Atrocity

I must post this right now because it is that horrifying. While browsing through the interwebs ( looking at the origin of that last cartoon actually) I happened upon a link to something called Wheelmate Laptop Steering Desk. The name was too much to pass up and so was the advice given to look at the user pictures on the Amazon link.

So, without further ado, here it is, the monstrosity that NO ONE in their right mind should ever use.

Please do look at the link and see the user pictures: http://www.amazon.com/AutoExec-WM-01-Wheelmate-Steering-Wheel/dp/B000IZGIA8?tag=vglnk-c2-20

The user comments are also quite worth a read if you favor an abundance of sarcasm, which I do.

And the Weird gets weirder

I've been collecting some work oddities to share on my next wacky work post but today by far trumps them all for entertainment value. Usually someone at the front desk picks up calls and transfers them appropriately but occasionally if the phone continues ringing then someone random will pick it up. I happen to do this fairly often because I'm bad at disregarding a phone that is demanding my attention. Anyway, I picked up the phone this afternoon and had the following conversation.

Me: " IH, Emily speaking."
Man on phone: "Mumble mumble... yes I was looking at your website just now and I'm looking for a particular strain..."
( confusion on my part)
Man on phone: " I'm looking for a strain with a high THC count..."
Me: " Umm sir, I thinnnnnnk you have the wrong number. This is a food bank."
Man on phone: "Oh, yea then this is the wrong person." Click.

Apparently our organization shares its name with a medical marijuana facility in Canada- or at least it used to. This seems to be the first time anyone has gotten a call in a while. How in the world they got our phone number associated with that I have no idea. I searched out this website and found it without much trouble. Apparently Canada is a great country after all. The website doesn't provide much information except to say that it is a medical marijuana site operating legally in Canada and providing "a range of medical cannabis strains to suit your therapeutic needs." So there you have it, I've been officially christened in the company. We've decided our next endeavor will have to be adding Cannabis to our new mobile food pantry.

Perhaps equally as odd was my discovery of the American Society of Dowsers. I was looking through a guide to Freeport and came across the Society of Dowsers. I had no idea what this meant but was overjoyed to find it meant a society of people who divine for water. Apparently it's not just about water.
Here's a statement from the About Us section of ASD:
"The American Society of Dowsers is a nonprofit corporation founded in Vermont in 1961 to disseminate knowledge of dowsing (water witching, discovery of lost articles or persons, and related para-psychological phenomena), development of its skills, and recognition for its achievements."
So dowsing eh? There seems to be a fairly prolific amount of chapters to this society, which makes me wonder what this is all about. The Freeport Library hosts Dowsing speakers so maybe when I have some free time I can go down for some entertainment. I honestly had no idea that people did this anymore. Actually, from what I gather browsing their website, it seems almost closer to a spiritual thing than anything else. Article on the site include "Dowsing for well being", "Map Dowsing" and "Body Dowsing," "How I use Dowsing as a Middle School Teacher".

Further investigation led me to Dowsers of the West, which describes d as "communication with one’s high self, or the world of spirit, using a tool (a pendulum, an L-rod, a Y-rod, a bobber) or your physical body, with a desire for an accurate response to a statement, a question, or a request for information, inspiration, ideas, or help."

Dowsers of the West suggests they are able to modify the weather. Who knew?? So find your local chapter and go dowse!

Quiche, Fail? Pasta, Win?

Quiche is one of my favorite easy to make recipes. My mom developed a nice recipe from a cookbook she had and I've used it a number of times. The typical quiche involves broccoli and cheese but we've both modified it a few times to include spinach or other things like tomatoes. I've made it several times at college without any issue, but I tried to make it the other day and had an interesting result. The recipe states that you can use either milk or yogurt or a combo of milk and yogurt. I was intending to just use milk but I had so much yogurt I decided to use a mix. I realized I had no measuring cups but I did have a cup of yogurt to which I added some milk.

I'm not sure if it was the oven or the yogurt ( though I've used yogurt before) but it came out a bit messy. The top was completely brown, more so than it really should have been, but the inside was still really liquidy and soft. I gave it a little extra time in the oven but I was afraid the cheese would completely burn. It got a little less runny but it still wasn't quite right. Since I feel ok I'm assuming I didn't give myself food poisoning. Hooray. I'll see what its like after a few days in the fridge. I think this oven just is way more powerful than anything I've ever used. The stove top gets hot so fast and is quite seriously hot. I somehow managed to burn the green beans the other day when I steamed them. I think there must have been something still stuck to the pot because green beans shouldn't turn a pot black.

Oh, and I also used completely the wrong pie crust. Not deep dish and it was very dessert like instead of something that might be savory. Oh well.
On to the success story. I realize pasta is pretty well impossible to mess up, but I'm still proud of my little pasta dish tonight. The pasta itself was obviously easy and I did have a jar of the lovely Victoria sauce, provided by my parents, but ( mom should be proud) I wanted some protein with my pasta. I had bought ground turkey earlier in the week so I made little turkey meatballs and fried them up in a pan with garlic and onions. Then when they were mostly cooked I put them in the pot with the sauce and let it all heat up. And then voila! Pasta with even more delicious sauce and turkey meatballs.
Thank you very much, I'll be here all week.

Yes, there is a heaven, and it looks a lot like maple bacon cupcakes

I've mentioned that our office likes to eat, so in addition to the regular offering of sweets that have been coming in and out of the office ( maybe I don't need to get food stamps after all) there are occasionally some special ones. We have several people who like to bake at work and we get treated to their lovely desserts sometimes. Yesterday, however, was a special day because S brought in cupcakes she had ordered from her friend for her husband's birthday. These cupcakes were maple bacon flavored and boy were they amazing. I think eating more than half a cupcake might be deadly because they are super-rich, but they are also super tasty.

Surprisingly I've found that maple bacon cupcakes are not that unique. The internet is full of pictures and recipes for them, however most pictures show a cupcake with bacon on top. The cupcake I ate was a soft, delicious yellow cupcake with frosting that tasted like eating a breakfast of pancakes and bacon. I think this cupcake proves that it's not all about being pretty because it was fairly extraordinary looking but its taste was fantastic. I don't know how she did it, but the bacon must have been blended into the frosting. SO GOOD! I haven't tried any other maple bacon cupcake but I would venture to say that this one was superior to any of the ones I've seen before. Apparently she usually makes cakes but is branching out into cupcakes now that they have become more popular. As a side note I would like to say that I've always liked cupcakes better than cake so I loved cupcakes before it was cool! S also writes a food blog and she will be documenting the maple bacon cupcake soon as well.

And speaking of sweet things.... a friend from England was in NY this week and I went to meet him and his friends in the city. Along the way we ended up at the Carnegie Deli, since that is truly the New York experience. While B tackled a monster sandwich, his friend tackled a monster slice of cake/pie. It was a literally a giant slab of chocolate, which amazingly he finished with much coercion. It was such a huge slice that it seemed worthy of a photo. So here it is.

Updates on Philly and such

Well I'm back!! After a week in Philly and being all over the place, I'm back in my new home. Actually this post is now technically delayed by a week so I've been home for a week now. Tuesday was the first day I even attempted to cook anything, which was an adventure of it's own. We're working on what getting what need for the kitchen still since it is pretty sparse.
On Monday I cooked beets, which I used to really hate but now I like them a lot. I don't want to eat them too often or they get tiring but they have a nice earthy feel and I feel like I'm eating something nutritious when I eat them. I usually boil them or occasionally slice them and bake them in the oven but I was feeling lazy so I tried to fry them in a pan and sort of steam them. It was mildly successful but probably not the best way to cook them. If I was cool enough, or wanted to spend $15 on a t-shirt, I could celebrate beets with this swanky T-shirt from Philabundance, a food bank in Philly that we visited.


I think I like the squash version better though.



Anyway, despite an overwhelming lack of response from my last post, I am pressing on in the blog world. Philly was a wirlwind of eating because my Americorps training provided us with free food. Yay free food! The program directors all encouraged us to eat up because we won't have the luxury of eating a lot on an Americorps budget. After the week of training we had a little time around the city so I went to check out the Reading Terminal Market, which was just a few blocks from where we were staying. I had been desperately wanting a cheesesteak but unfortunately we ate right before we our programming ended and I only had a few hours before catching my train home. I really wanted to eat a cheesesteak but I just wasn't hungry, and sadly a cheesesteak isn't really something you take and save. So I missed my chance. However, I did have a nice look around the market and felt completely jealous that I don't live right there in Philly. It made me miss the Farmer's Market in Atown. The Reading market had much less in the way of produce and much more in the way of food stall where you could get a meal.I would have loved to buy some things but I didn't want to deal with transporting them so I only bought a bag of freshly ground coffee. I also knew I'd be visiting the Atown farmers market soon anyway so I could get my produce there. I took some photos of the array of food.






Then we have a little glimpse inside the market followed by some chocolate covered potato chips!!!


It would be great to have a market like available, which reminds me that I should go looking for markets around here because I know some exist.