How To: A Photographed Tutorial

Good Morning!  (Or afternoon, I won't judge.)
Today, we will be making scrambled eggs.  Now, introducing your instructors.

Don't judge.  It's early.

Now, when making scrambled eggs, we are going to assume you know how to get eggs out of your 'fridge.  No picture for that.  We shall start when you really get crackin'.

It is important for amateurs and pros alike that you always crack your eggs individually into a separate bowl first.  This makes sure you don't put a rotten egg in the batch with the good ones.  Eggshell retrieval is also much easier.  (Tip: If you do drop a bit of eggshell into the bowl, dip your fingers in water before trying to remove it.  This will make your life much easier.)

Next, you will want to season your eggs.

For five eggs, add 3 pinches* of salt...

...and 5 pinches* of pepper.  Why not 5 and 5?  Well, that's because you have a little less than a teaspoon of bacon grease in you skillet.  This adds flavor as well as the salt you didn't add in pinches.  Also, it helps with the sticking.  (*Keep in mind "pinches" are relative.  Your junior instructor has tiny fingers, therefore, tiny pinches.)

Once you have seasoned your eggs, you will want to stab each yolk with a fork.  Not stab with a vengeance or anything.  You just want to break them.  Then beat the eggs (once again, not with a vengeance) until the yolks and whites are nicely mixed together.

Of course, succeeding at this particular step may result in spontaneous joy.  No one knows why.  Just let it happen.

  Now, this is where we go off camera for a second.  When we pour our beaten eggs into a heated skillet, we will require a bit of help from the senior instructor.  Unfortunately, your senior instructor is also your camera operator.  Now, that the eggs are in a skillet over medium heat, we can now go back to you junior instructor.  More spontaneous joy may occur.

 Your junior instructor prefers to use a silicone spatula for this next step.  Now, it doesn't have to be a silicone spatula; your senior instructor prefers her favorite wooden spoon.  When cooking on any kind of coated pan, avoid metal utensils like the plague.  Some plastics can also be too harsh on your coated surfaces (resulting in scratches) or not harsh enough (resulting in melting plastic).  Not fun!

 Carefully stir the eggs making sure to put the spatula against the pan to prevent burning or sticking and to promote even cooking.  After a short while, you will see your eggs starting to hold their shape.

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Don't forget to stir the middle!

Once the eggs have the firmness you like, you will need to spoon (or spatula) the eggs into a bowl or onto a plate.  Never use the same bowl you used to beat the raw eggs!  Unless you washed it with hot soapy water after you poured the raw eggs out.  But really...ain't nobody got time for that.  This step you will see demonstrated with a mostly off-camera assist from the senior instructor.

 At this point, you have finished making your eggs.  You may eat them...or if you like, pose with them for a photo.  This works too.

 Thanks for joining us on our Scrambled Eggs Photo Tutorial!

Taco Study

From older posts, you know by now that I love Mexican food.  Mexican food in CT sucks.  I recently went on vacation though.  I went back home.  They have Mexican food back home.  Even the fast food tacos are infinitely better. 

Let's examine.  For $.99...yep that's 99 cents...you can get a taco from Taco Bell.  I did this recently and got two of them.  See.
P.S.I don't like warm lettuce; they were kind enough to leave it off as requested.

And then there was this puny thing.

Yeah, this is a nation wide occurrence.  Cheaply made cheap food.  I wouldn't be expecting a whole heck of a lot off the value menu at Taco Bell, but with epicness like Taco John's to raise the bar...well...here's my response face to the tacos of Taco Bell:

I mentioned vacation, yes?  And Taco John's?  Well, for the same 99¢ you can get a taco that looks like this.  Except on Tuesdays...Taco Tuesdays, in which case they're only 69¢.

See that?  That is a super crispy, warm tortilla shell FULL of beef and finely shredded cheddar cheese.
And now wanna see the other taco, I bought from Taco John's?

Here ya go!

CHEEEEESE!  And it's not only that you get more; it tastes SO MUCH BETTER.  The shells are crispier, the meat is better, the cheese...you get more than 6 shreds per taco.  Getting that taco made me so happy that I looked like this:

 Next point.
You know those tasteless crunchy cardboard strips they twist before dropping them in a fryer and coating them in cinnamon flavored sugar?  The Taco Bell short cut that I assume is supposed to be a bastard cousin to the churro is such an abomination that I couldn't justify the purchase of a bag of them even for the sake of a photo to share with you.  That being said, you must experience a churro from Taco John's.  They are hot and crispy on the outside coated in cinnamon and sugar and still soft on the inside. 

Just one bite of these things can do this to me:

These results aren't the only results you can get from a churro.  If you let them fall into the wrong hands, you can unleash a churro-monster.  These monsters are vicious creatures that, when denied the yummy churro they crave, will be willing to devour human flesh.  My daughter is one of these dreaded churro-monsters.  When she is in the clutches of churro craving, she can look a bit like this:

Don't believe me?  See for yourself.

Words are a funny thing.

I know it has been a while since my last blog post, but I do live with more than one internet addict, and I have been reading a lot and...oh, you know. Having overwhelming laziness overtake whole days.

I do have a few new events to share with you though.  Mostly revolving around words this time.  Or the times when words don't work.  I happen to be from the south and some phrases here just get under my skin.  I don't mind them for what they are, but the repetition of them can drive me crazy.  Especially when the phrase can mean different things, I end up not knowing what exactly is going on.  If someone here up north happened to ask me if I was "all set," I honestly don't know the appropriate response to that because I don't know what they're asking.  Seems stupid, huh.  Well, let me put you in my situation and see if you change your mind.

I was at work a few weeks ago, I was the one assigned to work register, while my manager Bob was taking care of a transaction only a manager could do...when Mammoth (we'll call him) decided to just stand at a register (to snag my customers, therefore stealing my sales).  See?

 

Remember now if you will that I'm the one on registers.  Mammoth is just being a dick taking my add-ons and up-sales.  So Bob's customer comes back followed by a guy that stands a good 6 feet behind her.  If he was in line, he would come to my register.  Right?  But Mammoth tries to pull him over to his register with the question "Are you all set?" (In this case, that means "are you ready to check out?")

Since he was with Bob's customer he doesn't need to pay for anything.  "I'm all set," here means "I'm just waiting for her, I need no assistance."

So I'm angry at Mammoth's interference with my responsibilities and I'm attempting to tell him I've got it covered up front when another customer walks up, but stands behind the guy waiting for his lady friend.

He ignores me and once again asks "all set" which means "are you ready to check out."  Miss Yellow is concerned because Mr. Blue was there first.

 

"He's all set."  Which means, he does NOT need to check out.  This means now that the Miss Yellow is all set.  Whatever.  I'm ready to tear my ears off just to get Mammoth's blubbering voice to stop with that god-awful phrase.  I'm not even mad that he took my customer anymore.  But just when I thought it was safe...

Wait...now being "all set" means "finished with a transaction and ready to leave the store."  I can't do this.



On a lighter note though.  Sometimes words can make you think things that make the situation funnier than it really is.  I was eating sushi at a Thai restaurant with a few people when one of them starts playing with the chopsticks.

I ignore it for a minute, because guys will be guys.  I'm not the most patient of people sometimes.

Ok, so the tapping stopped, but I was still in for it.

OK, so now I'm trying my best not to laugh too loudly.  You guys get the joke, yes?


Not always are words the most important part of an interaction.  My brother and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie.  Just hanging out...see?

After a few minutes, my new puppy tried to jump on the couch.  She's still really young and rowdy and hyper and irritating, so I didn't want to hold her.  I just give her head a nudge so she'd get down.

Wow, she listened.

But not for long...

She scratched the hell out of my leg trying to get up so I had to knock some sense into her.

 

She seemed like she got the message, but was still pretty twichy.  Maybe she'd stay off me and the couch.  Silly me.

Good GOD!  She must have RABIES!  Or, I knocked her retarded.  I recently read a book where a woman was knocked insane, and after another head injury she was back to normal.  Maybe that would work here. Though, I could just be making excuses to smack her.  She scratched me again and I was worried she'd tear up my leather couch.  I was pissed.

Seeing red, I was.  She never listens.

Evidently, my brother was too.

He kneed Delilah in the head, but I slapped the hell out of his leg.

Oh, and let me introduce you to my brother, Bub.  He will be gracing this blog a few more times I'm sure.  Our adventures deserve some blog recognition.

The Lily Collection

I have been spending a lot of time with Lily, my little girl.  Mostly because she is my little girl, but also because my hubby has been gone for quite a while.  Military, eh.  She is teaching me a great many things.  The first is adaptability.  I made her a cape for Halloween.  It was epic.  She was Little Red Riding Hood.

Super cute, yeah.  Well, Halloween is over and I'm not in the habit of making her many things to wear, so she decided to take that little cape to the next level.  Instead of being sad she couldn't be Little Red any more, she became a super hero.

For the past month and a half I have a tiny human running through my house yelling "TO THE RESCUE."  She never seems to rescue anything.  Watching her run in that though reminds me of when the hobbits were running for the little raft in the first Lord of the Rings movie.

Speaking of small and tiny humans.  I have also learned from her that it is never a good idea to take technology for granted.  She and I went to the commissary recently.  Lily likes to walk in the grocery instead of riding in the cart.  So, instead of walking to the cart return next to the front doors, she heads into the building. 

I wasn't really worried about her walking a few feet in front of me until I realized just how bad of an idea sending a 3 foot tall 30 lb kid through automatic doors.  Instead of freaking out when the doors started closing just as she was standing in between the closing doors, I ran pushing the cart I had hoping the sensor would see me coming and open before Lily got mashed.

I did make it in time.  No mashed baby, and she was still clueless about the nature of these evil doors.  Judging by the horrified look on the face of the woman I almost ran into, the above illustration isn't what she saw.  She may have believed her presence saved a little girls life.  Surely, the following illustration is what she thought she saw.

Well, she may have thought she saved Lily's life, and that's OK.  I'm not going to act like I haven't wanted to mow Lily down with a shopping cart.  I would never do such a thing.  I do get frustrated with her.  Especially lately.  With her daddy gone on military work, she has become very needy and clingy.  I feel like every few seconds I hear her calling my name.  Rather, she's calling my "Mama" name.  I've told her before I'm going to change my name to something she can't pronounce. 

Never mind how obnoxious or attention hungry she may seem, I do love every minute with her.  Unless it's minute 9872348295.93.  In which case, you may refer to the above illustration.

Some Things Should Not Happen

I like to think I'm an OK driver.  I pay attention, follow the traffic laws, and most importantly, I'm a defensive driver.  This means I watch out for other people doing stupid things, even if I have the right of way.  Let's test some common sense.

OK, so this is a basic diagram of an intersection I drive through every day when I pick up my daughter after I leave work.  I'm usually caught by a red light in lane A.  So I wait my turn with my left turn signal on.  Assuming the red dots are red lights, and the green arrows are the green arrow lights for lanes A and B, it is correct for lanes A and B to accelerate and turn left and go about their business, right?

No.  It is not correct.  Before accelerating and turning left, you must check the other lanes for on coming traffic.  No matter how red their light is, you must still check.

It is necessary for you to check the other lanes, because lane C is frequented by unsafe drivers, also known as idiots.  Before I drove off from my position in lane A, I was cut off by a car turning left from lane C.  Not only was I cut off by some jerk running a red light in lane C, well...just look.

I was cut off by THREE FREAKIN' CARS!  All while my light was green...and theirs was red.  Red does still mean stop.  And while sitting there thinking of the injustice of the whole situation, I became more and more upset.  By the time Car 3 drove by my car, this is the view they had of me in my car:

Situations like this should not happen.  I never once set foot into a drivers' education class, but I have the common sense to stop on red and go (after checking my surroundings) when the light turns green.


Another situation that shouldn't happen is hitting a little closer to home.  Actually, this happened in my home just the other day.

This is my little girl's room.  Messy...always covered in books, blankies, anything that can be used in arts/crafts, toys, and anything she pulled out of her closet.  In a moment of incredible discipline, I decided to clean my house.  I cleaned her room and started catching up on laundry.  This is a big deal.  I really dislike laundry.  It was worth it.  I like for Silly Bug to have a clean room. 

Looks nice, doesn't it.  Silly Bug was excited about it because she was helping Mamma pick up the toys and other things she left in her bedroom floor.  She likes being helpful.


I finished cleaning Silly Bug's room and took her dirty clothes and blankies into the laundry room where I started folding the freshly dried load of laundry straight out of the dryer.  About that time I hear Silly Bug yelling to me.

I don't mind letting her have snacks.  I even have a whole section in the door of the refrigerator full of things she's allowed to have for snacks right where she can see them.

When I heard her open the refrigerator door, I didn't mind.  Not only does she like to be helpful, she also likes to feel independent.  So I finished folding the last few items in the dryer (because if I didn't do it then, I wouldn't do it EVER) before I went to see if Silly Bug got her cheese snack.

Here's the part that shouldn't happen.  I find Silly Bug in her newly cleaned room.  She didn't have cheese.  She didn't have any of her designated snacks...

...and she had made a very big mess.

My motivation did not endure.  I cleaned up the eggs...but the rest of the laundry and her egg covered jammies got as much attention as the red light in lane C.