recipe review: bacon risotto

quasi-landlord is out of town for a week, and so are her dogs, so i suppose you could say that i'm on a staycation of sorts for a week. the house being relatively empty means that i can cook w/o said dogs barking up a storm. it also means i can cook w/o having to worry about quasi-landlord's allergies.

i decided earlier this week that i would attempt 2 different batches of risotto during the coming week. i read a cookbook a couple of weeks that said you could make risotto in a slow cooker, which, when i think about it, makes sense and i feel a bit dense for not thinking of it sooner. i mean, i love risotto, but i don't have the patience/attention span to make it at home.

first up? bacon risotto. i don't really need to explain why, do i? i mean, c'mon. bacon risotto. 2 of my favorite foods in one dish? yes, please. sign me the entire hell up.

unfortunately, i don't have a link (i may or may not have photocopied this recipe from the aforementioned cookbook), but since it's relatively short, i will type it out for you here:

Bacon Risotto (serves 4) 

6 slices thick-cut bacon, diced
1 white onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice, rinsed
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (to add at the very end) 

Use a 4-quart slow cooker. In a large skillet over medium heat, add the bacon, onion, and garlic and cook, stirring until the bacon is crisp and the onion and garlic are translucent. Drain off most of the accumulated grease (retaining about 1 tablespoon) and pour the mixture into the insert. Add the rice, and swirl it around until the rice is nicely coated in oil. Pour in the broth. Cover, and cook on high for 2 to 4 hours, or until the rice is tender (check after 2 hours; it usually takes 2 hours, 45 minutes in my machine). Stir well, and add the cheese. Turn off the cooker, and let the risotto sit with the lid off for 10 minutes before serving.

i used 3 garlic cloves instead of 2 b/c regular readers of these reviews know that i love me some garlic. i used low-sodium chicken broth (and even got the organic low-sodium kind b/c it was on sale at jewel - win!), and went with a few handfuls of shredded parmesan cheese instead of grated b/c that's what was in the fridge. oh, and i added some black pepper before i added the broth - maybe a 1/2 teaspoon or so? i eyeballed it and therefore can't give you an exact measurement.

the slow cooker that quasi-landlord has is probably a 6-quart model, if not an 8-quart one, so i set the timer for 2 hours on high and figured that the rice would be tender by then. i was right. i added the cheese and then left the slow cooker on the "warm" setting until i was ready for dinner. i had some leftover broccoli from the other night, so i warmed that up and added it to my dinner bowl. nom. i definitely recommend some sort of vegetable on the side or mixed in to cut through the cheesetastic goodness.

if i make it again, i might cut back to an hour and 30 minutes of cooking time. the risotto was tender almost to the point of being gummy, which i'm ok with, but it could have been better. and yeah, i'd probably add more garlic. i was impatient and didn't let the bacon get fully crisp b/c the onions and garlic were in that sweet spot between perfectly browned and oh shit everything is burning. maybe i'd cook the bacon first and then let that drain while cooking the onion & garlic in the bacon fat. oh, and i didn't drain anything b/c there was barely a tablespoon of grease by the time i deemed it ready to go in the slow cooker.

the same cookbook has a recipe for spinach and feta risotto, which i'm going to make before thanksgiving. mmm...spinach and feta...

stovetop and scandal

(spoiler alert: discussion of scenes from last night's "scandal." if you're a fan of the show and you haven't watched the episode yet, please govern yourself accordingly.)
(trigger warning: discussion of rape/sexual violence)

but first, let's talk about this stovetop commercial i saw last night while watching "scandal."




as soon as the ad finished airing, i tweeted something along the lines of "gee, cultural differences much?" if stovetop = thanksgiving, then i've never had a proper thanksgiving, then. hell, i never even had stovetop until i was well into my 20s. my family played it pretty traditional (read: southern/soul food) when it comes to thanksgiving dinner. yeah, there was turkey, and veggies, and cranberry sauce (s/o to everyone else who grew up with that canned cranberry sauce that you'd slice based on the ridges the can left behind), and there was dressing.

dressing: cooked outside the bird. stuffing: cooked inside the bird. we always had dressing. not stuffing, and certainly not stuffing from a box.

this is not me disparaging stovetop, mind you. i was at a potluck brunch last weekend and someone made a casserole that used stovetop and shredded potatoes and meat and cheese and other so-bad-for-you-it's-good ingredients, and it was delicious. my point is that stovetop, or whoever's in charge of their ad campaign, seems to be a bit tone-deaf on this one. there are plenty of folks who had different thanksgiving traditions - and plenty of folks who don't have thanksgiving traditions at all - and to imply that their holiday celebration or lack thereof hinges on the presence of stovetop just seems wrong, somehow.

and speaking of wrongness (remember those spoiler and trigger warnings i opened this post with? they're coming into play now) - let's talk about last night's episode of "scandal." specifically, let's talk about the scene where mellie gets raped by her father-in-law. let's talk about the fact that there was no warning at the beginning of the episode telling viewers that some of the imagery might be more graphic and upsetting than usual. let's talk about the fact that a fair number of sexual assault/abuse survivors, myself included, watch and enjoy "scandal" on a weekly basis. remember when i was all excited about kerry washington tweeted me? i wear my gladiator badge proudly, as anyone who's subjected to my twitter stream on thursday nights can attest.

but this? this scene was too much, and i know i'm not alone on this b/c my twitter feed is still talking about it 24 hours later. i'm not even going to get into the "hey, let's explain this character's backstory by having them suffer some serious trauma" storytelling trope, b/c there are others who can, have, and will explore that way better than i'm able to.

do networks still have standards and practices departments? are primetime shows exempt from any sort of parental advisory or other warning labels? i don't claim to know what would have been an appropriate warning for this episode, but i really feel like we needed one. we needed to be prepared. we needed to know that this scene might leave us curled up in the fetal position, and that it might bring back memories that we've worked hard to address and deal with in such a way that we can go about our daily lives w/o erupting into all of the feelings, and that maybe, just maybe, one of our favorite shows wouldn't sucker-punch us in this way. we watch "scandal." we're used to shonda and her fellow writers embracing all kinds of crazy. it's part of the show's appeal.

being subjected to a depiction of rape is not appealing. reading comments after the show about how mellie set herself up to be raped and other victim-blaming bullshit is not appealing. finding yourself visibly shaking and drinking all of the wine in an attempt to get yourself under control after a rape scene is not appealing. feeling like shonda and the writers had no concern for your emotional well-being and just sprung the scene on you with no warning like "hahaha let's make our predominately female audience squirm with all of the discomfort" is not appealing.

what's appealing is trying to create a space for yourself where you know you won't be mistreated or disrespected, where your friends and family care about you and support you, where you can, even if it's for the briefest of seconds, not think about the rape/sexual assault/sexual abuse/violence you endured. that's appealing. you watch a frothy drama and you connect with some of the characters and you join a whole family of fellow fans and that's appealing. you watch and you talk and you tweet and you read fan sites and that appeals to you. you settle in on thursday nights (or friday mornings, or whenever you're able) and you watch and you are entertained and then a character gets raped and you did not predict that in all of your discussions about the various plot twists and no one warned you and you are left sitting on the couch practically in tears b/c the one thing you didn't want to think about for at least that hour has now returned to the front of your mind and that is not appealing. at all.

i don't expect a resolution. i don't even expect an apology. what i do want, not only for myself but for all of us survivors and allies who had our hearts broken all over again by this scene, is to regain our ability to create and maintain safe spaces for ourselves. to be surrounded by people who care about and support us. to continue giving voice to the fact that we are here and we'll be damned if we're gonna give up on ourselves. to keep believing and knowing that we are worth every moment of fighting that we've done and will do for ourselves. that's appealing.

week in review of sorts

monday: had an interview. after i was done, i walked out with a gut feeling that something was amiss, even though i still can't pinpoint how/why. one thing that set me off, though, was the receptionist at the organization. i had to spell my first name at least 5 times before she got it right on my name tag, which i was willing to forgive b/c let's face it, my name isn't super-common or easy. but then she said that my mother shouldn't have named me "eulalia," and my side-eye kinda went out the window at that point.

oh, and the bears beat green bay and there was much rejoicing.

wednesday: quasi-landlord had an extra ticket, so off we went to see "cyrano de bergerac" at the chicago shakespeare theatre. it was hilarious. i'd tell y'all to go see it, but the play closed today. i was amazed at how much of the plot i remembered from seeing that steve martin movie a bazillion years ago.

thursday: butter cookies from al's deli (they close at 3:30pm, fyi) + isabel wilkerson lecture = happy me. it was weird being back in harris hall for the first time since graduation. crc'ers of a certain age will appreciate the fact that i saw ava greenwell. fun fact i learned from isabel wilkerson's lecture - jesse owens' name is really james cleveland owens. when his family moved north, his new teacher asked his name. he said "j.c.," b/c that was what his family called him. his teacher heard "jesse" and that's what stuck.

sunday: last sunday at work! last bears game of the season that i have to miss b/c of work! exclamation points! woo!

on: music and having all of the feelings

i was watching the unsung episode about heavy d & the boyz last night and i was fully prepared to grab some tissue at some point. i remember being shocked when i heard about heavy d's death. hell, i remember being in michigan visiting relatives when we heard about trouble t-roy's death back in 1990.

it wasn't all that sad, though. it was a happy trip down memory lane, which was nice, considering i was curled up on the couch (kinda like how i am right now while i'm typing this) recovering from getting a tooth pulled yesterday morning. heavy d's mother is adorable and i wanna add her to my list of play mamas. also, her first name is eulahlee and when i first saw it on screen, i might've freaked out a bit b/c let's face it, guys, it's not that often that i see someone else with my name or a close variation thereof.

something struck me while i was watching this, though. i remember a few mornings ago when i was walking to the train and a whitney houston song came up on my ipod, which is almost always in shuffle mode. i skipped it b/c there are still certain whitney songs that i can't listen to w/o getting choked up. weird, right? i'll see the occasional whitney video and have to turn it off b/c zomg emotions.

i got to thinking...how is it that i can listen to heavy d's music and not feel sad about his passing, but some (not all) of whitney's music makes me teary? i'm willing to accept that since heavy d was an all-around upbeat kinda guy, and that his music was pretty much upbeat, it's not as, say, depressing. whitney, on the other hand...oh, whitney. i was always rooting for whitney. even though i knew her voice would never be the same as it was back in the day, i wanted her to be happy and healthy and it almost felt like she was getting there. yes, i recognize that i had no personal knowledge of her life and i was just on the outside looking in and obviously there were things going on that we may never be aware of. i get that. but still...

on: "let the fire burn" and "men we reaped"

i had all kinds of feelings about "let the fire burn" before i saw it at the siskel film center tonight. i found myself trying to remember when i'd first heard about move and the may 1985 raid. i think it was in college, b/c there's no way i would've learned about it in high school. and even in college, it must've been in a book or article i read outside of class, b/c i'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been covered in any of my classes. then again, it's been a bazillion years since my undergrad days, so i could be misremembering things and indeed learned about move from a professor, but i doubt it.

so i was having these thoughts of "ok, i know enough about move to know that this documentary is going to be powerful," and also thinking about my privilege w/r/t being exposed to information about move in the first place, and how there may or may not be a whole generation out there, both my age and younger, who have no idea about what was happening in philadelphia in the late 70s/early 80s, and how this movie would be a good thing for them to see, but that they probably wouldn't be exposed to it.

but then i walked into the theater and there was a row of young black boys with their father/uncle/male relative. my heart grew 3 sizes and i took the aisle seat nearest them. it just felt right, somehow.

throughout the film, i caught myself laughing and sucking my teeth in disgust and shaking my head, while also wondering about the reactions of other folks in the theater. what kind of background did they have on move before tonight? how had those young boys next to me been convinced to go see this movie instead of whatever other entertainment option may have been available to them?

(as you can see, one of the fun things about my quasi-ADD is that my brain comes up with all kinds of interesting questions while i should be concentrating on just one thing. it's a blessing and a curse, i tell you.)

i want people to see this movie, not because it has any particular artistic merit, but because it examines a slice of history that folks may not be aware of. i realize i'm making that statement during the opening weekend of "12 years a slave," which is another movie that folks are all "omg people need to see this because slavery was bad, mmkay?"

and i get that. i accept that. i am in no way saying that these 2 films, or any others, can not co-exist. they can and they should. hell, i will probably see "12 years a slave" w/in the next week or so, and i will again be viewing it from a weird privilege angle b/c i've read the book and also b/c, y'know, i'm all too aware of some of the effects of the slave trade.

i was surprised by my reaction, or should i say lack thereof, at the end of "let the fire burn." i wasn't angry or frustrated like i was at the end of "fruitvale station" or "amistad." i wasn't an emotional wreck like i was when the closing credits started on "hotel rwanda." i don't know what emotional reaction i was expecting from myself, but i just felt...resigned, for lack of a better term. like, "ok, this happened, and it's obvious that this shit was fucked up from the beginning, and therefore there's no point in getting pissed about it."

on my way home, i decided to break my usual rule of not reading while on public transit, and dove back into jesmyn ward's "men we reaped" b/c i was close to finishing it anyway.

y'all. the last chapter of this book knocked me on my ass. proverbially speaking, of course, since i was already sitting on the train, but holy fucking shitballs. i felt like someone had punched me in the gut. i wanted to curl up in the fetal position and just rock back and forth for a few minutes. it's that powerful. i don't want to spoil it for anyone who's planning on reading it and hasn't gotten around to it yet, but i have to share this:

"We who still live do what we must. Life is a hurricane, and we board up to save what we can and bow low to the earth to crouch in that small space above the dirt where the wind will not reach...We love each other fiercely, while we live and after we die."

i recognize that this book resonates with me more than it might with others because i've also lost a brother, but i feel comfortable in recommending this book to every black woman who's lost a black man in their life - a father, brother, uncle, cousin, spouse, neighbor, boyfriend, best friend, homie from around the corner, classmate, or any combination thereof - b/c jesmyn's been where we've been. where some of us still are. i am seriously thinking about buying a copy of this book (b/c of course i got it from work) just so i can have access to this last chapter whenever i want or need to.

*blows dust off log-in page*

yeah, i'm still around. last weekend was all about homecoming and my 15th reunion and reconnecting with classmates until one of the worst migraines (and accompanying nausea) i've ever had in my life hit.

did you guys see the bears/saints game on sunday? remember when lance briggs jumped offsides? i have been laughing about that all week long. i wish i could find video of it.

instead, i will post this video, which, as one of my friends on twitter put it, has become the new lance briggs jumping offsides w/r/t things we've been laughing at today. it's spectacular. i literally cried from laughing when i first saw it this morning.

even more fun with job apps part whatever b/c is anyone really counting at this point?

yesterday, i saw a craigslist ad for a job in my field that didn't sound completely horrible, so i applied for it. i received the following response this afternoon:

"hello!
thank you for applying for a position within (organization).
please add us on facebook! (fb link here)"

that's it. no "we'll be in touch if we decide we want to bring you in for an interview." no "omg we've been deluged with resumes so just give us a few weeks, mmkay?" nothing.

and since i'm not on facebook (i know, i know), i will just have to wait and see how things play out.

happy thursday!

more fun with job apps, part whatever the hell we're on now

one of the jobs i applied for last week (or maybe it was the week before?) was for a part-time position. the pay was on par with what i'm making at my current gig, but it was in my field and i figured i could make both jobs work out for me somehow, so why not go for it?

the 1st clue that things were going to be different was when the hiring manager sent an email essentially saying that i survived their initial review of resumes, but that they didn't have time to conduct pre-screen interviews and therefore i should complete a questionnaire and they'd take it from there. ok, sure, fine. i actually appreciated their candor, although i didn't appreciate the fact that they left another applicant's cover letter in the body of their email when they wrote to me.

last wednesday, i sat down to answer the questionnaire. most of the questions were easy/straightforward enough, but there were a couple that were begging for snarky responses and it took all i had not to let loose:

"Please provide an example that illustrates your organizational skills and attention to detail."

i really felt like that was a question best answered by a supervisor or colleague and/or one of my references, but i forced myself to type something about using multiple calendars and to-do lists to help me keep track of various projects and deadlines.

Do you enjoy writing and creating content?  Provide examples.

no, actually, i hate writing and being creative with every fiber of my being and i can't believe i applied for this copywriter position in the first damn place. no, i didn't actually say that, but i really wanted to. instead, i said that creating content is one of the primary passions of my career (true) and that i'd be happy to provide writing samples upon request. left unsaid was "dude, this is a word document and my samples are multi-page pdf files. exactly what kind of examples are you hoping i'll provide here?"

"Do you have any special skills, talents or interests not listed on your resume?"

omg. this one sent me over the edge, as some of you might have seen on twitter. did i mention that this was a pre-screen questionnaire, and that i haven't actually talked to or seen the hiring manager yet? why the hell are my extracurricular activities coming into play now? shouldn't that be part of your "hey, it's your first day, tell us what you like to do in your spare time so we have something to talk about when we run into each other at the elevator" orientation or something? here's what i actually said in response:

"Yes, but they are not on my resume because those interests/skills do not pertain to my professional life."

so none of us are surprised by the rejection email i received earlier this week, right? it's probably for the best that i talked (well, typed) myself out of the running on that one. that's what i'm telling myself, anyway. :P

high/low five

today, september 13, 2013, marks the 5th anniversary of being un(der)employed. i still don't regret leaving my last full-time position - i still talk to former colleagues and based on what they tell me, things have gotten beyond ridiculous to the point of "how is this place even still open?"

if i'd known that it would take me 5 years (and counting...sigh) to find another full-time gig, i might've tried to stay in that job a little longer. oh well.

in my father's house there are many questions

i've noticed that whenever my father's old house appears in my dreams, the layout and furniture are exactly the same as when we lived there, regardless of the time period being covered in a particular dream sequence. it's intriguing to me b/c i haven't lived in or set foot in that house since daddy died and the house was sold, but everything's the same. the blue couch formerly covered in plastic in the living room. the dining room table covered with papers b/c we almost never ate in the dining room. the kitchen with the double sinks and no dishwasher. the deep freezer on the enclosed back porch. my bedroom, which was directly across from the bathroom. the bathroom with a bathtub but no shower. daddy's bedroom, which was opposite the dining room. the basement where james & carol lived until they bought a place of their own, and where i joked about moving into after college graduation. the back yard that was primarily used by james & carol's dog. the garage where daddy or james would occasionally park their cars, but street parking wasn't really an issue except for when daddy's car got broken into. i think the thieves were more pissed than anything b/c there wasn't a fancy radio for them to steal, there weren't any valuables in the car, and daddy had put "the club" on the steering wheel, so they busted a window for nothing.

my mother died when i was 7. at the time, we were living in a 2-flat building - our unit was downstairs and our neighbor, whose name escapes me right now, lived upstairs. my memories of that layout are fuzzy, but i remember at least 3 bedrooms - one for me, one for my parents, and one for james. a dining room that we definitely used b/c the kitchen could barely hold all of us (especially while my oldest brother was still living at home). a living room. a bathroom. a back yard with a garden, maybe? yeah, sure, let's go with that.

we moved maybe a year or two after my mother's death.

that unit in that 2-flat building was a rental. my mother's best friend lived down the block in a house with a layout that still weirds me out to this day, even though i haven't been back in at least 25 years if not longer. i lived there briefly after my mother died and my family tried to figure out how the hell they were going to take care of a 7 year old girl when daddy and james both had to be at work at holy fuck it's early o'clock.

but then we bought the house. i say we like i had a say-so in the matter, but i don't remember even seeing the house until the deal was done and daddy was like, ta-da, here's our new house and here's your new room and new bedroom set, etc. i'm sure his girlfriend/longtime companion helped pick it out in the hopes that maybe she'd get asked to move in, but that didn't happen. instead, daddy married one of his former high school girlfriends, who was living in indiana and commuted to chicago on weekends until she found a job here. things didn't work - i think i was the only one of my siblings who liked her, and i wasn't even living there full-time. james couldn't stand her, she hated chicago, and one day while daddy & james were at work, she packed up all her shit and moved back to indiana. she wasn't missed and now i can trip people out when i refer to my ex-stepmother.

anyway... this morning, during a 6am "oh you have got to be kidding me there's no way i'm getting up right now b/c it's saturday for fuck's sake" talk with myself, i started wondering about daddy's motivation for buying that house. i never got to ask him about it. hell, it never even occurred to me to ask him about it back then. i'm sure some of it was making sure i had a better neighborhood to grow up in - we moved from 66th & marquette to 73rd right off of king drive, and even my young self could tell the difference. maybe he needed a new start after my mother died? was he fulfilling a promise he made to himself or to my mother or to the family as a whole that we'd have a house? i don't know, and i'm more or less ok with not knowing, but i wish i'd been cognizant enough to ask while i had the chance.