Archive for the 'Maxine' Category

Little pig, little pig: The other white meat

maxine October 26th, 2008

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I love bacon.  I regularly use Italian sausage in my cooking.  Ham is pretty tasty when there’s a fruity sauce on it.  Prosciutto is out of this world delicious.  So why don’t I like the cuts of pig labeled “pork”?

Ever since I was a kid, I have never been able to choke down a pork chop, loin roast, or even ground up pork without feeling seriously dirty for doing so.  Yet, I wouldn’t think twice about ordering a side of bacon and sausage with my breakfast eggs.  Perhaps I was being close-minded about the meat?  Or maybe not.

I decided it was time to face my fears (or whatever you’d call this) and cooked up a tasty organic pork tenderloin for dinner last night.  I roasted it with herbs, fennel, and garlic, and the house smelled of delicious.  Sadly, when it came time to eat the tasty smelling meal, I still felt gross eating it.  How is it possible to feel dirty eating a piece of meat?  I, the same person who didn’t think twice about trying out head cheese and who regularly enjoys eating jellyfish, could not handle the way the tender meat felt in my mouth as I chewed each piece.  Out of respect for the pig who gave its life for my experiment, I finished my dinner and encouraged Collin to have seconds.   He enjoyed it and said it was delicious.  So what’s wrong with me?  Does anyone else have this same problem?

Carrying some serious taggage

maxine October 16th, 2008

I’ve been tagged by Kristen and Amber.  Maybe y’all know tons about me already, but here’s more anyway!  To keep things spicy, I’m shooting for really random things.

Kristen’s 6 random things about yourself tag:

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1.  I love to read labels.  Did I say love?  I meant I’m obsessed with reading the labels on every food, clothing, and miscellaneous item I consider purchasing.  Instructional manuals are included in that mix.  If there are words printed somewhere, I will inevitably read them.  Why?  Because they’re so informative!

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2.  I’m a big fan of lists. Shopping lists, to do lists, schedules (that’s a sort of list), weekly menus, you name it.  I like the feel of pen/pencil on paper.  Tried using PDAs and other forms of digital list-making, but nothing compares to just using a notepad or sticky note and a pen.  And don’t get me started on list consolidation - heaven on a single notepad!  Geeky, I know, but at least I’m always organized.

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3.  I aspire to own chickens some day.   My mom raised chickens when I was a kid, and there’s really nothing that quite compares to a fresh egg.  By the way, chickens make great pets.

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4.   Alternate Universe Maxine wants to be a writer.  Sometimes I get the writing bug and think I can write the Next Great Novel.  Then I write a simple essay on my blog and am able to move on.

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5.   My sense of smell is greatly diminished.  This is due mostly to my constant companion, allergies.  Makes it really difficult to season my food just right, since taste is so dependent on smell.  Sadly, I tend to over-season.

6.   I like touching things.   Nary an article of clothing goes untouched when I go shopping.  I just like the way things feel.  Or, I just want to know what doesn’t feel nice to the touch so I can remember to avoid it in the future.

Amber’s High School Tag

Sorry, kids.  No high school photos of me survived the digital age.  Just picture me darker and bonier.

1 Did you date someone from your school? Yes.

2 What kind of car did you drive? A tank of a Cadillac Seville until it was totaled by a fast-moving Expedition.  Then it was Bessy, the Toyota Cressida that was as old as I.

3 Did you pass your driver’s license test on the first try? I’m going to decline to answer, lest I perpetuate the Asians-are-bad-drivers stereotype.

4 Were you a party animal?  Depends on who you ask.

5 Were you considered a flirt? Also depends on who you ask.

6 Were you in a band, orchestra or choir? Ooh, choir all the way!  School choirs, honor choirs, church choirs, you name it, I sang in it!

7 Were you a nerd?  And darn proud of it, too!

8 Were you on any varsity teams? I’ve never been very athletically inclined, so no.

9 Did you get suspended or expelled? Never

10 Can you still sing the fight song? Fight song?

11 Who were your favorite teachers? Mr. Flannery (freshman choir teacher) and Mrs. Larsen (the math teacher who celebrated Pi day with pie - jealous?).

12 Where did you sit during lunch? On the picnic table by the planter.  Once, the Portuguese kids tried to usurp our table.  It was a big deal getting our territory back.  There was much slyness and trickery involved (since they were all bigger than us).

13 What’s your school’s full name? Aliso Niguel (freshman year) and Richard Gahr (affectionately known as Gahrbage High).

14 What was your mascot and colors? Aliso: Wolverine, teal and black.  Gahr: Gladiators, blue and gold.

15 Did you go to homecoming? Yes

16 If you could go back and do it all again, would you? If I could go back and redo things, then I would.  Otherwise, not a chance!

17 What do you remember most about graduation? I sang at my high school graduation.  I had a really nasty cold that day, and I sounded terrible.  At least the song they chose for me (Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”) sounded all wrong coming from a gal’s voice.

18 Where did you go on your Senior Skip Day? Every day was Senior skip day!  But I don’t recall an official one ever being organized.

19 Were you in any clubs? I was a drama geek.  I was in all the musicals and some of the shows.  I was also on class cabinet senior year.  Ooh, and the Awesome Club.  I was part of that.

20 Have you gained some weight since then? I’m roughly the same weight as in high school, though I definitely look more soft, shall we say? 

21 Who was your prom date?  Ramon McCormick

22 Are you planning to go to your 10 year reunion? Ick!  No!

23 Did you have a job while in high school?  Always.  I worked at Hollywood Video my sophomore year, then at Disneyland junior and senior years. 

Whew!  Still with me?  You deserve a reward for your stamina and/or boredom, so go ahead and treat yourself to something really expensive.  Hey, you’ve earned it.  And now I tag Dana and Preethi (your tag of choice, or both if you’re bored like me)!

Ode to Thanksgiving: An essay

maxine October 11th, 2008

I like to think of Thanksgiving as the culinary Superbowl.  Of all the holidays, this is the only one that is entirely based on food.  The sole purpose of the holiday is to consume (glut ourselves, really) massive quantities of delicious once-a-year food.  It is therefore the cook’s responsibility to make this annual feast so tasty that it will last in our memories until the following year’s celebration, to transform the humble and otherwise bland meat of turkey into a centerpiece worthy of gustatory adulation.

Allow me to inform those who have never cooked a full Thanksgiving menu that this is no small task.  I remember the first time I made the T-day meal was while I was home from college for the holiday.  My mom called me from Vegas to inform me that they would be running a little late and that I should just get the dinner started for her.  My pulse quickened, my palms sweating - what was she thinking, asking her daughter of extremely limited culinary ability to take on the Holy Grail of meals all by herself? - I accepted her challenge.

The raw turkey was foreign to me.  Plucking a few stray feathers from the carcass, I set to work seasoning the bird and making sure everything was in its proper place.  I finally understood why my mother always got so snappy on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and all other holidays for which she was expected to prepare a major feast.  As my oldest brother William tried to offer his assistance, I deftly swatted his prying hands away and insisted that I could do it all myself.  I did do it all myself.  Our mediocre Thanksgiving dinner - dry turkey, firm sweet potatoes, and lumpy gravy - was glorious in my estimation.  Not for its taste, but for the world of culinary possibility that opened before my eyes that night.  Though I didn’t recognize it at the time, this was the beginning of my love affair with food and cooking it.

Today, I find myself more than a little obsessed with food.  I love the excitement of tasting foreign foods, the comfort of eating that which is familiar, the triumph of a well executed meal.  Above all, I love the sport of cooking.  That’s right, cooking is nothing short of a sport to me.  The weeks (sometime months) of careful menu planning, the multiple lists of ingredients - always checked over multiple times to ensure nothing has been missed, the complex cooking schedule, the revising of the menu when conflicts in the cooking schedule are discovered, the grocery shopping and picking out the perfect produce, and the actual preparation of the food.  Game day.  Can you feel the high yet?  Perhaps I need to be a little more specific.

It’s Thanksgiving Day.  Dinner is at 6:00.  The menu has been painstakingly planned out for weeks now, each dish complementing the next.  You have been pacing yourself for days, cooking whatever you can in advance and saving only what is necessary for the big day.  Your day starts off easily enough: some light chopping and prep work, setting the table, and tidying up a bit.  Five o’clock rolls around and you pick up your pace a bit.  Various pots and pans cover the stove top; the oven holds the prized turkey.  Suddenly, it’s 5:45 and chaos ensues.  You have two hands with which to stir, skim, remove, replace, wash, dry, mix, clean, garnish and serve.  You have four burners for five pots, three items that need to be baked, and there’s no ice for the drinks.  Meanwhile, you’re thanking your lucky stars that you had enough foresight to put on your makeup before you got going with the cooking, because you most certainly don’t have the time for it now.  I will never do this again, you mentally swear to yourself.  Guests begin to arrive, and you quickly put on your breezy I’m-not-in-the-least-bit-stressed smile and greet them with as much grace and warmth as you can spare while still tending to the food.  The adrenaline pulsing through your body somehow allows you to have 10 different dishes finished and on the table - all hot - right around 6:04.  As you and the guests settle into your seats and take those first euphoric bites, you remember why you went through all that trouble in the first place.

Let the games begin!

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Miscellaneous Grab-bag, part deux!

maxine October 7th, 2008

This is shaping up to be quite the fun week in the life of the Parrishes!

We were recently very inspired by our Omnivore 100 post to start trying new things.  Lucky for us, Harmon’s is a lovely grocery store with an even lovelier delicatessen and cheese section.  We have since knocked out two more items on that list: Eppoisse (cheese) and head cheese (not cheese).

The cheese was quite delightful, contrary to its near vomit-inducing odor.  I believe there’s some archaic law out there that makes it illegal to travel in an elevator with one of these cheeses - the smell is that bad!  Think of rotted sweaty gym socks left to ferment for over a year in a dark and damp environment.  Ew.  The good news is that the taste was merely salty and delicious, with none of the flavor that the odor would have suggested.  We were delighted with this surprise, and Collin now professes this to be one of his favorite cheeses.

The head cheese (meat from the head of animals set in aspic jelly) tasted like jello salad at its worst.  While the flavor itself wasn’t half bad, we both just couldn’t get over the fact that we were eating chunks of meat (in this instance, the head meat of choice was tongue) floating in salty jello.  Not for us.  Hey, at least we tried it.

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Sometimes you just don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or laugh.

Oh, and remember the kisses from Isaac we couldn’t get on film?  Got ‘em!

The camerawork is a bit shaky, so here’s a still image:

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And there you have it: Part 2 of a fun-filled week of wackiness!

The Omnivore 100

maxine September 29th, 2008

I saw this on someone’s blog and thought it was a bit of fun.  I’m shocked and a little embarrassed at how many things I haven’t tried yet.  Oh, but give it time…

How the Omnivore’s 100 works:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Indicate whether you’ve eaten the item or not, or if you would never eat it.

Total score (yes/no/never):

Maxine - 61 /33/6

Collin - 64/32/4  (possibly 65 - I’m not sure if the intestines I ate on the mission count as chitterlings)  Next up: Black truffles, Kobe Beef, and snake!

The Item Maxine Collin
1. Venison No Yes
2. Nettle tea No No
3. Huevos rancheros Surprisingly, No Yes
4. Steak tartare No Never
5. Crocodile or Alligator Alligator! Yes
6. Black pudding Never Never
7. Cheese fondue Yes Yes
8. Shark Yes Yes
9. Borscht Yes No
10. Baba ghanoush No No
11. Calamari Yes Yes
12. Pho Yes! Yes!!
13. PB&J sandwich Never Yes
14. Aloo gobi No No
15. Hot dog from a street cart No Yes
16. Epoisses Yes Yes
17. Black truffle No No :(
18. Swallow’s nest No No
19. Steamed pork buns Yes Yes
20. Pistachio ice cream Yes Yes
21. Heirloom tomatoes Yes Yes
22. Fresh wild berries Yes Yes
23. Foie gras No No
24. Rice and beans Yes Yes
25. Brawn or head cheese Yes Yes
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet Pepper Never Never
27. Dulce de leche Yes Yes!!!
28. Oysters Yes Yes
29. Baklava Yes Yes
30. Bagna cauda Yes No
31. Wasabi peas No No
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl Yes Yes
33. Salted lassi Yes Yes
34. Sauerkraut No Yes
35. Mangosteen Yes Yes
36. French macarons Yes Yes!!!!
37. Clotted Cream No No
38. Jell-O salad Yes Yes
39. Gumbo Yes Yes
40. Oxtail  Yes Yes
41. Curried goat No No
42. Whole insects Not on purpose Yes
43. Phaal No No
44. Goat’s milk Yes Yes
45. Treacle tart No Yes
46. Fugu No No
47. Fish cheeks Yes Yes
48. Eel Yes Yes
49. Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut Yes Yes
50. Sea urchin Yes Yes
51. Prickly pear Yes No
52. Umeboshi Yes No
53. Abalone Yes No
54. Paneer Yes No
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal Yes Yes
56. Spaetzle No No
57. Brain of any animal Yes - Crab Yes - chicken
58. Jellyfish Yes Yes
59. Poutine No No :(
60. Carob chips Yes Yes
61. S’mores Yes Yes
62. Sweetbreads No No
63. Vegan pastry (cookies, cakes…) Yes Yes
64. Currywurst No No
65. Durian Yes Yes
66. Frog’s legs Yes Yes
67. Beignets Yes Yes
68. Haggis No No
69. Fried plantain Yes Yes
70. Chitterlings or andouillette Never No
71. Gazpacho Yes Yes
72. Caviar and blini Yes, but not together Same
73. Quinoa Yes Yes!!
74. Gjetost or brunost No No
75. Roadkill Never Never
76. Cheese souffle Yes Yes
77. Hostess Fruit Pie Yes Yes
78. Snail (escargot) Yes Yes
79. Lapsang Souchong Never Never
80. Chicken feet Yes Yes
81. Tom Yum Yes No
82. Eggs Benedict Yes Yes
83. Pocky Yes Yes
84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu Both: Alas, not yet.
85. Kobe beef No No.  :(
86. Hare Yes Yes
87. Goulash No No
88. Flowers Yes Yes
89. Horse No Yes
90. Criollo chocolate Yes Yes
91. Spam Yes Yes
92. Soft shell crab Yes Yes
93. Rose harissa No No
94. Catfish Yes Yes
95. Mole poblano No No
96. Bagel and lox No Yes
97. Lobster Thermidor Yes Yes
98. Polenta Yes Yes
99. Tagine Yes Yes
100. Snake No No

The best two years

maxine September 24th, 2008

No, not Collin’s mission.  Yesterday was our 2-year anniversary!  We celebrated last Saturday because of Collin’s rigorous weekday school schedule.  Since our last restaurant meal happened when Isaac was about one month old, we thought it would be quite appropriate to splurge on a nice restaurant.  So, we decided to go to Bambara in Salt Lake City.

While not quite at the level of those fancy Los Angeles or New York restaurants, we still had a marvelous time, and the food was delightful.  It was really hard to choose, since everything looked so good.  Just look at the menu below, if you can read it.  There’s even something with tomato water!  Do you know what tomato water is?  I sure don’t, but I wanted to try it!

We also couldn’t seem to remember to take pictures of the food before digging in, so our pictures don’t look nearly as appetizing as the dishes actually were when they first arrived at the table. Here is the duck I ordered (cider glaze barbecued duck breast with soft corn polenta, grilled radicchio, hazelnuts, blackberries, brown butter and pinot syrup, to be exact) and the white chocolate mousse semifreddo we shared for dessert.  Collin had the filet mignon (in this amazing peppercorn-cognac reduction), and we both shared the calamari and spring green salad with champagne vinaigrette for appetizers.  Uh, yum!

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Plus, we had this little surprise when we arrived:

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All in all, a lovely way to spend our anniversary.  Happy 2nd anniversary, Collin!  Here’s looking forward to two more blissful years of marriage!

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I love Autumn!

maxine September 17th, 2008

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[Insert Maxine here]

I love the Fall season!  I know most people love Spring and Summer most, but there is something magical about Autumn that just makes me giddy with its annual approach.  Coming from a Southern California girl, that probably doesn’t mean too much to you.  So, please allow me to illustrate my unbridaled zeal for the coming season with bullet points:

  • For four years I worked in L.A. and took the exact same route each morning.  Trees don’t change color in L.A., for the most part.  The one exception I found was on a little wall divider off a freeway exit.  Every Fall, I would giddily watch the climbing vines on my exit’s wall divider slowly turn from green to yellow, yellow to red, and finally red to brown.  It was literally the highlight of my day (which says a lot, since I loved my job).   Some amount of hand clapping might have ensued inside my car each morning.
  • I love the crispness of the air!  You’re coming off of summer, so there’s still a gentle feeling to the air, whereas Spring gets the remnants of Winter’s biting cold.  Who wants that?
  • Rain, rain, rain!  I love me some rainy days (and nights)!  I’ll gladly pass on the snow, since it’s really cold and I’m terrified of driving in it.  But rain?  Yes, please!
  • The colors are so PRETTY!  Need I say more?
  • Two words: Halloween and Thanksgiving.  I think it’s no coincidence that the only two holidays entirely centered around food happen during this season.
  • Doesn’t everyone seem nicer as soon as Autumn begins?  I’m pretty sure that’s also no coincidence. The start of the holiday season is nothing to be grumpy about.
  • Now I live in a place that actually has a traditional Autumn!  We went for a drive around the Uinta National Forest (hello?  We live a mere 6 miles from a national forest!) this weekend, and the leaves were already starting to turn!  I love this place!

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And there you have it, folks.  My favorite season in blog format.  Happy (almost) Autumn!

I’m a model if you know what I mean

maxine September 15th, 2008

I love having artists in the family!  Collin’s sister Whitney is an excellent artist whose beautiful work comprises most of our wall decor, and his cousins Dawni and Carrie are both talented photographers who are always kind enough to randomly take amazing photos during family parties.  A few weekends ago, Carrie was in town and had some time to kill.  Lucky for us, she spent it at our house.  One thing led to another, and before we knew it, Isaac was down for a nap and Collin and I were standing in a field of wheat wearing jackets and stiletto heels (that was me, not Collin)  in the blazing August sun.  It was fun just playing around with the camera.  Think we’re ready to quit our day jobs?  I had too many favorites, so here are just a few.  You can see more in our Photo section or on Carrie’s website.  Thanks, Carrie - we love the pictures!

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