Chirky

When I confessed I gave up chocolate for two-and-a-half years, I didn't mention that my abstinence totally changed the way I consume chocolate. That is, I can't eat it straight. This baffles my husband, who considers a handful of chocolate chips as dessert. To me, eating plain chocolate is like taking a shot of Jack and letting it swirl around your tongue for five minutes before you get around to swallowing it. It's just too much, too intense, too startlingly pure.

So when BlogHer and M&M's Premiums contacted me to review their new candies, I knew two things: One, despite my distaste for plain chocolate, I love regular M&M's. The outer shell is just crunchy enough to break up the plain chocolate, and I figured if I liked the fancy version as much as the original, it would totally be worth the taste-test (they didn't exactly have to twist my arm, you see). Two, when I received the box full of all the new M&M's Premiums flavors, I realized that my taste buds were in a heap of trouble, and I better employ the help of several friends (it pays (in morsels of chocolate) to be my friend).

And, since I consider you my friend, I'm giving away even more M&M's Premiums to a lucky winner. All you have to do is answer one simple question.

Click here to watch the video and enter the contest!

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Some people's lives just seem too perfect. I have an acquaintance who loves to cook (and is good at it!), loves to decorate (and is good at it!), loves to paint (and is good at it!) and gives classes on gift-wrapping (and is good at it!). On top of this, she is a Harvard MBA grad, extremely successful business owner and, in general, just a nice person.

She recently gave me two of her prized recipes for Sangria, and as I read over the list of ingredients, it occurred to me: (a) I don't have this liquor in my cabinet and (b) if she hadn't given me exact brand and flavor names, I'd have no idea what to buy.

This is the thing: while I do enjoy a good Midori Sour, I know relatively little about mixed drinks. Embarrassingly little. I go to a bar and start fumbling around like a high schooler with her older sister's ID, trying to act like she knows what she's talking about, when really? No clue.

This weekend, while perusing the latest Williams Sonoma catalog, I had an epiphany: I should create my own cookbook of mixed beverages. I don't know why it's taken me this long to arrive at that conclusion, considering I spend an exorbitant amount of time in the cookbook aisle of Half Price books, and that time always includes at least half an hour staring at the pages of 1,001 Martinis and Mixed Drinks Your Friends Will Beg You To Make* and then feeling overwhelmed, replacing the book on the shelf, and moving on to the pastas.

I get maybe a bit too excited when I find easy recipes, like the Pineapple Greyhound (featured in the Williams Sonoma catalog I was reading – yes, reading – this weekend), or Shawnee's Bourbon Slush (via LittleBirdie.net) or the JN Intoxication Engineering Project (courtesy of hoards of Jurgen Nation readers who obviously know more about alcohol than I do, because most didn't even bother to include the measurements for each ingredient).

Since I know that my readers are totally hot, ultra-savvy and wickedly intelligent, I figured you may know a thing or two about alcoholic beverages**. And since I love running contests, the best two recipe submissions for an alcoholic beverage will win a prize***. The most awesome part? I already know what those prizes will be.

* Not actually a book, though it probably should be.
** The recipes submitted will (a) be added to my personal collection and (b) be submitted to JN's Intoxication Engineering Project.
*** I like to share the love, so I'm instituting the policy that one individual cannot win both prizes.

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Turkey Meatloaf Recipe
Image taken from a delightful site called WhatWereEating.com

I have a confession to make: I've never liked meatloaf.

(Whew. There. I said it. Now doesn't that feel better? My heart can intrepidly race ahead, no longer confined by the knowledge that I have a secret, and the Internet doesn't know what it is.)

Though I love cooking, and would consider myself a foodie in a heartbeat, I only cook about three or four nights a week. I haven't figured out yet how we subsist the rest of the time, but my thighs are telling me that we're not in danger of starving.

If I had an intern to follow behind me, someone who didn't mind wiping my spills and washing my dishes, I'm convinced that I'd cook and experiment in the kitchen more often. But my laziness supersedes my passion for food, for lo: I am an unintentionally messy cook.

Once a year my employer holds a vendor fair to raise money for United Way. And every year there are fake-designer purses being sold, homemade jewelry crafters lining the walls of our Great Room (see: break room), Pampered Chef consultants and Sprint field reps (and more!) who set up disheveled booths and long banquet tables, all from which they sell us their goods.

Two years ago, I met a nice lady who sold products made by Homemade Gourmet. I thought, "How useful! Prepackaged seasonings that I add to food!" (?) I still have every one of those mixes in a basket in my pantry, patiently awaiting the day I need a mix to help me make baked beans or minty chocolate cheesecake or Grandmother's Sunday Roast. (I'm not sure whose Grandmother she is, but mine didn't have a special Sunday-only recipe.)

The Homemade Gourmet consultant also sold me a mix for Italian Mozzarella Meatloaf, which I only bought because Roger had been asking me to make meatloaf. Frankly, I think meatloaf is a little scary. It is a brown-ish hunk of loaf, afterall. Made entirely of meat. With ketchup all over it. Is it just me, or do you break out into hives when you imagine the loaf of meat? I'm nearly dry heaving even now.

I finally broke down one night and made the meatloaf from the seasoning packet that I had purchased, and good gracious! It was actually good! I enjoyed it. I wanted more!

I emailed the Homemade Gourmet consultant and told her so. Two months went by before I realized: Hey. I haven't heard back from her yet. So I tried calling a couple different consultants in the Dallas area, and they didn't call me back.

I'm sorry, but aren't they consultants? Aren't they supposed to sell this stuff to me? I'm practically flinging myself at their doorstep, hurling my money at them, and they're just casually having a look-see at me through their peephole.

And now two years have gone by, and no one wants to sell me the Italian Mozzarella Meatloaf mix. And I'm feeling a tad bit scorned. And also like maybe some people shouldn't be in the sales business.

So: do you know a Homemade Gourmet consultant? I mean, the kind who actually like to make money? Because I'm waving my money around in the air right now, and no one is lurching forward to take it.

Or better yet, let's have a contest**! You post your favorite meatloaf recipe. I will make each loaf of meat, and submit it to my panel of judges. Prizes* (for the best loaves) will abound.

*Please do not remind me that I still have not mailed the prizes from my previous contests. I know that. But I promise I'll get around to it. Eventually.

**The deadline for this contest is February 18, 2007. Please email me the meatloaf recipe or post the recipe in the comments section of this entry.

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I'll have a button up soon, but wanted to remind you Internets that the domain name contest is still open for my new cooking site.

If you don't want to suggest a site name in the comments section, for fear that domain name eaters might come by and snatch it up, just email me.

I'm open to any type of name, whether it is related to the brand Chirky™ or not. The site will be a cooking site, fully devoted to one of my favorite subjects: Food. (And, interestingly, how to cook it.) Stay tuned.

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I keep wondering how blogging everyday is going to last for me. Particularly on the weekends, when I sit lazily in front of the TV (or at the table, scrapbooking) and attempt to remember how my brain has turned to mush at the ripe age of 28.

And then I remember: the prizes. Have you seen that list of all those great prizes? THIRTY THREE of them at last count? It almost provokes me to donate a prize from the Storage Closet O' Goodness. And perhaps I will.

Even if I win a prize, or donate a prize- which HELLO: HAVE YOU SEEN HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE PARTICIPATING? BEHOLD THE POWER OF FUSSY - it's fun to have a challenge.

I wonder how many people will still be in the running at the end of this month?

I am in the process of helping the author of Writing Aspirations review all the blogs. She's done the majority of the work - I'm just taking two categories (out of, like, fifty million). Check back this week, because I should have the first (at least) of those two categories completed.

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I feel like there is something that I was supposed to do today – what was it?

Oh, yes. That's it. I'm choosing a winner for the cooking tip contest. There were so many great entries – I almost feel that it would be an injustice to pick just one. Whoever made up the rules for this game, anyway?

Continue reading "Good for those who haven't figured out how to elegantly dice tomatoes yet" »

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Don't forget that two contests are still underway:

1. Do you have unusual hints or tips related to cooking? Leave them in the comments section on either this entry or on the original contest announcement entry. The most useful suggestion wins a prize from the Storage Closet O' Goodness. The Winner will be announced will be Wednesday, November 8, 2006. (No excuses - this gives you plenty of time to ask mom - or friends - for kitchen tips!)

   Don't have any hints or tips? Check back often. Someone's bound to leave a comment that you find useful.

2. For the past several months I have wanted to start a new food- and cooking-related blog. I've already purchased a couple domains, but am not satisfied with either. Therefore: the best domain name suggestion (the URL must be available for me to purchase) for the new site wins a free blog re-design!

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I am a gourmand.

There. I said it. I love food. I love cooking. I love chocolate and chicken and chives, though perhaps not mixed together.

I often find myself daydreaming of hosting my own daytime television show on the FoodTV network, of driving with Rachel Ray in a Chrysler convertible on our way to find the next best place to film $40 a Day, of sampling foods and discussing what spices have been added to produce such a unique flavor.

Simply put, I love to cook.

With the holidays quickly approaching I thought it might be appropriate to unveil a new section of this site for the food lover in each of us. Each week I'll be highlighting my favorite recipes and foods from around the world and in my kitchen. You can use the "Search" feature in the side bar or check out the Gourmand category (also: a Gourmand section coming to a Side Bar near you soon!).

I recently found a list of Unusual Kitchen Tips. The list was so intriguing to me that I feel obligated to share it. I'm also curious whether you are holding a well-kept kitchen secret, and if so, the Internets must know what your secret is. (* * * CONTEST ALERT * * *)

Continue reading "For the Foodie in Each of Us (and even those that just need a little extra help in the kitchen)" »

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Katie and I were roommates, twice, during college. We did the things college students do, like swiping extra salt and pepper packets from fast food chains because we didn't want to spend the extra money to buy our own. (Okay, fine, that was me. But had Katie thought of it first, she totally would have, too.)

One Saturday night we went through the drivethru of a fastfood restaurant, perhaps McDonalds or Jack in the Box, and Katie ordered a happy meal. The toy that came with that meal was a stuffed animal. An ugly stuffed animal. A country bear. I guess. We still haven't figured out what it is, exactly.

"Katie, that is the UGLIEST doll I have ever seen."

"Here, you can have it." She threw it in my lap.

"Um, NO, I don't want it." (This was punctuated with me throwing the bear across the car at her while she was driving.)

I don't recall who began the "tradition," but from that point forward Katie and I took great delight in hiding the bear for each other. She hid it in my closet, I hid it in her bathroom, peaking out from behind her deodorant. She gave it to me before my wedding, as part of a gift for my lingerie shower. I had a little girl do a drive-by bear-shooting into the window of her car. Most recently, Katie gave it to me again as a gift for my birthday.

Each time we passed it, we would add some new article of clothing: pearl undergarments (Katie), jean-dress and party hat (Jes), curly red hair and green fringe (Katie). It was our cross-dressing country bear, our symbol of hope and freedom and friendship. And delerium.

When Roger and I decided to visit the Philippines, it was only natural for me to tote the cross-dressing country bear halfway around the world. The CDCB has been all over Manila, visited Taal volcano, a lake within a volcano that is a lake within a volcano. Except I MUST point out that the CDCB did not have to actually CLIMB the gruesome trail up to the volcano ridge. He was carried. By Roger. Because I am a wimp, and out of shape, and couldn't even carry a stuffed animal during the hike. Personally, I think it must have made Roger feel very manly to know he was doing a little extra work.

Anyway, so while driving from Manila to Baguio we stopped to take a few pictures. Actually, we stopped about every 30 yards to take a picture of something, but I doubt you're interested in that. What you're interested in, Internet, is the contest I've cooked up for you. Go ahead, read on.

Continue reading "When In The Philippines, Do As The Filipinos Do" »

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