the frig blig

One of my quick and comfortable meals is macaroni and cheese. Since I perfected the recipe I hereby share it with the world.

Frank & Annie’s Mac-n-Cheese:

Ingredients:

1 box Annie’s mac n cheese (any kind except NOT whole wheat)
some brie
some butter
some coarse black pepper
some dill weed

Steps:
Fill pot with water, cover and set to boil. Push Annie’s tail (open the box of noodles). Remove packet of dried cheese and throw it away. Dump noodles into boiling water and cook for approx 7 minutes. Once noodles are cooked, drain water from pot and add butter and stir. Add brie and stir it up. Add spices and stir some more.

This meal takes about 10 minutes to make and is nicely complimented with a cold beer.

Q: What color did I paint the music room?
A: bianco.

Q: What books am I reading now?
A: Enclosure Josekis (Takemiya), Intuition (Fuller), Angle of Repose (Stegner), Book of Longing (Cohen).

Q: What is the vegetable equivalent of anchovies?
A: Olives.

Q: Who do I love?
A: Suzan.

Q: Which animals did we see on the islands?
A: Quick silent deer, swooping circling swallows, a soaring shrieking raven, a row of seagulls on the rooftop, sheep herded along the road by 3 black dogs, an unfortunate slug, a fiddler on the pebbly beach, a mysterious pet.

Q: How long is the wooden boat Peter is fixing and when was it built?
A: 50 feet, 1954.

Thai scientist Songpol Somsri crossed more than 90 varieties of durian in order to create “a fruit that he says smells as mild as a banana,” according to today’s New York Times. This is so 21st century, and so wrong.

In honor of real durians eaten by real people, I offer this limerick (per Suzan’s suggestion):

A foodie-in-training from Burien
for dessert, ordered one frozen durian.
When it started to melt
and he noticed the smelt
he became a past-tense epicurean.

-fgb, April 2007

Floating Leaves (FL) is a tea house in Ballard. Wednesday night is ‘Game Night’ and I often stop by for a game of go. Last night I met CEG there and had a fun game, which I lost after failing to kill his stones which invaded my center moyo. It was an exciting fight nonetheless. T (another FL go player) mentioned that he just bought a 24′ sailboat in Everett and extended an invitation to CEG and me. This is a raincoat made from palm fronds, on the wall in FL. They were largely replaced with vinyl wear, but are experiencing new popularity as decoration in Asia according to proprietress S.

Highlights of our weekend in Portland: spending time with the hospitable and entertaining C and Skyler chatting, eating and making art; learning to bake macaroons; hiking Mt. Tabor with Richard; dancing my brains out to FMR at the Church of Laurelthirst; widening slightly my familiarity with southeast Portland; picking up a friendly game of go at the Lucky Lab.

Breaking news: aging sucks. I used to blah blah blah but now my back hurts the next day, blah blah blah. What’s your gripe about aging?

Spilling the Flakes Dept.: here’s C’s recipe for awesome homemade macaroons direct from her notebook (and hereby awarded the official blig rave of approval):

1 cup cream of coconut
2 tbs light corn syrup
4 egg whites
2 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
3 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
3 cups sweetened flaked or shredded coconut

Whisk cream of coconut, corn syrup, egg whites and vanilla; set aside. Mix both dry coconut substances in large bowl; pour in liquid with rubber spatula and mix. Bake on parchment covered sheet approx 15 minutes @ 375 degrees, baby.