At the head of each
week, my daughter and I develop dinner ideas together in the kitchen; me at the
dry erase board hanging on the wall, her at the table, usually writing her own
list (imitation must truly be the primary basis of learning, it
seems), as we shout out options excitedly at one another.
Culinary brainstorming each week takes the hassle out of weekday cooking (experienced usually in the form of fatigue or time constraints), and affirms my need, personal value system-wise, to acquire and prepare my own evening fare in a way that not only honors my primary responsibility as one biological caregiver, but satisfies my sense of integrity in effort, not to mention familiarizing Julia with the basics of kitchen management (no easy feat).
Moreover, there is a creative element to the seemingly practical task of cooking each evening, to the extent that I find myself craving the cooking more than the consuming, and hunger more for the feeling of steel blades slicing into various textures of flesh and foliage, the look of a good pan sear or an amber-translucent root than the inevitable post-prep palate response. Even as I mention it here, my mouth salivates and innards growl for the process. Truly a starving art.
(I can sense the irony in that, but haven't the patience to place it at the moment, so I'll leave it alone for now.)
She's like Matilda, I swear to fuck. Loves being involved and employed in household logistics, makes her feel like she has input, which she does, of course, but kids are simple, and overlook similarly simple concepts easily, yielding discouragement and a bad attitude, low esteem, etc, so it's best as a parent to reinforce said simple concepts regardless, removing all doubt.
They're so damn sensitive, silly, really, but compliments go surprisingly far when it comes to willing participation in seemingly menial yet necessary domestic tasks. She's still young, and doubtfully grasps the concept of "necessity", so it's more effective to cultivate enthusiasm for the task itself than it is to drive home the value of the act itself. it's a child, she'll understand the background lectures her mother utters to her in her youth once she has reflected upon them enough as she ages. It's a lot of power to attribute to such a natural position as "mother" that i try not to dwell on it, lest i give in to the intensity of the concept and senselessly (yet privately) overexcite myself. Introversion: one helluva drug.
Last week, as we collaboratively composed the week's meals, I casually ask julia what she'd like for dinner, to which she loudly replied "(gasp!) HOT SAUCE CAKE!" I have no idea what "hot sauce cake" is, only that she's asked me for it for about a year now, and I continually dismissed it as a joke (do not doubt my open-mindedness, readers! i have entertained and successfully executed bacon cupcakes before, upon her request), until that day, when, mid-mental riff on juicy ground beef oozing with pepperjack, i paused, recalled a keto casserole recipe i had viewed not moments prior to our brain session, and erased thursday's "taco" entry to "hot sauce cake", the wee one reading along aloud, each sequential syllable uttered an octave higher in oral excitement.
It was made, and was delicious. I will be remaking this, as you ought've assumed already*; why would i go to all the trouble elaborating on a dish i wouldn't recommend?
...memoir fodder, maybe? I do this shit, I fight with myself until I am in shreds, and shreds do not form a solid opinion (my gestalt buzzer goes off when i hear the word "pieces" in comparison to an assumed "whole"). also, partially unrelated, i abhor the word "because", using it feel synonymous with "i'm lazy". the * above indicates the removal of a comma and the dreaded "because". damned if you think ME mediocre! you know i'm your favorite fucking writer, admit it. Or don't. It is all the same. I have perceived the truth of the matter, from miles away, arrogantly as ever!
More on arrogance in the essay intended for later on. t and d have an ongoing rivalry, and they vie, however nonsensically, for a spot in each sentence chancing to feature either or, like single point mutations, or a very specific literary sloppiness. These habitual quirks excite me; eventual awareness of them indicates these revelations stem naturally out of exposure to writing. Vonnegut says semicolons let 'em know you attended university. I've always (almost physically) felt the difference in circumstances that warrant either one or the other, it takes no advanced knowledge of the subject, not putting on academic airs, like the berkeley beats, rattling off obscure pronouns in vain, speed-addled attempts to appear exposed and cultured. Exposure is the only route! I experience the need for a semicolon, bollocks to your rigid usage parameters, take that shit to e e cummings, you chatty corpse, you.
all of my favorite words, uttered by dead men, my bookshelf elaborated upon, until i have not a shelf, but a crypt, a great tomb with the skeletons of said men, mandibles chattering away with a anatomical click click click. perhaps the reader has control, and, like a medium, willfully seeks out possession, embodying their views for a while before releasing them back into the void of covers closed. their must be some residual protoplasmic material lingering in the reader's body, post-possession. you can't exorcise them, as there is no way to wipe the memory, so parts of the dead linger, like the ring of starch left in the pot after the boiling macaroni water has been evacuated. their words, i suppose, get trapped in there, and influence us, whether we invoke them or not. perhaps this can be said of all environmental interactions. but such communion with the dead feels not solemn, but familiar, as if you are kin to the dead, as if they depict a common element in all the living , and in that realization cease to abide by our understanding of death. They never cease to inhabit the living, we won't allow it, we need what they know, a pervasive need spanning even death, it seems.
they haunt.
HOT SAUCE CAKE
6 tortillias
a lb of ground beef (80/20)
an onion
a can of green chiles
a can of tomato paste
garlic powder, cumin, red pepper
1/2 c mayo
1/2 c salsa
a packet of ranch powder
a big bag of cheese (i used cheddar)
1. preheat the oven to like 350-400, around there somewhere
2. cook the beef on the stove, add the onions when there's enough grease in there
3. when no pink remains, drain the grease and add the chiles and tomato paste. season it
4. once mixed and the smells are married (you can tell when all the flavors incorporate, it takes on a "mexican food" smell because of the cumin), take off the stove and add the mayo and salsa.
5. Build the casserole! Lay down 3 tortillias, cover with half the meatiness, cover that with half the cheese, and repeat.
6. bake until the cheese on top is nice and crispy brown. serve with sour cream.
KETO FRIENDLY. ALSO AMAZING.
Culinary brainstorming each week takes the hassle out of weekday cooking (experienced usually in the form of fatigue or time constraints), and affirms my need, personal value system-wise, to acquire and prepare my own evening fare in a way that not only honors my primary responsibility as one biological caregiver, but satisfies my sense of integrity in effort, not to mention familiarizing Julia with the basics of kitchen management (no easy feat).
Moreover, there is a creative element to the seemingly practical task of cooking each evening, to the extent that I find myself craving the cooking more than the consuming, and hunger more for the feeling of steel blades slicing into various textures of flesh and foliage, the look of a good pan sear or an amber-translucent root than the inevitable post-prep palate response. Even as I mention it here, my mouth salivates and innards growl for the process. Truly a starving art.
(I can sense the irony in that, but haven't the patience to place it at the moment, so I'll leave it alone for now.)
She's like Matilda, I swear to fuck. Loves being involved and employed in household logistics, makes her feel like she has input, which she does, of course, but kids are simple, and overlook similarly simple concepts easily, yielding discouragement and a bad attitude, low esteem, etc, so it's best as a parent to reinforce said simple concepts regardless, removing all doubt.
They're so damn sensitive, silly, really, but compliments go surprisingly far when it comes to willing participation in seemingly menial yet necessary domestic tasks. She's still young, and doubtfully grasps the concept of "necessity", so it's more effective to cultivate enthusiasm for the task itself than it is to drive home the value of the act itself. it's a child, she'll understand the background lectures her mother utters to her in her youth once she has reflected upon them enough as she ages. It's a lot of power to attribute to such a natural position as "mother" that i try not to dwell on it, lest i give in to the intensity of the concept and senselessly (yet privately) overexcite myself. Introversion: one helluva drug.
Last week, as we collaboratively composed the week's meals, I casually ask julia what she'd like for dinner, to which she loudly replied "(gasp!) HOT SAUCE CAKE!" I have no idea what "hot sauce cake" is, only that she's asked me for it for about a year now, and I continually dismissed it as a joke (do not doubt my open-mindedness, readers! i have entertained and successfully executed bacon cupcakes before, upon her request), until that day, when, mid-mental riff on juicy ground beef oozing with pepperjack, i paused, recalled a keto casserole recipe i had viewed not moments prior to our brain session, and erased thursday's "taco" entry to "hot sauce cake", the wee one reading along aloud, each sequential syllable uttered an octave higher in oral excitement.
It was made, and was delicious. I will be remaking this, as you ought've assumed already*; why would i go to all the trouble elaborating on a dish i wouldn't recommend?
...memoir fodder, maybe? I do this shit, I fight with myself until I am in shreds, and shreds do not form a solid opinion (my gestalt buzzer goes off when i hear the word "pieces" in comparison to an assumed "whole"). also, partially unrelated, i abhor the word "because", using it feel synonymous with "i'm lazy". the * above indicates the removal of a comma and the dreaded "because". damned if you think ME mediocre! you know i'm your favorite fucking writer, admit it. Or don't. It is all the same. I have perceived the truth of the matter, from miles away, arrogantly as ever!
More on arrogance in the essay intended for later on. t and d have an ongoing rivalry, and they vie, however nonsensically, for a spot in each sentence chancing to feature either or, like single point mutations, or a very specific literary sloppiness. These habitual quirks excite me; eventual awareness of them indicates these revelations stem naturally out of exposure to writing. Vonnegut says semicolons let 'em know you attended university. I've always (almost physically) felt the difference in circumstances that warrant either one or the other, it takes no advanced knowledge of the subject, not putting on academic airs, like the berkeley beats, rattling off obscure pronouns in vain, speed-addled attempts to appear exposed and cultured. Exposure is the only route! I experience the need for a semicolon, bollocks to your rigid usage parameters, take that shit to e e cummings, you chatty corpse, you.
all of my favorite words, uttered by dead men, my bookshelf elaborated upon, until i have not a shelf, but a crypt, a great tomb with the skeletons of said men, mandibles chattering away with a anatomical click click click. perhaps the reader has control, and, like a medium, willfully seeks out possession, embodying their views for a while before releasing them back into the void of covers closed. their must be some residual protoplasmic material lingering in the reader's body, post-possession. you can't exorcise them, as there is no way to wipe the memory, so parts of the dead linger, like the ring of starch left in the pot after the boiling macaroni water has been evacuated. their words, i suppose, get trapped in there, and influence us, whether we invoke them or not. perhaps this can be said of all environmental interactions. but such communion with the dead feels not solemn, but familiar, as if you are kin to the dead, as if they depict a common element in all the living , and in that realization cease to abide by our understanding of death. They never cease to inhabit the living, we won't allow it, we need what they know, a pervasive need spanning even death, it seems.
they haunt.
HOT SAUCE CAKE
6 tortillias
a lb of ground beef (80/20)
an onion
a can of green chiles
a can of tomato paste
garlic powder, cumin, red pepper
1/2 c mayo
1/2 c salsa
a packet of ranch powder
a big bag of cheese (i used cheddar)
1. preheat the oven to like 350-400, around there somewhere
2. cook the beef on the stove, add the onions when there's enough grease in there
3. when no pink remains, drain the grease and add the chiles and tomato paste. season it
4. once mixed and the smells are married (you can tell when all the flavors incorporate, it takes on a "mexican food" smell because of the cumin), take off the stove and add the mayo and salsa.
5. Build the casserole! Lay down 3 tortillias, cover with half the meatiness, cover that with half the cheese, and repeat.
6. bake until the cheese on top is nice and crispy brown. serve with sour cream.
KETO FRIENDLY. ALSO AMAZING.
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