> http://wolfsoup.com/2012/11/27/coping-strategies/feed/ 0 wolfsoup Image Image Image Image http://wolfsoup.com/2012/11/14/pinterest-meet-my-food-bitching-sorry-in-advance/ http://wolfsoup.com/2012/11/14/pinterest-meet-my-food-bitching-sorry-in-advance/#comments Thu, 15 Nov 2012 07:43:39 +0000 wolfsoup http://wolfsoup.com/?p=1455 ]]> Like most red-blooded Americans (because that is what I AM, DAMN IT), I am inherently fascinated with things that disgust and horrify me. This accounts for my morbid and earnest foray into the world of pro-eating disorder webpages that I frequented as a 12 year old, the oft-watched Intervention episodes as a teen (and later on: Hoarders, Toddlers in Tiaras, etc.), and other general train wrecks presented online that I can’t tear myself away from. It comes in many (many, many, maaaaany) glorious forms. But lately my interest is mostly piqued by the absolutely horrific displays of food on Pinterest. Listen, HATERS GONNA HATE. So I admit right now, I am being a judge-y, eyebrow-waggling, uppity food snob about this. AND IT FEELS SO GOOD. So please, enjoy my tour of the most disgusting food pins I’ve recently seen on Pinterest.

Cake Batter Martinis:

This is not my photo, obviously. None of the photos on this post are. They came from honest blogs whom I am currently disrespecting. Oh, goodie.

Okay, as if “cake” wasn’t already the worst flavor of ALCOHOL anyone ever thought of, they went ahead and made it cake batter. Since when is batter, in and of itself, a flavor of anything? This is nauseating, and possibly the most embarrassingly girly drink I’ve ever heard of. I guess it’s probably the whiskey lover in me talking, but HONESTLY- where is your shame!? Secondly, you rim the glass in frosting and dip it in sprinkles. Are we children? Are we at a party? Unless we are, the consumption of frosting should most likely be a littttttle more prudent. Also, “rimming your glass in frosting” is far too suggestive a phrase considering the childlike nature of this beverage. ABORT, ABORT!

Pepperoni Pizza Dip:

I am distressed by the pools of grease. If this were my slice of pizza, I’d dab a paper napkin on top a la 6th grade school cafeteria to soak up those puddles. But since it’s not a slice, it’s a dip, I suppose it’s to be inferred that pools of grease are totally cool to ingest. It’s a liquid, right? Like a DIP! So help yourself to a giant, molten pond of oily cheese and pepperoni! One helpful commenter suggested that it goes great with celery or carrots. Listen, I’m no health nut. But celery and melted pepperoni and cheese pizza DO NOT EVEN EACH OTHER OUT. BARF. Also, if you want to eat some crappy greasy pizza as we all feel like doing sometimes, just fucking do it! Don’t disguise it as a cutesy appetizer, you’re not fooling anybody.

Dorito Taco Bake:

I don’t know where to begin. Theoretically when all’s said and done, this thing tastes like a taco… but I eat tacos that taste like mostly like carne asada and cilantro. So, apparently there’s a whole other kind of taco I don’t even know about that tastes like crescent rolls (one of the ingredients) and Doritos (the other key ingredient [henceforth the word "ingredient" is now void of all meaning forever and ever amen]). I really have nothing else to say about this.

Cake mix plus quirky additions:

Apparently I’ve become a cake snob. If you’re gonna make a box cake STOP TRYING TO TRICK PEOPLE INTO THINKING IT’S NOT BOX CAKE! Whatever! Eat whatever weird box mix you want! But why are adding all sorts of random junk you found expired in your pantry trying to convince me it’s not a box cake!? I realize people are busy. Busy people should not bake cakes,they should just buy a nice one, or recruit their friends to make them a cake, because when busy people try to make cakes, this is what they come up with. And it’s awful.

For the record, I wholeheartedly discourage any recipe that includes the addition of chips or soda, for approximately one million obvious reasons.

Avocado and Cottage Cheese Snack:

You know, I’m not trying to be a dick. I appreciate the intention here. I like avocados. I like cottage cheese. At least this isn’t a crapload of hydrogenated shit. I might, in an act of low blood sugar desperation, eat this thing with no problem. I just hate that this is called a recipe. It’s two things. One of the things has a conveniently shallow opening and the other thing needs some sort of container. Thus, this recipe is born. Sigh. Siiiiiiigh.

Then there’s the entire category of Superbowl food, all of which is shaped like a football and completely unappetizing, but that should probably be saved for another post. I think my food-snobbery-crankiness has hit it’s peak for the evening.