Eat It Up With A Spoon

So, I have this tendency to ignore my stomach. I'll know I'm hungry for, like, an hour and won't do anything about it. Not out of some weird self-denial eating-disordery thing, but sheer laziness (I'm actually doing it right now). Then, by the time I decide to fix something to eat I am a whiny, stupid mess, due to my blood sugar being abysmally low. Landon can tell you about it. It's super-annoying, and probably one of my worst traits.

In order to counteract this, I try to have some food I've already prepared waiting for me in the fridge. That way, when I am starving but totally unable to cook because my brain is shutting down, I can just grab some delicious little whatever, and go back to being a semi-functional adult. And today, I'm gonna share the recipe for one of my delicious little whatevers!! Let's call it, umm,

Chelsea's Awesome Tuna Salad!!

Okay! You will need:

3 normal-sized cans of tuna, or 1 really big one
1 can x-large black olives
capers
green beans or asparagus
black beans (cooked)
dijon mustard
apple cider vinegar
olive oil
couscous or potatoes. or neither. it's your call. (Whoa, I just realized why I never write down recipes. Let's just call this an outline, then.)

So. Take a sealable container that will fit all this stuff (I like Pyrex) and dump your tuna, which you have already drained well, into the container. Add some dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar and olive oil. I don't know how much I use, because I never measure. Maybe don't use too much mustard because it makes your nose feel crazy, yadaddamean? Oh!! Also, I like to use basil-infused olive oil for extra yumminess.


Mix all that stuff up and then start adding in the olives. I like to get the whole ones and break them up with my fingers. This is partly because I like to pop about every fourth olive into my mouth, but also I like to be really excessively intimate with my food. I've had a couple buddies observe that when I'm eating I stare my food down in a somewhat sexual way. I have also been told that I fondle my sandwiches. My hope is that my behavior is more charming than disgusting, but really there's nothing I can do about it, so fuck it.

Now you're gonna add the capers and black beans. You'll probably wanna use canned black beans, in which case just use half the can. As for the capers, it really depends on how much you like capers.


The green beans!! I have weird food allergies (no raw anything ever) so I use frozen green beans that I cook and cool before adding, but I bet raw or lightly steamed green beans would be delicious. Also, maybe some tasty little cherry tomatoes. Sometimes instead of the green beans I use asparagus, which is totally in season right now. Maybe throw in some parboiled potatoes, depending on your current relationship with carbohydrates. I bet broccoli would be good in this, too. God, I love vegetables.



Okay! So! Everything's mixed up all cozy, and all you need to do now is salt and pepper it. I like to serve it over couscous, because that shit cooks in two minutes, and sometimes I need a break from whole wheat pasta, which I eat every single day. If you make this let me know how it goes.

I have to go eat right now, I am freaking out.

Big things happening here at Who Did What To Who HQ, by which I mean my apartment. I am in the middle of a massive Spring cleaning/redecorating (although, I am starting to question whether this can really be called Spring, calendars be damned. It fucking snowed last night!! What type of shit is that?!) and it is awesoooooome!! I am nesting like a motherfucker! I love it!

So far I have been focusing mainly on the kitchen. I cleaned out the cupboards, replaced the hideous Laura Ashley floral contact paper that has been driving me crazy for the last four years, removed some of the cupboard doors, and moved the fridge. I have a comically tiny galley kitchen, and moving the fridge opened it up a lot. Next up is the living room, which will mainly involve taming the media situation, and figuring out what to put on the walls, which I suck at.

The funnest thing about my current monomania is shopping on the webs for wonderful new things to bring into my freshly awesome-ified abode. Which brings me to the point: Lookit!



This lovely little dish is used for serving olive oil. As the ShopModi website describes, "when filled you see a series of concentric rings of greens in descending tones due to the depth of the oil in the dish." How rad is that?

And this fuckin' guy:



I love these hook boxes. They are incredibly practical, and so sleek. But they are almost impossible to acquire and are retardedly expensive. So much so that I refuse to type the exact price because it is so fucking stupid. I'm done talking about it. For now.



OH. MY. GOD. I love this lamp so much I just peed a little. And I will have it. Because it is only $68. Yaaaaaaaay!!!!

Ugh, I am having so much fun. Today I am going to Retrofit to see if they have any rad little trinkets that need to live at my house. Fuuuuuun!!!

Le Creuset

It wasn't long ago (think two weeks ago) that I couldn't say the phrase Dutch Oven without cracking up. Not that I support farting under blankets and forcing your loved ones to suffer in the odors. I just think it's funny. But now, I can't stop thinking about dutch ovens. the kitchen kind, not the fart kind.


I want a Le Creuset oven so bad it hurts. They come in a million great colors (I've got my heart set on Kiwi Green, as above), they last for-fucking-ever, and you can do loads of cool shit with them. You can bake bread in them, for God's sake. And!! Le Creuset is French, making it a French oven, so I won't think about gastrointestinal torture methods while I'm braising a delicious lamb shank or whatever. Bingo!!

Do any of you guys have dutch/french ovens? What do you make with them? Is it totally delicious? I want to know all about it.

The Anthony Bourdain Immersion Program

I love food. I love thinking about food, I love talking about food. I love eating food, but only slightly more than I love preparing food. I fucking love food. Strange then, that it has only recently occurred to me to try reading about food.

When I got Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential from the library a couple weeks ago, I didn't have any ideas in mind other than reading it, but things took on a life of their own pretty quickly once I remembered that he'd also done a celebrity playlist for Rhapsody, and that it was really good. So I decided that I would listen to this playlist while reading the book. It's not often that books come with their own soundtrack, right? Then I remembered that there was a short-lived sitcom on Fox a couple years back, based on Kitchen Confidential. And hey, what about No Reservations, Bourdain's Eat-My-Way-Around-The-World show?

Thus, The Anthony Bourdain Immersion Program was born.



Dudes, I have been having so much fun. And it's not like I've learned a whole lot of new stuff. Mostly homie has just reminded me to take a few key things seriously.

1. Ingredients
Last Saturday I had one of the best meals of my life, no joke. I sauteed an onion and a few cloves of garlic, threw in some fresh sage, poured white wine over it and after it had reduced to my satisfaction, sopped it up with Pain Campagne from Dahlia Bakery. Crazy simple, but it was completely amazing because every ingredient was quality.

2. Knives
I use one knife for everything, so why not take care of it? I've decided to start sharpening my knife regularly. My buddy Cody works at a knife store in the Market, it's just a matter of getting myself down there for a tutorial. Plus, it looks really fun.

3. The Stooges
Here's that playlist I was talking about.
Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations Mix
No revelations, but it reminded me that everything is awesome when you are listening to The Stooges. The other day me and Landon were doing the most mundane shit possible (mending pants and filing taxes, respectively) but it felt totally fucking rad, because we were listening to Fun House.

4. Calling Bullshit on Rachael Ray
This was Bourdain's response when asked why he picks on Rachael Ray:
"Well, she can take it. She’s incredibly powerful, very successful, far more loved than I am… so it’s not like I’m hurting her. And on the other hand, she genuinely offends me. I compare her to, the standard I hold her to — foolishly, perhaps– is Julia Child, who wasn’t a professional chef either. When you watched Julia Child, you would see her make Coq au Vin, or some classic French dish, and you’d say “Wow, that’s classic French food, that’s not so difficult. Julia can do it, I can do it. I’m gonna try that.” And it made people aspire to more.

I think when Rachael tells you that it’s perfectly OK to buy a pre-chopped onion from the supermarket… I mean how hard is it to chop an onion? What you take away from Rachael Ray is “I could cook that! I feel better about myself now. I’m not gonna cook that! But I will finish this bag of Cheetos and that gallon jug of Diet Pepsi before dying of diabetes.”

And just to illustrate his point, this video includes a tutorial on how to properly dice an onion:

Waldorf Toys

Landon and I sometimes joke that the real reason we want kids is so we can play with their toys. I'm not sure if he realizes that even if we had a kid right now, by the time it's old enough to move independently, the Wii will be hopelessly outmoded. So he should just buy one (a Wii, not a baby). What I want an excuse to buy, on the other hand, will never be outmoded because they are timelessly awesome. Waldorf toys.



How cute is that little fucker! I think I will just buy that one, actually. It's not so obviously a toy that I can't just put it on my bookshelf. Oh yeah, and it's called a Gnome Castle, which is possibly the cutest thing that's ever happened. One thing I will have to wait for baby-time to buy is the Rollercoaster:

When I was little those things were my favorite. They had them at the bank and at the doctor's office, and I used to covet them so hard. And as you can tell, I still find them fascinating. Ugh. Being a toddler is the shit.

Missoni Home is Killin' My Life

My High School psychology teacher was the most mind-numbingly boring person I have ever encountered. He murdered what could have been the most interesting course on my syllabus with his quiet, monotone delivery. I remember one day I simply could not take it anymore, so I faked a coughing fit until he made me go sit in the hallway. I did take one thing away from that class, for which I will always be grateful. He showed us the Schizophrenia Cats. Do you know what I'm talking about? This schizophrenic dude, Louis Wain, painted cats, and as his condition worsened the cats he painted grew progressively more abstracted and awesome.



How gorgeous are those? I especially like the 3rd-6th paintings. I was reminded of these paintings recently while looking at pictures of Missoni's home collections.



Ugh, I just love it so hard. I want to put a piece of toast on that plate like you would not believe. Missoni also did a version of the Phillip Starck Ghost Chair that is absolutely ruining me right now.



Seriously. And then I saw this:



Fuuuuuuuuck!!! How fun would it be to have a living room that is, like, the visual equivalent of delicious popsicles!! This is my living room in my imaginary life where Landon is an architect and I write hilarious, touching, critically acclaimed short stories and we can totally afford gorgeous floor cushions that cost, like $2000 each.