In which I am almost defeated

Luther M. Siler

We had a training day today, so no kids, and one of my co-workers walked in and handed this to me. It’s his wife’s work, and I’m happy to announce that I am now in a polyamorous relationship, because I absolutely must be married to anyone who is able to produce pecan cheesecake in any capacity, and pecan cheesecake of this unbelievably high quality should be on sale in stores.(*) I told my co-worker that had I paid $30 or $40 for an entire pie I would not feel cheated. It was that good– gooey, caramelly, with absolutely perfect cheesecake and a fucking amazing crust. My mouth is still watering looking at it.

Of course, the sugar level sent me into a coma for the rest of the day– the second piece I had a couple hours later did not help– and it is 9:19 as I’m typing this and I didn’t not get around to posting today so much as I completely forgot the blog existed until just now, so lucky for everyone I had this deliciousness on my phone to make you all jealous of me.

Just don’t have two pieces. You will die. You will die happy, but if you die, you can’t have any more pecan cheesecake.

(*) I did not inform either my co-worker or his wife of this, although I did tell him he should do whatever is necessary for the rest of his life to keep her around. I should probably get around to that. People like to know about it when they’re married to other people, right?

In which I achieve something, maybe, a little

Luther M. Siler

On the one hand, my dinner just now represents somewhat of a milestone. I wasn’t in the mood for anything we had premade and on hand, and I didn’t want to leave the house to go get something, so I looked in the pantry, found some ingredients, and put together a tasty thing to eat. On the other, what basically amounted to ramen tomato soup doesn’t really scream “creativity,” and it doesn’t look like much either, but here it is:

That’s butter, minced garlic, tomato paste, cream of chicken soup, a little bit of heavy cream, ramen, freshly-grated parmesan, and salt and pepper, and if I’d have been thinking I’d have thrown some Italian seasoning into the sauce as well. Yeah, it looks a little gross; I am not a food photographer, shut up. Yes, I could have achieved very similar results by simply throwing a block of ramen into a half-jar of Ragú, and if I’d done it that way I would have the balance of sauce to ramen much better than this, which had too much sauce. Oh, and next time I definitely need to cook the ramen separately, as the sauce didn’t have enough water in it to cook it with its normal speed. (It wasn’t undercooked, and I added water, but next time I need to just cook it separately.

I’m not going to start writing cookbooks or anything, but this still feels like a step of some sort, as I am very very reliant on and panicky about recipes whenever I actually cook anything. So … yay me? Sure. Yay me.

Soooooouuuuuuuuupppppp

Luther M. Siler

I think the general feeling is that the first experiment with Pepper Belly Pete’s recipes was a resounding success, although when I make this again I’m going to fiddle with it a little bit. I feel like it wants corn, for some reason, and both my wife and I prefer our soups a little creamier than anything with a chicken broth base is usually going to be, so there might be some experimentation to see what the best way to thicken the broth is. Maybe toss something in there to add a little heat, too. More experienced cooks than myself are welcome to leave suggestions.

The critical part, the “dumplings,” came out more or less exactly how we wanted them to, although next time we might cut them a little smaller than quartering the biscuits. That’s a minor complaint, of course.

This will be my next TikTok-related food creation– this is the same guy as the apple cider cookies from a few weeks ago– and then I’ll probably try something else of Pete’s:

@bdylanhollis

Christmas on another level? #baking #vintage #cooking #christmas

♬ original sound – B. Dylan Hollis

In which this is stupid and that is stupid and everything is stupid set it all on fire

Luther M. Siler6 Comments

An overstatement? Maybe. But probably not.

Today has been ridiculous; every time I’ve turned around all day it has been suddenly hours later than I thought it was. This odd temporal phenomenon started when my wife and I both woke up at the exact same second at 8:30 this morning, I said good morning to her, mumbled something about both of us waking up and reaching for our phones at the exact same moment, and then four seconds later it was 10:30 and I was still in bed. Then she went to the grocery, which she does every Saturday, and during that time I clean up the kitchen and do various and sundry things around the house, only today somehow that took an hour longer than usual, and by the time she got home it was somehow past 1:00.

Then it was 4:30.

Nothing happened in between. I mean, she took a shower, but I don’t think that shower took three and a half hours, and I spent some amount of time X bouncing back and forth between trying to figure out why several of the streaming apps on my office TV suddenly wouldn’t work (never try to solve TV tech support issues online; Googling these things properly is impossible) and then, moments later (or maybe it was an hour, who knows) realizing that I’d somehow uploaded the wrong video to YouTube for today, only the video that actually got uploaded shouldn’t have existed in the first place, and that’ll take longer to explain than it’s probably worth, just trust me that the video that got uploaded shouldn’t have been real and roll with it.

Anyway, I fixed the YouTube thing (follow me on YouTube!) but the TV thing still eludes me; the error message has changed since earlier today, so I’m currently suspecting something on LG’s end, but we’ll see.

Tomorrow I am making this:

@pepperbellypete

Chicken and Dumplings.#tiktokcooks #easyrecipe #soup #comfortfood #receta #southern #recipe #learnontiktok #foodie #foryoupage #yum #fypシ

♬ original sound – Pepper Belly Pete

I discovered this delightful man’s TikTok account this weekend, and he is my new favorite person– do not miss the fact that he wears an actual fucking wrist-mounted bandolier of hot sauces– and I not only want to make his food, I want him to be my dad. Now, understand something; my actual dad reads my blog, so he’s going to see that sentence. He’s also going to be here tomorrow to eat the chicken and dumplings, and I think once he watches a few of Pepper Belly Pete’s videos he will not only agree that Pepper Belly Pete should be my dad, he should also be my dad’s dad, and therefore also my grandfather. He’s just that delightful.

I look forward to discovering he’s a milkshake duck in a couple of days, now that I’ve pronounced my affection for him, but the time in between now and then will be full of good food.

On learning, and how I will never

Luther M. Siler

The events of the last, oh, twenty-eight hours or so:

  • Had Taco Bell for dinner
  • Couldn’t sleep for shit last night
  • Woke up and immediately puked
  • Took the boy to school
  • Came home and slept until 2:30 PM
  • Picked the boy up from school
  • Recorded, unshowered and still kinda queasy, a couple of episodes of Pokémon Sword with said boy
  • Started this blog post

I have to learn to not eat shit. Eating shit is bad! Like, predictably! I know this! And it’s not like it’s good enough to compensate for missing work because of vomiting and nausea! Come the fuck on, man, be an adult!

Sigh.