Door Knock Dinners

Food Network really needs to bring back Door Knock Dinners.

For those who do not know... it was a VERY early reality TV show back when Food Network (actually showed cooking) was a baby.  Gordon Elliot, with some chef in tow, would show up on a doorstep and try to convince some totally tattered looking housewife into letting the chef make dinner for a family.

Right now, the most vivid memory is some poor chef who had to make panini by pressing some frozen leftover pizza slices together.  Gee, I wonder why the show was canceled.....

But now.... it'd be so easy.  Have people apply to be on the show without a firm commitment that a chef would show up... screen them before, like all "reality" TV show and set up the situation a little. 

Why?

Because I am a home cook.  The only cookbook my name will ever be on is the family one we recently threw together so we don't forget all the great recipes of family gatherings, etc. 

But you know what?

I'm also a foodie.

Even though I may be someone who only has about a 45 minute window to cook from the time I walk in the door to the time I need dinner done, I like food.  I like doing things with food.  And I have one HELL of a pantry.

Currently at my disposal -

Homemade beef, chicken, veal, and turkey stocks.  And the stuff to do a shellfish stock.
One quart of duck fat.
Marrow bones.
White and black truffle oil.
About 10 kinds of dried mushrooms.
4 types of rice (white, brown, sushi rice and jasmine rice)
Tuffle butter
Preserved lemons
Various types of canned oilives.
4 quarts of olive oil.
4 pounds of butter.
Leeks and shallots.
Multiple types of anchovies.
Various cured meats (salamis, hams, etc.)
2 quarts of leftover homemade chili.
1 quart of homemade caramelized onions.
1 dozen eggs
6 additional egg yolks.
etc.

So where would the challenge be??

There is no wheat flour in my house.  None for coating meats, none for thickening. I can't eat it, I don't have it in my house.

Sure.... Top Chef did that ONE episode with Zowie whats-her-face with the restricted diet stuff... but they need to do something more to focus on "This is not a personal lifestyle choice... this is a health issue" and something like that makes a WORLD of difference.

And you know what??

Even with all that minus wheat flour, I think a good chef would be able to make a helluva meal.

Day One in Vegas.....

And the overwhelming thought is....

DUDE... Trader Vic's.... CLOSED???

Sammy Hagar goes and ruins another good thing. (Like Van Halen)

SOOO beyond bummed. I've been looking forward to duck tacos for MONTHS.

What's in a name??

My given name is Victoria.

As a kid, I went by "Vickie".

I went back to the full "Victoria" when I went to college because I was just too tired of people misspelling my name in every way imaginable (Vicky, Vikki, got a few Vickey's, and my favorite, a H-E-L-E-N once... long story).

There is only one way to spell Victoria.

Or at least one would think.

A few jobs back, I was lucky enough to be working at a place where I reported to not one but two bosses. One of whom got it in his head during the interview that my name was "Veronica". And from that point on, for two years, I was called "Veronica... (insert swear word here)... I know... Victoria" at that job. Until I left.

And it's happening again.

One person we have to work with at the new place, someone who is not actually part of our company, somehow got it in her head that my name is Veronica. So today, ALL DAY, in every email back and forth between us and her, she called me Veronica. We corrected her. More than once. But still... Veronica.

Looks like I'm destined to go through this again....

Oh how very mistaken he is.....

So... today is Xmas decorating day.

Which means that the hubby lugged the tree up from the basement, but I put it together (and have the scratches to proove it) and am in the process of decorating.

Sadly, the three-dollar star I bought from Ikea years ago has busted. I have another tree topper too, but it kept falling over when I tried to put it on (and no matter what the man thinks... he missed his chance since I will *not* have him "trying it again when the tree is done". So you can break ornaments when the darned thing falls off like I know it will????)

As a joke, I mentioned I *could* use another tree topper I have.... an angel in a leopard dress with black wings (bought as a gag gift). And the hubby says "Oh, not on MY tree!"

Excuse me.

Your tree?

Are you the one who picked it out? Did you even have an urge to go with me when I went to pick it out (yes, I did ask)? Are you the one who has decorated our shared Christmas tree for the past ten years? Have you even put a single ornament on our tree in ten years?? Are you the one who carefully packs everything away every year???

I think not.

This is MY tree. Mine mine mine.

The Remains of the Bird

Hope everyone out there in cyber-land had a good Turkey Day!!!

It was a usual year around here. Well, other than the youngest nephew who was still suffering from the H1N1 "live" vaccine that he got... poor lil' guy was so miserable he pretty much slept through the whole day except for the absolutely heartwrenching minutes before they left, where in his three-year old voice he just kept saying "Daddy... hurt!" while he dealt with being miserable. They don't think it's actually H1N1 at this point, but the poor little guy is obviously still sick enough to be miserable. :(

Anyway... cooking duties for me this year... I actually took it "light".....



Clockwise from the top right, that is a artichoke/white bean spread (Giada recipe), pecan pie, green beans in browned butter and spanikopita. Wasn't totally planning the spanikopita, but I had phyllo dough in my fridge and spinach to use up.



Oh, and say hello to the roasted brussels sprouts and mashed sweet potatoes that were hanging out in the oven keeping warm.

Food was all good at the mother in laws, company was good, and a good time was had.

Oh.... and the Artichoke and Bean Crostini were actually pretty good... filling though. I did NOT need to make a double recipe of this - those things are FILLING. I snacked on a couple before we went over to the in-laws. I did crumble my prosciutto and mixed it in with everything since I just brought the toasts and the artichoke-bean spread so people couple glop it on themselves.





Was I actually stupid enough to travel outside among the shopping masses on Friday?

Sadly, yes.

My first ever experience out among the black Friday shoppers was a few years back when I was up in Wisconsin visitig my aunt over the holiday, and frankly, when you're in the middle of Wisconsin, there isn't much else to do. And since I was apparently not thinking straight when I was packing, there were some things I really needed (oh, like bras... how I forgot to pack them is beyond me, since as I discovered it's not always easy to find the sizes I need). It was not the most fun experience of my life.

But, there were some sales I wanted to take advantage of. I was lucky though... the place I wanted to hit the most was Staples. SUCH the hotbead for Black Friday activity. I swear, there were four people in the store when I got there. I really really needed to get a wireless mouse for my laptop, I kinda wanted to get a pair of speakers for my desktop PC, and the "I might just get them if they still have them" item was an 8 gig Micro SD card to use with the new MP3 player.

So, of course, they didn't have the mouse I was looking for, or the speakers. At least with the speakers, they didn't have the "sale" ones left, but they had another set of speakers that was $20. Fine by me. The mouse? Um, yeah. The one I wanted was like $13, and they were also supposed to have a $10 or $11 one. No $13 one, no cheaper one either. Now, if they'd have had another model on sale for like $20, I would have happily walked out of there and called it a day. But no... the rest of them were all full-priced $40-$50 models. No thank you.

And the memory card? They had RACKS of them. Silly me... I thought they'd be one of the first things to go. But I guess a lot of parents must not be hip on what a great stocking-stuffer an 8 gig micro card can be for the cell-phone and device-mad kids. Oh well.

But, at least for lunch, I had leftovers on hand for a very nice lunch of a turkey hot brown... turkey on toast, covered with a cheese sauce and some leftover crisped prosciutto.....

Tres yum.

No dinner cooking on Friday night. Hey, it's a holiday weekend.

And on Saturday... what do you make when you're getting kind of sick of turkey??

Seafood lasagna!!

Always a hit around here. And this time I was actually smart enough to look at my copy of the recipe, especially the part where I added a note to myself that REALLY VICTORIA, LISTEN TO THE INSTRUCTIONS AND BAKE IT UNCOVERED, because it turned out wonderfully. And I usually use it as an excuse to use up cheap frozen seafood, like salad shrimp, snow crab and bay scallops.

Today, since it was rainy out and football was on, I also decided to hit the dreaded Kohl's. Would NOT step foot in there Friday or Saturday, but one of the straps on my purse busted so I needed a new one. And they tend to have the best selection. Mind you, most of the selection is butt ugly, but they do have some good ones mixed in.

I tend to be pretty plain about my day-to-day purse... I'm all for a fun evening bag, but give me something sturdy, basic and black for my every day purse. And I was surprised to actually find exactly what I wanted. Even in real leather.

Then was on to the fun task of changing out the purse. And who doesn't love that scene from the Breakfast Club when Ally Sheedy when she dumps out the contents of her purse???


USB drives, nail files, various lip balms, various cold medicines and acid reducer meds, tire pressure guage, various tools, and a total of 12 lighters. Heh.

That project done, I went on to two others.... finding the Christmas cards I bought after the holidays last year (they were luckily in the first Xmas box I looked in) and doing some massive re-organization of my MP3 player, which took longer and I'm still working on. I have yet to totally figure out how the heck Windows Media Player decides to sync or not sync based on your playlist, but I'll get it figured out. Someday.

Dinnertime? How about some turkey chili...

Since I am of the mind that you can't have enough turkey aroud Turkey day, I actually threw a turkey breast in the crockpot on Thanksgiving so we'd have additional leftovers. Because everyone needs more than once chance to live the "turkey + mayo + white bread" sandwich over the course of the weekend. And leftover turkey come Sunday is a very, very nice thing to have.

And I did learn, the hard way, that one should NOT "guess" at the number of jalapenos to use... yeah, I roasted some poblanos and jalapenos and added four jalapenos... which had this stuff at nuclear levels. But thanks to that, I did also learn that a peeled potato in there to help draw out some spice is good, as is a sprinkle of baking soda. At least it went from "OH MY GOD WHAT KIND OF GUATEMALEN INSANITY PEPPER DID YOU USE IN THIS?!?!?" to "the spice builds up on you hot" thing where you could finish a bowl.

And that is the last of the turkey.

Technology Weekend!!

Well it's all "Welcome to 2001" over here.... I finally bought a standalone MP3 player. I was looking at the SanDisk Sansa Fuze for awhile, since the 'puter really just kinda treats it like a removable drive and it's not all "sync" driven or anything. I'm pretty happy with it so far. It wasn't "plug & play" on either my desktop or my laptop (more on that in a second) but it was easy enough to get it installed anyway. (Edit to add... sadly, it can be sync-driven. Or at least it was on my laptop, where it promptly over-wrote everything I had on there, including all the songs I already had on my micro SD card. Le sigh....)

Price on it was also good... and even better, I got to use the hubby's poker winnings to buy it. Some of the guys in his shop play when it's slow... and last week he actually got to use a line he's been wanting to use for twenty years.... "Well, it looks like I just have a pair of twos.... and another pair of twos....." He was excited. And I was happy my gadget was paid for.

Of course, now I realize how badly I need to organize some of my MP3s.... a task for the future.

There was also much excitement.... got a "used" laptop screen (basically the whole front cover) for my laptop, and I switched out my old, non-working one. It was actually easy enough to do, and I now happily have my laptop downstairs on the couch, next to me, where it belongs. Life is good again.

Further proof that life is good? We've booked our next trip to Vegas. New Year's Eve, baby!! Always wanted to do it, and the way the holiday falls this year, the hubby can actually fly out of town (not tied down by "first of the year" inventory) and they're not making him fly to another plant to oversee... so it looks like we'll be spending New Year's Eve watching the insanity that is NYE in Vegas from our hotel room.

New job continues to be good... still learning the ropes, but getting to jump in on projects since we have deadlines looming.

Oh, and oven repair dude is coming on Thursday. I cannot wait.

What a difference a week makes.....

So.... had my interview last Monday morning.


Had an offer from them Monday night.


Formally accepted it Tuesday.


Started work on Thursday.


And thanks to road construction, the drive home from work is taking twice as long as it should. Joy.


Oh, and apparently my stove decided to stop working, just in time for Turkey Day. Burners work fine, broiler works fine, but the oven won't come up to temp. Yay.

This Week in Unemployment: I Wore a Bra For 10 Straight Hours Today

Did ya'll know there is a new Windows operating system looming on the horizon?

There is. Windows 7. Supposed to suck a lot less than Vista did.

At my old old company, they need to make sure that their products work with the new OS, and also get updates ready for their website so people will be able to use their products with the new OS. Fun stuff, lemme tells ya.

And apparently some people are "too busy" to get around to testing these things, so I got to go into the office today to play around with the PC that has a beta of Windows 7 on it.

Oh, and I finally met the new Head Dude working there that has always been out of the office any time I stopped by.

And I successfully wore a bra for 10 hours straight without having to "adjust" (meaning: partly unhook the back) it at all. I am a gal who needs to wear a bra. However, unless I feel like spending $100 a pop (or is that $50 a melon?) on a bra, they just are not comfortable. Back starts to hurt, straps digging into my shoulders, etc. So, being on my own in the house since leaving the world of the employed, it's been mostly those shelf-bra tanks for me. Just enough support and spandex to make me comfortable, and if I'm not leaving the house, I don't worry too much about the "uni-boob" situation (looking like you've got one mound of boob rather than the proper two).

I'm a bit surprised. I was starting to get worried I might have reached the part of unemployement where you just aren't at all comfy in the regular 9 to 5 clothes anymore.

I am, however, in that lovely part of unenployment where electronics start to break, and you find out a car needs a two thousand dollar repair. Always a fun place.

Oh, and the judgement of Windows 7? All the annoying pop ups of Vista with thefull Polug & Play functionality that Microsoft promised users like ten years ago.

Sooooo glad we just got these new desktops with XP. Soooooo glad.

Home "Improvement"

Sigh. I should really know better by now, shouldn't I?

The hubsy was supposed to take last Friday off, and he was going to tackle some small projects that have been piling up around the house for the past couple of months. Work got busy last week, so he went in on Friday. I spent Saturday cleaning (and had to deal with a cranky spouse after I started vacuuming while he was trying to nap - I was not aware he was trying to sleep) and Sunday it was off to the grocery store, and hubby was going to tackle the leak we have with our air conditioner drainy-thing (which has been a problem for two months), put in the new toilet paper holder upstairs (waiting for this for at least 6 months) and fix the shower curtain rod upstairs (also, about 6 months waiting).

I was at the store and got a call to buy a good scrub brush.... apparently while waiting for the air conditioner leak-thing to solve itself, mold decided to invite itself to the party and there was some clean up to be done. About 20 minutes later, I get the call to buy a new curtain rod, since the one we had screwed into the walls, and apparently the wall decided to give and the whole rod came undone. Sigh.

Got home from the stores (with the unexpected trip to Target, but at least the tension rods for shower curtains have gotten better, got a nice brushed nickle one) and the leaky-thing was fixed, but the hubby was grumpily repairing walls and just being overall huffy.

I don't know why I ever expect this stuff to go smoothly. It never does.

Technical difficulties....

Technology is not my friend these past two weeks.

First, it was the Tivo. We did end up juts buying another Tivo (not the HD one) and I plan to rip open the old Tivo box to see if I can salvage the hard drive. We'll see.

And then last week, the CPU fan in my laptop died. Figured I'd take the easy/expensive route and called Geek Squad to make sure that they could do the repair. I was assured, over the phone, that I just needed to go in, then they could order the part and I could bring the laptop back when it was in, and they could replace it. When I stopped at the Geek Squad desk at the local Best Buy, I was told that no, they couldn't do it that way. It was going to cost twice what they told me over the phone and they had to send it out for service because my laptop is an older model (seriously??? You only stock parts to repair new things???) and that it might take a week or longer. A week or longer with my laptop out of my hands? No thank you.

And I found out how pitiful my dekstop PC is... it takes like 10 minutes for the Yahoo news page to load. Yeah... as soon as the job situation improves, I need to address that.

Been trying to use the hubby's desktop PC for some stuff.... and then he (NOT ME - IT WAS NOT MY WEB SURFING THAT DID IT) went and got his PC infected with something. And that usually takes a day to fix. Yay.

But hopefully happier times are on the horizon... got a replacement fan and I should be taking the laptop to get it fixed hopefully today or tomorrow. Then I can can rejoin the digital world again. Ahhhhh.

Can I smack everyone who has been saying "It doesn't feel like June" for the past two weeks??

(Mama Frau came through her surgery with flying colors and the hope is that the horrible "C" word is totally out of her body now, along with a couple of organs she wasn't using. She's recovering in the hospital now, hopefully will be sent home on Sunday. Yay! And then I'll likely be her nursemaid for a few days. Um, not so yay.)

So... we've had an unseasonably cool and rainy start to June in the Chicago area.

Which means everyone has been going "it doesn't feeeeeeel like Juuuuuuuune yet...." for the past two weeks. Except me.

I've been happy to not have to turn on the air conditioner or worry about watering my tomato plants.

But tonight.... the infamous Chicago Summer Weather attacked.

Hot and muggy in the day.

Oh, what's that? It still doesn't feeeeeeeeeeel like June?

How about some nasty thunderstoms to go with that muggy heat? And throw in a couple of tornadoes for good measure??

Hausfrau raises the smackin' hand....

One reason I had NO interest in going to school downstate is because tornadoes usually try to keep to the untamed lands of the middle and lower sections of Illinois. I'm way up north. Like, really close to Wisconsin, north.

And this evening, there were tornadoes in Kenosha. Which is in Wisconsin, just past the Illinois border (for those who don't understand the whole Illinois/Wisconsin or West Gemany/Czechoslovakia geographic thing). If there are storms that can make tornadoes into Kenosha... there are storms that can make tornadoes where I am.

I am not good when tornado sirens go off. I am aware of this fact. The couple times they ushered us into the hallways or gym while I was in grade school when the sirens went off, I got sent to the nurses office when it was over for being a nervous wreck.

At least while we were living in the apartment that I am much braver about tornado sirens when we decided to take the case of beer with us. Beer + tornado = not quite as terrifying

So, the hubby got home tonight and announced he never got to each lunch today (we had some similar, non-tornadic storms thru the area around lunchtime... enough to flood many many streets where the hubby works, and most eateries closed) and was on his feet all day running around (power surge managed to fry ALL the desktop computers, but not-so-lucky for hubby since the Blackberry servers were still fine) and he didn't stop for beer on the way home and needed to eat but wasn't sure what he wanted.

Wait a minute... we have severe weather upon us AND NO BEER????

I got the beer run out of the way first. And apparently I was not the only one doing that... I saw more people in the liquor department of the grocery store than I have ever seen there. Seems like everyone was stocking up.

I did finally bully him into accepting Culvers as a dinner option, and I got home just before the skies opened up, the tornado warnings started a'coming, and the trees started blowing horizontally. Fun!

We had a downright odd power surge... brown out for about two minutes. Usually after ten seconds, we either loose power or it decides to play nice.

That storm system has passed.... now we just have to wait out the next wave that is supposed to come thru tonight. Um, yay. Not.

So... can I smack all those people who have been complaining about it not being summer weather? Because it sure is now.

Why'd you have to go and be all helpful????

So, when my elliptical busted on Tuesday, I called the extended warranty folks. Actually, I tried to go to their website first, but it apparently got poached and it is now a Jesus site. Doesn't inspire confidence.

I didn't write down the name of the dude I talked to on Tuesday. For further purposes of this tale, we'll call him "Crackhead". I had to tell Crackhead my home phone number three times and I had to correct my cellular number twice when I gave it to him.

I was supposed to get a call from the company that would be doing the repair to set up an appointment for today.

Today came and went, no phone call to set up the appointment, no one stopped by.

I am an unemployed woman right now. I have nothing better to do than make sure that they take care of this for me.

I spent a part of the day stewing, working myself up to a proper frenzy to call this company back and give them hell to make sure they knew it'd be easier to just take care of my problem quickly rather than drag their heels.

I finally did make the call, and unlike Crackhead, Sarah was quite helpful.

Even though Crackhead didn't enter my home number correctly.

Or my cellular number.

Or my home address.

Thankfully, even after I took the hubby's last name, I was lucky enough to get something fairly uncommon as a last name (my maiden name was better... I think the only people in the US with that name are related to me and can be tracked back to some family member). When someone like Crackhead gets all your other information wrong, it's at least easy to say "search W-R-O" and have the nice person find your name without too huge of a hassle.

And from how Sarah handled the call, apparently Crackhead was supposed to give me the claim number (he didn't) and the name of the company that would be doing the repair (c'mon... what do you think? Of course Crackhead did not give me that!). Sarah was even nice enough to contact the company for me while I waited, to give them the CORRECT phone numbers and contact information, and I should be expecting a call from them tomorrow. And she even told me that if I don't hear from them by noon to give them a call, and gave me their number.

I was really, really looking forward to getting majorly mad on the phone. Then I had to go and get some actual good service. There went that plan.

I've worked customer service lines before, and I fully understand when someone else mucked something up, it's usually not the fault of the poor person that gets the follow up call. So I remained kind and polite with Sarah, trying to be as gracious as I could for her assistance. Wasn't her fault that Crackhead was... well... a crackhead.

So, Thank you, Sarah!

Cram it wherever your species traditionally crams things*, Crackhead!

Hopefully that will be the only drama about getting this elliptical fixed. Even though I suspect it won't be.


* That'd be one of my favorite "Futurama" quotes ever.


Update! - Wow, the power of the last name! Repair dude actually called me tonight, and after he correctly pronounced the last name (which, even my own mother can't do) he asked if I was related to so-and-so with the same last name. And, why yes, I am! Turns out repair dude know hubby's cousin. I'm oddly optimistic right now.

Best Thing You Ever Ate

So... while I had Food Network on over the weekend, they had an ad for some "Best Thing I Ever Ate" show, that is apparently a rerun. I guess I pay far less attention to Food Network than I used to.

For some reason, the thought got stuck in my head.

I asked the hubby last night, and being indecisive as he tends to be sometimes, he had to throw things into categories. Surprisingly, as he went through his list, some of my food actually made the list (yay!). Chili and ribs. Oh, and my meatballs. Even if she was not my blood grandmother, I don't think you can have an Italian grandmother and not know how to make a good meatball.

It took me a little while to think about it, but I easily came to one answer. Beef tartar and pommes Dauphine from Guy Savoy in Vegas. Hands down. No question.

I've tried to find a picture, but Google image has failed me. Sorry.

I can tell you that the "small bites" portion you can get in the bar is three spoons, one half of each filled with pommes Dauphine, the other half filled with the beef tartare.

And it's seriously like the best beef/potato combo you'll ever have. Really.

Cool beef tartar one half, slightly crispy and warm potato on the other. Perfect ratios. Perfect blending of the textures, the warmth and cold.

It has seriously ruined me for any other beef/potato combo in the world. Ever. A ButterBurger and Chili Cheese Fries from Culvers don't even compare anymore.

So... what's yours??

Extra - I never talked about Outplacement, Day Two, did I??

I might have done that because I wanted to wash it from my memory.

The most funnest part was the 20 minute talk on the underlying psychology when you go in for an interview and they ask if you'd like some water or coffee.

Seriously.

As it was told to us, it's some huge psychologic interplay about them offering and you being a good host, and also a power play that you need to take advantage of, and a zillion other things that would be much better presented as "Hey... it's an interview. You will be talking. You might get thirsty. Better to take it at the start since you may/will likely need it."

That was about the point I zoned out of Outplacement Day Two.

But the point where I really, REALLY wondered about the whole service was when the talk was about how to answer the question that you always get, which is something like "What is your biggest weakness?"

(Pretty Little German Rocker Boys like Cinema Bizarre? Oh, wait, not THAT kind of weakness)

What is your biggest job weakness. It is one of those things, in an interview situation, if you're not expecting it, it can throw you.

They gave two ways to answer the question.... and I do think they were more addressing the "how to ace the interview with HR" portion of the interview process and not the "how to interview with potential peers and managers" portion. Because they obviously don't know how badly the answers play upon a lot of jobs.

Choices were...

1. I don't do well on my own, because I thrive in group situations.
2. I don't do well with monotonous tasks, because I thrive on a challenge.

Um. Yeah. As a technical writer, a lot of the work you do is solo. A lot of the jobs out there right now ARE solo gigs. So no Answer 1.

And well, a good portion of all technical writing jobs I have had involve a great deal of monotonous tasks. And you actually kind of value those nice little moments of non-thinking when you are compiling something or generating something and get to zone out and have the brain go to the happy place. So, no Answer 2.

Ugh.

It was also funny that the same day as Outplacement Day Two, I was talking to my brother in the evening. My brother is a somewhat high-up manager in a technical position. He's interviewed people many times. And when I was telling him about the "what is your biggest weakness" portion of the day, he laughed about the "standard answers" because he's heard them before, and always wondered where they came from.

So... yeah.... I have my first meeting with Outplacement Firm, post-job, next week, to get the updated resume and have some sort of "talk". Right now, I'm really hoping that the latest interview results in something good, mostly because I really want that job, but partly because it would mean I don't have to go back.

I've lost my mojo!!

I don't know why I always forget that this happens the week after a layoff.

I have totally lost my cooking mojo. Seriously... I could pull a Homer Simpson and set fire to cereal by pouring milk on it right now.

The week started off with burned rice (while it was on the lowest setting on my simmer burner), a funky avocado, tonight I managed to burn sausage and mangle sausage gravy.

Seriously?? I can usually make sausage gravy in my sleep.

Hopefully, next week will be better. This week is already looking up... I had two phone interviews today that resulted in one face-to-face interview on Tuesday (other place has a slower process... I'll know next week if they want me to come in). Both sound great in their own way.... one is very, very much like my last job - which I loved, and the other is the elusive "only and first tech writer we have ever had" position where I'd actually be able to get everything set up. Ya'll don't know how wonderful that is to me. I've spent the better part of the last 11 years of my professional career going into a place and taking AT LEAST a year to clean up the documents and the process and the use of tools to make sure that everything runs as is should (meaning - EASIER). It sure would be nice to go into a place and be able to start up with setting things up the right way - six months of struggle, easily, down right there. Sigh.

In any case... gotta get through tomorrow. This weekend I plan on planting some tomatoes... it feels like spring, but it's never REALLY spring until tomato plants are in the ground. I also need to do some serious work on my portfolio before my interview... I kept the resume current, but I have neglected my portfolio.

The kitchen also needs SERIOUS cleaning... but I've already been putting that off, so I suppose that can wait.

Do I look like I'm soon to be unemployed???

I'm used to the weekend runs to the grocery store forcing me to interact with some of the worst of humanity.

As the economy has tanked, my once peaceful produce/meat market become more crowded, making me more surly.

But today, I noticed, people were actually nice.

Like, saying "oh, excuse me" and moving when they were blocking your way. Generally pleasant. Happy to help.

And then I knew I was in some odd, alternate universe when one lady I'd been passing along the way, who was pretty friendly, said "Hey, do you want a coupon for ten dollars off? It looks like you have a hundred dollars worth of stuff in your cart, and I never buy that much."

Unprecedented niceness?? What... do I have something on my forehead that says "Hello, I am becoming unemployed on May 15th"??? Or are people just acting a little less surly with the warm weekend and spring in the air?

I always forget that the market has coupons that run in some of the local papers & ad magazine. And dude... not only did this lady spread some niceness in my day, she taught me a lesson. My bill was $130 before the coupon, and after the coupon was applied and the taxes for that were deducted (thanks again, Todd H. "I'm a Tool" Stroger for making sure Cook County has some of the highest sales taxes in the nation) the final bill was actually $113.

That's a big difference. At least now, to my "soon to be unemployed" behind.

So, thank you, anonymous lady, for being nice. And making sure that before next weekend, I dig for some of my own coupons to use for the next grocery trip.

Are we there yet??

Nothing like knowing there are new layoffs on the horizon to make me relive the fears of August '07 when I got my pink slip two days before we were leaving for a vacation to Vegas.

It was not the best trip.

All worked out well, in the end, I fell right into the new gig. But yeah, at new gig, we're facing our third round of layoffs in as many quarters.

The past week I've been living in the fear that I'd somehow get notice my job is done just a few days before the trip. I'm going to be really, really surprised if I remain after this round since we've already made deep cuts, and even though we're SUPER busy right now, these things always come at the most illogical times. Well, not always, but a lot of the time. I can only hang on to a small glimmer of hope that knowing we have to re-document a completely new interface for our next release will acknowledge my right to exist at work.

But today, all I could think about was the blackjack table on the last trip... I happened to be sitting with a few ladies who were there for a "women in construction" conference and they were all from Louisiana. They'd each lost at least one home during Katrina, and they had just faced another hurricane the week before, and were headed home to face another that was expected to hit the region. Their overall attitude.... "Smoke 'em while you got 'em."

Indeed.

I hope that the layoffs do come after Easter, as my boss suspects (and he's high up... he'd have known if they were upon us very very very soon - I hope) and we can take our trip, throw some money into the economy and have a good time. Because things are good right now. And if they do go bad... we've been there before... more than once... and we'll get through it.

But for now, I hope I can leave work tomorrow and pretend that all is normal and go on vacation on Thursday with blissful thoughts of some time away from work and some fun in Sin City.

Fingers and toes crossed.

Economic Stimulus

Are ya happy, Mikey??

Today after work, I spent exactly five minutes running into Best Buy, and I bought myself a proper digital camera. Did my research online last night and I knew I could get what I wanted for under a hundred bucks, so I am now the proud owner of a little, itty-bitty Sony Cyber-shot.

I've been meaning to do this for awhile... really, since Christmas... and I decided to just go for it.

Like a lot of Americans right now, I've been in "saving" mode for awhile. We didn't spend a lot at Christmas, and I've been trying to be budget-conscious when menu planning and doing my weekly shopping. When I got my usual Christmas Cash from the parent-in-laws, I spent a little and tucked a hundy in my undie drawer, wanting to hold on to it for a rainy day.

You know what? That day is here.

Sure, we're now facing the 10% pay cut I'm dealing with, but since a raise kicked in right before they calculated all this, it sure could be worse.

My particular industry niche basically makes stuff that tests all those chips and doohickeys that go into all sorts of high-end electronic stuff. The stuff that no one bought over the holidays. The stuff that is still sitting in store rooms at retailers across the country. And with a backlog of inventory, no need to buy new stuff. So they haven't needed to test new doohickeys, and the bottom dropped out with our sales stuff. Not good.

So as a little bit of self-help to my own industry, I acted. For a hundred bucks I got a camera that is smaller, lighter, more powerful and also "comes with it's own chargeable battery" goodness that is better than our old digital camera. Which was like three times the price just a few years ago.

And a bonus... for a couple bucks more (woo! more cash into the economy!) it looks like I can get an adapter to turn my impulse purchase of a 2-gig Micro SD adapter that won't work in my Palm to work in the camera. Woo!

So Mikey and all... look forward to better pictures here, when I finally do some cooking that is worth taking picture of (dinner tonight was a repeat of frozen chicken cordon bleu, go me) because the inaugural picture I took of the hubby taking his evening nap, drooling on the pillow, is really not very exciting for anyone but me.

Now ya'll... if you are fortunate enough to be in a position where you're just holding in anticipation of what will happen in the upcoming months.... eat desert first since you never know what will happen... and go make that purchase you've been holding off. Not just for high-end techie stuff... every industry and market is feeling this. Even if it's swinging by a nice local eatery for some-take out as a treat (which I'll also be doing three times by the end of the week... lunch tomorrow at a former co-worker's Thai place, going out for a b-day lunch on Friday for some authentic Mexican at a nearby place, and hitting an Italian place we've been meaning to go to for years for my b-day dinner).

Shrike Snark

So.... got my free issue of "sandra lee Semi-Homemade" magazine (bad caps all the magazine's fault, not mine) today.

I have a love/hate relationship with this woman.

I wanted the concept to be good back when this show started. I understand that you may not want to get home from work and put in two hard hours in the kitchen to get meals done on a weeknight. And things like Shake'N Bake and Spam and Kraft Mac & Cheese can be perfectly acceptable things to serve your family, on occasion.

But you don't do that stuff when you're entertaining and having people over. That's just wrong.

The crimes against food commited by her FAR outweigh any good. But the show is just hilarious to watch. Bad voice overs, horrible technique, and just ridiculous things like half-assing the food and spending hours with your hot glue gun, gluing plates and cups together for a "tablescape".

Every woman, she is not.

So I jumped all over the chance at a free issue of this magazine. Half to see if I'd continue getting it so they can inflate their subscription numbers for awhile to get advertisers to buy more space.

Some of the gems.....

A burrito casserole is something that sounded pretty good to me. I don't have a problem a taco seasoning packet, when used as the directions intend. Canned refried beans? As long as they're the ones I like. Slap that in a tortilla, top with cheese, the glamour shot actuall had some lettuce, tomatoes and onions involved. I might have to admit I like something of hers....



Or maybe not. Really.... how freakin' hard is it to slap some ground beef and beans in a tortilla? You need to start out with already-made burritos???

There are four various "stylists" listed as working for the magazine. But no one listed as "food stylist". And you can tell.



Obviously, no one knows what "presentation side down" means. With the boneless, skinless chicken breast, this is NOT the side that is usually the presentation side.

I didn't think it was possible to make a lasagna that looked, well, kinda unappetizing. I've made some ugly lasagnas in my lifetime, I will admit, but this was just frightening....



It's just oddly.... I donno... solid and kinda odd. If I got that served up to me at an Italian eatery, I'd send it back. If I served that up to company, I'd be ashamed. If I got that after I nuked a Lean Cuisine, I'd be midly disappointed but I might eat it anyway.

But what... there is more....



A different lasagna. That also don't look too good. That black stuff in the middle there? Best I can figure, spinach.

If you're going to go through the effort to make lasagna, do it right. Please.

And another moment where I was curious....



The text reads "This tasty cut of beef is sure to impress when partnered with an elegant, warm salad."

(Oh, another disturbing thing... they don't give the recipe names with any of the pictures of the food... just point you to the page. Odd. Has anyone working on this magazine ever worked for a food publication??)

Cut to the recipe.....


Eye of Round?? Tasty and Impressive??

Ok... I think during the absolutely horrible six months where both the hubby and I were out of work in 2001 I bought eye of round steaks ONCE. They looked good in the meat case, so I bought them. And they were HORRIBLE. Eye of Round is not a cut that should be served as a quickly cooked steak. And they'd know that if anyone actually tested this recipe more than to make sure it "looks pretty". They do look nice... but this is a cut of meat that is NOT made for a quick cook, it takes some braising to get eye of round to not be like eating a gym shoe.

And the best.....



I could not get a good shot (stinkin' phone) but on the page just inside the back cover, there is a recipe for a sanwich (Ye Gods! Thank you! Someone has figured it out!) and this "quote" by Oprah Winfrey. Now, I am not a hausfrau of the Cult of Oprah, but I have to respect the woman for the empire she's built up. And I know I would not want to cross her in any way, shape, form, manner, or whatever. I find it hard to believe that Oprah approve the use of this quote - hey, she's got her magazine to sell too - it's just all a big trick to try and hook some Oprah-files. Hey Oprah... after you're done with ex-gov Rod for Taking Your Name in Vain.... can you make sure this stuff is taken care of, too??

Defending Vegas

Yeah... I'm still cranky.

And this has me extra cranky right now.

Yes, companies should be cutting back. Especially those that have gotten funds from the government. Big, lavish, over-the-top things of last year should be scaled back if your company is tanking.

But what some people don't seem to understand... times are just as tough in Vegas, perhaps tougher, as they are other places.

Vegas is a consumer/visitor centric place. The whole state of Nevada relies on the gaming revenues, and a heckuva lot of the residents of the dusty town of Vegas are tied in to the gaming industry.

When we were there last September was right about when things started to go very south for Vegas, and mildly south for everyone else. I think that two Nevada banks went belly-up during the days we were there - early goners in the mortgage crisis. While a lot of people who work at McDonald's across the country used their McMoney to McFinance a McMansion, Vegas had a HUGE housing growth in the years prior and people were all "hey, lemme in on that free money," which lead to people who could not afford investment homes trying to juggle it. Vegas is a town that has a lot of home renters - used to not be so risky for the renters, but as people pocketed rent to pay their own bills and let their rented homes go into forclosure, people suffered.

Their visitor numbers have dropped to dismal levels. Which means people suffer. Hotel and casino employees get hours cut back, or get laid off, and just generally don't get the tips they were getting - Vegas is also a very tip-reliant system - and they suffer.

So Wells Fargo.... forget the over-the-top-ness of former years, just do the plane tickets (hey, the airlines can also use the business) and hotels for free, a nice celebratory dinner somewhere (waiters could use the tips), but let them go... I have a feeling the people who would be going on that trip have some extra cash to throw around that town, and it could certainly use it.

And as someone who might not get my usual spring trip to Vegas (of course, sure, right after we bleepin' get Platinum status, we won't be able to use it) I'm more than happy to let the government foot the bill for airfare and the hotels to get some people in that town who can spread around a little bit of money. They do need it out there.