Or masturbating cow, as we like to call it.
I have been trying to make good stroganoff from cheap cuts of meat since FOREVER. All the recipes I've found either want sirloin or tenderloin or something spendy, or hamburger which is just NOT COOL.
But I want to use good old fashioned chuck roast. The deal with using this instead of spendier meat is that it requires braising to turn it into something edible instead of shoe leather. Braising takes 2 hours, minimum. It's a time investment, but the actual work of cooking it only takes a half hour or so.'
First slice up a bunch of crimini or button mushrooms. I use between half a pound to 3/4 of a pound depending on how bit the meat hunk is. Also slice up a large yellow onion or 2. In a large skillet, melt some butter in with some olive oil. The oil keeps the butter from burning. Throw mushrooms and onions in pan and saute until the onions sweat, about 5 mins. Move mixture to a bowl and set aside.
Take your chuckroast. I got a deal and had a good 3 pound roast. Get a good knife. I use a long, serrated bread knife for this. The teeth go through the meat like, well teeth. Slice the meat in to thin strips. If you can't do thin strips, then do smallerish cubes. Cut off some of the fatty parts, but not all because fat=flavor and because fat helps with the breakdown of the meat fibers that leads to tender meaty awesomeness when braising.
Throw some more oil in the mushroom pan and brown up the meat. Season the meat with salt and pepper while it's browning. You may have to do this in batches. After the meat is browned, grab a glass of red wine and use it to deglaze the pan. The pour the stuff from the pan into a large dutch oven (if you are making a smaller batch of stroganoff, you may be able to keep everything in the frying pan if you have a good lid for it). Throw the meat into the wine. Add beef stock (shout out to better than bullion- heyyyyy!) of about 6 cups for 3 lbs meat. Get out the Worcestershire sauce. Pour it 3 times around the pan. Stir the stuff up and bring it to a boil. The cover and reduce to simmer. Ignore it for an hour.
At the one hour mark, put the mushrooms and onions back in the pot. Make a cornstarch slurry (a table spoon or 2 of cornstarch mixed into cold water) and throw that in the pot too. Ignore it for another hour. Have a whiskey coke. Watch an episode of Firefly.
Check the liquid level. If it is too soupy you can either try more cornstarch or cook with the lid off for awhile. If it looks to low add a little stock or water. Before you add the sour cream in it should look a bit like watery stew.
Make the noodles. Generously salt the noodle water. Cook a package (or 2 if you just made enough stroganoff to feed an army) according to the instructions. While the noodles are cooking, add sour cream to the meat. Use a large container of sour cream if you just cooked a whole cow, or just glop spoonfuls in and stir if you made less. When sauce is coffee with 2 creams-colored, you've got it right.
Serve over noodles. Enjoy the oohs and ahhhs of people stuffing it in their faces.
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Voting Myths: Or How Not To Win Friends and Influence Voters
I'd imagine that the handful of readers I still have are totes familiar with the myths (lies) those on the right spin. We all know that when they are disdaining Welfare, they are talking about single, black mothers even though most people on Welfare are white women. We know that when they say voting fraud they mean "how many legit voters can I disenfranchise" since voting fraud is not a thing that actually happens unless Rethuglicans are doing it. We know their racist dog whistles and call them out on it.
But it ain't just the right dog whistling. OH NO. Dems have their own shitty lies they tell about the people who don't vote for them. There's a reason why the Rethuglikan sneers about elitism stick, it's because of the snobbery, the disdain, the dripping condescension handed out by Dems in the middle of their "WHY DON'T THEY VOTE THE WAY I TELL THEM TO" tantrums. For example:
"Voting against their own self-interest" - this is phrase trotted out by liberals regarding poor, usually rural, whites who vote for the other legacy party. But here's the thing. No one votes against their own self-interest. Poor whites who vote for Republicans do it for god and racism. They see, accurately, that the Dems don't really have anything to offer them. The Dems aren't bringing back middle class jobs, making college affordable for their kids, etc. etc. But what the Dems are (ostensibly, in the most shallow ways) about are anti-racism, which removes the one privilege poor whites have, and anti-fundy bible thumping with the sex ed and "gays are people too" and the "wanton sluts should get birth control". Racism gives them a real benefit and religion gives them the same kind of empowered feeling that liberals get from reading the NY Times and bitching about flyover states.
There's another shitty layer of shitty to the 7 layer dip of awful that is "voting against their own self-interest" . We know that the Rethuglikans are the party of freedom from control over your own life unless your rich, white, straight and male. The Dems like to frame themselves as the alternative to that. "Oh we will let the ladies have control over their own naughty bits as long as it doesn't cost up anything". They aren't. See Welfare Reform, the virtuous foodies who think every family can eat nothing but organic fruit and veg on a food stamp budget, and that phrase "voting against their own self-interest".
Now see, I believe that short of bad cases of mental illness, people are rational creatures who act in their own self-interest. It's like Elizabeth Bennet says to Lady Catherine, a rich old shit monster who is trying to meddle and browbeat Elizabeth "I am only resolved to act in a manner which will constitute my own happiness without reference to you or to any person so wholly unconnected with me." I trust people to understand their own lives better than I, an outsider, could. As long as what you're doing doesn't hurt someone else, I don't give a fuck. You shouldn't either. It ain't about you. But that fucking "voting against their own self-interest" bullshit is just a way of saying "You there, poor and stupid person, let me choose who will govern you, for you are surely to ignorant to be allowed to choose for your self".
Of course this isn't the only liberal way of dog whistling "poor and stupid". See also "Low Information Voters". Whenever someone uses this phrase, feel free to kick them in the shins and call them a classist shitmonger. Ok, maybe not with the kicking. I know some of y'all are pacifists. But yeah, CLASSIST SHITMONGER screamed in all caps 2 inches from their face is a good plan. I asked the boyfriend if there was a way to just troll the interwebs and have an audio file of me screaming autoplay every time someone uses that phrase. He told me it would just require some tweaking of the software spambots use to leave comments. "This an excellent blog of the most excellent quality. I am glad to have found such a blog. I have also posted on this same topic. Please click this link to.... CLASSIST SHITMONGER." Should I ever win the lottery, I may pay spambots to do this for me.
Now both legacy parties can't understand why the underclass of the other party votes the way they do. Poor blacks and latinos are more religious than poor whites, yet they vote for the separation of church and state party. Poor whites have more in common with poor blacks and latinos than with the rich old dudes who run the Rethuglican party exclusively (and the Democratic party, slightly less exclusively). When really, for the bottom 20 percent, the choice between shit sandwich and shit sandwich with pickle isn't much of a choice.
Now what no one is asking (because the right doesn't care if you vote and because the left (ha) can't imagine why anyone wouldn't vote for them) is why do we have 46% of the voting age population that couldn't be assed to cast a vote in 2008? Sure the left will trot out pipe dreams about needing election day to be a national holiday. They will, rightly, accuse the right of illegally purging voters. But that doesn't cover the vast majority of regular folks who really don't see a difference in voting for shit sandwich, shit sandwich with pickle since President Sans Pickle is doing the exact same shit the President Pickle did. Neither party will address that, because it's not in their best interest. A president maybe a president of 100% of the population, but neither Mittens not Obama give a flying fuck about the needs of the disillusioned 46%,
Maybe they are all just low information welfare queens who are (not) voting against their own self interest?
But it ain't just the right dog whistling. OH NO. Dems have their own shitty lies they tell about the people who don't vote for them. There's a reason why the Rethuglikan sneers about elitism stick, it's because of the snobbery, the disdain, the dripping condescension handed out by Dems in the middle of their "WHY DON'T THEY VOTE THE WAY I TELL THEM TO" tantrums. For example:
"Voting against their own self-interest" - this is phrase trotted out by liberals regarding poor, usually rural, whites who vote for the other legacy party. But here's the thing. No one votes against their own self-interest. Poor whites who vote for Republicans do it for god and racism. They see, accurately, that the Dems don't really have anything to offer them. The Dems aren't bringing back middle class jobs, making college affordable for their kids, etc. etc. But what the Dems are (ostensibly, in the most shallow ways) about are anti-racism, which removes the one privilege poor whites have, and anti-fundy bible thumping with the sex ed and "gays are people too" and the "wanton sluts should get birth control". Racism gives them a real benefit and religion gives them the same kind of empowered feeling that liberals get from reading the NY Times and bitching about flyover states.
There's another shitty layer of shitty to the 7 layer dip of awful that is "voting against their own self-interest" . We know that the Rethuglikans are the party of freedom from control over your own life unless your rich, white, straight and male. The Dems like to frame themselves as the alternative to that. "Oh we will let the ladies have control over their own naughty bits as long as it doesn't cost up anything". They aren't. See Welfare Reform, the virtuous foodies who think every family can eat nothing but organic fruit and veg on a food stamp budget, and that phrase "voting against their own self-interest".
Now see, I believe that short of bad cases of mental illness, people are rational creatures who act in their own self-interest. It's like Elizabeth Bennet says to Lady Catherine, a rich old shit monster who is trying to meddle and browbeat Elizabeth "I am only resolved to act in a manner which will constitute my own happiness without reference to you or to any person so wholly unconnected with me." I trust people to understand their own lives better than I, an outsider, could. As long as what you're doing doesn't hurt someone else, I don't give a fuck. You shouldn't either. It ain't about you. But that fucking "voting against their own self-interest" bullshit is just a way of saying "You there, poor and stupid person, let me choose who will govern you, for you are surely to ignorant to be allowed to choose for your self".
Of course this isn't the only liberal way of dog whistling "poor and stupid". See also "Low Information Voters". Whenever someone uses this phrase, feel free to kick them in the shins and call them a classist shitmonger. Ok, maybe not with the kicking. I know some of y'all are pacifists. But yeah, CLASSIST SHITMONGER screamed in all caps 2 inches from their face is a good plan. I asked the boyfriend if there was a way to just troll the interwebs and have an audio file of me screaming autoplay every time someone uses that phrase. He told me it would just require some tweaking of the software spambots use to leave comments. "This an excellent blog of the most excellent quality. I am glad to have found such a blog. I have also posted on this same topic. Please click this link to.... CLASSIST SHITMONGER." Should I ever win the lottery, I may pay spambots to do this for me.
Now both legacy parties can't understand why the underclass of the other party votes the way they do. Poor blacks and latinos are more religious than poor whites, yet they vote for the separation of church and state party. Poor whites have more in common with poor blacks and latinos than with the rich old dudes who run the Rethuglican party exclusively (and the Democratic party, slightly less exclusively). When really, for the bottom 20 percent, the choice between shit sandwich and shit sandwich with pickle isn't much of a choice.
Now what no one is asking (because the right doesn't care if you vote and because the left (ha) can't imagine why anyone wouldn't vote for them) is why do we have 46% of the voting age population that couldn't be assed to cast a vote in 2008? Sure the left will trot out pipe dreams about needing election day to be a national holiday. They will, rightly, accuse the right of illegally purging voters. But that doesn't cover the vast majority of regular folks who really don't see a difference in voting for shit sandwich, shit sandwich with pickle since President Sans Pickle is doing the exact same shit the President Pickle did. Neither party will address that, because it's not in their best interest. A president maybe a president of 100% of the population, but neither Mittens not Obama give a flying fuck about the needs of the disillusioned 46%,
Maybe they are all just low information welfare queens who are (not) voting against their own self interest?
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Vamanos Pest
I'm rewatching the last half season of Breaking Bad. And for those who haven't seen it consider this your spoiler warning.
It's obviously a perfect metaphor for the amorality of capitalism. It doesn't matter why you get into business. It can be for the most noble of reasons, to leave your wife and children with enough when you die, for example. But in the end you are going to be the guy who chooses future profits over justice for a dead kid. Profits first. Profits only. Profits over the wife and kids that you wanted to take care of in the first place. You could also break it down into World Systems Theory, if you're a bit of an old school structuralist like I am. But that is bit too easy, all nuclear families break down that way. It's even there, in the description. A core surrounded by the less powerful periphery. Nuclear.
Maybe I am showing my bias, but I hope it's Skyler who takes Walt out. Hank has the same amount of power and privilege as Walt. Jesse does too, though the fact that he doesn't recognize it doesn't make it any less true. But Skyler, she can't even keep Walt out of her bed. I think that's why she is smoking inside the house. For now, it's the only thing she can do. Smoke in the house where your husband, the guy with lung cancer, lives. Yes, I want the terrified wife to take Walt down. Because for anyone else to do it, it's just a change in management. Just a name change. To break the structure, the periphery has to take out the core.
It's obviously a perfect metaphor for the amorality of capitalism. It doesn't matter why you get into business. It can be for the most noble of reasons, to leave your wife and children with enough when you die, for example. But in the end you are going to be the guy who chooses future profits over justice for a dead kid. Profits first. Profits only. Profits over the wife and kids that you wanted to take care of in the first place. You could also break it down into World Systems Theory, if you're a bit of an old school structuralist like I am. But that is bit too easy, all nuclear families break down that way. It's even there, in the description. A core surrounded by the less powerful periphery. Nuclear.
Maybe I am showing my bias, but I hope it's Skyler who takes Walt out. Hank has the same amount of power and privilege as Walt. Jesse does too, though the fact that he doesn't recognize it doesn't make it any less true. But Skyler, she can't even keep Walt out of her bed. I think that's why she is smoking inside the house. For now, it's the only thing she can do. Smoke in the house where your husband, the guy with lung cancer, lives. Yes, I want the terrified wife to take Walt down. Because for anyone else to do it, it's just a change in management. Just a name change. To break the structure, the periphery has to take out the core.
Saturday, October 06, 2012
Decision Fatigue
It's a thing I didn't have a phrase for until recently, but something I've experienced since I was a kid.
Decision fatigue it what happens when every single damn choice you make throughout the day has, if not life or death consequences, then rent or food consequences. Eventually your brain just says "fuck you, I'm out." and the smallest, stupidest decisions become paralyzing exercises in stress and futility.
So a few weeks ago I bought a $10 pair of shoes on Ebay. The seller sent the wrong pair and wants me to send them back. She'll even pay for postage. But the tiny decisions needed to facilitate this return have been causing my stomach churning anxiety for the last week. My bus stop is closed for the next 6 months, so to get to the post office do I 1) Kill myself with the long uphill hike to the nearest functioning bus stop or 2) spend another $10 bucks on a cab ride that won't be reimbursed by the seller. Decision 2 Where does the money I have to front for postage before the seller reimburses me come from? Do I borrow it from the Kid, who made a little money working for the boyfriend. No I can't do that. That's gross. 3) Do I even respond to the email(s) from the seller. I feel bad for her. My shoes were supposed to go to someone else. I can't even wear them, they are the wrong size. But everytime another unread email shows up my stomach clenches.
And the thing is, these shoes are not at all important. I don't actually give a fuck. I am freaked out because I am taking home less money than I was a year ago thanks to increased health insurance costs plus the unreimbursed expenses of working from home that I didn't have when I worked in the office. And of course while trying to figure out how to deal with this, I stopped receiving child support. Again. Fucking fuck that fucking fucker. Kid's deadbeat dad is the original shit monster.
So the overwhelming non-decision about what to do about the shoes is just the result of the real freak out. I paid rent yesterday. My paycheck alone wasn't enough to cover the whole amount. So I cleaned out the remaining balance of my savings account. Rent paid, but electric, food, and internet (which I have to pay for because of work) are going to have to wait till the 20th. I have no idea how we are going to get though the next 6 months. I would ask for a raise, but that keeps getting put off because of outside things like the company being sold or the boss being on maternity leave or the client being a big tantrum throwing baby.I'd look for a new job, but my stupid broken body won't be able to make the daily slog up the huge hill to the bus stop to go to a new job. So I am waiting, and trying to figure out how the ever loving fuck we are gonna make it until next Spring, when I can dump my tax return into my savings account (again) and have a little cushion.
And from my neighbors, I hear the same thing. Which food bank is the good food bank and who can drive to get there. Who hasn't paid rent and is waiting for the 3 day notice to be stuck to their door. You all know all this. You've heard it or said it yourselves.
Which is maybe why it is so hard for people to give up legacy politics. It's a relatively easy decision. Elephant or donkey? Shit sandwich, shit sandwich with pickle. A tiny decision, built up to be some grand action of self-determination. I choose who has power over me! And my choice it right and yours is wrong and (fingers in ears) "lallallallallallalllalla I CAN'T HEAR YOU".
Decision fatigue it what happens when every single damn choice you make throughout the day has, if not life or death consequences, then rent or food consequences. Eventually your brain just says "fuck you, I'm out." and the smallest, stupidest decisions become paralyzing exercises in stress and futility.
So a few weeks ago I bought a $10 pair of shoes on Ebay. The seller sent the wrong pair and wants me to send them back. She'll even pay for postage. But the tiny decisions needed to facilitate this return have been causing my stomach churning anxiety for the last week. My bus stop is closed for the next 6 months, so to get to the post office do I 1) Kill myself with the long uphill hike to the nearest functioning bus stop or 2) spend another $10 bucks on a cab ride that won't be reimbursed by the seller. Decision 2 Where does the money I have to front for postage before the seller reimburses me come from? Do I borrow it from the Kid, who made a little money working for the boyfriend. No I can't do that. That's gross. 3) Do I even respond to the email(s) from the seller. I feel bad for her. My shoes were supposed to go to someone else. I can't even wear them, they are the wrong size. But everytime another unread email shows up my stomach clenches.
And the thing is, these shoes are not at all important. I don't actually give a fuck. I am freaked out because I am taking home less money than I was a year ago thanks to increased health insurance costs plus the unreimbursed expenses of working from home that I didn't have when I worked in the office. And of course while trying to figure out how to deal with this, I stopped receiving child support. Again. Fucking fuck that fucking fucker. Kid's deadbeat dad is the original shit monster.
So the overwhelming non-decision about what to do about the shoes is just the result of the real freak out. I paid rent yesterday. My paycheck alone wasn't enough to cover the whole amount. So I cleaned out the remaining balance of my savings account. Rent paid, but electric, food, and internet (which I have to pay for because of work) are going to have to wait till the 20th. I have no idea how we are going to get though the next 6 months. I would ask for a raise, but that keeps getting put off because of outside things like the company being sold or the boss being on maternity leave or the client being a big tantrum throwing baby.I'd look for a new job, but my stupid broken body won't be able to make the daily slog up the huge hill to the bus stop to go to a new job. So I am waiting, and trying to figure out how the ever loving fuck we are gonna make it until next Spring, when I can dump my tax return into my savings account (again) and have a little cushion.
And from my neighbors, I hear the same thing. Which food bank is the good food bank and who can drive to get there. Who hasn't paid rent and is waiting for the 3 day notice to be stuck to their door. You all know all this. You've heard it or said it yourselves.
Which is maybe why it is so hard for people to give up legacy politics. It's a relatively easy decision. Elephant or donkey? Shit sandwich, shit sandwich with pickle. A tiny decision, built up to be some grand action of self-determination. I choose who has power over me! And my choice it right and yours is wrong and (fingers in ears) "lallallallallallalllalla I CAN'T HEAR YOU".
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
This is not my idea of fun.
So the bloggy blog is a little different. Echo, which used to be JS-Kit which used to be Haloscan is going away in a few weeks. I thought of just shutting the whole thing down rather than deal with (AGAIN) changing commenting platforms and importing and blah blah blah.
But even though I can barely be assed to write something once a week, I am not totally ready to give up on Blogger just yet. If Tumblr ever makes it so I can import this whole thing over there- IT'S ON!
Right now I am waiting to see if Discuss imports all the old comments. And if Discus installed comments on Tumblr. If you all haven't visited me over there, where I am ALL the FUCKING TIME, I have now installed comments*. So even if you aren't a hipster with Tumblr full of dubstep remixes (or one of the cool kids like Vest Left, the blogger formerly known as Montag, and BLCKDGRD) you can still comment on my ridiculousness over there. And it's ridiculous. I have an unabashed love for Avengers fan art.
*As I was typing this sentence, old friend o' the blog tested and YES comments work at Tumblr but you can't see the option for the dash. You have to go to the actual page to see them.
But even though I can barely be assed to write something once a week, I am not totally ready to give up on Blogger just yet. If Tumblr ever makes it so I can import this whole thing over there- IT'S ON!
Right now I am waiting to see if Discuss imports all the old comments. And if Discus installed comments on Tumblr. If you all haven't visited me over there, where I am ALL the FUCKING TIME, I have now installed comments*. So even if you aren't a hipster with Tumblr full of dubstep remixes (or one of the cool kids like Vest Left, the blogger formerly known as Montag, and BLCKDGRD) you can still comment on my ridiculousness over there. And it's ridiculous. I have an unabashed love for Avengers fan art.
*As I was typing this sentence, old friend o' the blog tested and YES comments work at Tumblr but you can't see the option for the dash. You have to go to the actual page to see them.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Awesome things said at dinner
So I have this old friend. This awesome old friend. And during the 2008 elections we had some very heated debates. I've mellowed. I am all honey badger about the current election. I can't believe I ever spent so much emotional energy on a party as shit-tay as the Democrats. I am now mostly a nod and change the subject type when it comes to what flavor of shit sandwich people are gonna swallow come November. At least in person. I have a lot of old friends and I don't want to waste any time that could be spent discussing Dr. Who or "How the fuckity fuck does Pandora decide Outkast belongs on my playlist with The Pixies?" rather than discussing shit sandwich vs. shit sandwich with pickle.
But still, the shit sandwich finds it's way into discussions, because it's that time. Not all of these were said by old friend, but he and I are both voting Green. (Lots of paraphrasing. I made fried chicken and drank whiskey. DO YOU KNOW HOW LABOR INTENSIVE FRIED CHICKEN IS?"
"Hey remember when the Dems wanted to repeal the Patriot act?"
"Remember when they cared about habeus corpus?"
"I love the part of the platform that says abortion is between a woman and local control of her uterus, her husband, doctor, clergy".
"It's all about eliminating the middle class. It's a question of if you want lube with it. I vote for Democrats cause I am trying to slow the process"
(me- in response to the above) "I vote 3rd party to speed up people's recognition of how fucked we are".
I love my friends. We don't all agree at the same time on the same things. But Obots they are not.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Word for the day- dizzling
Courtesy of the ever lovely T.O.E. comes the word dizzling. Apparently it was a misstatement by one of her Frenchie Friends.
So we put out heads together over chat, because dizzling is too perfect of a word to not have a definition. And we decided that there are not enough Lady-Only words for masturbation. But now add one more to the list.
Here's some sentences to try out for yourself.
I needs double A batteries from the store. My rabbit is dead and I
need it for dizzling.
He was way too quick, so I dizzled myself to sleep.
Alright kids, try some yourself. And remember to make dizzle happen (both figuratively and literally.)
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