an ode to cityposh

i really should've written & published this weeks ago. why? b/c i'm about to tell y'all why i think cityposh is awesome, and, i swear, it's not b/c i've won prizes from them. allow me to disclose that i have no financial interest in cityposh and i've never met the guys that run the site. and yes, i've won several amazing prizes from their contests, including (and this list is from memory) gift cards from amazon, itunes, shell, and domino's, and free admission to techweek.

now that i've gotten those disclosures out of the way, allow me to say that cityposh is awesome. i was 1st introduced to their site by someone on twitter. back then (and i mean maybe a couple of months ago), cityposh was using an ebay type model. you'd purchase bids to use on an item, say, a gift card from target, and the highest bid at the end of the auction would win. like ebay, the excitement was in the last few seconds of bidding when people would try to outbid each other. and that was cool.

but then cityposh changed its model. instead of purchasing bids, you could play for free. this, of course, appealed to me. and imagine my delight when i saw that there were multiple ways to accumulate points that didn't require the use of facebook! yeah, i know - i'm on twitter all day every day but i continue to avoid facebook like the plague. this isn't new.

see, one of the things that annoys me about marketing via facebook is that i think it makes some companies lazy, like putting up a fb page is all they have to do and bam! customers will magically appear. and then there are companies that i've supported through the years that offer facebook-only deals that, of course, i can't access b/c i'm not on facebook, and damned if i'm gonna sign up just so i can print out a $1 coupon. it's especially annoying when i follow a company on twitter and every link/deal they post doubles back to their facebook page. stop assuming everyone's on facebook! [end mini-rant]

i say all of that to say that while cityposh does offer facebook users a number of ways to compete, it also offers enough non-fb methods for folks like me to get in on the action and, as previously mentioned, win prizes. and this is why i think they're awesome. i don't want to go so far as to say that i'm addicted to playing on cityposh, but i do visit their site several times a day. and by several, i mean a few dozen or so. probably more. depending on the prize, i usually aim for top-10 status. i finished 15th in the most recent game for a apple store gift card.

what can i say? it's fun, it's easy, the prizes are cool (even the ones i'm not as interested in), it's free, i don't need facebook...what's not to like? y'all should check it out if you haven't already. :-)

matilda beer bacon: a review

it's a simple equation, really. bacon + goose island matilda = crazy delicious, and i probably wouldn't have known about its existence if not for twitter.

it all started when the good folks at bacon fest chicago tweeted a link to this article about matilda beer bacon. i was instantly intrigued. goose island matilda is one of my favorite beers, and y'all know i love me some bacon, but putting the two together? my mouth watered.

and then i figured out that provenance, one of the shops that carries this amazing delectableness, is this close to the lincoln square farmers market, which has become my default farmers market this summer.

so i stopped in at provenance and bought a pack. did i mention that provenance is featuring dreymiller & kray products during july for 10% off?

anyway...i bought a pack of matilda beer bacon and actually managed to wait a couple of days before i tried it out. the first time, i just made a few slices (yeah, i'm using "few" loosely) in the oven, on 350° for 15 minutes. turns out 15 minutes is a bit too long - finished product came out a little charred but still edible. and omg was it edible. wait...i almost forgot that you can actually smell the beer when you sniff the bacon before cooking it. yeah, i did a sniff test on this bacon. i was curious. sue me.

next experiment? grilled cheese sandwiches. specifically, grilled sammiches with honey, tomato, cheddar & monterey jack cheeses, and a few (in this case, 3) slices of matilda beer bacon. omfg epic nom. this time i cooked the bacon in the oven at 350° for about 12 minutes, and that worked out better than experiment #1.

i can't, in good conscience, recommend this third experiment to anyone who's even remotely trying to maintain healthy eating habits. this is definitely a "cheat day" entree. i made sauteed spinach to go along with this to ease my guilt at having so much porcine goodness.

that said: matilda beer bacon + bacon burgers from c&d family farms + 5-cheese garlic spread from river valley mushrooms (see my previous post about farmers market finds for links to those last 2) + monterey jack cheese. it happened. it's rare that i'm rendered speechless and even more rare for me to render myself speechless by my cooking. that burger/sandwich/monstrosity/whatever you wanna call it was proof that god wants me to be happy and fat. definitely a "sometimes food." don't consume this on a regular basis, people. i mean it. i want y'all to live long and productive lives. please. moderation is our friend. :-)

needless to say, i went back to provenance last week to pick up another pack of matilda beer bacon. the saleswoman remembered me and admitted to having some matilda beer bacon in her fridge. this package is in my freezer. i make no promises as to how long it'll stay there.

recipe roundup - 7/22 edition

yeah, i know - we're in the middle of a heat wave and here i am writing about cooking. luckily i have a/c at casa de eulalia, so cooking isn't nearly as arduous as it could be given the temperature outside. also, this batch of recipes doesn't require turning on the oven, so that helps. with that said...

sauteed spinach with garlic and red pepper: yes, i actually used crushed red pepper in this dish. it was only 1/4 teaspoon, which, given the sheer amount of spinach (i used a 16oz bag instead of the 2 9oz bags called for in the recipe b/c that's what was available at the store), didn't really amount to much. so yeah, i'd make this again, but i'd probably chop the garlic a little finer, but that's just my preference.

pork tenderloin with red and yellow peppers: i skipped the anchovies b/c i don't like them. the version of the recipe i clipped from the magazine said that olives could be substituted for the anchovies, but i don't like olives, either, so i just left that alone. also, i used dried thyme instead of rosemary b/c that's what i had on hand. this is definitely one of those dishes where the leftovers tasted better 1-2 days later than the initial serving. still nom, though.

green beans with shallots: i added garlic to this (i think 1-2 cloves, minced) b/c it seemed like the thing to do. obviously there's nothing super fancy about this dish, but since i'd bought green beans at the farmers market, it seemed like a good a time as any to try this out.

red wine tomato soup: scroll down a bit on that page to see the recipe. this one's somewhere b/t nom and fail. the flavor was nom, but the texture? meh. i used 1/2 cup of wine and 2 1/4 cups of water, and since dominick's was out of organic tomatoes, i used "regular" fire-roasted diced tomatoes instead. i wound up blending some of the soup and adding it back to the pot in an attempt to smooth things out, but the texture was still "off" to me. not sure if i'd make this one again.

sauteed carrots with sage: i had some leftover carrots from that tomato soup recipe and decided to give this a try. if you follow me on twitter, then you probably saw me raving about this earlier in the week. i used about a teaspoon of dried sage instead of fresh, but i don't think i missed anything, flavor-wise. i am so making this again.

grilled spiced chicken wings: in case you were wondering, yes, you can make chicken wings on a foreman grill. they were delicious and i'll be revisiting this one.

cold scrambled eggs

while washing dishes earlier, i started thinking about what i'm having for dinner tomorrow. my plan is to make smoked sausage & broccoli, which is 1) as easy/simple as you think it is and 2) one of the 1st things i taught myself how to make way back in high school.

[i never bothered writing down a recipe for this - basically you cook a pound of broccoli, fresh or frozen, then add in a pound of smoked sausage that's been sliced, then season to taste. i usually have it over rice. the end.]

daddy was totally ok with letting me experiment in the kitchen, and he never pressured me into cooking more b/c i was a girl or anything silly like that. actually, all of my brothers were/are good cooks. since i primarily only saw daddy on weekends and holidays and other special occasions, and since cooking during the week was handled by debra or her mom or by greg, my food prep access was kinda limited.

a typical sunday morning with daddy involved going to church. he was still a member of the a.m.e. church i'd grown up in, and i'd joined 1st c. in high school, so he'd either drop me off at 1st c. or, if he didn't feel like driving and i couldn't get a ride, i'd have to suck it up and go to mt. olive. regardless of where we went, there was breakfast before service. sometimes we'd stop at mcdonald's. most sunday mornings, though, daddy would start cooking before he woke me up - by the time i'd gotten dressed, breakfast would be ready.

for some reason, we always wound up with more scrambled eggs than we'd actually eat at breakfast. there was usually leftover bacon or sausage, too, but that wasn't as problematic. when we came home, we'd snack on...you guessed it, cold scrambled eggs. ok, technically they were room temperature scrambled eggs, but whatever.

james & carol lived in daddy's basement for a while after they got married, and the whole notion of cold scrambled eggs drove carol up the wall. she didn't understand it, especially since we had a microwave and warming up the eggs wouldn't take that long. daddy & i didn't care, though. we'd just scoop our fingers in and grab a couple of bites. the eggs would be finished before dinner, and that's all that really mattered.

in hindsight, eating cold scrambled eggs probably wasn't my finest food-related moment. then again, this was around the same time that i used to combine doritos & skittles in the same bowl, with a few oreos on the side. clearly this was a sometime food, as cookie monster would say, and there's no way i'd subject myself to that now, but then? omg nom.

i wish i could tell you how many eggs daddy used for sunday breakfast that enabled us to have cold scrambled eggs. leftover scrambled eggs is a foreign concept here at casa de eulalia, unless i've made this sausage & egg scramble or some other casserole-based goodness. and for the record, i have no plans to make scrambled eggs just to have leftovers to eat at room temperature. :-)

a bit of housekeeping

see that list of links on the right side of this page? i'm trying to make sure they're updated and that i haven't inadvertently left anyone out. if you have a blog and/or tumblr that you think i should link to, let me know. i'm sure there's a few sites out there that i should be reading and i just don't know what they are yet. :-)

thanks.

tionda & diamond: 10 years later

this is something i posted on urbantherapy back in november of 2003:

the cover of the tv guide from the sun-times is touting the premiere of the elizabeth smart story. troy needed a refresher on the case and after i filled him in, i noted that we still don't know where tionda and diamond are. just a few minutes ago, i was glancing at my yahoo start page and its tv listings tell me that i'm missing both the elizabeth smart story and saving jessica lynch. i wondered again where the bradley sisters are. it bugs me from time to time -- are they ok? are they being treated well? i'm reminded of them whenever the media decides to blitz us with a kidnapping that they think we'll care deeply about. which is not to say that i didn't/don't care about the hundreds, if not thousands, of people that go missing on a regular basis. but every now and again, i wonder about tionda and diamond. i wonder why i don't hear about them so much.

and then i glance at my yahoo horoscope for today and i gain a little perspective. "If you actually knew the truth of all the things that are going on outside your world, you would be appalled, dear Sagittarius. You should not take things at their face value today. It is important for you to simply go out and see things for yourself. Do not trust other people's word on what is the truth and what is not. Question what you see, and make sure you don't let others pull the wool over your eyes."

i tweeted about tionda & diamond yesterday in response to the casey anthony verdict. we'll probably never find out what exactly happened to caylee, but 10 years later, i'm still hopeful that we'll find out something about tionda & diamond.

for some reason, i thought that the tribune and/or the sun-times would have a story about the bradley girls today, given that this is the 10th anniversary of their disappearance. i was wrong. all i've found so far was this chicago defender article.

10 years. tionda & diamond would be 20 and 13 years old now. think about all the things that have happened in the past 10 years on a global/national/local/personal scale. and then think about the fact that for all we know, the bradley girls have missed out on all of that. or maybe they haven't. maybe they're safe & sound somewhere and it's only a matter of time before they come home.

yeah, i know...this is not the usual realistic/cynical/pessimistic side that you're used to seeing from me. there's a tiny part of me that sometimes still believes in happy endings. here's wishing for one for tionda & diamond.

recipe roundup

if you migrated here from urbantherapy, then you're already familiar with how these recipe posts work. if you're new, though, here's a quick intro - i test out recipes from various sources and let you know what i think of them. assume everything was delicious unless otherwise mentioned. here goes:

pork with buttered apples: if memory serves, i ran out of pork way before i ran out of apples. seriously. i think i had buttered apples for 3 days straight. this isn't a complaint, mind you. if i make this again, i'd let the apples cook a little longer - they were still kinda crunchy and i was hoping for a somewhat softer texture.

sauteed sausages with roasted grapes: this recipe actually comes from this cookbook that i got from the library a while back. my expectations were kinda low for this one, b/c i wasn't quite sure how the grapes would turn out, but they were surprisingly good. i think the grapes i bought were mislabeled, though, b/c there were quite a handful of seeds on the side of my plate once i was done eating.

pasta with garlicky roasted broccoli: this was all about the broccoli. i'd grabbed some broccoli at the store and didn't want to steam it or saute it, and was on the hunt for a different preparation method. this won. really. i was super-excited about making this and will make it again. this is not to say that i'm only going to make broccoli this way - just that it's a nice alternative.

spice-rubbed pork tenderloin : i didn't make the couscous mentioned in this recipe, so i can't comment on that. looking back, this rub is pretty basic, which would explain my overall feelings of "meh" about it. it wasn't bad, but i wasn't blown away by it, either.

braised country-style ribs with black-eyed peas: if you follow me on twitter, then you probably saw my tweets about this within the past day or so. i wanted ribs for the 4th and was originally going to go with my old standby of crockpot ribs, but then i remembered i had this recipe from this cookbook and decided to try it. if i make this again, i'm giving the collards more time - i let mine cook for about 35 minutes and they still didn't have quite the texture i wanted.