Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Food Porn Chronicles: Stuffed Acorn Squash



 This was dinner. You can see that I had already plowed through half of it before I thought to preserve it in pixels.

The verdict: Deeelicious, very filling, but takes for.ever to make, or about an hour. Even so, if I make it again I'm going to adjust the portions to make more servings for the same stomach. Mmmm leftovers.

Here is the recipe, also available here, but why would you want to visit another website right now? I only needed half an acorn squash for the amount of filling this recipe yields.

1 large acorn squash
2 T butter
1/2 c brocolli, chopped
1/2 c mushroom
2 T celery, chopped (I didn't have this)
2 T walnuts (I used pinenuts)
1/2 t brown sugar (I used white)
1/2 t soy sauce
1/4 c basil, chopped
1/4 c jack or meunster cheese

Heat oven to 400°F. Cut squash in half and remove the seeds. Rub the cut flesh with salt and place flesh side down in a baking dish and bake for about 35 minutes. While the squash is baking, sauté onion in butter until clear and add chopped broccoli florets, mushrooms and celery. Sauté about 4 minutes. Stir in walnuts and fresh basil, then sprinkle with brown sugar and soy sauce, adjust seasoning to taste. Toss to mix well. Check baking squash with a fork to see if it glides through the flesh. Stuff with vegetable mixture, top with equal amounts of grated cheese and return to oven for about 5 minutes.


Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I'm Obnoxious, She's Obnoxious

The return of the native. I don't get much sympathy from anyone when I complain about looking young for my age* or worrying about my jiggly body parts. But I'm going to try to write this anyway, and maybe some of you thin, youthful looking readers out there will leave supportive comments. No pressure.

I lost a lot of weight recently. A whole six pounds. I looked like an Ethiopian kid during the 80s famine.

No, actually I didn't look like an Ethiopian kid. What an offensive comparison.

I did worry that I was starting to look like this poor woman, though. My arms looked like a starving supermodel's. I lost the belly that inspired names like bigtummyinkenya. I wasn't eating much, or very often, because I just didn't feel like it. Because I was feeling all sorts of other terrible things instead. It had to do with a German, a clown, a coward, and a small yet enormously dishonest man, all of whom turned out to be the same rotten person.

But that's not the point. The point is, I was a little worried. All my life I thought that if I ever lost my big tummy, in Kenya or anywhere else, I'd look great. Instead I looked tiny and weak. I wanted to feed the girl I saw in the mirror, but she wasn't hungry. The holidays came and went and I wasn't overeating or being restored to my normal body size.

Today my officemate noticed me eating a second helping of my lunch - at 4:45 in the afternoon - and said, "My God, you're always eating."

And then I knew that I didn't have to worry anymore. Sure enough, I went to the gym and my big tummy was back, hanging over my elastic waistband in all its bloaty, unsightly glory. Some things just belong on me.

* Like the time a Vietnamese hairdresser asked, "Are you in college?" And I said, "Well, no, not exactly." And he said, "Oh, I see. Not yet?" Good Lord.

Blog this. In addition to collecting fodder for my future hit TV series called The Nonprofit, I think I could also start a new blog full of entries describing encounters with obnoxiously rude, obnoxious and rude people in this finely terrible city. I've even noticed a personal trend of adopting some of these insufferable behaviors, which means it's either time for me to run screaming from the entire tri-State area, which would be immensely satisfying, or go to yoga more often.

Anyway, one thing about being an NYU employee but working at Bellevue is that I can always tell who is NYU and who is Bellevue. One institution employs halfway competent people and indoctrinates new hires with customer service mumbo jumbo during orientation. The other institution hires candidates who were rejected by the DMV for being more than halfway incompetent and too surly. The ones who were rejected by both the DMV and Bellevue are hired by the postal service. But that's for another post.

There is one woman in particular who I'm still trying to find an excuse to re-visit just so I can find out her name and her supervisor's contact info. Or rather, so I can execute some elaborate revenge prank that would irritate her so much that her anger would collapse the unfortunate office chair that quivers precariously all day under her morbidly obese, motionless-and-not-doing-any-work body.

She works in the room where you go to get your picture taken for your security badge. Anyone who works in a Bellevue building has had to go see her to get their picture taken. The room is rectangular and slightly narrow. Her desk is on one end and she sits facing the room. The door is on the other end of the room, but on the side. Here, I'll spend way too much time drawing you a picture:


Anyway, there is this yellow 8"x11" sign hanging on the door frame that says, in 10 point font, something about not standing in the doorway. The only explanation I can think of for this is so that your bag or coat sleeve or other personal item hanging off your body doesn't end up in the corner of someone's ID photo. The sign is bright, yes, but the font is small. Not an attention grabber.

So naturally every single person who shows up for an ID photo ends up standing in the doorway. And every single time, this nasty lady says, "CAN YOU REEEAD THAT BRIGHT YELLOW SIGN?? DON'T STAND IN THE DOORWAY! YOU NEED TO STAND OUTSIDE."

First of all, how do you add emphasis when you're already capitalizing what someone's screaming at you?

Second of all, if I don't stand in the doorway, how will I know if The Horror is in or not? What idiot is going to stand outside the door not knowing whether the person who takes your photo is there to take your photo?

Once she has told you to enter her malodorous lair, which usually sounds like

"Oghhkgghh."

"I'm sorry?"

"Oghhkggh!!! OGHKKGHHH!!"

"You want me to come in now?"

"COME IN!!"

she grunts commands at you in barely comprehensible English. Oh. She is a native English speaker. It's just that speaking clearly isn't one of her goals, because if it were, she wouldn't be able to raise her voice at you for not understanding her the first time.

She doesn't make eye contact with you, until you say anything, especially if it's in the form of a question such as, "Sorry, I didn't hear you, come again?" Then she glares at you for forcing her to do any work. And by work I mean lifting her finger to click her mouse, or inhaling...before roaring an answer at you.

She is infamous. All I have to say is "that lady in the ID office" and everyone knows who I'm talking about. The big question is, how is she still employed? I don't know, but if she must stay employed, I hope it's long enough for me to find a way to annoy the shit out of her one last time. Oh wait. All I have to do is ask her to do her job.