Finally finished a blueprint after years of throwing them out
We celebrated my brother's birthday observed by making vanilla ice cream in lieu of the strawberry ice cream that did not happen for this year's Fourth of July. The current crop of strawberries went into the shortcake instead. My brother cooked some kind of apricot-marinated steaks and my father made zucchini rolls with rice and my niece couldn't decide if she wanted me to read to her or just pick her up a lot. I handed my brother his IOU in the form of a birdwatching card which he seems to have liked just as much as the note inside, which I was not expecting and which pleased me. I think it was the most human interaction I have experienced in months and I collapsed as soon as we came home.
I wish I had not dreamed that one of my real-life friends convinced another to fake their own death because they thought it would be funny, especially since it was carried to the point of gaslighting and I was grief-stunned and I couldn't make one of them understand or the other seem to care afterward how incredibly cruel it had been. I had already been upset about other kinds of cruelty right before bed.
I decided to do that Southern U.S.-inflected food meme that has been making the rounds of my friendlist.
Have you ever:
1. Made biscuits from scratch?
Yes, North American-style. Generally a variant on the recipe for drop biscuits found in whichever edition of The Joy of Cooking my parents sent me off to grad school with. I used to have them for breakfast sometimes as a child.
2. Fried fresh okra?
No. Ironically, I did not encounter okra until I was an adult because my father through whom I inherit what quirks I have of Southern cuisine absolutely hates it. I have eaten fried okra in restaurants.
3. Made sourdough bread?
No. I'll eat it if there's nothing else, but I don't tend to prefer the flavor of sourdough to other kinds of bread. The exceptions are injera and pumpernickel.
4. Fried chicken?
Yes, most often pounded flat and lightly floured, although I suspect this question is asking about the buttermilk-dredged style.
5. Made spaghetti sauce from scratch?
Yes. I was in grad school the first time and I remember being incredibly proud of thinking to add orange juice for sweetness. I am something of an obligate carnivore and therefore tend to default to the kind with ground beef in it. I didn't like cooked tomatoes at all until I was in high school.
6. Made any kind of yeast bread?
Yes, although not for some time now. It was important for me to learn how to do it, but it doesn't seem to be a form of baking that especially compels me. I also just don't eat that much bread.
7. Baked a cake from scratch?
Yes, often. Honeycakes every year for Rosh Hashanah and, under normal circumstances, an assortment of less ritual cakes for people's birthdays. I also just bake lemon cake every now and then because it's delicious. It's my family's variation on Maida Heatter's East 62nd Street Lemon Cake.
8. Made icing from scratch?
Yes. If I make a cake that requires icing, I also make the icing, with the exception of fondant which I do not believe I have ever tried. In terms of personal preference, I gravitate toward whipped cream, fruit, and glazes.
9. Cooked a pot roast with all the veg?
I don't think so. I didn't grow up in a house with pot roast, to the point where I had to look up the definition before answering this question. My mother makes, and so I learned to make, something she simply calls brisket and which turns out to be a kind of tsimmes with meat—potatoes, carrots, dried prunes and apricots. They're in the same family.
10. Made chili from scratch?
Yes, several times this quarantine, even. It has beans and meat and registers on the Scoville scale and![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and I like it.
11. Made a meatloaf?
No. It is not a food I was raised with and I have never felt the need to try. We make hamburgers when we can afford it.
12. Made scalloped potatoes?
I want to say once for Thanksgiving, which I traditionally use as an excuse for random culinary experimentation, but it must not have blown my mind. The part of the potato I like best in any case is the skin.
13. Made mac/cheese from scratch?
Regularly. It was the default preparation of noodles and cheese in the house when I was a child, with the Annie's white cheddar boxed kind as an occasional treat; it's an essential comfort food. We have made a lot of noodles and cheese this year so far.
14. Made a jello salad?
Never, unless it counts if you just put whipped cream or mandarin orange segments in it, which I'm not sure it does. I had an extremely enlightening conversation about salad once in grad school with a friend from Wisconsin.
15. Made peanut brittle?
No. I am not allergic to them, but I haven't been able to digest nuts for more than fifteen years and it just never came up before then.
16. Made fudge?
One of my family's major traditions is rolling fudge for Christmas and giving it to people at either our annual Hanukkah party or our Christmas eggnog. I am highly doubtful it will be safe to do so this year and I hate it.
17. Made cookies from scratch?
Yes. The ones in the kitchen right now are snickerdoodles.
18. Cooked a pot of beans from dried beans?
Yes, since we have some delicious heirloom beans that don't come any way other than dried. Most of our lentils are also not stored in cans.
19. Cooked a pot of greens?
Yes. I like a lot of dark leafy greens and nutritionally they are useful to me. About ten years ago I went through a phase of serious chard. I have even cooked collards, which I love.
20. Made cornbread from scratch?
Yes. I grew up eating a reasonable amount of cornbread, sometimes with bacon or cheese or corn or chili powder in it, but I usually make it plain myself, and not too sweet.
21. Made a pie dough from scratch?
Yes, but the only time I remember being really satisfied with it was the Zwiebelkuchen, which now that I have two partners with onion allergies is never happening again.
22. Cooked a whole turkey?
Never by myself! Otherwise, I have been helping with the Thanksgiving turkey since I was small.
23. Snapped green beans and cooked them?
Yes, although under protest, because I hate green beans.
24. Made mashed potatoes from scratch?
Yes, although mostly for other people to eat.
25. What's the most people you have (alone) prepared a whole meal for?
I have no idea. Three or four at the most, I imagine. Under normal circumstances, I am involved several times a year in cooking or baking for a couple dozen people, but not singlehandedly.
26. Poached an egg?
No, althoughspatch learned how during the quarantine and has been eating them intermittently ever since.
27. Made pancakes from scratch?
Yes, but I don't really like pancakes.
28. Roasted vegetables in the oven instead of boiling them?
Yes, because most vegetables are much better roasted than boiled unless they are part of a soup.
29. Made fresh pasta?
Yes, although not recently. I am proudest of the tajarin and of the timechoco_frosh and I accidentally made enough Käsespätzle to feed a small standing army.
30. Made croissants from scratch?
No. Good Lord.
31. Made tuna salad?
Yes, but it turns out I don't like it. I make an analogous dish with egg noodles, cream cheese, and either smoked salmon or kippers, plus black pepper, capers, and garlic or shallots, which tastes much less like a bagel than it looks when you write it out. I realize I confused tuna salad with tuna casserole for purposes of this question, but I'm letting it stand because I still don't like tuna salad. I am not a mayonnaise fan and I much prefer tuna uncooked.
32. Fried fish?
Never the battered-with-chips kind, on account of not having a chip fryer. I have occasionally made the kind that's dusted in breadcrumbs or cornmeal, but I really prefer my fish just sautéed or broiled, if I'm going to cook it.
33. Made baked beans?
Boston baked beans, from scratch? Yes, although life is much more pleasant if we eat B&M from a can.
34. Made ice cream from scratch?
Yesterday!
35. Made jam or jelly?
Yes, but rarely. The most vivid instance was in high school with Concord grapes, when we were still on good terms with the neighbors who had an arbor in their yard. Then I built a radio telescope in our yard and they planted their property line with very forbidding trees.
36. Zested an orange or lemon?
Any time something I'm baking requires it.
37. Made grits from scratch?
If that means cooking the non-instant kind on a stovetop, yes, often, usually with cheese. If it means nixtamalizing the corn myself, no.
38. Made an omelette?
Yes, often. It's one of our standard low-stress dinners. Also usually with cheese.
39. Lived in a house without a dishwasher?
I have lived the majority of my life in houses without a dishwasher. We haven't got a dishwasher now. Is this a question about cooking or a question about social class? I'm not sure it's diagnostic either way.
40. Eaten a bowl of cereal for supper?
I don't like almost any cold cereals and avoid them for breakfast, too. I have a sort of nostalgic fondness for Grape-Nuts, but am no longer sure I could digest them. I like oatmeal and sometimes make it with goat's milk and cinnamon and honey in the evenings.
Last but not least, Readercon has made an official statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter.
I wish I had not dreamed that one of my real-life friends convinced another to fake their own death because they thought it would be funny, especially since it was carried to the point of gaslighting and I was grief-stunned and I couldn't make one of them understand or the other seem to care afterward how incredibly cruel it had been. I had already been upset about other kinds of cruelty right before bed.
I decided to do that Southern U.S.-inflected food meme that has been making the rounds of my friendlist.
Have you ever:
1. Made biscuits from scratch?
Yes, North American-style. Generally a variant on the recipe for drop biscuits found in whichever edition of The Joy of Cooking my parents sent me off to grad school with. I used to have them for breakfast sometimes as a child.
2. Fried fresh okra?
No. Ironically, I did not encounter okra until I was an adult because my father through whom I inherit what quirks I have of Southern cuisine absolutely hates it. I have eaten fried okra in restaurants.
3. Made sourdough bread?
No. I'll eat it if there's nothing else, but I don't tend to prefer the flavor of sourdough to other kinds of bread. The exceptions are injera and pumpernickel.
4. Fried chicken?
Yes, most often pounded flat and lightly floured, although I suspect this question is asking about the buttermilk-dredged style.
5. Made spaghetti sauce from scratch?
Yes. I was in grad school the first time and I remember being incredibly proud of thinking to add orange juice for sweetness. I am something of an obligate carnivore and therefore tend to default to the kind with ground beef in it. I didn't like cooked tomatoes at all until I was in high school.
6. Made any kind of yeast bread?
Yes, although not for some time now. It was important for me to learn how to do it, but it doesn't seem to be a form of baking that especially compels me. I also just don't eat that much bread.
7. Baked a cake from scratch?
Yes, often. Honeycakes every year for Rosh Hashanah and, under normal circumstances, an assortment of less ritual cakes for people's birthdays. I also just bake lemon cake every now and then because it's delicious. It's my family's variation on Maida Heatter's East 62nd Street Lemon Cake.
8. Made icing from scratch?
Yes. If I make a cake that requires icing, I also make the icing, with the exception of fondant which I do not believe I have ever tried. In terms of personal preference, I gravitate toward whipped cream, fruit, and glazes.
9. Cooked a pot roast with all the veg?
I don't think so. I didn't grow up in a house with pot roast, to the point where I had to look up the definition before answering this question. My mother makes, and so I learned to make, something she simply calls brisket and which turns out to be a kind of tsimmes with meat—potatoes, carrots, dried prunes and apricots. They're in the same family.
10. Made chili from scratch?
Yes, several times this quarantine, even. It has beans and meat and registers on the Scoville scale and
spatch and I like it.11. Made a meatloaf?
No. It is not a food I was raised with and I have never felt the need to try. We make hamburgers when we can afford it.
12. Made scalloped potatoes?
I want to say once for Thanksgiving, which I traditionally use as an excuse for random culinary experimentation, but it must not have blown my mind. The part of the potato I like best in any case is the skin.
13. Made mac/cheese from scratch?
Regularly. It was the default preparation of noodles and cheese in the house when I was a child, with the Annie's white cheddar boxed kind as an occasional treat; it's an essential comfort food. We have made a lot of noodles and cheese this year so far.
14. Made a jello salad?
Never, unless it counts if you just put whipped cream or mandarin orange segments in it, which I'm not sure it does. I had an extremely enlightening conversation about salad once in grad school with a friend from Wisconsin.
15. Made peanut brittle?
No. I am not allergic to them, but I haven't been able to digest nuts for more than fifteen years and it just never came up before then.
16. Made fudge?
One of my family's major traditions is rolling fudge for Christmas and giving it to people at either our annual Hanukkah party or our Christmas eggnog. I am highly doubtful it will be safe to do so this year and I hate it.
17. Made cookies from scratch?
Yes. The ones in the kitchen right now are snickerdoodles.
18. Cooked a pot of beans from dried beans?
Yes, since we have some delicious heirloom beans that don't come any way other than dried. Most of our lentils are also not stored in cans.
19. Cooked a pot of greens?
Yes. I like a lot of dark leafy greens and nutritionally they are useful to me. About ten years ago I went through a phase of serious chard. I have even cooked collards, which I love.
20. Made cornbread from scratch?
Yes. I grew up eating a reasonable amount of cornbread, sometimes with bacon or cheese or corn or chili powder in it, but I usually make it plain myself, and not too sweet.
21. Made a pie dough from scratch?
Yes, but the only time I remember being really satisfied with it was the Zwiebelkuchen, which now that I have two partners with onion allergies is never happening again.
22. Cooked a whole turkey?
Never by myself! Otherwise, I have been helping with the Thanksgiving turkey since I was small.
23. Snapped green beans and cooked them?
Yes, although under protest, because I hate green beans.
24. Made mashed potatoes from scratch?
Yes, although mostly for other people to eat.
25. What's the most people you have (alone) prepared a whole meal for?
I have no idea. Three or four at the most, I imagine. Under normal circumstances, I am involved several times a year in cooking or baking for a couple dozen people, but not singlehandedly.
26. Poached an egg?
No, although
spatch learned how during the quarantine and has been eating them intermittently ever since.27. Made pancakes from scratch?
Yes, but I don't really like pancakes.
28. Roasted vegetables in the oven instead of boiling them?
Yes, because most vegetables are much better roasted than boiled unless they are part of a soup.
29. Made fresh pasta?
Yes, although not recently. I am proudest of the tajarin and of the time
choco_frosh and I accidentally made enough Käsespätzle to feed a small standing army.30. Made croissants from scratch?
No. Good Lord.
31. Made tuna salad?
Yes, but it turns out I don't like it. I make an analogous dish with egg noodles, cream cheese, and either smoked salmon or kippers, plus black pepper, capers, and garlic or shallots, which tastes much less like a bagel than it looks when you write it out. I realize I confused tuna salad with tuna casserole for purposes of this question, but I'm letting it stand because I still don't like tuna salad. I am not a mayonnaise fan and I much prefer tuna uncooked.
32. Fried fish?
Never the battered-with-chips kind, on account of not having a chip fryer. I have occasionally made the kind that's dusted in breadcrumbs or cornmeal, but I really prefer my fish just sautéed or broiled, if I'm going to cook it.
33. Made baked beans?
Boston baked beans, from scratch? Yes, although life is much more pleasant if we eat B&M from a can.
34. Made ice cream from scratch?
Yesterday!
35. Made jam or jelly?
Yes, but rarely. The most vivid instance was in high school with Concord grapes, when we were still on good terms with the neighbors who had an arbor in their yard. Then I built a radio telescope in our yard and they planted their property line with very forbidding trees.
36. Zested an orange or lemon?
Any time something I'm baking requires it.
37. Made grits from scratch?
If that means cooking the non-instant kind on a stovetop, yes, often, usually with cheese. If it means nixtamalizing the corn myself, no.
38. Made an omelette?
Yes, often. It's one of our standard low-stress dinners. Also usually with cheese.
39. Lived in a house without a dishwasher?
I have lived the majority of my life in houses without a dishwasher. We haven't got a dishwasher now. Is this a question about cooking or a question about social class? I'm not sure it's diagnostic either way.
40. Eaten a bowl of cereal for supper?
I don't like almost any cold cereals and avoid them for breakfast, too. I have a sort of nostalgic fondness for Grape-Nuts, but am no longer sure I could digest them. I like oatmeal and sometimes make it with goat's milk and cinnamon and honey in the evenings.
Last but not least, Readercon has made an official statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter.
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