Product Diversification

So on the way home, I noticed that Low Book Sales is advertising tax preparation services. Weird!

My internship... or You're taking away the caffeine and the sugar?

For those of you who don't know, I started an internship three weeks ago. I'm working in the LDS church office building doing taxes for expatriates (people who work for the church but who are doing so outside of the country--don't feel dumb if you didn't know that. When I was offered the job, I had to look it up). Expatriate really is such a cruel sounding word... almost like they were beheaded for treason or something like that.

I'm really enjoying it. After two weeks of training and prep work, I did my first real return Friday. We'll get the review notes someday from my supervisor and see how it all went over.

It's a really great internship with a few pros and cons as all things have.

Pros:

1. I get to do taxes!
2. I have an amazing work environment (good and churchy).
3. I'm always allowed and expected to leave at 5.
4. I don't have to deal with the standard receptionist sorts of stuff like having to talk to people.
5. I get lots of commuting time to listen to recorded books and sleep and stuff.
6. They have a crushed ice machine (so it's basically like having the benefits of being a hospital patient without having to be prodded).
7. They sell creamery chocolate milk for cheaper than they do at BYU.
8. I'm learning lots of stuff--I'm totally going to be the king of forms 2555 and 1116.

Cons:

1. I no longer sit at the reception desk which means that nobody randomly comes up and puts candy on my desk.
2. Lack of Dr. Pepper! They do have caffeine-free stuff in the vending machine. I tried to buy some the other day... and not only did it come out caffeine-free but diet! To which I exclaim, "You're taking away my caffeine and my sugar????"
3. I spend three hours (or 12.5%) of my day on a bus. And I have to keep my eyes closed the whole time or I get sick.
4. I find that the people who perform recorded books generally annoy me. Particularly the British guy who seems to have done lots of Agatha Christie books and the girl who reads Twilight. Granted, I accept that it wouldn't make sense to have a not-annoying voice read twilight to you. I did think that the Da Vinci code guy was really good though--he did all sorts of accents... and I don't remember feeling annoyed or ever having a hard time understanding.
5. I work on the 22nd floor and elevators make me sicker than buses even.
6. My dress standards are like the MTC... you don't have to wear a suit coat if nobody will see you... but if you're going to leave the cubicle... it must be worn... and I've yet to have a presiding authority approach me in the cafeteria to tell me that I'm allowed to take it off.

Not that I'm necessarily expecting it, but if they did offer me a job after this, do you think they would mind if I snuck some real Dr. Pepper into my cubicle?

Long awaited Boeuf Bourguignon!

Wowsers! I'm really bad at posting. I actually cooked this thing several weeks ago and just haven't gotten around to writing about it. Hopefully none of your happiness is dependent on whether I write or not... cause then I would feel way guilty!

Well... on with the recipe as it's a long one. The recipe itself can be found here. This way if there is any copyright breaking going on, it will be on Oprah's head and not on mine. She's got a lot more money than me in case of a lawsuit.

Now hopefully, I can remember what was going on in all these pictures. I promise to try to be better about this writing thing. So first, I chopped up some bacon.

Here's the lovely bacon... feeling all chopped.
But before, I got home to the bacon, I had to acquire some of this. A nice red wine... Chianti, just like Julia said. Obtaining this was a little more complicated that some of you might think. People outside of Utah don't seem to understand this, but you can't buy wine in grocery stores here. You have to go to the udderly sinful state liquor store. I'd never been into a liquor store before. I frequented the first bar of my life just a few weeks ago. So I'm kind of new to this whole thing, and I didn't want to appear too awkward when I got there, so I looked on their website and everything was very well organized. You went to wine, then red, then other red, and then there was Chianti. Unfortunately, the store wasn't quite that orderly. There was just aisles of wine in the middle. There was probably some sort of order... but I didn't see the pattern. But luckily, I found some chianti eventually... and I bought it. There were actually a lot of people there. I didn't know there were so many people in Utah Valley buying wine at 1pm on a Thursday. Then I looked all directions before leaving the store of sin. I don't think anyone saw me or anything. Then I panicked because I was so afraid that I might die on the ride home and my last act alive would be to buy wine. But don't worry... I survived all the way to walmart... and then I bought a few more things.
But anyways, back to the bacon. Then I blanched it because I decided that I was going to try to do everything that Julia told me too. This just means that you boil it for a little while I guess.
While it was doing that, I chopped me up some onions and carrots.
And then the bacon looked like this. Good and blanched I suppose. Mostly looked like uncooked bacon swimming around in fatty water.
Then I fried up that bacon and that oil.
And I dried the meat... because if you don't, the meat won't brown properly. I know you think I'm not listening Julia... but I am! I absolutely am!
Then I got the meat a-frying in the bacon grease and oil stuff.
And then I moved on to this beauty. Now there are a few things that I have approached in my life absolutely unprepared. I have good parents, but they weren't always the best on educating me on the finer things of life. So... I was absolutely unprepared for a few of the changes in life.... leading to some embarrassment... like the fact that teenage boys are supposed to wear deodorant, that whole wedding night thing, and my first wine bottle. I clumsily used some scissors to get that red thing off.
And then I found something that I was totally unprepared for. A CORK!!!!! I wasn't expecting this... Martinelli's don't have corks..
So I had to call in my underage sister to bring down her pocket knife collection. The first pocket knife snapped right in two while she was working on it. So she had to pry that one out with a pair of pliers. This took a very long time. All the while the meat was browning away... turned to very, very low heat to hopefully buy me some time.
Here we are with the second pocket knife.
I got the meat off of the stove and started cooking the onions and the carrots. When miraculously....
This happened!!!!!!
Also while all that was going on. I did the whole meat/flour shaking cooking thing. And then I put it all together in the pot and cooked it for awhile. Like 2 and 1/2 hours. I also sauteed some mushrooms in there, but obviously didn't take a picture.
Then I took it out... Boiled it and basted it with the mushrooms involved. Then I ate it... and it was very good. I was a little skeptical... because the wine cooking made our kitchen smell really quite gross in my professional opinion. But the finished product did make me go really yum... I didn't really know what pearl onions were, so I just left those out. But other than that, I mostly listened to Julia with every silly little step. Hope you enjoyed! If anyone else close by wants to try... I still have a half bottle of wine in my cupboard that I don't really know what to do with... maybe some coq au vin.

Man food (my introduction into food blogging)

I've been wanting to try out this food blogging thing for a long time now--basically ever since I fell in love with pioneer woman. Then of course there was the whole Julie/Julia thing. It's like the first fad that I was at least semi-capable of participating in. So, a week ago last Thursday, I borrowed my sister's camera because my camera doesn't do close up shots... like at all. Her's isn't spectacular, but hopefully it will give you a feel for it all.

Then I spent the next 5 hours in the kitchen to bring you the following three part series: 1. Frito Pie, 2. Boeuf Bourguignon, and 3. Gateau chocolat aux amandes.

Today, you get Frito pie. My good buddy Jon taught me all about this one when he noticed that I needed some man food introduced into my life. I started with this one because I was still smarting from the day before when some guy in the gold's gym locker room called me a fag.... so many junior high flash backs. I dedicate this post to that guy... whoever he may be. Bring on the man food!

But first my moldy countertop... because mold is also manly.


You'll need frito's (or cheap wanna-bes), salsa, chili, and pepper jack cheese. Does anyone else have major psychological concerns about Walmart's new packaging? I'll talk more about my very poignant feelings about in a later post.

First, spend five minutes searching for your good can opener. Then give up and try to open the chili with your bad can opener. Then swear, and find the good one to help you finish the job. Or even better, just get chili with a pop top.

Then pour the chili, salsa, and ripped up cheese pieces (in whichever quantities make you want to grunt) into a pan.

Heat it, stir it, watch it become one conglomerated whole.

Pour it over fritos on a plate... and EAT IT!

Check back soon for details about the rest of that sinful thursday afternoon which was spent having an affair of sorts with Julia Child.

The most spoiled generation

Have you ever noticed the Hershy's miniature phenomenon? You know, the one where at the end, there's a lot of milk chocolate ones left? Honestly, what does that say about our generation that we turn our noses up at chocolate if it doesn't have something else with it? I mean, it's still chocolate right? Chocolate=good (particularly among females yes)?

Victory!

Hello my name is Brennan....

Hello Brennan

I walked into Walmart last night at approximately 10:07 pm with the goal of buying a package of eggs and two lemons. I left walmart a few minutes later having only bought a package of eggs and two lemons.

Wild applause!

[tearing up] Thanks guys.... I could never have the power to resist temptation without the strength I get from y'all.

Kid-friendly?

Sometimes allrecipes.com lets you down, and it's rough for everyone involved. Tonight, I was browsing through the kid-friendly recipe section when I found this listed as the #3 favorite kids recipe. Maybe times have changed since I was a kid.... but back when I was a youngun'--walking up hill to school both ways and the crossing guard was frozen solid so we had to push the nerdy kids into the street to stop traffic--it was so not cool to eat spinach, sundried tomato, pesto, and jalepeno peppers.

Pepperoni was the definition of cool. Kids today... they must not understand what we used to.