If you can't cook, don't.

It's thanksgiving and once again I am mooching off of the cooking of another. I have never in my 27 years made a thanksgiving meal, let alone roasted an actual turkey. I plan on keeping that tradition alive as that is my favorite tradition. Eating what others have bestowed upon me.

In the honor of mooching, I have decided to provide you a link to one of my favorite blogs. Happy Thanksgiving!

From Passive Aggressive Notes

Shiny cat, shiny cat!

Yesterday I took a walk to the dirty, rotten food smelling, over-crowded, crack selling lovely Lexington Market in Baltimore City with a couple of co-workers in order to grab some cheap lunch.

I always go to this little chinese food restaurant (gotta go where the bubonic plague won't getcha!) tucked in the back between the pigs feet stand and the sushi that you can buy with your weeks supply of food stamps. I am fairly certain that my bourbon chicken is not actually chicken, but is cat. And I'm ok with that. If that is cat, it is DARN TASTY cat. So while perusing my blogroll this morning, I came across this picture which I just had to share.



If you gotta eat the cat, make sure it is a shiny cat that is bathed in a savory sauce. Enjoy!

For your culinary delight

It was a lovely fall afternoon so I decided to take a walk to my favorite burrito joint "California Tortilla" as I have previously mentioned here with regards to a near neck stab. While I was waiting for my beyond awesome burrito to be crafted, I decided to peruse the vast array of hot sauces that were available. Because I do have a rather interesting sense of humor (to say the least) I found these which of course just made my day complete :




If of course you happen to be just as intrigued as I was over these culinary masterpieces, you can find ordering information via the following links :

1 - See Dick Run (also available in See Spot in Heat)
2 - Rectal Rocket Fuel
3 - Ass in Space

Its birthday time!

"Awwww.... it was your birthday LAST year!!!" -Crow"

Tomorrow is Mr. Hot Pilot's 33rd birthday (yep, go ahead and do the math in your head...I'm 27...I'll wait) so of course I want to celebrate in the best way possible. Mr. Hot Pilot hasn't had the most celebratory birthdays in the past few years with the exception of last year, as that was our first year together. I want to do something that will make him feel super special and loved.

My mom has always made us kids a birthday cake on our birthday, and we all agree that her birthday cakes are by far better than any store bought cake. I want to start little traditions like this for Mr. Hot Pilot, Munchkin and I, but I really am not a baker. Even when I mentioned baking him a birthday cake, Mr. HP just said "why don't you just buy me an ice cream cake - it's easier".

Since I will be down in Del Rio where the major shopping center is WalMart, I am rather limited in my choices. I decided to look up some great cake designs, and found a few that might not be so appropriate now, but could fit the bill in another place and time:







I'm thinking however that he would be happier with one of these:

Suddenly domestic-ish

"Spacemen just don't look at home in a breakfast nook." -Crow.


I'm not exactly 'well known' around town as being a particularly neat and tidy person. For some reason or another I have had no problem keeping the main areas of my various abodes nice and sweet, while rendering my bedroom and the interior of my car un-inhabitable. I'm not too sure what this might mean about me from a psychological perspective, but I don't really give a rats arse.

Because of this, it was quite a surprise to myself and all that know me, that I took on such a fervent domestic role at Mr. Hot Pilots house.

As a bit of a background, my better half is a single papa who also has a super awesome job flying. He devotes himself 110% to being the best daddy possible (he is by far the most awesome dad I've ever seen in action) and devotes the same to being the best pilot and officer he can be. This dedication to Munchkin and his job tends to take away from his time to really clean house. Don't get me wrong, he is always on top of doing the laundry (the one job I LOVE-go figure!) and cooking a hot breakfast and healthy dinner EVERY SINGLE DAY. Yep. Hot breakfast as in eggs, bacon, pancakes, you name it. Every. Day. (Did I mention how awesome he is?) In the realm of cleaning house though...he leaves much to be desired. And that is where I come in.

I've grown accustomed to putting back together a house that my two tornadoes mess apart. But I love to do it because I love my boys. I do find myself frustrated sometimes by the mess however. But many times I just have to laugh. These are MEN (and boys!) we are talking about here! For instance, I went down to Texas to stay with Munchkin during the 2 weeks Mr. Hot Pilot was away at a training. There were about 4 days of overlap between when Mr. Hot Pilot left (Munchkin stayed at our friends home) and when I arrived. Mr. Hot Pilot decided to leave the cat at the house with enough food and water to hold her over until I got there. When I walked into the house, I found 3 mountains of cat food in three separate bowls on the kitchen floor but no water in sight. I looked at the cat and thought "well, she seems healthy enough and not on the brink of death, so what in the name of all that is holy is she drinking?". I looked high and low for a water bowl. And then I found it. The lid of the toilet in the main bathroom was left up. Yep. Mr. Hot Pilot figured that there was an unlimited supply of water in there and "she drinks out of there if I don't watch her anyway!".

Sick dude. Cat drank poop water and then came over to give me love and licks before I knew any better. (Mind you, when I inquired about having her learn to go to the bathroom on a toilet like some cats do, he wouldn't have anything to do with it since the thought of having to wait for the cat to finish business before he could use it just was too much for him.)

Over the course of those two weeks I scrubbed and washed and de-cluttered and re-vamped the entire household.

I totally nested.

Munchkin helped me pick out yummy scented candles and which pictures to hang on the walls in their new frames. He even hugged me while I was mopping the floor and thanked me. (And yes, my heart did melt!) I even got Munchkin to clean his room, since that was what Mr. Hot Pilot wanted help with the most.

When Mr. Hot Pilot returned home to us, I had a Tres Leches cake waiting in celebration. It was gross. (I never said I was the best baker did I?) I must have mentioned in passing that I would just throw the cake out before I left. It was in the refrigerator, so it was easy to forget that early morning at 4am when I had to leave for the airport. I returned two weeks later to find the cake still sitting in the fridge.

Mr. Hot Pilot's response?

"You said YOU were going to throw it out!"

My, oh my.

The way to his heart....

"I think I'll have a screwdriver without that nasty, bitter orange juice." -Tom



Whenever I am in Texas with Mr. Hot Pilot and Munchkin, it is important for me to flex my domestic-woman muscles and take care of my boys the best way I know how : good food. My boyfriend is an extremely health conscious person, and I try to adopt his healthy ways when I feed them. Of course I enjoy presenting them with yummy foods that my mother has served us in the past (and hopefully will knock his socks off and have him see what great wife material I am). So far I have been pretty successful with them liking what I make for dinner. The roast chicken and garlic green beans were an instant favorite, and Munchkin gave me kisses for that dinner. But of course there are those times when you bomb. And for some reason I have been bombing quite a bit lately.

It all started with the chicken pasta salad I made them. And this isn't necessarily an easy recipe. I had vegetables to chop. Dressings to be made. Chicken to be sauteed. And then there were the artichokes. Yep. Should have known the artichokes would crash and burn before takeoff. Munckin is very blunt when he tells you he doesn't like something - and you had better have thick skin or he will eat you alive. We all sat around what I considered a super success of a dinner. Munchkin takes a forkful, chews thoughtfully and then points his fork in the air and goes "yeah, this is yuck salad". And there you have it folks. The connoisseur of food himself gave you the big, fat, forks down. And then of course I while talking to Mr. Hot Pilot the next evening after I'd flown home, he tells me "Man, those artichokes did a number on my stomach! I spent half the night in the bathroom!". Sure. Blame it on the artichokes.

You know what I blame it on? The chicken that he cooked the night before and let sit on the stove for 4 hours before refrigerating and THEN EATING IT the next night (the night of bowel mayhem) for dinner.

So I tried again a few weeks later. With a very benign, normal, everyone eats it fish called Tilapia. I had Munchkin come to Walmart with me to pick out the seasoning, and home we went to steam it. Healthy food? Check. Easy to prepare? Absolutely. And then came the first bite from Munchkin later that evening. There was the first forkful, then the thoughtful pondering as he chewed. And then there was that ever recognizable fork point....and then..."Sick! This fish tastes SICK DUDE." (Yes, Munchkin says dude almost as much as his dad and I do. What can I say, the kid is awesome.) What the heck? EVERYONE eats Tilapia for crying out christmas! Well everyone except Mr. Hot Pilot and Munchkin apparently. Mr. Hot Pilot asked "So what is this fish anyway?". When I told him Tilapia he cups his hands around his mouth and whispers to me "Oh, we don't eat Tilapia." WHAT?!?! You don't EAT Tilapia? Oh, how sorry I am my dear, I should have fixed you smoked Salmon in a lobster bisque sauce with a side of our most expensive caviar. My mistake. So now, I have decided to forfeit my culinary awesomeness, throw in the towel and take his mother up on learning the fine art of preparing the Puerto Rican food my man and his boy love.

On a side note, I work in a Trauma Center here in Baltimore. Last weekend a man came in after having been stabbed by his wife for complaining about what she served him for breakfast. Men, I suggest you love your women no matter what they set in front of you for dinner. Unless of course you would like to take over the task? I'm just sayin'!