The Memes Before Christmas

 You know a GIF is 3/4ths of a gift, right?

We Have HOW Many Days to Christmas?

 

F'd it up again, right? Three-four days out from Cringletide and the stockings are short and the lists were long and you didn't even have enough wrapping paper to cover the spread. For one thing--Asshole! This day comes round the same date every year, pay attention next time! But also I've been there so let me  help you with the leaks in your holiday boat before you drown yourself in eggnog--again. 

Nothing is wrong with gift cards. The state mandates these hoobajoobs don't depreciate. so just admit you gave up, they are grown people and can buy their own shit and figure out a store they will actually go to.  Supermarkets are for real a good choice. People eat. Bread, eggs, carrots. Get them some of those reuseable shopping bags and wrap that up in a store circular (which is free) if you were so trash you didn't even have a reserve bag of wrapping. Amazon cards are also available at most supermarkets and drug stores, so you can do that, and buy a cute card. Job done. 

May the Fourth Be With You!

This is kind of a significant holiday in my mind, even if it isn't a national holiday. (My sort of drunk neighbors across the street celebrated Derby Day, because it involved Bourbon beverages and because they could not wait for Cinco de Mayo, also known as the day we venerate fermented agave products. They may have not known what to drink for Fourth Day, but the answer is, whatever, so long as the force is with you. I have the force with me, because I Drink, or Drink Not--there is no Dry.)

The reason I like remembering Star Wars in a holiday sort of way, though, is because it was, yea, verily, the movie they now call Episode Four that was the first movie I ever saw in a theater. Oh my, yes. My cousin Joan took me to the Crest theater which was one of those old-timey affairs with one, count'em, one screen.  If you had to pick one movie to be your first in-a-theater movie though, you could have done far worse.  I was a little kid, so every image imprinted on my impressionable brain, and a lot of things were decided.

Leia was awesome, because she knew what she was doing and was like, the leader of the rebels, which naturally made her the hero of the movie, thank you very much.

Luke Skywalker was awkward and was very lucky to run into Obi-Wan Kenobi, or he would have been totally stuck shooting wamp-rats and watching his toenails grow.

I totally decided things about what is a cute boy because Han Solo.

And the scene where they ended up in the trash compactor has given me anxiety to this day--not because the walls were closing in. Oh, no. I am a person who would be at home in a straitjacket--give me hugs or give me agoraphobia (hashtag, TMI). It was the dirtiness that bugged me. It was wet and there was squishy bits. I to this day do not like being in close contact with squishy dirty things.

I also think it isn't surprising that I saw Obi-Wan as a grandfatherly figure and thought his death was terribly sad from Luke's POV. But it wasn't until I was older that the destruction of Alderaan seemed like the enormity that it actually was.  And now this is, to me, about as symbolic of the badness of the Dark Side as the corruption of Anakin and the slaughter of the Younglings--the Dark Side brings destructive senseless shit.

I think you understand why anyone would want to be a Jedi when you are young, but you don't get the Dark Side and why it sucks so hard but still appeals to some, until you get older. In other words, Star Wars has been a big part of the prism I view my reality through.

We Interrupt this Blog for An Advertisement That May be of Interest

It strikes me that October is Halloween Month, and I am momentarily fascinated by horrific things. Not ghosts, at present--I am reading Varney the Vampire, a Victorian Penny Dreadful, though, and most of my birthday booty included similarly spooky fare. I think for the next month I might undertake to regale you with things I find pertaining to dread and wonderful happenings. And suchlike boo bidness.

Belated St Patty's Day Not-entirely-Random Meat Offering

This, of course, is corned beef with cabbage, potatoes and carrots. It is supposed to be the epitome of Irish cuisine.  I, for what it's worth, love the way boiled cabbage, potatoes, and carrots come out in a dish like this, where the ingredients can be cooked ensemble in a crock pot or in a large stew pot on the stove top.  The flavor of the corned beef enhances the vegetables and makes them very brothy and agreeable.

The sticking point for me is the corned beef. It's boiled beef and it's pink. I've cooked meat in ways that I would considered bad--I braised a great big turkey leg in wine until it had the basic consistency of Happy Fun Ball.  I've broiled strip steaks for a period > 8 minutes. (No, don't hate me. I was young, I didn't know. The crispy bits were really reminiscent of well-done beef bacon, so it wasn't all bad. No, they weren't an inch thick, even. Thus, the crispage. In future, I will always do these in a pan w/butter and close attention!)  But boiled beef just feels wrong to me.

Don't get me wrong. My mom has made pot roast,  even crock-pot beef, that has been tender and not without flavor, but when I'm presented with a roast cut, my first instinct is to roast. And when I see pink meat, I am either looking at ham or the inside of my rare skirt-steak--I just don't get corned beef (except as a luncheon meat, in which case it is truly delicious and ridiculously good with cole slaw or sauerkraut on a nice rye bread.).

I prepared corned beef with potatoes and cabbage all of once. My first husband was full-blooded Irish and very proud of his heritage, so I wanted to make a meal for St. Pat's that expressed my appreciation of a heritage I share (like, I think 25%? mixed with sundry other things).   It wasn't the worst meal I ever made (That was the braised turkey.) It wasn't even bad. It needed, perhaps, a story to go along with it, about the history of Ireland and why this dish was part of our culture. As it was, we had leftovers that went to the back of the fridge for a bit. They went blue, not green after several weeks at the back of the fridge, and we didn't even save the plastic container.  It may be the dish wasn't all it could be because I'd never had good corned beef and potatoes, so I didn't know how it ought to taste, and maybe somewhere a great plate of these can be found.

Knowing now that salt pork was the original meat at the center of the cuisine makes a difference to me, though. I've long appreciated the flavors that pork fat imparts in vegetables from doing greens or lima bean in pork hocks; I think I may want to revisit this dish to see if it can be done in a more flavorful, and authentic way. Although, thanks to my current, Italian-American spouse, my answer to this dish is going to look like pan-fried prosciutto with fennel in the place of cabbage and the spuds will also be fried, unless I decide to serve my fennel and prosciutto over potato gnocchi. Yummmmm. Irish/Italian fusion doesn't sound so bad, right? Or, to get down to the boil and the cabbage, start with a mirepoix of onion, celery and carrot, and then dump in minced savoy cabbage, and have them simmered with pork hocks that were already roasted so they were ready to yield the best of their gelatinous flavor and  a couple quarts of vegetable or chicken stock. Simple, peasant-style eats, but done, you know, with intensity.

No Prell-tasting green food colored beer. Just the kind of food my Irish ancestors would have found an affordable bounty.

Happy New Year--here's a nice video.

Well, with a wee bit of cartoon violence:



Makes you feel all auld-lang-syne-y, nu?

Have a Happy New Year, peoples.

Have A Zesty Generika!

Okay--I don't like doing Christmas cards. This is an issue I have--it's an obligation to mail a thing that serves little value to a person or persons who may have great social value to me, or, you know, I only have them sort of randomly in my address-book. If I really wanted to stay in touch and wish people really well and all that--I could send them an e-mail. Even attach some kind of festive clip-art. In minutes, I could design something that says "Yay, this time of year!" and "Thinking of you!" with a touch of genuine-ness.

Christmas/Holiday cards don't have this thing. I don't like them. Sometimes, they are too religion-specific for me. I don't celebrate the Baby Jesus' birthday at Christmas. I don't assume this is what other people are celebrating--so I want to keep my cards just a bit generic. I think of my December-based holiday as "Generika". The "k" means it might vaguely have something to do with culture, but otherwise, I am a very "happy holidays" kind of girl. Except for my feelings about happy....and holiday.....

See, "happy" is overused in greeting cards. Happy Valentines, Happy Halloween, Happy, Happy. Are we on uppers? Also: "Merry". Does this ever get said in real life? Have you ever said, "You know, eating pork rinds with a good chardonnay gives me a merry feeling"? Obviously, this pairing would be awesome. A crisp, sharp tang of white wine against the greasy, salty burst of porkulence? Hello? Sleigh bells in your mouth! But "merry"?

No. You don't say that. "Merry" has been subsumed into the linguistic category of "things you only say around Christmas". Christmas killed "merry". It's just a ghost haunting the word "Christmas" anymore, except in the UK, where they use "happy".

I think we need to petition for another adjective, too. Not "happy". Not "merry". I'm going with "zesty". It means piquant, lively and flavorful. I am down with the zest. And not "holidays". No. "Holi-" day is just giving in that the day has been hallowed, and I'm not about it. My card-sending has, for years, been sort of a "return-receipt" for other people sending me cards. It has basically come down to a literal message of: "I have received your Greeting Card, and return one with thanks that you provided me with your return address. We may do this again next year." So I am about "Generika". There isn't a reason for the season, I'm just performing a perfunctory courtesy demanded of me by culture and the existence of the post office, and while I'm at it, I'm going to make you accept "zestiness".

Have a Zesty Generika. Enjoy the taste of a new, more random, holiday.

I'm wishing you all a Zesty Generika. May your deepest wishes have positive outcomes in a manner more frequent than random chance alone can account for. May you also experience a pleasant terminus to the calendar year. And a very satisfactory and non-catastrophic calendar year to come!