Thursday, February 02, 2012

Culinary Adventures

Actual rice balls! Not pictured: lots of lettuce to go with the fruit













Adam and I bought a new Prius two days ago. It's really cool, with lots of gadgets (the polar opposite of our Civic, which doesn't even have cruise control). I love the car and am terrified to drive it, and I'm not sure how I feel about being a 2-car house. I wish that buses went out this far so I didn't feel like it was necessary. But now I can go volunteer at the library without driving into work with Adam and picking him up later (said library would try to squeeze me into their busy volunteer schedule. Oh, the joys of living in Utah). And the Prius will be much better for road trips and Ikea trips.

Made it with dried chickpeas
I've been trying to cook every weird thing I have ever wondered if it was possible to cook. Last week we made okonomiyaki and falafel, and yesterday I made hummus (apparently, this is what garbanzo beans are good for). I'm going to try to make miso soup later this week. I've been trying to keep up on reading Japanese, doing yoga, and making myself a real lunch everyday (sometimes I forget to eat lunch... other things are more exciting?). I bought a steam cleaner for the floor, and while it doesn't really pick up much dirt, it feels so wonderfully clean afterwards. I threw out our old mop which was basically a floor-sponge that was grossing us out anyway.

I have some ideas for an Oishinbo-like comic set in Utah, but I'm not sure if I'm good enough at drawing to pull it off. If I do put something together, I'll post it here and you too will be able to relish the joys of comic food writing. :-)

6 comments:

Cara said...

A Prius AND a steam mop?!?! You are totally living the life! :)

All that food looks so good, you do such a great job at whatever you set your hand to, it's inspiring.

Rachel Helps said...

Haha, thanks Cara. Adam got a raise so I'm like "must buy all things I wanted for housekeeping."

Thanks for your compliment on my cooking! Even if I couldn't finish my thesis, I can at least cook strange things. :-)

krebscout said...

I've been toying with the idea of making my own hummus. And I actually like garbanzo beans a lot, and my kids do, too - I put them in curry and my Indian experimentations. Also, you made me want to get a steam mop. But we have about twenty square feet of lino in our apartment, so maybe I can hold off on that until we have an actual income.

Andrea Landaker said...

Hmm, Utah isn't exactly the foodie capital of . . . well, anything, but maybe that would make it good for the comic? :-)

Adam said...

Andrea: In fairness, there are a couple of odd foodie highlights in Utah. Amano chocolate is genuinely remarkable stuff, and is made in Orem. We also do some really interesting things with cheeses cured with honey. And there's this friendly crazy man in downtown Provo who is selling Ratatouille sandwiches -- and they are *good*.

And that's kind of the point -- finding the esoteric gems in what is generally considered a culinary wasteland :). It's kind of fun.

Rachel Helps said...

krebscout, you should totally make hummus! If you don't have time to soak the dry beans I think you can buy them canned, and then if you have a blender or something it would take hardly any time (basically, add lemon juice, garlic, and tahini oil I think. Tahini oil was a pain to find).