I like me some butternut squash. But I do not like the tedious peel/skin-removal process. I inevitably underestimate how long it will take and get panicky about dinner not being ready in time and end up nearly slicing of my fingers. Because I am an idiot and did not realize until yesterday that instead of getting all crazy with little slippery chunks and a paring knife I could just skin the whole damn thing with a vegetable peeler before I cut it up.
Last night when I had this revelation I felt like a genius for about 10 seconds. Then I just felt embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of it sooner and probably all the cool kids have been doing it that way forever. Then I redeemed myself with another awesome idea: I discarded the skin and kept on a-peelin’ until I had a heap of squash flesh ribbons. What a phrase. SQUASH FLESH RIBBONS. And they were awesome. They cooked to a state of delicious tender-but-not-mushy-ness after only a couple minutes in the frying pan with some sage and walnuts, and were the perfect gnocchi topping. Best of all, they looked all fancy. Thanksgiving ’08 here we come!
Archive for February, 2008
Apologies in advance Clebilicious, I hope you don’t take this personally…
So, it’s primary season and all, and as always I’m making at least a passing effort to be Well Informed about candidates and the latest crop of mysterious Native American gaming ballot initiatives and all that. And yes, I’ll show up at my polling place Tuesday morning, if for no other reason than to get that li’l braggy-smugtastic “I Voted” sticker. Right now I’m trying to make up my mind about Hillary and Barack. I’m not pumped about either one. I feel like I’m supposed to be pumped about Barack, but he got on my bad side during the debate in Iowa when, on more than one occasion he did that “I’m going to try so hard to be gramatically correct that I’ll over-correct and say ‘I’ and ‘we’ when it really would be appropriate to say ‘me’ and ‘us’” thing. That shit makes me CRAZY. Crazy. crazy.
I was just about ready to forgive and forget, when his overenthusiastic supporters sent things back down the tubes for him this week. I ride my bike to work every day around 7:45. It’s usually chilly; I’m usually wishing I had gotten up 5 minutes earlier so I could have had enough time to drink more coffee, but on the whole I’m not a non-morning person, and I kind of like rolling along my usual route. There’s the crossing guard at Grand and MacArthur who always waves to me and says “Hi sugar” or “Hey doll”; there are my goose buddies holding up traffic while they trundle across the street by the library; there’s the tempting odor of fresh black and white cookies from the Grand Bakery.
Let me tell you what there has been the past several days: a clot of ruddy-cheeked, sign-toting young adults clogging up the corner by the 580 on-ramp. This is a corner where I inevitably have to wait for a couple minutes for the light to change, and where I’m usually quietly enjoying the bakery aroma. Not today. Not yesterday or the day before. These kids wave their stupid signs and shout “Obama!” Then some stupid car driving onto the freeway honks. Which makes more cars honk–uh Yeah! I’m cool too! I like Barack! HOnnKHOOOOONKhonk! Which makes the stupid kids shout “WOOOOOO! Right on!” about 3 inches from my ear. Which makes even more cars honk, also very close to my ears. I have steadfastly pretended I cannot see or hear the Obamites, but I have silent fantasies about nudging them into traffic with Alan Alda’s * front wheel, or using a lot of curse words.
Barack, I haven’t seen Hillary’s peeps causing any noise pollution in my neighborhood if you know what I’m getting at. But my vote could perhaps be purchased with a black and white cookie or two…
*In case you are confused, Alan Alda is the name of my bike. Don’t make fun of me. Or him.
