Now that I'm hip-deep in my kitchen remodel, I've been trying to take a serious look at how I cook so I can streamline how I organize things and get rid of stuff that I no longer use.

Oh... and also make room for tons and tons of spices.

As a vegetarian, things can get a little boring, so I am always looking for something different. Back when I was able to travel the world, discovering new flavors was a huge part of what made it so much fun. Since I may not be able to travel for a long time, I decided to bring the flavors of the world to my kitchen. Thanks to the exceptional spices and blends to be found at The Spice House in Chicago, it's pretty easy.

I ordered 33 items... old friends and new ones to try. Tonight I decided to fry up some potatoes and try six of the blends I bought...

Then I wrote some notes so I could find out which ones I liked best...

But here's the thing... I LOVED THEM ALL!

And my kitchen smells amazing.

Around the world in 15 minutes. Whether it was Parisian Shallot Herb Blend from France or Garam Masala from Southern Asia or Za'atar from the Mediterranean or Market Blend from Marakesh or Adobo from Spain or Village Blend from the Ukraine... they were all really different and tasty! The most surprising blend was the Garam Masala, which had cinnamon and cloves that I most associate with sweet foods... but they were really savory in the absence of sugar. Tomorrow night I want to try out some of the spicy blends I bought. I expect I'll love those as well.

I suspect that I'll be placing another order for more spices soon. Because once I have my new kitchen, I'm going to want to cook in it, and I'm piling up recipes to use all these spices with.

The Spice House gave me a 15% Off link if you're looking to spice up your life. Click here to shop!

Okay... this is probably TMI (Too Much Information) but last week my ass exploded.

I had made fresh potato salad in the morning so I could have it for lunch at work and dinner that evening. Not so long after eating my lunch, I suddenly felt the cramping as my insides were turning to liquid. It's that feeling you get when you know it's only a matter of time before you have a serious problem on your hands. Well, not on your hand... hopefully... but in your toilet.

And so I looked through my bag for an Imodium, took it, then hightailed it home where I made it to my bathroom jussssssst in time. Thinking that perhaps I had caught a bug... or the coronavirus... I worked at home, staying close to my toilet for the occasional detonation of my intestines.

And of course I had a big bowl of potato salad for dinner. It tastes so good because my potato salad is wicked awesome.

Which, in retrospect, was an incredibly stupid thing to do... but, in my defense, I hadn't quite put 2 + 2 together yet.

To say that I had a bad night is a gross understatement. I think at one point I actually fell asleep on the toilet because I dare not leave it. And since it was always an emergency run I never got the door closed. Which means my cats were compelled to come in and say hello from time to time. Not necessarily because they cared that I was dying, but because they wanted to know if they could have a treat since I was up already.

I was able to go into work the next day, but I was feeling pretty poorly. I almost packed more potato salad to eat for lunch, but thought better of it because I remembered that it was after eating it that my problems started. Instead I put the salad back in the fridge and took saltine crackers instead.

Fast forward to this morning and I see this pop up in my newsfeed as an update:
Onions sold at Kroger, elsewhere recalled due to Salmonella outbreak.

Whee!

My "instenial distress" happened within 45 minutes each time. Apparently Salmonella poisoning doesn't develop until around 6 hours. So was the problem I had related to the onions in my salad? I dunno. But to be safe I threw out all the onions I had left because there was no sticker to tell me whether or not they were from "Thomson International."

And of course the lawyers are all over this:
Ron Simon & Associates files the First Lawsuit in the Red Onion Salmonella Outbreak.

I don't want to sue for a million dollars... well, I do, but not really... I just want replacement onions! Food is expensive, yo, and I can't afford to be throwing purple onions in the trash!

Even when they cause me to spend 24 hours within toilet-reach.

Oh well. Thanks to the pandemic I wasn't going anywhere anyway, but it still wasn't a fun way to pass the time.

Wait! I don't just want to sue for replacement onions... I want replacement Imodium as well! Wonder what lawyer will take that case?

Probably all of them.

My favorite paper towels are Brawny brand. But Brawny is owned by the Koch Brothers, so I buy Bounty brand.

I've been trying to use less paper towels in an attempt to live more sustainably, but there are some times that it's the perfect tool for the task at hand so I still buy them on occasion. Thanks to the pandemic, that's a hit-or-miss proposition lately. My small-town grocery had no name-brands available when I last went shopping so I ended up getting something called Simply White which totally sounds like a resort for white supremacists or something, but it was my only option...

   
And now... perhaps somebody can answer a simple question for me?

Why is it that cheaper brands can't make a paper towel which tears off the roll properly?

Because I've had to buy other cheap brands when I was on location for work... or I was too poor for name brands... or couldn't find anything else... and they ALL have one thing in common. THEY DON'T FUCKING RIP AS ADVERTISED! You go to rip one off the roll and it doesn't tear along the perforation, it tears everywhere except the fucking perforation!

So what is it? The major brands are the only ones who can afford perforating blades that are worth a shit? Cheap brands are manufactured by major brands who want them to suck so you won't buy them? The laws of time and space don't allow cheap brands to exist any other way? I don't get it.

The mind boggles.

And speaking of mind-boggling stuff... I just found out last night that most of the sourdough you buy in a store is not made from an actual sourdough culture. It's just regular old bread that has a sourdough flavoring. I was video-chatting with a friend and complained that the sourdough I bought tastes like it was made from chemicals.

"Probably because it was. Most mass-market sourdoughs you find at the grocery store are just flavored that way."

A few minutes Googling that shit and, sure enough, that's a thing.

Products are apparently designed to disappoint. On top of not being built to last.

Typical.

2020 never seems to end, but neither does the bullets... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Umbrella 2! I liked the first season of The Umbrella Academy despite the fast that it took some serious liberties with the comic book source. The second season just dropped and I binged it all in a day...

Even better than the first season! Number 5 must be one of the best comic book characters ever brought to life on the small screen. If I have a small bit of criticism, it would be that the series got a bit mired in personal drama that was boring and not terribly important towards moving the story forward. Particularly Vanya's time on a farm(?)... a diversion that could have been adequately addressed in 1/3 the screen time. Otherwise? genius.

   
• Just Do It! There is some serious image re-mapping and aligning going on here and it's incredibly well done. This is beautiful to behold...

Bravo to the art director and their team for how this came together.

   
• Cheapness! A couple people asked me about the "cheap movies" I bought and where I bought them. I monitor a site called Cheap Charts then, when I find the cheapest price on a sale movie I want, I go ahead and buy it if it's from iTunes (because that's where all my movies are). If it's not on iTunes, I check MoviesAnywhere to see if the movie can be bought at a member site, which means iTunes will import it automatically. Usually iTunes is the most expensive place, with Amazon Digital and Microsoft Digital being the cheapest. If the movie is not a part of MoviesAnywhere, then I usually don't buy it... unless it's super-cheap, then I just suffer through having to use Amazon or Microsoft's player to watch it. And now you know.

   
• How to Mask! Sarah Cooper has been on fire with her last several videos, but this one is just beyond...

Nice to know at least one thing to laugh about when it comes to the horror show we're currently trapped in.

   
• Biscuits! Thanks to friends on Facebook, I've finally cracked the puzzle of making the perfect Egg & Cheese McBiscuit! I start with FROZEN Pillsbury Grands and smear the tops and bottoms with butter. Cook pushed together as directed. THEN I smear the tops with butter AGAIN... separate the biscuits AND FLIP THEM OVER. Increase the heat to 400º and cook for four minutes longer so the tops get fried on the hot cookie sheet. VOILA! Perfectly crispy biscuits with fluffy insides that taste every bit as good at McDonalds!

Now I no longer have to pay ridiculous prices (THREE DOLLARS AND FORTY-NINE CENTS EACH?!??) to get one of my favorite treats! Hooray!

   
• US History! It's easy to see how the reason so many people are so ignorant about how things actually are in this country is that they don't have an accurate picture of how we got here. The mind boggles...

Smartly done. But the people most needing to see this and understand this are exactly the people who will never watch it.

   
• Memory! Face, Velvet, Church, Daisy, Red. Yep, still got it a week later.

   
I guess that's all I got for this week. See you next Sunday.

I'm too dang tired for bullets, but it's not like I can stop... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Nuke 'Em! I've been using my microwave less and less. I prefer my food cooked in an oven or on a stove with real heat, and that's how I've been preparing my meals for a long while now. The rubbery texture and uneven heating don't make the convenience and speed worth it. And then I discovered microwave pancakes and French toast. If ever there was a perfect application for a microwave, this would be it. Since the items come frozen after having been fully-cooked, you're not really cooking them so much as reheating them, and they reheat beautifully, evenly, and without cold spots...

I like the Eggo pancakes great. But FarmRich has better French Toast Sticks.

   
• NEWSFLASH! American Passports Are Worthless Now — "I think it is difficult for Americans to understand that they are, to use an epidemiological term, completely fucked."

   
• NEWSFLASH! Netherlands plans to remove gender from ID cards entirely — Sensible. Because what possible fucking difference does it make? You don't have to be male to vote or drive a car... at least not in this country... so why is this something that has to appear on your identification?

   
• Risk!

   
• NEWSFLASH! Disney World Emphasizes Safety Protocols Ahead of Reopening: "You Must Follow All Posted Instructions" — Be our GUEST! Be our GUEST! Put your health up to the test! Be our GUEST! Be our GUEST! The worst than can happen is your death!

   
• Grey! The Tom Hanks WWII movie Greyhound on Apple TV+ is such a wasted effort. Yes, the battles are thrilling... but there's nothing personal about any of these characters so you can relate to their struggle against overwhelming odds. You root for them just because you know you should root for them, not because they've earned it. I know this is supposed to be based on a true story, so they likely wanted to restrain embellishment, but they might as well just made a documentary.

And don't get me started on the musical score. The MUSIC parts are not bad at all, but they accent it with stupid-ass sound effects that sounds like whales screaming and other horrific shit that assaults your auditory senses and makes you want to put the entire movie on mute so you don't have to listen to this shit. Who approved it? It's awful, awful, AWFUL.

   
And that's enough for tonight. Have a good one.

My favorite burger... by a wide, wide margin... is the Impossible Whopper at Burger King.

It used to be the Boca Burger "Streamliner" at Johnny Rockets, but then Boca was bought out by Kraft and they decided to "new and improved" their recipe into something that tastes like toxic sludge, feels like fiber, and has a grotesque artificial brown color that looks like (literal) shit. Johnny Rockets couldn't serve that to their customers, so they replaced it with a Spicy Black Bean Burger. It's not bad, but not what I want. At least it's edible though. Red Robin replaced Boca Burgers with their own disgusting "ancient grains and quinoa" patty which tastes like vomit.

Since losing Boca Burger, I've tried dozens of other vegetarian burgers to eat at home. The one I end up going back to is Morningstar Farms "Grillers Original," but the texture is awful. It's squidgy and gross and I only eat it when there's nothing else in my freezer.

Impossible Burger finally released their heme-infused burger "meat" in frozen form a while back.

I finally found some to buy at the local Albertson's so I could give it a shot.

And it's everything I was hoping for. When cooked in a hot skillet you can get a nice brown sear on it, so the taste and texture are flawless. Which is to say that now I can make my own Impossible Whoppers at home whenever I want. Impossible Burger is expensive... $10 for 12 ounces... which works out to about $2 a burger because I like them really thin... about 2-1/2 ounces...

I get a skillet really hot... then squish a ball of Impossible Burger between two plates lined with wax paper... drop in some butter... then fry it up for a couple minutes each side (weirdly enough, it smells like chocolate as it cooks).

Just look at the glorious char. It adds flavor and a thin, crispy exterior that tastes great...

I haven't barbecued them yet, but I'm anxious to try it because it might taste more like an Impossible Whopper that way. I just worry about my burger falling apart on the grill, so I might have to try freezing it before cooking.

The good news is that I finally... finally... have a decent vegetarian burger to eat at home. That's no small feat... even though it seemed like such a simple thing. But, hey, being able to tell Kraft to take their shitty "Boca Burgers" (that are not Boca Burgers at all) and shove them up their asses is something I've been dying to do.

But what to have for dessert?

My mom had a particular way of mixing chocolate milk when I was a kid. She wouldn't just pour a glass then dump in the Nestlé Quik powder... instead she would pour an inch of milk, add the Nestlé Quik, then mix and mix and mix until all the powder was gone. THEN she'd pour in the milk and stir it up into chocolatey goodness.

I was thinking of that last week and made a note to get some Quik when I went to the store. But when I got to Safeway, I couldn't find the cans of Quik anywhere...

Eventually I found something called Nesquik in a plastic box, which I assume was the same thing. I kinda recognized Quik the Bunny, despite the fact that he's wearing stupid human clothes and no longer has a big Q necklace on...

Here's Quik the Bunny I remember...

It tastes pretty much like I remember. Unlike Hershey's Syrup which is bitter and shitty, Quik... ahem... Nesquik... is sweeter and tastes more like you want chocolate milk to taste.

And, yes, I mixed it just like mom used to make.

This was starting out to be yet another killer day at work so I decided to get up early. This way I had a minute for breakfast, which allows me to work on perfecting the perfect egg and cheese biscuit sandwich.

So I got up... I fed the cats... then I went to grab a pan to fry up some eggs... and... whoops. All my pots and pans were dirty. And I just didn't feel like washing them by hand, which you have to do because they don't recommend the dishwasher since it ruins the coating. It's not even like it's that hard. My pots and pans are totally easy to clean because nothing sticks... it's just having to stand at the sink and turn on water and squirt the soap and scrub with a brush and dry them off and put them away... no individual task is tough or takes long, but when taken all together it seems like a lot in the morning when I'm trying to get out of the house.

So instead I went out back to take a look at my hydrangeas.

These things are amazing because after having been chopped to the ground in the Fall, they don't seem to do anything when all my other flowers are starting to sprout in the Spring. Then... in what seems like a few days... they explode with growth. Seriously, it's several inches a day, and then the flowers magically appear out of nowhere. Last night I noted that they were all in full bloom...

Madonna famously loathes hydrangeas, but I think they're pretty. They certainly take up a lot of space... and they don't stink, which is nice. I'm happy to just let them keep growing year after year since it doesn't require any effort by me (except to chop them down again in October).

When I got home I really wanted some creamy walnut sauce on pasta.

But I was so tired after 12 hours working that, once again, I had very little motivation to scrub my pots and pans. And since every last one of them was dirty, I figured I'd just take a pass.

But then I couldn't bring myself to eat another peanut butter sandwich like I did last night, so I spent the 15 minutes it took to clear my sink and start cooking for 25 minutes.

Totally worth it...

Delicious to the last bite. Except now I've got a sink full of pots and pans again.

Then it was time to ignore the dirty dishes and hunker down with Jake and watch television, which was pretty much all I had the energy for...

Except for a bowl of chocolate ice cream with walnuts and whipped cream, of course.

I've been avoiding trips to stores whenever possible. My reduced lung capacity (which is why I stopped SCUBA diving) makes me an excellent candidate for death if I catch COVID-19, so I just don't risk it. I think the last time I went was two weeks ago, but it was just an in-and-out at Safeway for some rice noodles and Sriracha. I didn't hang around to do any serious shopping.

Which means that my groceries are running low.

Which means I have to psyche myself up for my monthly grocery run.

I was planning on going yesterday, but I had my Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon recipe box to use up, so instead I cooked Salsa Verde Cheese Enchiladas with Sour Cream & Scallions, which was phenomenal...

Then tonight I had Pasta & Fresh Tomato Sauce and Seasoned Ricotta, which was also excellent...

I can only really afford to get Martha's boxes when I have a coupon, so they're a rare treat now-a-days. And a delicious one, when the recipes end up being as amazing as these.

And now that I'm done with my meals-by-mail, I have to start thinking of groceries again.

I started making a list... trying to think of things I really love that can be prioritized by how quickly they expire. Fresh fruits and vegetables are used up in the first week or two... canned, frozen, and dry goods are saved for the rest of the month. Which is to say that my early meals are awesome, then get progressively worse as time goes on. I try to plan my meals so it's not too horrible, but when you can't run to the store for a missing ingredient, it's tough.

Especially when all I really want are cookies.

Every trip to Safeway I talk myself out of buying them because I am far better off without the refined sugar load packed into a cookie. And every time I get home I regret it because cookies are all I can think about and the only thing I want to eat.

So this time they are going at the top of my shopping list, and we'll see if I'm strong enough to talk myself out of it again.

When I was a kid, we'd climb into our big Chevy Blazer each month after payday and head into the nearby Big City for dinner out (hopefully at Pizza Inn, my favorite)... then head to Prairie Market for groceries.

Prairie Market doesn't exist any more (neither does Pizza Inn, at least not here), but it was a discount warehouse grocer from the 60's which was most notable for all the inexpensive generic foods they sold. Black and white boxes. Black and white labels on cans and bottles. Black and white signs on the big bulk food bins. It was nothing like the "generic" foods sold today, which are essentially re-branded in-house store brands, these were generic-generic. And it all came rushing back to me when I removed the sleeve from my tub of Feta Cheese and saw this...

All of a sudden I was 4th grade again.

Just like shopping for groceries today, nothing at Prairie Market had prices on it. But unlike today, where things are rung up by their UPC bar code, at Prairie Market you grabbed a grease pencil and wrote the price on every item. My mom would pick out what she wanted. My dad would write the price on it with his impeccably perfect handwriting, then my brother and I would stack it on the giant slab cart (like you find at Home Depot) before heading to the next item.

It was a really smart way to shop, because the food was just as good as the name-brands you could buy (probably because the name-brand companies manufactured it) but cheaper because every aspect of the experience was done as cheaply as possible. In addition to not paying to price-sticker stuff, they didn't stock anything on the shelves. They just cut the face off the case and threw it on a rack. There were checkers to ring you up, but they had to key-in every item. And they were fast. You bagged your own groceries, of course (in real paper bags, natch).

I don't remember when Prairie Market closed. I think in the late 70's or early 80's maybe? Probably when all the grocery chains started consolidating and developed their own name-brand alternatives. And UPC code scanners came along.

The giant cement building that Prairie Market built is now a toy store-slash-sporting goods store. I shop there once or twice a year, and I'm able to remember exactly how it used to be every time. The ghost of all those generic packages still haunt me.

As do the banana chips.

One hot summer day we ended up buying a big bag of dried bulk banana chips. Then my brother and I ate them all the way back home. In a hot car. For twenty minutes. Not long after we pulled into the driveway I was puking my guts out and everything tasted... and smelled... like bananas to me for days. It was years before I could eat banana chips again. And I still can't eat them alone, even to this day. Only if they're scattered in a trail mix or something. And even then I have unpleasant flashbacks.

If only food prices were as cheap now as they were at Prairie Market back then.

Holy crap are things expensive now. Even when adjusted for inflation, food in 1970's was crazy cheap compared to today. Vegetables for 15¢ to 20¢ a can? I think only meat and dairy are cheaper now (with adjusted pricing) than they used to be... and that's thanks to government subsidies artificially making them cheaper. Without it, I'm sure they'd have massive price tags like everything else.

But, hey, the packaging is prettier, so there's that.