Same Dinner Every Night!

if you must know anything about me, know this:

1. i am very lazy
2. i am very impatient
3. i am often hungry
4. i like eggs

whenever i prepare dinner for myself, i usually prepare the same exact thing every single night. join me as i journey through my culinary wonders since may of 2003, the month i graduated from college.

may-december 2003
starch: udon noodles
protein: egg
vegetable: tomato

love this. it is warm, delicious, and the noodles are slimy. look at how delicious:














january-february 2004
starch: rice
protein: none
vegetable: spinach

eventually got sick of this. spinach and rice soup is fascinating for about the first three weeks, and started to really get on my nerves in mid-february.



















march-june 2004
starch: udon noodles
protein: egg
vegetable: tomato

everyone relapses with old loves. especially after a six week long mistake with spinach.

july 2004-november 2004
starch: rice
protein: pork
vegetable: broccoli

just so you know, broccoli is one of my great loves. it probably deserves to be number 5 in that list at the top. it's green, it's good for you, and it looks like a small tree that you can get cut into tinier and even tinier trees. my friend irvin gave me a stress ball thing that he got from kaiser permanente, except it's not a ball at all, it's a broccoli. i put it in my refrigerator.















december 2004-march 2005
starch: rice
protein: brussel sprouts
vegetable: brussel sprouts

after broccoli, i discovered brussel sprouts. they're high in protein, easy to cut (in half!), and have a slight advantage over broccoli because instead of looking like small trees, brussel sprouts look like small brains, which i find mildly intriguing.

april 2005-july 2005
starch: spaghetti noodles
protein: brussel sprouts
vegetable: brussel sprouts, capers
oil: olive

hmmm. in writing this, i've realized that my culinary genealogy is a lot like that game mastermind where on each successive turn you change just one color in the sequence. or like that word game where you have to figure out how to get from one word to another by changing one letter at a time, and all of the words in between actually have to be real words. you can't be a dick and use 'turntgble' as your penultimate move before you claim victory at 'turntable.'

why am i so nerdy? it's annoying.

august 2005-november 2005
starch: spaghetti noodles
protein: eggs
vegetable: capers
oil: olive
sauce: soy

yes. yes, capers were promoted to 'vegetable.'

december 2005-april 2006
starch: rice
protein: eggs
vegetable: tomato

i love this dish. it is one of my favorite favorite favorites, and it takes about 3 minutes to cook. rachael ray is wasting her time. i can eat, water my plant, practice piano, and watch an episode of threes company in the remaining 27 minutes. i actually recently compiled all of these quick recipes into a book that is available at Imaginary Bookstore.

may 2006-august 2006
starch: noodles
protein: eggs
vegetable: tomato, capers
oil: olive

i am running out of things to say, so i will paste a cute picture here instead of trying to think of something remotely interesting to say.













august 2006-february 2007
during this time period, i started eating out a lot. near my house. there are three main places that i go:
1. sunflower (vietnamese pho)
2. pancho villa (burrito)
3. katz (bagels)

my friend cathy and i were walking down 16th street last night, where all three of these places are located. as we walked by, i waved cheerily at each person working, and they waved cheerily back. cathy proclaimed me the mayor of 16th street, and i giggled happily until i remembered that the only reason why these people know me is because i eat a lot and happen to spend money on food at these three venues because i am too lazy to venture more than a block away from my house.

wah.

Make it Last Forever, said Keith Sweat. Really? Sweat? That's your last name? gross.

when i start to really like something, i have this bad habit of hanging out with it so much that i get sick of it. this happens to me with food, music, and sometimes people. however, there always remains this very special subset of items that i have always loved, and that i will forever love.

what makes these particular things special? is it the very perfect combination of traits they possess? or is it because these loves are simply expiring at slower rates? today we will examine one category. food. my favorite!

Exhibit A: Oreos

Mug Shot:



















oreos are great! they involve cookies (2!) and sweet, lard-laden frosting. you can pull them apart, or not. you can dip them in milk, or not. the milk can be hot, or cold, or room temperature. you can have them in ice cream. you can have them with coffee. they are delicious! i loved oreos.

when i was in college, these students started this little business where they took costco orders from hapless freshmen without cars, and delivered them to our dorm rooms.

costco is good for things like families with many people and ogres who enjoy discounts. from experience, i would say costco is not optimal for girls in college who just want some cookies to make studying less painful, and also want an appropriately-sized container of body wash for the 99-00 year.

i ordered oreos and they came in a box with 8 rolls. one roll contains 15 oreos. i ate 120 oreos in a week and a half. when i see oreos nowadays, that warm feeling doesn't spread over my heart anymore. i don't have any sort of bad reactions or feelings of revulsion; i'm just not interested. i think they're kind of boring. kind of like the same reaction i have when i see babies.

Exhibit B: Tuna Salad

Mug Shot:



















i had to do it sort of rebus style because all of the photos i found for tuna salad looked like i had eaten it and then thrown it back up and put some chopped cilantro on it.

in any case, tuna salad is stupendous. tuna salad is delicious with an entire suite of garnishes:

• mayonnaise
• pickles (salty dill only, please)
  
• red onions
• celery
• um
• err
• shit. can't think of anything else.
  

look at all of those ingredients! tuna salad is so versatile.

i could eat tuna every day. it takes about 2 seconds to make, it's filling, and it has protein. i think all of these reports of dangerous levels of mercury are preposterous. besides, mercury makes you strong like bull.

So here we have our two examples. what have we learned? what are the key differences between oreos and tuna salad?

the answer to these questions is: i have no idea. they're totally different, and there's no way you can compare them. this exercise is stupid. let's chalk it up to my fickle nature.

i'm bored. next!