Also, I Don't Want To.....

This is an actual text message conversation between Chris and I. He was in the basement and I was upstairs, and obviously I'm too lazy to go downstairs to talk to him. Also, he can't hear me if I try and yell. I want to put in some kind of between floors vent solely for the purpose of yelling, but Chris says no. So this is what happens...

Me: When you come upstairs will you take out the trash?

Chris: What, are your legs broken?

Me: Well, I don't have pants on so that's pretty much the same thing....

At this point, I swear I could hear a *facepalm*...

Chris: Yes

Me: You're the best

Chris: Yes

That's Some Pig....

Yes, I realize that this post is about Thanksgiving and it's the week before Christmas. That's what procrastinating is all about, people. Geez. There was a whole long post in my head about how I decided not to make a turkey for Thanksgiving. It was moving and poignant and touched on politics and the oppression of native cultures. But I've slept (a lot) since then, and drunk (a lot) since then, so here's the short version: Fuck turkey! It's all pig this year! 


That's right, it's porchetta time. For those of you who don't receive two different food magazines, read various food writers and watch a lot of cooking network; a porchetta is a pork belly (that's bacon, people) wrapped around a pork tenderloin and roasted until it's crispy, delicious, and I'm pretty sure a sin against god and nature. It's a pig stuffed in a pig. At least it's all one animal. Not like those turduckens. That's just some crazy Dr. Moreau shit...

You maybe wondering about the advisability of making a complicated, involved, never-before-attempted dish on an occasion such as Thanksgiving. An occasion already rife with chances of failure. Well, let's just say I love a challenge. Or I'm crazy. Maybe a little from column A, a little from column B...

The porchetta requires assembly 24-48 hours before cooking, so Tuesday evening I began. After banishing all husbands and animals to the basement with orders to, "Leave me and the pork the hell alone already!", I carefully assembled my tools and ingredients.

                                         (magazine with what the porchetta is SUPPOSED to look like)
My first step was to lay out the pork belly and stab it all over. Then pound it with a meat mallet. That's right, I said pound that meat. God, you people are immature. After furiously stabbing this giant slab of protein, possibly yelling "Die heathen pork!", I flipped it over to give it a good pounding. Really? Again with the immature... That's when I noticed it.

(I should first clarify that porchetta calls for skin-on pork belly. The skin gets all crackly and brown, making the whole thing look like some porky gift from heaven.)

There is was...staring at me. Just, right there hanging out. It was...a nipple.
That's right. There was a goddamned nipple on my goddamned pork belly. So obviously, I took a picture of it...

                                                            I think it's winking at me.
Really, this isn't rocket science. This is the belly portion of a mammal. Mammals have nipples. Pigs are animals. This is not some crazy revelation. (It's like it's staring at you, isn't it?) But still, you don't really expect a nipple to show up in your food. As soon as I saw it I jumped back with a loud "Holy shit!" There might have also been a dance. You know the one, the hopping from one foot to the other, hands waving, shouting EWWWWWW! (It's like you can't look away, right?) This was a roadblock in my quest for culinary glory. The nipple clearly, could not remain. I tried to cut it off myself, but one touch and Hey! there's that dance again. So I did what any self-respecting, strong, feminist woman would do. I called for Chris...

Me: Hey honey? I need you to de-nipple my pork belly.
Chris: What?
Me: There's a nipple on my pork belly and I need you to come take care of it. It's freaking me out.
Chris: Of course you do....

And he did.

Crisis averted, I resumed creating my masterpiece. Next, I laid out my newly nipple-free pork belly and salted, peppered and spiced. Then, I laid out my pork tenderloin and covered it with thinly sliced oranges. The result was this...

                                                                                           I know, right? 

Now I had to tie the motherfucker. Having never actually bothered tying roasts or chickens, I was somewhat at a loss. Sure, I could take the easy way out and tie loops around the roast, each loop separate from the other. But no! I was on a cooking high! This porchetta deserved better than that. This deserved professional tying, just like the pros do it. So now, how do I do that? This is where we all say a big thankbabyjesus for YouTube. After watching a very instructional video on how to tie a roast a couple of times through, I was ready. Or so I thought. After two tries and some VERY colorful language. I realized I needed to watch and tie at the same time. So there I was, laptop on my counter, trying to tie a roast that was the size and weight of a baby all while trying not to get meat juice on my computer. At one point while trying to wrestle it into submission, I'm pretty sure I had it in what amounted to a headlock. If you've never had pork in your armpit...But there! It was tied! Wrangled into a uniform shape and tied with overlapping loops that all connected! I think I may have done the Rocky victory dance and sung Eye of the Tiger a little. And this is what it looked like...

                                                         Porchetta, you are my bitch.


When Thanksgiving day arrived I hauled the ten pound monstrosity out of the fridge for a rest at room temperature. Then into the oven it went. After two hours the house smelled like crispy pork skin. Meaty, juicy, melting fat pork. MMMMMMM.....poooorrrkkk....(Homer Simpson drool face).....
After another hour, we were waiting at the oven door for it to be done. Even after appetizers and two bottles of wine, no one could wait for dinner to REALLY begin. And here. Was. The. Result.

                                                                     Damn, I'm good.


And it was delicious. The oranges gave it a hint of sweetness and citrus. The chili flake was a pleasant heat in the back of your throat. And over all of it, the richness of the pork. Freaking delicious.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Perhaps a Christmas blog post will be in order somewhere around Valentine's Day.....

I Heart Portland...

I've lived in this city for seven and a half years now and I'm still in love. I haven't expressed my Portland love lately, what with the lack of oh, I don't know, SUMMER. Nevertheless, with the epic visit from the BFF from OKC on the horizon I feel the need to re-visit why I moved here in the first place.

The story of how we moved to Portland is one fraught with danger, madness and true love. Also, possibly alcohol. All I knew is that we had to get the hell out of Texas. Sorry Austin, you're great and all, but I'm not living in the middle of a sauna. So we had to choose. Go east to NYC or Boston? Too expensive. Go west to San Francisco? Also too expensive. Middle America was a big HELL NO. Florida was out as being, well, Florida. So that pretty much just left the Pacific Northwest. We picked Portland because it seemed a little quirkier than Seattle. Really, it was process of elimination. And I say we chose...wisely.

Things I Love About Portland:

1. The food. It's not for nothing that Portland is a food city to rival NYC. The sheer amount of crazy rockstar chefs and foodies in this town is mind-blowing.
Some examples:
Bunk
Le Pigeon
Beast
Pok Pok
Toro Bravo
Russell St. BBQ
Not to mention the foodcartapalooza that has taken over the city...

Fried pie at 2am? Yes please!

2. Mountains to the east, ocean to the west. Can't decide if you're a mountain man or a water baby? Pick both. How about at the same time! The Oregon coast has a wildness to it that you don't get in the Gulf. Also, less sewage and jellyfish. So bonus all around. It's harsher, more rugged and a hell of a lot colder. (That would be my only complaint. A day at the beach should not include three sweaters.) On the other side you've got Mt. Hood and all the hiking, camping and roughing it you can stand. In the summer anyway...

I can't see my house from here...

3. Things like this...

Just another day downtown...

The sweetest thing ever.

Another reason to love PDX!

Yay Portland! 

Now stop fucking RAINING!!!!

For Art

Did anyone hear about the lady in Las Vegas who was missing for four months and then they found her in her own house buried under piles of crap she was hoarding? "WTF!", you might say. And WTF is right. Seriously, the poor woman was missing for months. Search dogs were brought into the house and the surrounding area and couldn't find a trace of her. Then her husband starts moving stuff around and sees her feet sticking Wicked Witch of the West style out from under a pile. (When he uncovered them, did the feet curl up and disappear?) How fucked up is that? When search dogs can't even find you in your own house because of all the other crap. And what happened to her? Did she have a heart attack and just slowly get covered up with stuff? Kind of like fossilization. Or maybe she needed this one piece of paper at the bottom of the pile and it all just came crashing down on her. The mind boggles. Ok, seriously, I know I shouldn't be making fun of the poor dead lady with the mental disorder, but FOR REALS. She was buried under her own stuff. There's a metaphor there somewhere. Something about rampant consumerism burying us all. But we can't find it, because there's TOO MUCH STUFF!

I can't even watch that show Hoarders. It's just too much crazy. And seriously gross when people are hoarding animals or rotting food. Ewww. It also hits a little too close to home. You see, I come from a long line of pack rats. And by long line I mean just my mom. Not that it isn't really likely there are unknown Japanese relatives somewhere that can't get rid of stuff. For the sake of our ancestors, throw out all of these chopsticks! It's true. Mom likes to save things. Things that might be used later, "for art". Like paper towel rolls. Or egg cartons. What art, you may ask? No one knows. You know how everyone always says they're NEVER going to be like their parents? Yeah, good luck with that. I realized this when we were cleaning house and Chris asked if he could throw away a bunch of foam I was saving. "No!", I said. "I'm going to use it." "What the hell for?", he asked. "For art." Shit. Did I just say "for art"?

The Giving Tree Needs To Give It Up

Does anyone else think that book The Giving Tree is kind of fucked up? I feel like I've always been vaguely unsettled by it. It seemed a little...creepy. But everyone had it as a child! And everyone still gives it to people who have kids! It's like Goodnight Moon. Have a kid, and you WILL get The Giving Tree. For reals, if someone gives me that book I'm using it to illustrate to my child how to tell if they're in an abusive relationship. I'm all about giving and thinking of others and blah blah blah. But only to a point. I'm not letting someone take everything I have and not give anything in return. Fuck. That.

Good thing I'm not the only one who feels that way.....

I Think I'm Alone Now...

Yesterday, Chris returned from his Great European Tour. He had been gone for two and a half weeks. That's the longest amount of time we've been apart since we got married. I'll admit, I was a little worried. Was I going to be one of THOSE girls that get all depressed and mope around the whole time. Who go out with friends, but sigh deeply every five minutes until you want to drown them in your all-you-can-eat soup salad and breadsticks? Thankfully, no. This is what I've learned....

1. I have great friends! I spent a lot of time hanging out with my girls. Shopping, happy hours, movies, parties; they really came through for me.

2. Being single is expensive. See above: shopping, movies, etc. Without Chris there to keep me in check I felt flush with cash. Tears and recriminations to follow.

3. I have big plans and little follow-through. I'll organize all our photos! I'll make a new recipe every day! I'll have a crafting party! Or I'll lay on the couch watching True Blood and call that bag of Smartpop dinner. Yeah.

Mainly though, I learned that I can have a great time by myself. That I could live alone and not get freaked out by weird noises. (Still not going in the basement after dark, though. Just sayin'.) That I really do have a lot of stuff to keep me occupied. And most of all, that I'm glad when he comes back. Especially with a bag full of British snack foods. Roast Chicken potato chips anyone?

The GPS tried to kill us...again.

To be fair, the GPS didn't so much try to kill us as it tried to make Chris go crazy so that he killed us. Clever GPS. It started out so innocent...

"Let's go eat enchiladas and go to Value Village," I said. "MMMM....enchiladas," Chris said.

After consuming an entire Mexican village worth of food, I google Value Village. I opt for the one that seems closest. We get into the area where the Value Village is supposed to be, but no VV in sight.

Chris: I thought you knew where it was.

Me: I know approximately where it should be. What, you need EXACT directions?

Chris: Apparently you do.

Me: How long have you known me?! My motto is,"It's Around Here Somewhere."

Chris: *grumble, grumble*

Me: It's like an adventure!

Chris: *stabbing eyes out*

Me: Fine. That's why we have the GPS.

Or so we thought....

GPS: Go 300 feet and make a right.

Chris: Wait...there's no place to turn.

GPS: Recalculating. Go .2 miles and turn left.

Chris: Ok...no...that's a one way!

GPS: Recalculating! Turn right then make a right.

Chris: ?

GPS: Recalculating. Recalculating! RECALCULATING!

Me: The map is spinning. That can't be good....

Chris: *rage* *anger* *vein in forehead throbbing*

Me: Uh, honey? You ok?

GPS: TURN RIGHT THEN RIGHT RECALCULATING!!!!!

You know when the Hulk is totally about to Hulk out? Yeah, it was kinda like that....
Chris takes the GPS and hurls it into the back seat. There is silence. I wonder if I should say anything (probably not). Then...

GPS: Recalculating.

I couldn't help it. I busted out laughing. It was so goddamned funny! Gales of hysterical laughter. Then Chris broke up too. Pulled over on the side of the road dying laughing. He actually had to get out of the car and climb into the back seat to retrieve the (apparently possessed) GPS. We re-entered the address and it seemed to be working fine.

Chris: This Value Village better be good.

GPS: Arriving at your destination on the right.

Me: Oh, you mean the Value Village that is now a Grocery Outlet?

Hulk angry.....