Monday, April 28, 2014

will Phrodaux eat it? or dancing with the scars...

So there is a rule, something about going to the grocery store only when you are really hungry and a little drunk...

... or is it "I before e except after Ryan Seacrest" but then why would I be going before Ryan Seacrest? or better, why does it explicitly need to be stated that I should go before him, seems a given.

 (I present you Ryan Seacrest ladies and gentlemen... lock up your...
I don't know what... fudgesicles?)

what was I talking about?

The Fairy Queen and I (before E) went to "the big Asian grocery store". We were lamenting the fact we can find most of the stuff at non-Asian "normal" grocery stores now a days. Kinda makes things seem less special. Though, we did find a few things that are not of the "normal grocery" store fare.

we got bean paste cookies shaped like fish, didn't taste like fish [unlike the fish shaped licorice that Phrodaux (me, note nested parentheses) purchased in the Netherlands, but that is another story, involving fishy tasting licorice that just happened to be fish shaped, I may have ruined the ending. SPOILERS! oops, sorry.]

We bought some fish sauce (that had a baby on the label, but oddly didn't taste like babies).

...and some strange duck eggs. They were packed in Styrofoam, and were shipped over from Korea (I think, someplace across the big blue angry sea) and are an alarming shade of blackish/greenish.


Fairy Queen thinks buying was a bad idea, and eating them a worse idea.

 (tasted a little like cheese, but in a good way)

Phrodaux on the other hand thinks "weird, I've never had duck eggs that come from Korea packed in Styrofoam that are an alarming shade of black/green. I should eat one/them."

This also might be in the same category as the FQ said that she has never had stitches and Phrodaux having had stitches quite a few times, but not as often as he likely should have had stitches {including the time he was stabbed by a robot, but then it was a stabbing robot, but that is another story, that doesn't involve licorice or fishy tasting, or fishy tasting licorice, but does involve weird stuffed animals [real animals (though fake stuffing)] in a home window diorama}.

{FQ sidebar: I HAVE had stitches, but only once and have a cute little scar to show for myself. But there is no contest here: Phrodaux does all the death-defying moves (falling from a tree onto a barbed wire fence? Yes, that's another story) and I just get bruises. A couple on my knee right now are about the shade of that nasty egg he's going to eat.}

eggs.

We've had duck eggs before, those were given to us at one of the local bars down the valley, apparently there is a farm that raises ducks to be shot at (huh?) they raise them, and generally the first time that they get to fly "free" there is a "sportsman" standing behind the box to change the nice orderly duck parts into so much chaos thus increasing the overall entropy of the universe and moving us all one step closer to the entropy death of said universe.

where was I?

Ducks!

This one time when I was in junior high school, I was going to a Shakespeare play in Ashland and had to rescue a bunch of baby ducks that fell down a storm drain, first we had to get the cop car off the grate so we could move it. Then I went down and saved the baby ducks. Made the newspaper and everything...

... and... Ryan Seacrest! ta-da!

Thursday, April 17, 2014

The first rule of kimchi fight club...

Is never talk (blog) about kimchi fight club.

(how did all those people end up showing up at fight club if nobody ever talked about fight club?)

Phrodaux may have had a few "days" this last week. It started with getting a thing cut off my arm (I'm not saying it was my unborn twin brother, but I'm the one with the beard, and if I learned anything from Star Trek, something something Spock with a goatee, something something, I didn't learn from Star Trek, except that god doesn't need a starship, something something, green chicks).

what was I talking about?

So, now thing free, and a Frankenstein's monster like zipper around about a third of my wrist.
 (this is not my actual hand, mine has more colors, and less anger, fire good.)

Then there was the kimchi... the.kimchi.....the..kimchi......the...kimchi.......

Thursday night is Phrodaux makes oven fries (sweet potato and yellow potatoes, recipe to follow) and one of two kinds of cheese sandwiches (eggy or regular, recipe to follow) or salmon burgers (recipe... blah, blah, blah) or veggie sausages (we just buy these). Now I may have mentioned something about kimchi, some of the things that go on burgers or sausage can be pickled mango from the Indian grocery store, mayo, fancy brown mustard, FQ likes catsup (Phrodaux prefers ketchup), pickles (of the cucumber variety, dill, never sweet, ick), and... wait for it... homemade kimchi.

Apparently when you make kimchi (have I mentioned the kimchi?) it keeps venting as it keeps fermenting, but then once done it goes into the fridge.

So, wanting kimchi on my sausage (shut up, your mom wants kimchi on her sausage... I don't know, shut up). I grabbed the jar from the cold and in a very manly way, failed to open the jar (gas may have escaped, but I blame the kimchi). I think my grip may have been compromised by having frankenhand. Tools! tools solve things! I got the pipe wrench.

(this would be the "after" picture)

There were some contortions, which ended up with the Fairy Queen with the wrench while I grasped and twisted. The good news-the jar was opened! the bad news was it was not the expected and traditional "top of jar" location. This was more the middle of the jar. Apparently it is possible to untwist a mason jar roughly in the middle.

Then drama ensued...

long story, even longer, I did not get kimchi on my sausage. I did taste it. It took like 2 months to make, I had to. Oddly enough it tasted like cabbage and broken glass.

(Fairy Queen will have a sidebar here, I'm pah-seyekick)

{Tiny FQ Sidebar, she is so predictable. I love this story because usually I am the dangerous hazard. Nice to be the responsible level-headed one for once. Then again, I am not kimchi's puppet.} 

There was the search for bandaids, the hold the rag on it, the crime scene looking kitchen that FQ was kind enough to clean up (this might have been a self preservation thing on her part as there are only so many places for bandages on Phrodaux and I was running out of said places) chalk outlines can be so slimming.

{FQ Sidebar: Notice in the after picture above that two bandaids are already in place amongst the minor bloody bits. So it's after as in AFTER the kitchen exploded into blood, glass, and kimchi stink which, by the way, smells like dead bodies, but also after the major flesh wounds were dealt with. Once Phrodaux tried to eat broken glass just to taste his )#$*(#$*& kimchi, it was time to use the teacher voice to say: "You. Go sit down. Do not move. Dinner will be brought to you. Do not touch anything."}

So in summary, Phrodaux did not set himself on fire this week! Good news!