{"id":207,"date":"2008-08-21T17:33:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-21T23:33:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-09-11T12:12:32","modified_gmt":"2008-09-11T18:12:32","slug":"176","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/176","title":{"rendered":"Sweets, Celebrity And Grilling."},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello loyal readership (and by loyal readership, I mean my near countless minions numbering in the single digits).\u00a0 So, while I do not<\/em> have a trip journal to entertain you with yet, I do feel like blabbering.\u00a0 So, why not?<\/p>\n

First and foremost, the HMS Sweets<\/strong> has docked on our shores.\u00a0 Her flights \u2014 in complete defiance of common practice \u2014 were all not only on time and effortless, but even had the audacity to arrive early in some cases.\u00a0 I don’t know what we did to deserve this cosmic\/karmic boon, but I sure as hell won’t be forgetting to toast DeJockamo any time soon.\u00a0 I threw a “Belated Happy Birthday & Welcome Home” party in her honor the day after her arrival, complete with lots of grilled animal flesh, and a cake in the shape of a sheep<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Good food, good company, and puppies galore running around and being cute as can be.\u00a0 Capped off by some homemade tiramisu ice cream<\/a><\/strong> (my own recipe, thankyouverymuch), the day was a success.<\/p>\n

We then spent the following week getting her settled in: opening a US bank account, a cell phone, getting a dresser, unpacking, hanging pictures (I left them down so she could help me hang them, and contribute to decorating the house and feel like it’s her place too, not just my house that she is staying at), going to her orientation at the culinary academy, birthday present clothes shopping (for Texas-heat appropriate apparel), and other such things.<\/p>\n

It’s spooky how well and easily we’ve settled into the house together, and have established a happy routine.\u00a0 Mind you, this is only the second week, but so far it’s gone well.\u00a0 As different as we both are, we see eye to eye on a lot of things, especially when it comes to keeping house.\u00a0 She’s spent so long trying to keep her head above water \u2014 cleaning wise \u2014 in a house with three to four other housemates, that she’s developed basically the same housekeeping philosophy it took me thirty four years to evolve.\u00a0 Neither of us are OC neat freaks, but we like a tidy house… and a clean and orderly kitchen especially.\u00a0 Things get put away in a timely fashion, but we shun dusting unless absolutely necessary.\u00a0 We keep house in such a manner that we would never be embarrassed if company stopped by unexpectedly.\u00a0 So, we seem to be domestically very compatible at this point.\u00a0 Check back, gentle readers, in a year.<\/p>\n

Sweets’ first week of school is going well for her, all three days of it so far.\u00a0 They’ve covered sanitary practices and health codes, temperatures and other things.\u00a0 She’s covered all this in her UK courses already, but just needs to learn the Fahrenheit temps instead of the Celsius temps.\u00a0 Day one, in the first few minutes alone, she charmed the pants off of her instructor for this first three week course, simply by opening her mouth and talking \u2014 her accent made the instructor nearly swoon, and now she’s telling the other instructors to just listen to Sweets talk.\u00a0 I told her before she got here, that her accent is going to be key in charming and winning people over, well before her culinary talent is called to action.\u00a0 Americans are predisposed to accept a smooth, posh English accent as a sign of culture, refinement and intelligence \u2014 and I’m not saying “ha, she’s going to have everyone fooled<\/em>“, because she is wickedly intelligent and charming too, but that she should use our genetic weakness to make friends and contacts in the industry as it is a fantastic foot in the door.<\/p>\n

And I must say, I have discovered a hitherto unknown fetish for cute, bespectacled women wearing a crisp, white, double-breasted chef’s jacket.<\/p>\n

And on to thoughts that do not involve domestic bliss.<\/p>\n

Been reading a lot of Kevin Smith’s blog My Boring Ass Life<\/strong><\/a>, as well as Wil Wheaton’s blog WWdN: In Exile<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 It’s oddly quite comforting to know that two pop-culture icons of my generation, two moderately successful guys who occupy the limelight, are just a coupla’ normal schmoes like me.\u00a0 If you remove their fame, money and notoriety \u2014 hell, in spite<\/span><\/em> of their fame, money and notoriety \u2014 they lead relatively normal human lives.\u00a0 They’re geeks, have everyday insecurities, do their best to hustle up work and provide a decent life for themselves and their families, get pissed off at the drive thru when their order is wrong, and basically are human to their very core.\u00a0 They’re warm, decent guys, and I have an overwhelming desire to spend a few hours just sitting around and bullshitting over a few drinks with them (and Wil, I recommend PranQster Belgian Style Golden Ale<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n

They make my list of “celebrities” I’d like to drink with, which is composed of people who are earthy and interesting.\u00a0 As a result they don’t trigger that idol-worship reflex that causes one \u2014 when in the presence of someone famous \u2014 to sweat profusely, stammer uncontrollably, say inane things and give limp, damp handshakes.\u00a0 Others on that list include Fred LeBlanc of Cowboy Mouth, Douglas Adams (now a long gone chance), Chris Elliot and Bruce Campbell.\u00a0 All hard working, intelligent stiffs, and not infected with a prima donna complex.<\/p>\n

Been grilling a lot.\u00a0 I’ve always liked grilling, but have had a near three year hiatus due to some blowhard bitch<\/strong><\/a> that killed my home in NOLA.\u00a0 The staples of grilling live in my freezer \u2014 boneless skinless chicken breasts and sirloin burgers from Sam\u2019s \u2014 but I’ve started a meat-affair with my local semi-fa-fa grocery, Central Market<\/strong><\/a> (think Whole Foods with only half a stick up their ass).\u00a0 They offer pre-marinated fresh animal flesh of all types that walk, fly or swim.\u00a0 Their chicken is divine, especially the pesto garlic marinated variety, and dear Jeebus their dry-rub seasoned fajita beef rocked my world.<\/p>\n

Have also grilled my fair share of veggies, too, most notably corn-on-the-cob.\u00a0 And while I’m a sentimental, aesthetic fool and like the notion of grilling corn in the husk, I think the best method yet is to de-husk it, brush it lightly with butter, sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper, wrap in foil and throw that on the grill over medium heat, turning it two times at five minute intervals (15 minutes total).\u00a0 You still get some color on the kernels, but you preserve most all of the moisture, and the butter can seep between the kernels nicely.\u00a0 Even with soaking in cold water, the husks still dry out quickly, char and catch fire.<\/p>\n

Aaaand, that’s what I gots for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello loyal readership (and by loyal readership, I mean my near countless minions numbering in the single digits).\u00a0 So, while I do not have a trip journal to entertain you with yet, I do feel like blabbering.\u00a0 So, why not? First and foremost, the HMS Sweets has docked on our shores.\u00a0 Her flights \u2014 in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,14,3,23,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking","category-domestica","category-links","category-pictures","category-rambling"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}