What Dreams Are Made of

Flour, vegetable oil, water and salt. Well, shit.

During her time at Grinnell last semester, my anarchofreegan doom metal friend Emily instituted Tortilla Tuesdays, nights when she would make mounds of tortillas by hand in exchange for attendees’ fixins. Before then, I had never even contemplated making tortillas. It seemed like something that should be left solely to the specialists.

But it’s so simple! It’s like trying really hard to figure out what to get your mother for Christmas and settling for a generic candle that’s she’s kind of OK with when you could have just asked her in the first place. In the end your mother thinks you don’t love her. This is the same thing.

The recipe is so easy that I’m going to write it down from memory right here:

Flour Tortillas

• 2 C flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 C vegetable oil
• 3/4 C boiling water

Combine the first three ingredients in a bowl and mix them together while the water boils. Make an indent in the mixture and pour the water in. Mix it with a spatula for the first 30 seconds or so until it cools down, then use your fingers.

Once it gets to be the consistency of dough, roll it into little balls with a 1-inch diameter. Set them down in a baking tray or something and cover with a cloth for 45 minutes. Once their time is up, roll out each one to your desired thickness and toss ‘em onto a hot skillet. I believe the cooking time is 20 seconds, flip, 10 seconds, flip, 10 seconds and you’re done. [Edit: Actually, Emily corrected me on this one. It's 10/20/10 seconds.]

They come out really nice and chewy, just how I like them. And you can top them with pretty much whatever — Emily likes them with peanut butter and jelly, or you can go for more Mexican-inspired things.

This guy over here has homemade refried beans, guacamole and salsa. Fuck yeaaaahhhh these are so good when you’re drunk!

The Bloody Mary or How I Learned to Drink Something Else While Watching Zombie Flicks

Mixed drinks are alright but they’re generally easy to figure out. You put this sweet thing with that sweet thing, you choke it down, then you’re drunk.

This is why the bloody mary stands out. After all, how many salty cocktails have you had? It’s by far my favorite drink. It seems like a meal in so many ways! It goes well with beer, as if to hide its filthy alcoholic nature!

What you’ll need:
Tomato juice (I don’t recommend vegetable juice)
Worcestershire sauce (as a replacement, I use Angostura Bloody Mary Seasoning)
Tabasco sauce
Celery salt
Vodka (this drink is too flavorful to suffer much from shitty vodka. Save your money and get the cheap stuff!)
Optional garnish (olive, pickle, celery… go nuts!)

Get a receptacle. I really like mason jars because they impart a certain Midwestern class to a drink, and also you can shake your drink right in your cup! Pour in your vodka (one to three shots), several squirts of tabasco (I use about four), several drops of Worcestershire (three or four, or two dashes of Angostura) and two shakes of celery salt. Cover this with 1 to 1.5 cups of tomato juice and stir (classy Midwesterners will shake). Garnish with an olive (you deserve a prize at the bottom). Serve!

Thirsty readers will note that a bloody mary goes down well with a beer (sort of like coffee and orange juice).

CUI: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Cooking under the influence is so scary, but pretty fucking fun. Plus, any food that manages to jump through the hurdles of a 40oz and pumpkin spice ale is definitely impressive, like winning a foot relay while being eaten by a shark.

After watching Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life and getting our slant on, Chris and I were super hungry. The tater tot emporium on our block had stopped serving food ages ago, so I mustered up what little resolve I had left and made grilled cheese sandwiches at home. Luckily, I was sort of anticipating this when I went grocery shopping earlier and had a good store of Gruyere cheese and sliced bread ready to go. It’s sort of tragic that I can predict the drunchies with such deadly precision these days.

My mom, being the fancy lady that she is, always makes grilled cheese sandwiches with Gruyere and caramelized onions, so that’s the kind of sandwich that I’m into. (Though if I had bacon, I’d have probably put that in too. Next time!) HERE BE THE RECIPE:

Vy’s Mom’s Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (for two)

• four slices of whole wheat bread
• Gruyere or Swiss cheese, sliced
• 1/2 of an onion, diced small
• melted butter
• salt and pepper
• sugar

Caramelize the onions: throw them into a small saute pan with butter, sugar, salt and pepper and let them cook until brown.

Construct the sandwich: bread + cheese + onion

Grill it: spoon some melted butter onto the pan and put the bottom part of the sandwich in, then put the top slice of bread on. Press it down for a little bit and flip it over. Press it for like 45 seconds and you’re done!

Vichyssoise Pasta

My project this summer has been to experiment with pasta sauces, and I haven’t had a really satisfactory result… until today! Tonight I made a sauce loosely based on vichyssoise, or chilled potato-and-leek soup.  I actually prefer the hot version of the soup, which is sort of heretical, I guess.  Does that disqualify it from being called “vichyssoise”?  Does it matter?  Culinary conventions tend to be somewhat strict, but you know what?  FUCK YOU, BITCHES, THIS IS VICHYSSOISE PASTA!!!

I was really surprised by how well this turned out, for being a completely ad-libbed dish.  I’m sure that the quality of the dish owed a lot to the ingredients, though: the leeks and pasta were organic and I grabbed the French fingerling potatoes from the Union Square farmers’ market just a few hours before.  Or maybe I’m just that good?  (Yeah okay.)  I guess you don’t actually have to use fingerling potatoes for this recipe, but I really liked the way the slices looked in the sauce.  Maybe I miss hotdog Spaghetti-Os, or this is some backward Freudian thing where slicing fingerling potatoes makes me feel empowered.

I had this with a glass of 2007 Paumanok Riesling, and subsequently broke the wineglass in the sink.  (Sorry mom!!!)

Vichyssoise Pasta

• olive oil
• butter
• leeks, sliced
• fingerling potatoes, sliced
• heavy cream
• chicken stock
• salt and pepper, to taste
• linguini (I think it looks really nice, is all.)
• shaved Parmesan, to garnish
• shredded parsley, to garnish

1. Throw the olive oil and butter into a small sauce pot over medium heat.  Once it gets going, throw the potatoes in and let them sit for a few minutes.  Once they’re about halfway there, toss in the leeks and stir the whole thing around a little.

2. Start the water for the pasta now!  (Don’t forget the salt!)  Once the leeks and potatoes are tender, pour in some heavy cream and chicken stock.  Season it with lots of salt and pepper and let it all reduce for a bit, until you get the thickness you want.

3. Cook the pasta, and toss it with the sauce.  Throw the parsley and Parmesan on top, and eat that shit!

Early Indian Irish Cake

Last Friday was the Battle of the Bands at my school; a perfect time to make a cake based on a Louis Wain painting! I was supposed to make one for the Salon des Refuses the week before, but I was too drunk and lazy by the time I remembered. This week, I was just plain drunk! We gave the cake to my friend Daniel (pictured above) to cheer him up because he’s kind of crazy right now. And it worked! Hooray for art!

I should confess that I used Betty Crocker cake mix for this one — lame, I know. The most important thing for me was the frosting, which I did make. It was a buttercream frosting that I got from one of my housemates, who credited it to “Julia.” I’m not sure which Julia it is, but I have a good feeling. It turned out to be a great base for the decorations, which involved some strange frosting markers (?!), coconut shreds, pansies that we stole from the Grinnell Community Center’s front yard, sprinkles of various shapes, butterscotch Lifesavers, toothpicks and chocolate chips.

Good likeness, huh?

After the Battle, we shared the cake amongst all of the bands and concerts people. Everyone wins when there’s enough cake to go around!

Pizza in Grinnell, Part 1

This will be part 1 of a series of posts about pizza in the town where I go to college.  In this one I am mad, but satiated.  

 

Out of the 6 or so places where one can get pizza in Grinnell, none of them will let you order by the slice!  What’s the dealio here, people?  If you’re craving pizza at 9pm and you only have $3 on your person, there’s not much you can do; your only option is to go to the Spencer Grill, which is on the first floor of the space station-esque student center.  The pizzas there are tiny, around 8 or 9 inches in diameter, and the wait is pretty long because they bake them on those conveyor belt-type ovens that you’d expect to see in a hilariously inept supervillain’s torture chamber.

 

I was craving vegetable pizza, but they ran out!  The bastards!  So my awkward acquaintance-but-not-really, who was working behind the counter, threw a bunch of green peppers and onions on top.  ”This is going to be the most incredible pizza you’ve ever had,” he boasted.  Was it?   It wasn’t too greasy, wasn’t too skimpy on the cheese.  The crust was chewy but brief.  I think I’m a fan.  The biggest drawbacks for me are the wait and the fact that it’s so small and poofy that you can’t really fold the slices.  Say what you will about college dining services, but they definitely got something sorta-good going here.

The Master Baker’s Almond Tassies

Earlier in the week, Natalie had invited me to a party that was being held by the so-called Master Baker, an enigmatic figure whose baked goods are said to trigger orgasm and cure cancer at the same time. I was intrigued. We agreed to meet in Chinatown and stroll to the Master Baker’s apartment in TriBeCa from there.

I was late to our rendezvous — thanks to the capricious Q train — but met Natalie soon after I arrived. However, when she walked over I noticed that she was being followed by several tall, blonde people wearing backpacks. “They’re Dutch,” she said, “and they need our help.”

After depositing them at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant (Dank u wel!), we continued on our trip to the Master Baker’s abode. Lo and behold, a chill party awaited us! They were watching an absolutely terrible Australian zombie film and were doing shots of pear-flavored vodka. Natalie insisted that the Master Baker showcase her abilities, and she obliged by making almond tassies for us. Mind you, she and everyone else at the party were ridiculously drunk at this point. And they weren’t half bad, considering that she was wasted and we were all crowding the kitchen screaming, “I’M HELPING! I’M HELPING!!!”

Last night was special.