Casualties of Cooking

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING BLOG ENTRY CONTAINS GRAPHIC WORD-IMAGES AND MAY CAUSE VEGETARIANS TO VIOLENTLY PROJECTILE VOMIT ON THEIR KEYBOARDS WHERE THE ICKY BITS WILL BECOME LODGED BETWEEN THE ENTER AND BACKSLASH KEY FOR THE LIFE OF THE KEYBOARD.

Because I am such a wonderful housewife* (*see definition of irony below) I found myself in the kitchen today cooking the mind-blowingly delicious Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice soup recipe which you can find below. Anyway, since I realize that most of you are like me and will be too lazy to click on that link, I’ll tell you that the recipe involves a whole chicken, cut up. I bought a store brand cut-up chicken (which, like store brand graham crackers, is smaller, tougher, and uses corn syrup instead of honey) and lo and behold, when I cracked open the package I found that they had even included the chicken innards, tidily tucked beneath a disembodied wing.

I thought to myself, “This will make a nice snack for my dog. It will make her coat lustrous and healthy.”

Ha!

Double ha!

Still in my philanthropic Purina mode, I plopped that liver on a plate and stuck it in my microwave. Punched in one minute. It only took 23 seconds for the first exploding pop to sound. Barely had I time to raise my eyebrows (only a little, I mean, it was only a chicken liver) when the second explosion occurred. I ordered the microwave to cease cooking and opened the door.

Oh, I was not prepared for the gruesome battlefield within. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to take a photograph of the gory panorama for you, my reader, before I removed the liver. However, I shall paint a skilled word-picture for you.

Think chunks.

Fine spatter.

Everywhere.

That said, despite the thin coating of liver all over the inside of my microwave, the liver itself was still intact upon the plate. A miracle, obviously. I was unprepared to accept the responsibility that belief in such a miracle entailed, however, so I threw the liver into the trash. It was, I should add, still uncooked. It languished at the top of the trash, starting to ooze eerily after about three minutes. Once again, I should’ve taken a photograph – I don’t know where my mind was. Clearly this was a lost prop from a Chuckie movie and quite valuable. Had I gotten to my husband before he tied the trash bag shut, I would’ve sold it on eBay.

In short, it was an entertaining experience that I would recommend to anyone who has 14 paper towels and plenty of cleaner. Notwithstanding the dirty chicken smell that is now permeating my kitchen.

And on that note, happy cooking.

Links for this blog:
The definition of irony
Amazing splendiferous recipe for Cream of Chicken with Wild Rice
An absolutely disgusting photograph of a chicken liver

5 Reasons Why Pterodactyls Have More Fun

Work in Progress, 11 x 14" on film

Five Reasons Why Pterodactyls Have More Fun

1. They’re a lizard. With wings. Need I say more? (http://www.paleodirect.com/ptero1.htm)
2. Though they’ve been extinct for 65 million years, they still vacation in Arizona and France. (http://answersincreation.org/argument/D74_creation_science.htm and http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/ptero.html)
3. Apparently they write songs like “Chicken Biscuit.” (http://www.pterodactyl.info/songs.html)
4. They can be prepared a lot like Alligator and Iguana in recipes. (http://floridakeystreasures.com/keys-recipes/misc.shtml)
5. And finally, they’re cute, cuddly, furry (despite being reptiles) and like a diner in a Taco Bell restaurant, completely stuffed. (http://www.jeannieshouse.com/lizards/pterodactyl.html)


By the way, I'm a starving artist, as you should know by now. Do the right thing. Go to my website and buy art. Now. Why are you still reading this?

Holy Hairball, Batman!

Well, now that it’s May Day, my mind is beginning to turn towards summer and my upcoming annual family vacation to Myrtle Beach. With that gentle meandering of my mind towards August comes additional images of white sand, rainbow-colored beach umbrellas, European tourists who don’t know any better wearing Speedos, Americans who should know better wearing Speedos, my black bikini languishing in a drawer, and plans to eradicate every hair that ever planned to grow below my neck in the most inhumane and speedy way possible.

So, as far as I know, there are three general techniques one can apply to the idea of hair removal, all vaguely feudal.

1) Mow ‘em: grab yourself a razor in any number of feminine shades of pink or lavender and whack those pesky hairs off at ground level.
2) Yank ‘em: microwave, thick sticky stuff with cloying smell, and wooden paddles. Sound like a torture chamber set up or premise for a kinky porn flick? Of course not. It’s waxing. That’ll teach those bad boys to grow anywhere on your body.
3) Burn ‘em: if you ever get tired of method 1 and 2 (and gosh, why would you?) modern technology offers us the alternative of pointing a large laser at our body and frying each hair individually. This, my friend, is the culmination of molecular theory.

Of course, there is also a method which involves spreading something on your body you leave on long enough to eat the hair off at the root, allowing you to scrape the toxic cream and your little screaming hairs into a trash can. However, as this particular method sounds like animal testing gone wrong, I’ll tactfully ignore it, like that aunt no one ever talks about.

As a female, I have attempted all methods except for the giant laser pointed at my body. Why? Because I’ve seen too many James Bond films. As for the other methods, I’ve found pulling my fingernails out with a wrench preferable to mowing and yanking at my body hair. In fact, I’d rather watch a Hilary Duff concert from beginning to end – with the sound turned up – than shave or wax. Ahh! But society dictates smooth skin for us lucky females and I find, amazingly, that I agree. Women should be mostly hairless.

Men, please note that you are supposed to have hair on both your chest and legs. Feel free to pluck, wax, shave, or laser anywhere else, but please, oh please, do not shave your legs or chest. Nothing says “lives with cats” like having hairless legs.

Anyway, where was I? Right. Dueling with my hair. There’s no way to get around it, I guess. I mean, what’s your alternative? Go au naturale and be mistaken for a feminist or a European? Would that be so bad?

Uh.

I’m gonna go get my pot of wax.

Links for this post:
Hair Removal the James Bond Way