Anger Burger

You guys, I’m sweaty.  I don’t belong in this climate.  It gets over 95° and I basically subsist entirely on frozen grapes and anger.

Part of being angry involves moping around the house during the daytime when I can see how filthy it is, which makes me pretty irate.  Why don’t we have a fucking maid?  Since when do I have principles?

Part of what is really pissing me off lately is this:

Do you have this?  I didn’t used to be like this.  I am disgusted by counter clutter, it drives me nuts (arr, it’s drivin’ me nuts!).  It makes me so angry I didn’t feel like doing a decent job in Photoshop so now the letters are all nuclear retina-searing red.  RAGE!

Anyway, without a pantry I can’t put foods away easily; every food item is carefully stacked and piled into two cabinets.  Moreover, Mike the Nordic Berserker does not like it when he can’t find his snacks because he gets low blood sugar cannot hear Odin’s call.  You laugh (I hope) but it’s no joke, he really will go a whole day without eating and then suddenly have a skull-splitting headache and talk backwards and start getting his flaming crossbolts ready¹.  It started with just the bowl of Lara Bars, but in the last year it has come to be the entire prep table.  So then today I spent a lot of energy trying to wrangle the technical details of making a whole “snack cabinet” but then I blacked out and woke up with frozen yogurt and delivery vegetable korma all over my face.

Is there such thing as an antacid patch?

¹ During one of the last posts Mike said to me “I like how I’ve become the villain of your blog,” which might have been said sarcastically by a normal person, but since Vikings aren’t capable of complex emotional undertones, I’m going to take it at face value.

Occasionally, I register my disgust on the internet, like so:

I was so disappointed today when I went to purchase my usual
weekly box of Alpen and discovered the familiar, cheery red and white
box was now a badly-designed dull brown.  Such poor graphic design!  The
photographs of the grains and the color palette look like something from
the 70′s – and not in the happy, Scandinavian way that Alpen looked
before.  I’m not sure what possessed you guys to change the box so
drastically, but I’m sad to see it.

Sincerely,
Sunday

What am I going on about?  Oh, why, just this totally retarded box redesign from my favorite healthy cereal, Alpen:

Please tell me I’m going nuts, because where I’m standing from, this looks like a lovely, sort of retro but pretty delicious-looking cereal that has been transformed into a 1970′s-made-for-TV-movie cereal comprised of mulch, horse hay, compost and owl pellets.

Alpen had this to say in its defense:

Thank you for the email giving us your review of the new Alpen box
design.  We are very sorry you didn’t like the new graphics.

We appreciate receiving our customers’ suggestions and comments about
our products, and we have forwarded your comments about the packaging to
the appropriate department to take under consideration.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further comments.
We hope you will continue to enjoy our other products in excellent
health!

Regards,
Kathy Zorn
Technical Services Coordinator
Weetabix North America
Barbara’s Bakery Division

Kathy, I didn’t respond because I don’t want to be the lunatic who keeps emailing you about the Alpen box, but I just want to understand what is happening.  Do you want Alpen to fail?  Was this an act of vengeance?   A spurned lover down in the box design department, perhaps?  Some Republican scheme to torture eaters of hippie cereal?  The last part I’d understand, but in all seriousness, it’s working.  Each time I pour a bowl of Grim Alpen for myself, I think, here’s one bowl of muesli closer to my demise.

Can we briefly discuss the “express” or “15 item limit” lanes at the grocery store?

But first: I used to love the self-checkout lanes.  It was so nice to be able to bag my own groceries and not talk to anyone.  Misanthrope’s dream.   But then I switched to reusable grocery bags¹ and discovered that no self-checkout machines are capable of dealing with your own bag.  The machine preforms seppuku when you set your bag on the shelf, unable to comprehend a world where a 2-ounce discrepancy exists.  Briefly at Ralphs there was an option to check “I’m using my own bags” and that option was deleted when people realized you could add a tiny stolen item to the bag at that point and the machine would ignore it.  After weeks of having to flag down the employees each time to get a machine override I gave up.

There’s a humanist belief that within us each is the capacity to respect one another, and when we all understand this our world will drastically alter.  Violence will stop.  Hunger will stop.  Great minds will work toward ending disease and poverty instead of making themselves richer.

This will never happen, and anyone that has stood in an express lane at the grocery store knows this.

Every single time I ago there are two distinct people:

THE CHEATER
The cheater is almost always an affluent person in a kind of faux-rush, an absent-minded twat with their car keys in their hand as though a scenario where their car will need to be started without warning is imminent.  They are guaranteed to have about 20 items in their basket.   They will, when the checker asks “Did you find everything ok?” answer sincerely that they did not.  Anecdotal case-in-point: the girl who whined “I looked everywhere for Tapatío hot sauce and I couldn’t find it,” after which the checker sends a bag-boy off to the hot sauce isle to find the giant display of Tapatío.  Meanwhile 400 people in the check-out line grow old and die.

THE INDIGNANT LOSER
If your blood pressure isn’t raised by the Cheater, then the Indignant Loser will surely do it for you with their passive-aggressive sighing and attempts to assault with mere eye contact.  Occasionally they will talk to you in an effort to gain solidarity, “Can you believe this?” (“Yes.”) and even more awkwardly might scold the checker, “This lane is 15 items or less, right?  Why are you allowing her to be in this line?”

I fall into an amorphous third category wherein I start out as being an Indignant Loser and then once I see other Indignant Losers I lose all my steam and fall into an atheistic funk involving fantasies of secret compounds and gun hoarding.  And in the event that neither of those are in front of me in line, it’s almost certainly some batshit crazy loon buying a single packet of soy cheese slices while paying with a sack of pennies.

I hesitate to offer a solution since I know it won’t be entertained, but here it is: have a lane called a “Luxury Lane,” and that alone will draw off all the people who also rent “Luxury Apartments” that are really just low-quality ant farms with faux-granite countertops and stainless steel fridges.  So, the Cheaters, basically.  This will leave the other lane, which will be renamed the “Budget Lane” to people with only a few items but who actually have their cash out and ready to pay.   You’ll also have to install a simple coin-counting mechanism into the register for the batshit sack-o-pennies, but that’s pretty easy.

Ugh.  Now I have heartburn.

¹The RuMe bags are by far my favorite – they have long handles, long enough to actually hoist over your shoulder even when the bags are full, and they have squared corners and bottoms.  When I first went shopping for reusable bags year before last I was surprised to discover they all had seams on the bottom, which makes the packing of groceries stupidly harder.  It’s seriously like these people have never packed a bag of groceries before in their lives, which now that I think about it they probably haven’t.  The RuMe bags also fold up and seal with velcro, which no one else was doing.  Everyone else either folded up into large, sloppy pockets or had little separate, loose covers, like, I wonder how long it would take to lose them.  Ten minutes?  Five?  AND RuMe makes an extra-large “macro” size so that you can have bags for those awkward toilet paper superpack buying rampages at Target.

So there I am, digging through my recipe archives¹, looking for something to do with the rest of my quart of buttermilk when I remember that Smitten Kitchen did a buttermilk cake a while back and off my fingers flew.

Unsurprisingly, the cake is amazing.  It’s perfect.  And as it took 30 minutes to assemble and 30 minutes to bake, an hour after starting I was rewarded with a lovely, fragrant cake that I had little intention of sharing with anyone.

The downside is that the recipe re-fired an old irritation I have for the whole “milk + lemon juice = buttermilk” wives tale.  And it pains me to see Smitten Kitchen trooping along with it — it causes such a hitch in my giddyup to see my beloved bacteria-laden buttermilk impostered so poorly with acidified milk.  You see, milk and lemon juice together does not make buttermilk.  It makes, as mentioned one sentence ago, acidified milk, which is not really the same at all.

A fair comparison is to say that thickening milk with gelatin is the same as making yogurt.  Sure, it looks similar, and all it’s missing is that critical fermentation process.  Additionally, some of the more authentic buttermilks (like Knudsen) add small flecks of butterfat to the milk to boost flavor, making it a lot more like the actual stuff you would theoretically get from the making of butter (hence the name – buttermilk is actually the residue from making butter) (or rather:  used to be, it isn’t any more).  You might even be able to find honest-to-goodness real buttermilk if you have a local dairy representin’ at your farmer’s market.

This isn’t to say that milk and lemon juice together don’t make an interesting product — they do — it’s just that I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t just use buttermilk instead.  An even better substitute would be mixing equal parts plain full-fat yogurt to whole milk, but again, what is this, the Cold War?  Is there a ration on buttermilk?  The stuff keeps forever in the fridge, why not just buy a pint?

Still, that’s life, I guess.  Some people care about human rights.  I care about buttermilk.

(Seriously, this recipe is great.  Go get it.)

¹A pile of print-outs and unlabeled lists of ingredients.

Quickly, and just to get it out of my system: last year my dad bought me a Dell Studio 14z laptop, a laptop marketed as a “student” model due to budget and lack of an optical drive¹.  Part of the deal with the laptop was that they’d throw in an upgrade to Windows 7 for free when it came out. Let me rephrase that, because that makes it sound too generous on their part.  What is actually the case is that the purchase for the laptop included the Windows 7 OS, but since it was not released yet, existed as a voucher.  Very important difference considering that I was waiting to get a new laptop in an effort to avoid using Vista.

Very long story short: I have been trying for two straight months to get that upgrade, and Dell just won’t send it.  It’s apparently a thing (I refuse to wade through message boards, but my dad did, bless him) where you log in, register your computer and then it’ll never let you back online to order your upgrade.  And you can’t re-register because, well, someone² has already registered that laptop.  I’ve exchanged probably a dozen emails now with Dell trying to get it sorted out, and each of them (even living people!) have answered: just log on to your account… At which point I start screaming I CANNOT LOG INTO THE FUCKING ACCOUNT, THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT.

Then, this last Monday, I received a phone call at 8am from an unknown number, so I ignored it.  I get a lot of mistake calls, I think because I have a Los Angeles phone number.  15 seconds later the phone rang again, same number, and I briefly thought: perhaps I should answer it.  And then I remembered, no, if someone wants to talk to me they can leave a message like a regular human being.  Also, I was in the middle of dropping my in-laws off at the airport.  I get home and find an email telling me that Dell has made the outrageous effort of trying to call me, but since I didn’t answer our issue is now over.

Oh, fuck it.

All of this is now exacerbated this morning by an additional email warning me that I have until January 31st to get my Windows 7 upgrade and then the free offer will expire.

So, this boring lame post is all me just venting:

Dell, I like this laptop a lot.  It was a good purchase, for the price.  But this thing where you have to complete a mystical quest in order to get a piece of software that was promised?  Insulting.  And I am reporting you to the Attorney General for fraud.

Love,
Sunday

¹ This is supposed to be marketed as portability (which is true, it’s pretty light) but in reality just keeps the costs down.  Which is fine by me.
² You.

***UPDATE  1.27.10***
Well!  I don’t know if it is coincidence (probably), the Attorney General (probably not) or this blog (definitely not), but I received another phone call from Dell at a more reasonable hour, and had a long talk with a gentleman who deleted my previous registration account and sat with me through another registration.  It was successful, and the account shows the software is set to ship on February 10th.  The phone call itself was a positive experience with only a little of that call-center crap (you know: hard to hear, obviously scripted lines).  It doesn’t make up for the stupid experience up until then (anyone with a regular 9-5 job would have never been able to write the emails and make the phone calls I did), but I should technically amend this entire post to say: my problem been, I believe, resolved.  Sort of.  20% resolved.  The other 80% is waiting for the software to actually arrive.

You know what time it is… That’s right, it’s time for Ye Olde Anger Burger Pet Peeves!  Sacré bleu!

• Here is where I rag on some poor unsuspecting, probably kind and generous foodblogger(s) who shall remain unnamed, but are nevertheless morons: those who use the word bakies instead of cookies.  Oh yes.  I wish I were fucking with you.  The term is almost always followed by a sort of down-homey, misspelled tirade ala “if their baked, how come we call then cookies? I call bakies because that what they are!”  First of all (oh my god, there goes my blood pressure), a COOKIE is not named for being COOKED.  It is a derivative from the Dutch word koekie, which means “little cake.”  Secondly (now the heartburn is starting), is the logic flaw: the belief that cookies are baked, not ‘cooked’.  But see, all baked items are cooked, but not all cooked items are baked.  Oh sweet baby FSM, I’m going to have an aneurysm.

• If you claim anything is “the new bacon” I am giving you fair warning: I will deep fat fry your hand.

• The degradation of the term “soup.”  Okay, lemme explain myself.  I have long ago lost count of how many times I’d be on Tastespotting or something similar and link to a recipe for “something soup” only to discover it is one of two things: a pile of chunks lightly dressed with broth¹, or a tub of something so thick I’m uncertain if it is served with a knife.²  Who knew I was such a prude when it came to soup?

• This isn’t really a pet peeve as much as a disgusting anecdote, but it’s ironic so I’m telling it.  So, I was telling my mom about the above pet peeves while we were having lovely cappuccinos at Olympia Coffee cafe in downtown Olympia, and a couple old enough to know better started, well, publicly making out.  I mean it.  The man appeared to be in his late 30′s or early 40′s, very normal, unremarkable, friendly-looking.  And in walks this woman, appears to be around the same age, and she walks over to the man in a kind of weird daze and sits in his lap.  Surprised, my mom and I tried to avert our eyes.  I mean, look: we’re not opposed to a little public affection.  Smooches, hand-holding, it’s all fine.  But this was… lurid.  And they started to just go totally E all over each other, holding each other’s faces, pressing their faces together, stroking shoulders, chests, arms, legs — basically, in alarm my mother and I looked at the barista working but found him instead averting his eyes.  Not that I expected him to do anything, the poor bastard.  Anyway, it was seriously uncomfortable and was stopped only by the completion of the woman’s soy latte.  Thank fucking god.  Lesson: continue to get excellent cappuccinos from Oly Coffee, but bring a loaded water pistol.

¹ Apologies to Miss Swanson for using her as an example, since 99% of the time her soups are of the totally traditional variety, but this one particular recipe and photograph had me laughing pretty hard.
² Of course I’ve lost the example I had for this, but it’s pretty much any lentil or pureed soup anyone has these days – I assure you that most of them can be eaten with a fork.

• This isn’t so much a pet peeve as a relaxation of a pet peeve: now that Independence Day is over I don’t have to wade through so many stupid strawberry and blueberry recipes.

• On the subject: Wouldn’t all the bloggers and 4th of July bakers just lose their minds if science invented a second blue-tinged fruit?  Only a very few of us could survive the riots.

• This could be just me and just Hollywood, but if you just came from the gym – not just a little yoga sesh, but an actual, purging gym workout – change your damn clothes before you go shopping at the grocery store.  I don’t want to stand next to you anyway, but in a place of food worship?  It’s fucking disgusting that you’re picking out bananas when your shirt is dripping liquid that just excreted from your body.  This reminds me of when I worked at a cafe and a group of cyclists would come in every Sunday morning after having pedaled something like 20 miles, and they’d all peel damp bills from a wad they’d shoved into their spandex and try to hand it to us.  I’m sorry, sweat might be clear, but it’s body juice.  It’s no different than saliva or pee or any of the other fun ones as far as I’m concerned.  Which means that when you’re standing in Trader Joe’s, head-bopping to your iPod tunes while your soaked tank top leaks next to the fresh hummus, all I can see is a giant pile of urine walking around.

• Margarine haters.  Some margarine is terrible, yes, but some of it is pretty good and it actually has benefits not found in butter, such as softness when cold.  Is it a class issue?

• Okay, I’ll admit it: I kind of don’t get BBQ.  I mean, it’s an alternate method of heating food.  I get the outdoors part, but I don’t get the hysteria.  I keep reading this “I can’t wait to BBQ!” or “Thank goodness it’s BBQ season!” and “Please Lord God, let me BBQ today or I will kill a single human being every minute until I can!”   Hey, buddy, take it easy.  Here’s a frying pan and a gas range.  Relax.

“Do these typically drip like this or is this leaking?”

– Woman behind me at grocery checkout holding gallon of milk

• Hippie food with whole flax seeds in it.  The human digestive system cannot break down a flax seed. Think of it as a sleek rock.  It has that much nutritional value.

• There is a popular health-food blogger who seems like a very nice woman but who writes that every single recipe is “kissed” with a flavor.  “Kissed with salt,” or maybe “Kissed with lemon.”  Every time I read her posts I think about how she uses this in her daily life.  “Oof, those antibiotics made me kissed with diarrhea,” or “This internet connection is kissed with failure.”

• Speaking of bloggers, it’s common in the food-blogger community to use the phrase “Need I say more?”  It’ll be a photo of a package of bacon and underneath is “Need I say more?“  Well, yes, you need.  Because what is your fucking point exactly?  I think I’m going to start writing “This tastes good,” under images.  That’s all.

• Now that I mentioned it: bacon.  Bacon tastes good.  LET US ALL NOW MOVE ON.

• The way that some Europeans eat a piece of cheese-toast with a knife and fork.  I find myself offended by the implication that they are so cultured that they need to chip off unwieldy pieces of dry, room-temperature cheese-toast with metal utensils rather than use their fingers.  Like when people eat a sandwich with a knife and fork – why did you have a sandwich in the first place?  Why not order a salad and some bread?

• Recipes utilizing pureed avocado.  Avocado is already smooth and creamy.  I get crushing it up for easy scooping and spreading – for guacamole, for instance – but pureeing?  There’s a reason adults don’t eat pureed bananas: it’s baby food.  Exception: avocado milkshakes.