cooking – Page 2 – Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com

On failed pilgrimages and also sandwiches

April 29, 2021 Luther M. Siler2 Comments

I told this story on Twitter just now, and after much searching discovered that somehow I have never told it on the blog. So:

I’m your huckleberry.

I went to college at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. There was a sandwich place near campus (still is, actually) called Dagwood’s.

Dagwood’s was very popular because 1) Delicious and 2) they delivered until the wee hours of the morning. https://t.co/mXzrUS8344
— Luther M. Siler (@nfinitefreetime) April 29, 2021

I lived off of Dagwood’s sandwiches for four years and in particular off of one sandwich called the Supreme. Picture a sandwich that might be called the Supreme, then double the meat. Add some sauce, I dunno what kind but I loved it. Best sandwich ever.
— Luther M. Siler (@nfinitefreetime) April 29, 2021

Fast forward many years. I live in northern Indiana and have not been to Dagwood’s in quite a while, although I still go when I’m in Bloomington and get the chance.

I hear through the grapevine that a new sandwich place is opening up downtown.

It’s called Dagwood’s.
— Luther M. Siler (@nfinitefreetime) April 29, 2021

When I tell you that I monitored every scrap of information about this new restaurant that I could get, I am not kidding. We were there on opening day, midafternoon. Strangely, the place is nearly deserted, and they have a very different decor style from “my” Dagwood’s.
— Luther M. Siler (@nfinitefreetime) April 29, 2021

But no matter! I want a Supreme. I need a Supreme. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks.

I scan the menu and … this isn’t my Dagwood’s. This is just a place called Dagwood’s.

I have been cruelly fooled.
— Luther M. Siler (@nfinitefreetime) April 29, 2021

The cashier behind the counter watches me, and watches this drama play out on my face.

I make eye contact with her. I am struggling not to lose my faith in the universe.

She looks me dead in the eye and says “Let me guess. You went to IU.”

This had been happening all day.
— Luther M. Siler (@nfinitefreetime) April 29, 2021

I ordered something, I don’t remember what. It was fine, I suppose. I couldn’t just turn around and *leave*, that would have been … coarse.

The place closed a few months later, having disappointed half the college-educated citizens of South Bend.

The end.
— Luther M. Siler (@nfinitefreetime) April 29, 2021

I take it back. One more tweet. This is a Supreme. This is the sandwich to end all sandwiches.

I have not had one in years, and I swear to you that my mouth is watering right now. pic.twitter.com/iVRx5HhAiK
— Luther M. Siler (@nfinitefreetime) April 29, 2021

I gotta drive to Bloomington now. Back tomorrow.

In which he doesn’t like it

November 19, 2020 Luther M. Siler2 Comments

Does anyone else out there have, or did you at one point have, a kid that just wouldn’t fucking eat?

I’m not talking about picky eating. This is not a situation where the kid will only eat French fries and chicken nuggets or some shit like that. This is “it is 4:15 PM and my son has not had a meal yet today, because he’s refused every offer of food I’ve made and has not gotten any for himself, and it’s probably the fifteenth time out of the last twenty days that that’s happened.”

Once dinner rolls around, he will eat three or four bites of something and then proclaim himself full. And he’s not filling up on junk food, either; I literally just handed him a bowl of chips to get him to get some kind of calories inside him, and he handed it back to me.

He is not underweight and he is growing like a weed; at nine years old, he is alarmingly close to my wife’s height already. But … shit, if child protective services were to show up at my house and start interrogating my son about how much he eats, I’d end up in jail, and I would understand why. It’s like he lives on air. I don’t have the slightest idea why he’s not incapacitated by hunger right now, but he’s not. He’s completely fine.

Someone, please, explain this to me, or at least reassure me that eventually it’s going to stop.

ATTENTION

September 7, 2020September 7, 2020 Luther M. Siler4 Comments

I am attempting to BAKE.

Traditionally this does NOT GO WELL. My last attempt involved not realizing the temperatures I was using were in Celsius.

Alert the authorities as needed.

UPDATE: this stage was basically “leave it alone for an hour to proof, then add chocolate chips,” so I was able to handle that:

UPDATE 2: I may have done this right. My god does it smell good.

In which you are what you eat and I am a mystery

June 16, 2020June 16, 2020 Luther M. Siler

I very nearly ended today’s earlier post with a suggestion that I might take a couple of days off. I deleted it on account of no I fucking won’t, so of course here I am a few hours later with a second post for the day.

We are doing a vegetarian week this week. This is not as big of a deal as it might sound; while I am very much a fan of meat and remaining a vegetarian for my entire life is not really something I’m interested in doing, I’ve been eating veggie burgers for lunch for like two weeks and I enjoy eating damn near everything vegetarians eat. So a week of being a vegetarian is really not a terribly difficult thing to do.

At least, when I’m paying attention.

The boy wanted McDonald’s for lunch today, and I couldn’t think of a good reason to tell him no, so we went. I toned down what I usually get on account of I’m trying to pay more attention to eating better in general (yes, I know McDonald’s is not progress in the “eat better” department, but at least I had less of it) and I swear to you that it took until well after I was finished with my lunch to realize that a McDonald’s Daily Double is made of meat.

Which, you need to understand here, this is a category error on my part, and not me just forgetting that I was a vegetarian this week. There’s been at least one vegetarian week where there was pizza at work and I absent-mindedly had a slice of pepperoni without thinking about it. This isn’t that. This is a McDonald’s Daily Double does not process in my brain as a cheeseburger, and it did not even occur to me to think that those two delicious, peppery patties were meat. What the fuck are they? They’re Daily Double patties, apparently. Made of what? Love and cholesterol. Sure as hell not meat.

I’m a lot of things, but “bright” ain’t one of them.

7:45 PM, Tuesday June 16th: 2,134,973 confirmed cases and 116,854 Americans dead.

I’m making dinner tonight…

April 23, 2020 Luther M. Siler

Jambalaya time!

…and beyond that, I’ve got nothing.

I was gonna say “Enjoy your Friday,” but it’s apparently Thursday for some reason? So, uh, enjoy your Thursday. Or, hell, enjoy Friday too; no skin off my back.

3:35 PM, Thursday April 23: 856,209 and 47,272. I expect we’ll be over 900K and 50K by the end of the week.