Tag: eating

In which rage-eating is a thing

On By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking, idiocy3 Comments

I had a gallbladder attack several years ago; it is an odd feeling to be able to pinpoint precisely the worst pain you’ve ever felt in your entire life. I did not behave well in front of the nurse; when asked to rank my pain from one to ten my response was something along the lines of “I’m at the emergency room for a stomachache, what the hell do you think?”

There may have been more swearing than that; my memory of the event is rather hazy. Because of the extreme pain, you see.

My gallbladder was no longer strictly “my” gallbladder anymore a couple of weeks later (I lost seventeen pounds during the weekend hospital stay, too) and since then I’ve been kinda weird about food. I don’t remember being a hunger asshole in my previous, gallbladdered life, but I do this weird thing now where I go from not hungry at all to HOLY FUCK GOD ALL OF YOU CAN DIE IF YOU DON’T PUT FOOD IN ME RIGHT NOW in no goddamn time at all and I develop rapid rage issues and shakiness if I continue to be denied food. The worst part is that the instinct to gorge myself continues even after I’ve technically eaten enough to satiate myself, because the shit hasn’t had time to get into my bloodstream yet.

This is all just to say that I am typing right now because it was the easiest available way to keep me from shoving an entire bag of Tostitos and salso con queso into my facehole. It occupies my hands while my dinner and my post-dinner chips and like three glasses of orange juice make their way into my system.

(For those of you who may be wondering: no, I’m not diabetic, and last I had it checked my blood sugar was normal. I’m fat, and I’m ungallbladdered, and this started immediately after the surgery. It’s not diabeetus.)

Speaking of food: it’s Thanksgiving weekend, obviously, so if you promise not to cry if I’m less robust with the updates than usual I promise to try my best not to cry when all of you find more important things to do than visit my blog ceaselessly over the weekend. Although it would be nice if you did that; it’s certainly better than shopping, even if I do kinda want to go to the local Gamespot at midnight tomorrow night. Which I am not doing. Because no. I’m actually cooking very little for Thanksgiving itself; I plan on making up for that with the next couple of days. My main goals are to get my comic books organized (four piles: Send to Friend A, Send to Friend B, Keep, and Sell to Dude from the Comic Book Post if He Still Wants Them) and to play computer games and to read. And to not think of my students at all for most of the weekend. It should be an attainable goal; we’ll see.

Enjoy your holiday, if I don’t see you before then. (VISIT MY BLOG CEASELESSLY, I ORDER YOU!)

Vegetating: day two

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking, Teaching1 Comment

IMGP0141Note that this is not actually a picture of the dinner I made tonight; I stole this one off the Interwebs.  It’s the same dish, though, and doesn’t look too far off from what ended up in my Dutch oven– ie, it looked like nothing anyone wanted to eat until we started eating it.    This, folks, is Eggs in Hell– apparently originally a Mario Batali recipe, although the one I followed was from Michael Symon’s 5 in 5 cookbook and is not precisely the recipe outlined in that link.  In particular, it looks a lot less spicy– for example, it only uses one jalapeño instead of four (this may be the first time in my life I’ve had food with jalapeños in it two days in a row) and no red chili flakes.  Basically:  Five eggs, a shallot, a can of San Marzano tomatoes, a clove of garlic, some olive oil (too much, I think, actually), parsley, and the aforementioned jalapeño.  Combine everything but the eggs and set to a-simmerin’ for a few minutes, then turn down the heat a touch and poach the eggs.

The cookbook claimed the eggs would poach in about two minutes.  I have poached eggs in water in two minutes; you cannot poach an egg in simmering tomato juice in two minutes, so there was some consternation about the done-ness of the eggs.  Turns out it takes around five and could maybe have handled another minute.  The dish looks (appropriately, apparently) like hell upon being removed from the heat, so I didn’t take a picture of it– but take a couple of those eggs and some of the sauce and spread ’em over some cheddar cornbread (that recipe, plus half a cup of cheddar in the batter and half a cup over the bread once it’s done cooking) and you have some damn fine food.

(Seriously, I’m never using eggs in cornbread again.  Yogurt yogurt yogurt that cornbread is fantastic.)

Work was annoyingly stressful and I have a feeling if I talk about why I’m going to spend the rest of the entry raining hell down upon a thirteen year old who might actually deserve it for his various acts of stupidity and assholery, but I’m going to refrain anyway.  Once in a while I should act like the adult.

Anyway.  Point is:  I’ve survived two days as a vegetarian, because shut up, eggs aren’t meat.  Five more to go!

SUPER IMPORTANT OH I ALMOST FORGOT EDIT:  I bought the ghost chilies.  So.  Do you know me in the real world?  Are you interested in a suicide pact?  LET US MAKE DEATH CHILI TOGETHER.

In which break out those recipe boxes

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking6 Comments

kale-granola-6

Announcement follows!  Beginning this Sunday, the sixth of October, in the 2013th year of the Common Era, I shall become a vegetarian for the time span of one (1) Earth week.  Here is my definition of “vegetarian”:  I will not eat anything that at any point in its life walked.  I shall limit myself to one (1) serving during the week of anything that used to swim, and I shall only consume things that swam if the alternative is devouring an enormous steak and destroying my streak.  Things made from former things that walked, or things that came out of things that walked are exempt; in other words, if I want some chicken stock or beef broth in my food, or if I want to eat eggs, I’m gonna.  Honey, despite being an animal product, is also clearly not meat. Plus whatever other rules I feel like I need for whatever reason I choose to need them.

Why am I doing this?

Well… uh… no reason, really.  I’ve had, through the purest chance, three dinners in a row where I didn’t have any meat, and something like six of the last eight meals (lunch today had turkey) were meatless and I noticed.  I’m curious to find out if I can drag it out for an entire week.  I have no actual attraction to vegetarianism as a sustained lifestyle choice– I don’t actually eat all that much red meat, to be honest, but doing without chicken is unimaginable– and animal rights appeals do not particularly move me.  No, I don’t slaughter my own meat, but you can be damn sure that if I had to I’ll kill the hell out of a chicken or a pig or a cow no matter how pretty her big brown eyes are.  I wouldn’t like it very much the first time but I’d get over it quick.  No, it’s mostly just curiosity.  I wanna see if I can.  The wife claims that it’ll be a piece of cake for her (she’s participating in the game is as well, which means so is the boy) but I’m waaaay more of a carnivore than she is.

Anyway:  gimme some recipes, kids.  Nothing’s off-limits.

(Also: I’m starting Sunday because we have preexisting dinner plans for my mom’s birthday tomorrow, at a Chinese restaurant, and while eating vegetarian Chinese isn’t exactly terribly difficult I’m not going to want to, and we’re out of town all day on Saturday, which will involve unpredictable food options.  I’m not going to set myself up to fail and I’m sure as hell not going to be a dick about what I’ll eat at my uncle’s wake, so we’ll start the day after and go Sunday to Sunday.)

This’ll be fun.