Eavesdropping + food
Jul. 5th, 2008 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonant1. Who wants to recommend me a great vegetarian cookbook?
2. Overheard and overseen:
Me: "Did you ever think that maybe those concrete type people might be better at sex than we are? Like, we're better at thinking of the scenarios, but they're better at the act itself?"
Spouse: "Maybe. But their relentless focus on the here-and-now will become a problem when the here-and-now becomes the fat-and-bald."
At the coffee shop: "They taste good, but they're ugly. Ugly muffins. But they have to fulfill their muffin destiny by being eaten."
"Pretty people are strange. Have you noticed that?"
Kidlet, running past the sign on the door of the school: "Look! 'Open With Care: Fast-Moving Children.' And we're some of them!"
Me: "Why won't they just give you a job?"
Spouse: "A nice job with health insurance."
Me: "And a pony!"
Spouse: "Dear applicant: We have a pony just for you. Her name is Millicent."
"Oh, wait, you don't like to be called Liz, do you?"
"No. When I was a bartender, people would call me Liz because they were too drunk to say Elizabeth."
At the dollar store:
Cashier (female): "What flavor are you getting?"
Customer (male): "Plain, right? That's all you got, right?"
Cashier: "No, we got onion, and bacon-cheddar, and chipotle, and --"
Customer, reverently: "They got bacon?"
Cashier, to me: "They're like children."
At the coffee shop, no context that I'm able to get: "And I'm like: Are you licking her open sores?"
At the skate park, there are skateboards, scooters, bikes, and one wheelchair. (Not, alas, doing stunts.)
At Pier 39:
Tourist with limited English, pointing to kidlet: "How old?"
Us: "Nine."
Tourist, pointing to daughter: "Twenty-seven! Same height!"
Girl of about two: "My turn! My turn!"
Mother: "Sierra, remember: When you start yelling at strangers, we have to go home."
T-shirt: "Toast. Let it burn."
Older female cop in a parking lot, holding a thirtyish woman gently by the upper arm. I'm wondering what the crime is, when the woman turns to the cop and hugs her.
Guy on cellphone, angrily: "I'm really pissed off! Because I love you! And I love Shannon! And I love Dylan! And ..." He goes on in this vein for quite some time.
At the park: Hippy #1: "I'm gonna, like, take my shirt off now, man."
Hippy #2, with deep stoned sincerity: "You can't do that, man."
Hippy #1: "Why the hell not?"
Hippy #2: "Against the law, man. Health codes and shit, man."
On announcement board at airport: "Delay Reason: Aircraft Delayed."
"I'm staying with Johnny as a mentor. I'm staying with Johnny as a --" shakes fist -- "resource."
In my coffee shop lobby: a bike with a white wicker basket containing a bunch of beets.
Downtown at lunchtime, three guys in construction-type clothing are talking about fishing, and someone recommends some tool and says, "You can get it at Wal-Mart."
Second guy, sharply: "I don't shop at Wal-Mart."
Short silence.
Second guy: "It's a union thing, man, what can I tell you."
At the park, a handful of teenage girls are improvising a rap. The words are uninspiring (lots of stuff about haters), but they're all working together on rhythm: beating on the plastic climbing wall, hitting the monkey bars with sticks, someone chanting a catchphrase.
At Peet's: "I should get some food. I've got cash. Can I get some food?"
"I'm right here! Sizzle down!"
"So the people at Ellora's Cave said, 'We can maintain our principles, or we can stay afloat.'"
"Are they seriously in danger of not staying afloat?"
"The more interesting question is: Ellora's Cave had principles?"
Me: "You're still having to sweep and mop yourself?"
Elizabeth: "Yep." Using the broom for rhythmic punctuation: "I was standing up there in my cap and gown ..." [sweep] "valedictorian ..." [sweep] "college of business ..." [sweep] "and this was not ..." [sweep] "what I had in mind."
"An orange pickup?"
"Well, I think it had been red at one time."
"We eat a lot of poison in our lives. Our livers clean it up for us."
2. Overheard and overseen:
Me: "Did you ever think that maybe those concrete type people might be better at sex than we are? Like, we're better at thinking of the scenarios, but they're better at the act itself?"
Spouse: "Maybe. But their relentless focus on the here-and-now will become a problem when the here-and-now becomes the fat-and-bald."
At the coffee shop: "They taste good, but they're ugly. Ugly muffins. But they have to fulfill their muffin destiny by being eaten."
"Pretty people are strange. Have you noticed that?"
Kidlet, running past the sign on the door of the school: "Look! 'Open With Care: Fast-Moving Children.' And we're some of them!"
Me: "Why won't they just give you a job?"
Spouse: "A nice job with health insurance."
Me: "And a pony!"
Spouse: "Dear applicant: We have a pony just for you. Her name is Millicent."
"Oh, wait, you don't like to be called Liz, do you?"
"No. When I was a bartender, people would call me Liz because they were too drunk to say Elizabeth."
At the dollar store:
Cashier (female): "What flavor are you getting?"
Customer (male): "Plain, right? That's all you got, right?"
Cashier: "No, we got onion, and bacon-cheddar, and chipotle, and --"
Customer, reverently: "They got bacon?"
Cashier, to me: "They're like children."
At the coffee shop, no context that I'm able to get: "And I'm like: Are you licking her open sores?"
At the skate park, there are skateboards, scooters, bikes, and one wheelchair. (Not, alas, doing stunts.)
At Pier 39:
Tourist with limited English, pointing to kidlet: "How old?"
Us: "Nine."
Tourist, pointing to daughter: "Twenty-seven! Same height!"
Girl of about two: "My turn! My turn!"
Mother: "Sierra, remember: When you start yelling at strangers, we have to go home."
T-shirt: "Toast. Let it burn."
Older female cop in a parking lot, holding a thirtyish woman gently by the upper arm. I'm wondering what the crime is, when the woman turns to the cop and hugs her.
Guy on cellphone, angrily: "I'm really pissed off! Because I love you! And I love Shannon! And I love Dylan! And ..." He goes on in this vein for quite some time.
At the park: Hippy #1: "I'm gonna, like, take my shirt off now, man."
Hippy #2, with deep stoned sincerity: "You can't do that, man."
Hippy #1: "Why the hell not?"
Hippy #2: "Against the law, man. Health codes and shit, man."
On announcement board at airport: "Delay Reason: Aircraft Delayed."
"I'm staying with Johnny as a mentor. I'm staying with Johnny as a --" shakes fist -- "resource."
In my coffee shop lobby: a bike with a white wicker basket containing a bunch of beets.
Downtown at lunchtime, three guys in construction-type clothing are talking about fishing, and someone recommends some tool and says, "You can get it at Wal-Mart."
Second guy, sharply: "I don't shop at Wal-Mart."
Short silence.
Second guy: "It's a union thing, man, what can I tell you."
At the park, a handful of teenage girls are improvising a rap. The words are uninspiring (lots of stuff about haters), but they're all working together on rhythm: beating on the plastic climbing wall, hitting the monkey bars with sticks, someone chanting a catchphrase.
At Peet's: "I should get some food. I've got cash. Can I get some food?"
"I'm right here! Sizzle down!"
"So the people at Ellora's Cave said, 'We can maintain our principles, or we can stay afloat.'"
"Are they seriously in danger of not staying afloat?"
"The more interesting question is: Ellora's Cave had principles?"
Me: "You're still having to sweep and mop yourself?"
Elizabeth: "Yep." Using the broom for rhythmic punctuation: "I was standing up there in my cap and gown ..." [sweep] "valedictorian ..." [sweep] "college of business ..." [sweep] "and this was not ..." [sweep] "what I had in mind."
"An orange pickup?"
"Well, I think it had been red at one time."
"We eat a lot of poison in our lives. Our livers clean it up for us."
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(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 01:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:19 am (UTC)veggie cookbook
Date: 7/6/08 01:59 am (UTC)Re: veggie cookbook
Date: 7/6/08 02:04 am (UTC)Re: veggie cookbook
From:Re: veggie cookbook
From:Re: veggie cookbook
From:Re: veggie cookbook
From:Re: veggie cookbook
From:(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 02:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 02:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 03:54 am (UTC)LK is to vegetarian cooking what The Joy of Cooking is to conventional American fare...in the sense of "all the basics you could ever possibly want in your entire life, you'll never be lost and there's zillions of recipes" not in the sense of "really bland granny cooking" :D
LK is full of vegetarian staples (a ton of different spreads for sammiches, a ton of "put it in the oven" dinners, a great variety of snacks-fer-kids, how-tos for every kind of dried legume, nut, seed or exotic flours) as well as really tasty fun food. It's the vegetarian bible - it'll teach you how to approach vegetarian cooking, and every other vegetarian cook book will work better for you because of it :)
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 02:10 am (UTC)As for vegetarian cookbooks, I still love the original Greens cookbook by Deborah Madison and Ed Brown. I've made at least half the recipes over the years, and I've never found a dud.
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 02:19 am (UTC)Good stuff, Maynard.
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 02:19 am (UTC)Didi Emmons - Vegetarian Planet
Whitecap Books - Simple Vegetarian Recipes (infallible guacamole recipe)
Madhur Jaffrey has a couple of good books, mostly Indian and Eastern foods.
Laurel's Kitchen is good too, and the Moosewood books.
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 02:26 am (UTC)My favorite so far has been The New Moosewood Cookbook. I also really like How To Cook Everything Vegetarian.
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 02:35 am (UTC)"Are they seriously in danger of not staying afloat?"
"The more interesting question is: Ellora's Cave had principles?"
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH THAT REALLY IS THE MORE INTERESTING QUESTION
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 02:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 03:07 am (UTC)I think my favourite is the hug. And the tourist. And I'm scared that somebody would name a child Sierra.
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:26 am (UTC)But the problem I'm having is that my 1980s veggie cookbooks tend to do this thing where you don't make the meal that involves 4 ounces of porkchop per serving, and instead you make the meal that involves 8 ounces of cheese per serving, which obviously does not achieve any of those goals!
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 03:09 am (UTC)http://www.moosewoodrestaurant.com/aboutus.html
plus, recipes if you want to give them a shot:
http://www.moosewoodrestaurant.com/recipes_archive.html
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 03:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 03:31 am (UTC)I also like Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking. If you like Indian food, I mean. She gives good, clear instructions. The rice noodle dishes, the stuffed cauliflower, the beets smothered in their own greens (which we also made a lot with cauliflower) her version of coconut rice, the amazing lentil/broccoli/coconut curry (broccoli stands in for some Indian veggie you can't get here)--so much awesomeness, and she always makes sure you have a pot lid handy because the mustard seeds might spatter. <3
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:29 am (UTC)I like Indian restaurant food, but I haven't tried cooking it at home. Just when I thought my spice collection was complete ....
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 04:17 am (UTC)Us: "Nine."
Tourist, pointing to daughter: "Twenty-seven! Same height!"
*delurks* I am tempted to ask whether daughter's name was Peregrine Took.
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 04:22 am (UTC)Girl of about two: "My turn! My turn!"
Mother: "Sierra, remember: When you start yelling at strangers, we have to go home."
That is a good rule!
Tourist with limited English, pointing to kidlet: "How old?"
Us: "Nine."
Tourist, pointing to daughter: "Twenty-seven! Same height!"
I feel this way about my students sometimes. (They're usually about the same age as your kidlet;)
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 04:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:34 am (UTC)This is a problem I'm having with the books I find using my current method (picking them up off the shelves at random because the covers look tasty). I do have a fair number of meatless meals from regular sources, but I'd like a wider variety to choose from.
Unlike you, I like tofu. Or, anyway, I like tofu qua tofu. Tofu trying to pretend to be ground beef or hard-boiled eggs, not so much.
I'll look for Moskowitz's books.
(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 04:30 am (UTC)These posts make me miss coffee-shop culture, too. I guess the only thing we have here that's equivalent is attempting to overhear conversations in the immigration line at the airport...
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 04:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 05:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 05:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 05:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 07:10 am (UTC)That's actually quite a decent child-rearing policy, right there.
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 09:28 am (UTC)These are so neat, always. And your running kidlet is a delight. :D
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/6/08 12:23 pm (UTC)- Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian Cookbook (may not be exact name) - slightly difficult to use due to lay-out by principle ingredient rather than type of cuisine, but good recipes (no photos though)
(no subject)
Date: 7/7/08 02:37 am (UTC)