'Cause I'm in Love with My Future

Queso

I strive for the ultimate Chili Con Queso now that I've opened up to the world of liquid cheese.  This effort was closer.  The recipes are quite diverse, some using a roux, others going straight for the cheese melt and wine or beer, more a fondue.  Some add milk, others corn starch.  I don't think you have to pick, in fact there may be the right texture for every purpose.  As a dip, this smoother, creamier queso worked well for chips, whereas if you wanted to drizzle it over a plate of chips, like for loaded nachos or fries, it could be thicker.  In restaurants I've had queso fundito and that was served in a flaming hot cast iron dish like fajitas.  That is mainly cheese and you must eat it quickly before it hardens.  I'm big on additions of garlic, onion, hot sauce, jalapenos and garnishes.  One could probably cut to the chase and use Velveeta but I haven't bought that product in adulthood and enjoy the challenge of creating from scratch. My mother used Velveeta at the restaurant for queso but the ingredient list has changed quite a bit from those days of 1970's.  

Making magical queso may require more dipper options in order to fully embrace cheese as the main component.  In other words, I think this can become dinner!  I imagine a tray of tiny turkey meatballs and roasted cherry tomatoes, zucchini rounds, mushrooms....beneficial foods to eat more of.  In fact, it sounds like a wonderful future plan.

Lunch box Mustard chicken for work 

Blooming Red Buds

Well I Can't Seem to Focus, and You Don't Seem to Notice I'm Not Here

Korean Take Out 2020

While watching the Category 4 Hurricane Laura touch down on land last night and before the street cameras all went out one by one, on a mutual nerd website, we saw that trucks were still going up and down this high bridge over Lake Charles in Louisiana.  We being, the hundreds of fellow weather geeks online.  We're talking. driving during these presumably over 100 mph winds, over water, high up, and in these big rigs, the kind that can tip in those types of winds.  The moderator laughs and says This guys, is 2020!!  You are looking at what is normal today.  Multiple people driving over a high bridge in a Cat 4 hurricane is the epitome of 2020, right there!  Everything is unexpected and people are doing bizarre things.  Then he says in his southern accent UnnnnnbelEEEEvable! He had to talk for hours doing this live coverage so I thought he may be getting loopy and not making sense.  I dozed off and figured I was in no rush to see the devastation but his words stuck with me all the next day.   I thought about how I too have said similar things lately, everyone has.  Things are so weird right now. But until now did I realize it was all happening in this monumental year, 2020.   All of this craziness, more than even I could have ever imagined.  How many times in a day do I say 'Hey man, this is a new time', 'we're living in new times, or Well, we have to adjust to this new world.  When people ask me why at work in their whiny customer tone, revolving around being inconvenienced or delays and they ask in such a way that I see reality has not yet crept into their lives and laid a giant crap on their forehead via sudden job loss, loss of a friend or relative, loved one or getting sick themselves and feeling like they were going to die.  How about the biggest city, you know the one we all live in..looking like a Ghat Damn ghost town, buddy!!??!! 5th Ave, Midtown...boarded up and desolate!  I go off into a manic rant,  Gee, let me see, I don't know, hmmmm, let me think.  Could it have anything to do with the fact that the WHOLE WIDE WORLD IS UPSIDE DOWN right now dude!!!??? in case you haven't noticed.   So, if your.... "nightstand" isn't in stock today, well let me just notify management so that we can all get busy to see what we can do about that!  I mean clearly it's a major priority! 

This is retail 2020! 

I mean, you see me don't you? Standing here in this freakin' space get-up fearing you or your snot nosed kids might reinfect me with this virus from the bowels of Satan!?   We're all a little inconvenienced right now my friend.  

Don't be scared though, because then I took a break to pee, to breathe and then breathed some more.  Breathing is everything.  All is well, tucked safely into my perfect vessel.   Meditation is similar to Quaaludes but without all the messy passing out and clothes falling off.  I get right much quicker now and the agony doesn't linger like it once did.  It's really hard to tell in this photo but I'm embracing the now, even with it's crack-pipe qualities.  Accepting what is.

Today I felt like take out, but something different.  I tried this new local Korean Chicken place Chic-hen.  Cute, but better yet, I loved it.  And even though the plate seems very sporadic, I assure you it's right in line with 2020!  I was able to kill two cravings presented to me this week.  The Extra Crispy Sticky Spicy Soy Sauce chicken was sweet retribution from a good home cooked platter of fried chicken porn sent from a bud and the other was my sister boasting of her perfect Chicken Fried Rice.  The Truffle fries were not the accompaniment you might expect but on the other hand, Truffle Oil is divine and should be on everything!  These were perfectly crispy.  The homemade side salad was a way to get in some raw vegetables for a fresh cool bite. 

I'm the Bad Guy, Duh!

Bunless Chili dogs

A pantry dinner and nod of pride to New York City featuring Nathan's Hot Dogs, fortified canned chili with black beans and seasoning, leftover sauteed cabbage.

P deflecting virus

When you're walking outside on the city streets now, a few weeks into this pandemic, you don't know who's sick and who's just trying to avoid getting sick.  It's just a matter of time that most of us will get this virus and either not know it, get a lighter version or worse.  When you're fully in it, you can certainly avoid going out if you've prepared or have help as I did.  When this was surfacing, I didn't wear the mask at work, no one did, even though my sister urged me to for weeks beforehand.  They issued gloves only the day before we closed. My reasoning being at the time you wore a mask if you were sick so people knew. That was the initial social agreement.  Now 3 weeks later we're all in masks each as individual as we are, even full on gas masks.  I feel bad that when I felt it coming on, I tried to fight it by getting out there in the sun and the park, to walk if off, without a proper mask.  But you weren't supposed to have the proper masks because normal people shouldn't need them.  On the reverse at that time you were told scarves do nothing, but by the way, everyone please start wearing some type of mask, knowing fully well they're harder to get then Tylenol right now.  Meanwhile I passed the little kids, strollers and mothers congregated in the the playground, the dog owners gathering, high school kids strolling together as if the whole world hadn't already changed.  I remember being pissed that everyone was not taking the task to flatten the curve seriously enough.  But I was out there too.  It's so impossible with this many people in such a small space.  Like the ultimate game of tag! you're it, but with action paranoia and public shaming.  

While in the thick of it, it's hard to tell people I'm scared shitless.  Who do you tell?  You don't want to worry family, they can't do anything for you but you don't want to hide it either in case things go south.  Friends in New York are all dealing with either being sick themselves or in a high state of anxiety, rightly so.  I've relied on my out of state friends, hopefully not leaning too far.  Beyond all of that, you can't dwell on what might come, but even if you just look at what is happening today, it's quite enough.  The daily news brings images of our worst nightmares.  Mass burials?  Say no more, please. Days are more a mental battle than anything.  There are beautiful things happening too, like the 7pm ringing of the bells. Everyone yelling out their windows for our service workers who are risking their lives and that of their families.  I cry everytime.  Still, I can't help but wonder if it's the equivalent of saying 'thank you for your service' to our soldiers.  I just read EMT workers in NYC are only paid around $34,000 a year.  Our city's core problems are surfacing like thousands of floating corpses in the Hudson river.  We are at such a crossroads, a huge opportunity to make a leap for the better.  I hope we will.

Working in a busy retail box store with no ventilation, I knew this was coming for so many of us.  I can even pinpoint the day I believe I contracted it.  It was Sunday, March 15 after a slow week, hundreds flocked in to buy home computer and school desks for their children's homeschooling and work.  We had so many call outs so they asked me to cover that department.  I felt it so strongly, the numbers, the odds,  it's just math.   The weeks beforehand I felt anger being so vulnerable in that environment having listened to doctors saying the virus can pass with breathing.  But our company tried as best they could with the limited brain capacity and nutcases in charge.  Their heart is always in the right place and that's important. You have to be your own mayor, governor and manager now I believe, there is so much misinformation and conspiracy theories everywhere.  I failed too.  I was pretty sure I had it but didn't isolate from P and now he's sick.  I also believe I killed my little Mona the cat. 

I'm the bad guy. 

Sick and sequestered to window ledge

Labored breathing worse during full moon? This is sister's pic from Colorado where you see the moon so huge!

When You Give Me Those Ocean Eyes

When I wake up in the morning, I generally need quiet for at least 45 minutes to an hour and a half.  My brain doesn't like chatter before the coffee kicks in and there is something to calmly sorting and folding my thoughts from the night before like warm clothes just out of the dryer. P on the other hand likes to lay down solid plans in his first hour of wokedom.  He's asking me how I'd like to spend my birthday, how I should take off vacation days in a month when he goes to Illinois so that I can spend time writing, and would I like a nice steak or should he take me to a restaurant as my gift. There is something about his script and how he needs to understand how to powder his brother's nose for an upcoming film shoot, then more about his next three jobs, what he's mounting to the walls and the tools he used. I'm exhausted already, just hearing the questions let alone consider answering.  We had a dog growing up named Chico, a tiny, long haired Chihuahua mix and anytime you looked at him, he was looking back at you with watery, tired, blinking eyes.  He could barely keep them open and was always slightly shaking.  That's how I feel before I bloom each morning.  I certainly am not capable of making any grand plans as I look back at P with Chico's glassy stare.

Its crazy how we could know each other so well, be together for years, but can be so terribly different in these fundamental ways. He knows I could never form an opinion so early, so he probably is simply planting seeds.

I will perk up for breakfast and often wake up my mind in order to enjoy and prepare a good one.  A Frittata with broccoli and cheddar with a side of fried potatoes and bacon. That, I can understand!

For dinner I did nachos over a bed of cool crisp Romaine lettuce.   Yes, it's similar to a taco salad but there was something special about getting a big bite of the melted cheese laden chips along with the cold salad below when your mind isn't expecting it.  This is the time when I'm more sharp and P winds down a bit and I tend to run circles around him.

I Could Lie Say I Like It Like That, Like It Like That

Carrots are so good sauteed in a little butter and cumin, or glazed if you like it sweet.  They easily replace potatoes.  They've just had the worst campaign manager for years.  People think of them as only stock basics for soups but they are so much more.   They are a great source of fiber, Vitamin C, potassium, and they contain beta carotene.  I loved them raw as a kid but also went on a daily carrot juice drinking frenzy in the late 90's and I still have that taste emblazoned in my mind, pulling the plastic bottles, straight out of the ice at my bodega.  Chicken thigh meat is preferred over breast if you want to hot wok it fast and the dark meat takes in hot chili oil and soy sauce better in my opinion. 

You're Throwing Stones, To Hide Your Hands

At this point I guess you'd say I am officially obsessing over the fallout from the Leaving Neverland documentary. I simply can't leave it alone.  I can't stop speaking out about all the injustices and infringements to our social structure.  And people seem just fine with all of these horrible breaches, letting it all just breakdown.  I feel like I'm going crazy. I'm exhausted considering any possibility that any of this is true at this point.  Even though most of the news this week helps to disprove at least key facts in the boys' stories, nothing about this thing is settling.  After I dismissed almost all of the two's accusations this week I made time for a couple of my own concerns.  For example even though the list of kids that could have come out against him still have not I couldn't help but notice that many of them are pretty messed up in the head looking.  Makes me wonder. Could be a coincidence, it is Hollywood.  Does give me pause though.  But mainly as the smoke clears a bit, it's still hard to sit with all the ugliness that just took place. It shines on all these new weaknesses to actual predators, like companies and money seekers when people stop thinking for themselves. It shows the dangers of buying in to the approved line of thinking.  It is a dangerous time and much is vulnerable. I feel compelled to spend more time with the cause if only to keep myself clear headed.  The fiasco hasn't picked up steam but things are still happening on a weekly basis.  The gymnast that took his music out of her routine this week for one.  I thought her excuse was well put but smelled of a crafty publicist doing damage control.  She stated she just wants to spread joy.  Or, is it really that she can't risk standing up for anything because again, people play the game when they are bought and paid for by companies and sponsors?  What should really be banned, in my opinion?  The manipulation of this new genre of emotive documentaries, and I use that term loosely. A category that I will definitely avoid like the plague in the future.  Seeing how smart people have been groomed by this shock mock doc shaped to hit every trigger feel of victimization.  To me what this director has accomplished is a gruesome feat. There is a special place in hell for someone who uses people's genuine concern for a real evil for personal gain. 

But just like in the movie Doubt...sometimes you have to leave the light to fight the dark. Because truth can shine from any direction. And for the record, there is only one truth, people don't get to have their own versions.  Some of us always knew there would be a day when false accusers would surface in an important way and we'd have to use our heads and not our hearts to decipher the facts. Because it's a nice campaign for a movement where not enough women are believed to say always believe the woman but you can't actually apply this in every case, that would be wrong. C'mon man, are we really cool with abandoning the law?  I always thought this would be an actress against a director and not two men against the Michael Jackson Estate but here we are at this day.  And it is a big deal.  We don't crucify a dead man in this country without a trial.  Do we?  And in defense of all the people Mr Reed is comparing to the Islamic State of Fandom (whoa!), what he didn't realize was that music fans of MJ, especially since he had a very long career, know quite a lot about the artist and the leeches that were around him. Apparently much more so then Reed did.  So when the wafts of bullshit started blowing, we were all quick to call out who dealt it.  Had he taken the time to do so, he would have been prepared for the large amounts of information that is readily available and the army of informed good people that have not lost their ability to think for themselves.  My primary beef is with Dan Reed and I'm sniffing out his bowl of crap like Meryl Streep so hard right now. 

This mushroom slice from Lean Crust Pizza next door was and is always a treasure, just like the legacy of amazing music from Michael Jackson.  The Parmesan with the mushrooms and no tomato sauce gives it this Truffle oil taste that is gold. Paired with a baby spinach salad with walnuts, mushrooms and a light dressing, a perfect late night dinner.  I just wish I would have stopped there and not eaten the 3 additional slices that didn't make the photo. 

....and as if from the heaven's this child's version MJ's Bad is saving me this week

But Now I Got A Bellyache

I bought two bags of black eyed peas thinking I'd have lunch for the week.  Instead of remaking Slow Cooker Hoppin' John, for the second bag, I made a straight soup stove top with carrots, celery and tomatoes, garlic and jalapenos, lots of cilantro and tomatillo sauce as a garnish.  I guess these homemade hot sauces are like my version of the Sofrito that is popular in Spanish cooking here.

I feel like some foods are for adults that have lived to appreciate food more intricately.  All these tastes like onions, certain vegetables, the full bodied flavors of a righteous bean for example.  These are all eats that I've come to appreciate much later in life.  The thought of a pot of beans was always foreign to me.  My sister R actually got me into making them through suggestion years ago.  She often spoke of having a pot on the stove and now that is what we lived off of through the winter.  Black, pinto, Great Northern, black-eyed peas (technically a bean), 15 bean soup ( a favorite), split pea, they are all incredibly hearty and easy.  Flavor with smoked turkey necks, ham hocks, salt pork, bacon or ham chunks.  Also, any herbs can change the theme. Cilantro, parsley, thyme, oregano, basil, you name it.  Use onion, garlic, carrots and celery for your base.  If you like, peppers and then tomatoes in the final stage once the beans are soft.  Adding acidity to the beans before cooked won't allow them to soften.  Don't trust the sites that say salt won't harden the beans.  I've made every bean error and one of them was salting too early.  Salt when they have already softened. 

Tip: You don't have to pre-soak if you're using the slow cooker but when you can, you always should soak the beans overnight.  This makes them so much easier to digest and breaks down some of the sugars that can make you gassy.  Also, it loosens the field dirt and pesticides from the bean, so I also throw out that soaking liquid.  Some sites say to use it.  No way Jose.