Jack Kerouac, as Sal Paradise once said: "I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." And I think that's a rather apt description of my blog over the years, and perhaps the most perfect description of me in general that I've ever read. So that's what this blog is, a collection of the falling stars that are beckoning me at any time.

21 January 2009

Confessions of a Chili Anarchist


I'm making chili for dinner tomorrow. For me it's a two day process to make chili. I take it seriously, also I make really hot chili. We're talking the Guatamalan Insanity Pepper, need to drink a melted candle, go on a spirit quest hot. (Or at least a first test indicates that tomorrow's batch will fit this description.)

While I was wprking on the day one preparations, it occurred to me that I have never had an actual recipe for Chili, it's just pure chili anarchy. Not anarchy really, because I do actually have a method which doesn't really vary, but the ingredient percentages vary wildly. I've never had a bad batch though, just usually too many days worth of left-overs.

The BonjourMiette Chili Method:

approximate ingredients:
-Dark Red Kidney Beans (highest bean concentration)
-Black Beans (like 1 can)
-Great Northern Beans (like 1 can, these don't always make it in)
-Can of crushed tomatoes (the decently big size can)
-can of corn (sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn't)
-can of chopped green chilies
-peppers (couple of fresh jalepenos, fresnos, serranos, habeneros, and thai chilies if they're around and looking good, de-seeded and chopped up into wee bits)
-1 bottle of beer
-1 tube of gimme lean faux sausage
cayenne pepper
cumin
chili powder
cinnamon
cilantro

the method: This is a slow cooker method.

Day one:
mix crushed tomatoes, beans (rinsed), corn, chopped green chilies, and all the peppers in the slow cooker. Sprinkle in all the spices (except cinnamon) in a guesstimate of what will be good. Cook on low for a couple hours. Taste and adjust seasonings. Cool and put in fridge over-night to allow heat the develop and flavours to meld.

Day two:

Take inner part of slow cooker out of fridge, but back in base and turn on (low for 10 hours setting) tear the tube of faux sausage into chunks and put into chili. Pour bottle of beer in. add a wee bit of cinnamon. Let cook all day.

Serve with cheddar cheese shreds, crackers and sour cream.

Wax for tongue optional =)

19 January 2009

quick-date

So we're what 2 weeks deep in the new year and already I'm slipping on the resolutions front. I really miss the days before I get a "real" job and had the time to read and work on my art and go to the gym and all that.

The weather has been just awful the last week or so and I'm getting worried about how much longer Gus is going to last (Gus being my 12 year-old Ford Escort with about a zillion little problems that I don't want to pay to fix, because together they are worth more than the car.)

06 January 2009

a post interrupted

So week 1 of 2009 and as usual I'm right on track with my resolutions, but how long will it last =)

A co-worker appears to be going through a too-young-to-be-midlife-midlife crisis in which she's gone out and pierced her tongue and dyed her hair red (now, don't think that I have anything against piercings and dying one's hair, as I think my hair has been every colour available in dye / koolaid at some point. I've never been much for piercings, I haven't even worn earrings since grade 10, but they can be cool looking) I think, for me, that it's more of an issue of seeming more contrived and not as if it's a part of personal style or character of the person making the changes, if that makes any sense.

At any rate, some of us were discussing it and another co-worker, who like me is rather indie-rock and quirky, said that the girl shouldn't bother, because she couldn't out weird her, and it reminded me of a conversation I had about a year ago with her, about how much it sucked that because our company is repressive (we can't wear necklines that fall below the collar bone, and they call that casual) we couldn't have pink hair anymore. It was a more inebraited than not discussion, but one thing that always stuck out to me about it was that she said she was known for having crazy hair-colours and she missed it because it took away her ability to be known for something (I'm paraphrasing here, but to me that was the gist of it.) I was drunk enough to over-think it and I thought it seemed sad to only be known, or want to be known for a hair style.

Okay, I had to pause in writing this because work popped up, and now I can't remember the long ramble I had in mind. I think I was thinking a lot about how I've always managed to not quite fit in look wise; too quirky for the "normal" people and too normal looking for the "quiry" people.