The Gustatory Terrorist

[DISCLAIMER: The title of this blog post does not in any way indicate that I am an actual terrorist, nor that I support or approve of the doings of terrorists of any sort, nor that I actually believe the stereotype that things of Middle Eastern descent are necessarily associated with terrorism. This is merely an amusing name I made up for myself, musing to a politically conservative friend of mine that, having spent the morning making a Middle-Eastern-themed lunch, I had the edible "axis of evil" marinating in my refrigerator: Tabbouleh, Tztatziki, and Hummus, making me, the amateur cook, a "gustatory terrorist" of sorts.] (Now, really, was the title funny enough to be worth that full-paragraph explanation, written in paranoid, irrational fear of whoever in the government might be monitoring these blog posts, or any innocent individual of Middle Eastern descent who might be offended by my thoughtless generalization. To the government: please don't take my computer. To the Middle Eastern passerby: I apologize, and should not be taken seriously anyway.) 

Ok, so I wanted to make tabbouleh. Also, I wanted to make tzatziki sauce (that stuff is damn good). And then it simply made sense to make some hummus. So goes my idle morning in June. Plus, I took pictures. Perhaps this will turn out to be a food blog? A terrifically amateur and probably not-too-exciting food blog, but a food blog no less. At least I'll be enjoying myself. 

So here is my lovely, fresh, parsley-and-cucumbers-and-tomatoes-full tabbouleh salad:

And here is my dill, lemon, and garlic-spiked tzatziki sauce:

And here is my very-garlicky hummus: 

Here is the trifecta (or, perhaps, the axis...) of all three, arranged in attractive bowls: 

And here is the lovely lunch I made with them, plus some romaine, pita bread, and alfalfa sprouts:

Well, this has been a day well-spent. Despite all the dishes and counter-wiping :-) 

(By the way, the carrot cake was amazing, if I do say so myself, and it was rapidly demolished to a wee pile of crumbs at the party. I guess I should bake cakes more often.) 

The Joy of Cooking

Ok, so I recently bought the Joy of Cooking cookbook, and today I made a carrot cake. I have never made a cake from scratch, but my dear friend Ellen just graduated from high school (and I was away at school for her April birthday) and she adores carrot cake, so I simply had to try the recipe. This is the second recipe I've tried from the Joy cookbook, the first being a picture-perfect coffeecake (seriously, you could have sold that stuff at Starbucks--I really should have documented it) that I baked for my dad on Father's Day morning. One success encourages another... I hope. Well, I documented every step of my first-cake-experience, so here goes. 

All this stuff would become a carrot cake: flour, sugar, spices, grapeseed oil (I swear by this for baking), eggs (at room temperature, for some reason or other), grated organic carrots, chopped walnuts, and organic raisins. 

First this stuff:

Then this stuff:

Mmm... Delicious:

Then this stuff: 

Out of the oven and smelling outrageously edible:

Final Cooling:

Homemade cream-cheese frosting (the secret is apparently cold cream cheese)--just a caveat, but this should really be a schedule 1 controlled substance:

And the Finished Product!

Too much documentation? Hey, I get excited about these things. And I certainly hope it's tasty, because I'm bringing it to a pot-luck graduation party tonight. I'm not too worried. :-) 

Goodness Gracious, a Blog!

Well, someone told me that, as an English Major, I had better just go and get a blog. I think it was another English Major, or perhaps someone who previously majored in English but now has a real life and career. I was previously unaware of how easy these things are to come by, but after about 35 seconds of selecting a username (lucky me, with an iGoogle account already in place...), I suddenly have one. It is currently summer break, and I have loads of time on my hands (thank you, Great Recession, for the abject lack of jobs for college students home for 4 months), and in this day and age, one tends to spend such lazy days in front of a computer, or at least once one (by which I mean myself in particular) has finished all of their New Yorker magazines that piled up over the academic year. 

Another reason someone like me might want to get a blog is this: I tend to have a lot to say. I can't imagine that all of it will be interesting to other human beings, but I suppose, if others begin to read this, they may be entertained. But don't get too excited now, because I tend to not keep journal-type things up to date with any sort of regularity. Seriously, I have a problem. A millions-of-four-page-diaries-from-every-period-of-my-life-sized problem. What I mean by this is: don't hold your breath. Also, while we're talking warnings, I really do try to have proper grammar (and, as an English Major, you KNOW I have the most recent Strunk & White sitting beside my bed for me to consult and feverishly attempt to memorize...), and I even use full punctuation when I text message, but please be patient; I'm still going to school for this. So don't cringe at my run-on sentences, mangled whoses and whoms, and often-excessive parentheses and commas. I'm human. And for God's sake (should I really capitalize that? I'm not really religious, but I'd rather not offend anyone in my first blog post... this might be harder than I'd anticipated) don't leave comments about my grammar. 

Anything else? Oh yes, there's this: I have no idea how to blog. Is it like a journal? Are you supposed to rant here? Is it rude to rant here? Should I comment on worldly goings-on? Would it be pretentious to blog about things I read about in the New Yorker? Is that copyright infringement? Can I even say "The New Yorker" here? Should I say "the popular commentary magazine characterized by its relevance to the peoples of New York" instead? I do write poetry, but internet publishing makes me nervous (those "terms of service" agreements are pretty vague), and so does the prospect of being one of the zillions of irritating online poets. Maybe I'll put some poetry here. But it won't be all that good. Poets have to be self-deprecating, you know, it's practically in the manual. Also, I ramble. I'm sure you can tell. I like how I've developed a "you" character already. No one is reading this. Come on. Or are you? 

Well, this post grows tedious, and I don't want to annoy you with my very first post. So I shall bring it to a conclusion. So there, I've begun a blog. Enjoy.