Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Yesterday I discovered a mistake in a translation (menu items) that I sent to a client (cruise line) last week. I had used the following translation for "apple smoked bacon" from the translation memory: "bacon smoked with apple". Reading the words again during a new project, I realized it should be "bacon smoked over apple wood", so I talked to the project manager about notifying the client. When I explained "...because the people aboard the ship will expect their bacon to taste like apple, but it'll taste like wood!" (no pun intended, doesn't work in Dutch anyway :P) a colleague let out a cackle and shouted across the office: "FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!"

Recipe, please !

I pre-soaked some pot barley because I knew I'd be way too hungry to deal with 2 hours of cooking time. Simmered it until it was starting to look soft and white, then put a bamboo steamer over the top with chopped butternut in.

Gently fried a little onion and some sliced garlic, added finely sliced mushrooms and then chucked in the butternut and barley. Added some bouillon powder, nooch and a dollop of cream cheese because barley doesn't go as sticky and saucey as risotto rice. Topped it with some ancho chilli powder and scoffed it making happy piglet noises.

I have so many delicious one-portion meals in the freezer, I have no more space to cram more delicious one-portion meals in it. And pumpkin time is coming so I want to stock up on the pumpkin soup but I guess I first need to eat my way through the summer frozen stuff and make room for it.

My nipples are wrinkled.

I just bought some limited edition shower gels at Lush and they don't all fit in my shower caddy.

A couple of weeks ago we were visiting friends in Liverpool and we were all ordering pizza. Apparently, nothing I usually have on my pizzas are considered "normal". Apparently capers, artichoke and rocket (arugula?) are not "normal", and chilli oil was out of the question. I ended up naming about five things until I ended up saying "peppers, give me a pizza with peppers on it". In the end, it did indeed turn up without cheese - as requested - but somehow pepper became peperoni and so I didn't eat it. The guy who did the ordering was actually a bit upset about having failed me (though it was not his fault at all) but I found it funny. He made sure to specify TWICE in the order that there be no cheese on the one with peppers. So near, and yet so far!

But seriously, who opens a pizzeria without capers, artichoke or rocket? C'est négligent. C'est un scandale. I have never felt more bourgeois in my life. Chui foodeur et j'en tire fierté.

(First World Problems sound better if you throw in some French; it's a wonderful language to be disparaging in.)

I don't get many opportunities to wear cute dresses and shiitake, and half the time I don't really feel like it anyway. I can't decide if I want to wear my rad new dress or jeans and a comfy hoodie to Crystal Castles tonight.

I can't decide whether it's cold enough to warrant turning the heat on, or if I should just throw on an extra sweater and toss some logs in the fireplace.

I have to PPK on my phone today because I'm live streaming the Ironman World Championship on my laptop.

There were THREE different kinds of vegan nog for sale at Rainbow, but I could only buy ONE.

I've finished work for the day and I have an orientation thing with a trainer at my new gym around the corner from work in an hour. That's not enough time to go home and then come back, but all the shops and stuff around here are closed so I just have to wander around aimlessly and maybe get changed really slowly for an hour. I'm bored already.

I've been sick feeling all day with no appetite and was so hungry at 11pm that I cooked pasta, which I am avoiding, and I made myself a big double portion size. And because I was so hungry I used a batch of bottled pasta sauce I opened 2 weeks ago that says "once opened consume within three days" but because I was so hungry I had it anyway because it smelled fine and there was not a bit of mould. And I'm still hungry.

I drank five cocktails last night and for some reason I don't feel that great at work this morning.

i was so excited about this pumpkin spice latte, but it tastes like burnt gingerbread cookies. :(

My smart phone is being dumb. Some time early this afternoon it decided to no longer allow me to check email. When I go to Settings both of my email accounts are there and say they're synched, but when I tap the mail icon it just gives me the option to set up an account. Grr...

My neighbour is playing GTA or some other racing game at full volume, so I feel like I'm living on a racing track.

So I decided to go look at new cookers today. I'm planning on hopefully getting a new one in the post-Christmas sales since the oven in my current one is dead. My first cooker I made do with the cheapest available so I always said I would get a nice one when it came to replacing it. So, I was planning on going with a black or a stainless steel one. Nice and sleek. But today I saw coloured ones. Yes..... they now have red or orange. So now I have far too many options. Now if there was a purple one then I would be sold on that straight away.

Yeah, I get super twitchy when there are color options and none of them are purple! Not because I need everything to be purple, but because when there isn't a purple option, I don't know how to decide!

Exactly!! A purple cooker would so make my kitchen. I found the cooker online. The turquoise is kinda cute http://www.stoves.co.uk/freestanding-cookers/550df-richmond-mini-range/

I managed to lose my makeup bag. I feel stupid to be so upset about it, but I have really sensitive skin so it's all really expensive mineral powder makeup with a combined value of probably $100-150. I'm really self-conscious about my (acne + scarred) skin and feel humiliated to go out in public without covering my face first, so it's been very difficult to go without it for the last 2 days. Also, the company that I bought my makeup from in Tokyo doesn't have a location in Vancouver so I'd have to order online and I haven't memorized what tones I use so I wouldn't know which to get without seeing the old jars, and it would take at least a week to get here. The prospect of a week of everyone seeing my acne everywhere I go makes me very uncomfortable.

Obviously no one would want to steal my makeup, since it's makeup. I have no idea where I lost it, I just know that I had it after my yoga class in the afternoon and was one of the last ones to leave the studio (after which it closed). If I'd left it there then they would've put it in the lost & found, but it's not there. After that I went to my university library and got/scanned a bunch of stuff. I suppose someone could've taken it then, but again, who would want to? I checked the lost & found there too, but no dice. And it's not at home. Ugh.

And this is the second thing I've lost this week. And I was excited to get my hair cut tomorrow but now I'm not excited because every time I look in the mirror I'll be faced with my bare (ugly) skin, no matter how nice my hair is. I'm so upset.

I think the aubergine will be purpler in real life than it is on the computer screen! Go for aubergine!

Too much raisin and cinnamon porridge causes deadly bog gas.

Oh dear, I know how this feels! (((hugs))) I hope someone still turns in your bag or you can find some (temporary) replacement until you can order more. I wouldn't rule out someone stealing it though!

I have to sell a couple things on Craigslist that will make me a good couple hundred bucks...

But I don't wanna do it! I'd rather just sit here.