Category: cooking

A Little Bit of Kindness at the Office

Last night, before going to bed, I took some extra time to prepare a batch of my delicious chicken salad.

I took care to make it a good batch, filled with perfectly grilled chicken, not too much mayo and my secret ingredients that make it, in my opinion, the best chicken salad ever.

Then, when the batch was made, taste tested and found to be perfect, I loaded it up into a container.

I packed that container along with an already packed container of soup, a bag of my favorite chips, and a bit of cough syrup into a small shopping bag.

This little bag of goodness was meant to go to work with me Monday morning.

I’m not trying to save money, although packing my lunch meets that goal.

What I AM trying to do is take good care of myself.

How many people think they *should* take their lunch to work, then pack a dried up lunch meat sandwich, a mealy apple and a bag of pretzels?

Or, even worse, they toss a Healthy Choice frozen entrée into their work bag and think that will satisfy them for the afternoon.

No.

I approach packing my lunch with all the care a doting mother would shower upon her cherished child.

It’s like a love letter from Sunday Night Me to Monday Morning Me. A gift. A bit of home to remind me that even though I must work in a standard gray cubicle farm, I’m still an individual. I’m different.

I matter enough to have Sunday Night Me go to the effort to make something nice and not just something slapped together.

I actually look forward to my lunch today. I’m not looking for ways to get out of eating what’s in the office fridge. Nope, I can hardly wait until noon.

And I’ll eat my meal prepared with love and I will feel loved and I will know that I did a very good thing for myself.

Heck, caught up in the swell, I almost want to write myself a note to surprise me at the bottom of the lunch bag.

“Have a good day, dear. Someone at home loves you.”

Customer Service Has Not Died

Despite all appearances to the contrary, customer service has not died.

Nope, there is still a small patch of wonderful service to be found in Southern New Mexico.

You’ll recall a week ago, I wrote of my joy and my subsequent despair regarding buying actual New Mexico grown chiles here in Northern California.

In that blog post last week, I mentioned that I wrote a rather terse letter to the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, complete with photographs, about my sorrow.

In fact, I’ll let you in on the text of my actual letter, sent to Mr. David Lucero at the NMDA:

_____

Dear Mr. Lucero – I found your email address from the www.nmda.nmsu.edu
webpage, though I’m unsure if you are the right person to contact.

I am a native New Mexican now living in Northern California and while on
a Southwest Airlines flight, I was happy to see an ad in their inflight
magazine for Hatch Green Chile coming to a long list of supermarkets in
my area.

My husband and I plan to buy a lot as we enjoy our green chile
throughout the year by finding kind friends back home to bring us the
good stuff.

While at Whole Foods recently in (town name redacted), California, I saw a sign for “Hatch peppers” and I was very happy (Whole Foods was on the list of stores that would carry the product).

As I picked a few from the pile, I looked closer at the sign and I
noticed it said “grown in California.” (see photo attached)

Now, I’m confused. Is this the “real thing” as advertised by the NMDA
and just mislabeled? Or has someone appropriated the Hatch name for
not-Hatch peppers?

I chose not to buy any that day as I’m unsure.

Hence why I’m coming to you for advice and guidance.

Are Hatch chiles going to be available in the Northern California Bay
Area? Also, is someone perpetrating a terrible fraud by selling
California grown peppers under the branded Hatch name?

On behalf of my family, we thank you and appreciate any guidance you
would provide.

All my best,

Karen Fayeth

_____

Honestly…I expected no reply.

Imagine my surprise when not only did I receive a VERY nice email from Mr. Lucero thanking me for providing this information, he also told me that he’s taken up the issue with his national Whole Foods buyer (who was cc’d on the email) and also with his shipper, Seco Spice (also cc’d on the email).

Then, and here’s where my mind gets blown, Mr. Lucero indicated that a Mr. Ogaz from Seco Spice would be happy to send me along a box of roasted and peeled chile if I’d be willing to pay shipping.

Holy jumping jehoshaphat!

So I’m currently getting shipping costs from the very kind Mr. Ogaz.

That’s amazing.

I want to publicly thank both Mr. Lucero and Mr. Ogaz for helping a poor New Mexico expat find her way home via the ol’ dinner plate.

By the by, I checked with my friends down in the greater Las Cruces and Anthony metropolitan areas and they know the Ogaz family and Seco Spice and can vouch that they are top notch people and growers.

So here’s a HUGE public thank you and a plug for the good people over at Seco Spice and the NMDA.

: sniffle : It makes me very proud to be a New Mexican.

Ain’t No Poetry Like Bad Poetry

So I hit up the idea generator today.

And it suggested I write a limerick.

A limerick?

Really?

*sigh*

Couldn’t I just take a stab at Haiku?

In fact, here’s a Haiku I wrote during a painful interleague game between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s earlier this season:

Jack Cust at the plate
Hits ball three for three today
SF fans Cust too

See? I can do Haiku! Can’t I just try another like that?

No, the prompt said limerick.

I remember in grade school we had to write limericks for an English assignment. I didn’t like it then either.

Not even writing the naughty limericks.

Whatever.

Ok.

Fine.

Here’s my attempt:

There once was a girl from the ‘Burque
People found her to be quite quirky
     To California she fled
     No green chile she did dread
Homemade chile rellenos keep her quite perky

Or how about:

There once was a singer named Buck
His songs make a nice rattle in my truck
     From Bakersfield he hailed
     “Tiger By The Tail” he wailed
That acoustic guitar he sure could pluck

(Betcha thought I was gonna get naughty on that one, huh? It was very difficult to restrain myself.)

All right, I’m on a roll now

From a bag of pinto beans I did remove
A handful of rocks and a piece of dry bean root
     Soak ’em I did
     Rinsed, boiled and added a lid
Because if not cooked right, dem beans will make you toot

Ok, ok….I’m done.

Somebody stop me before I try to rhyme Nantucket.

Are you there, baklava? It’s me, Karen

You know, I’m really very spoiled. Terribly so, and I must work to not let it all go to my head.

But, I must also say…I deserve a little spoiling now and again…

Like, say, around the celebrations of my birth? Yes. Always a good time to spoil me rotten, and my wonderful mom-in-law held nothing back.

In fact, Sunday was a darn good day in my life.

The day started with the opening of Localvision 2010, a photography exhibition. I was invited to add a photo to the event, and was totally geeked out by the first real gallery showing of my photography.

The Good Man and his mom went along with me to be my entourage for the fun.

It was really heady to see my framed print on the wall and to see people looking at it and talking about their impressions of the image. It pretty much made we want to go hide in the bathroom for the duration. But I held strong.

After the gallery opening, we went to my mom-in-law’s place for dinner.

And oh what a dinner.

For appetizers, there was guacamole (yum!) and Italian salami, and olive and feta cheese and oh my!

I was already starting to fill up.

But then, oh then…….

That amazing cook made me chopped chicken livers. Fresh! From scratch! I saw the actual raw livers before the magic began!

Oh my heavenly days! My love of da liver is well documented.

A whole bowl of homemade liver-y delight! All for me me me me!

Whooooo! I get dizzy just thinking about it. It was the best chopped liver ever in my history.

I almost wept. I really did. It was a brown lump of heaven on a cracker.

If loving cooked chopped organ meat is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

As I surrounded the bowl, my husband had to remind me that I could take some home, I wasn’t required to eat it all there. Seriously, I was afraid someone would take it away from me!

But there was more!

Succulent chicken for dinner with the most delicate and tasty potatoes on the side.

And then….

Oh then….

Homemade baklava for dessert.

For me! Me me me me me!

Ok, I shared the baklava with The Good Man since he’ll eat it (and not liver).

But damn!

I loved my multicultural dinner (Mexican, Greek, Italian, Jewish, etc). I felt so incredibly spoiled and it was one of the best birthday presents EVER!

Whoo.

Today I might need to take a walk and burn a calorie or two. I may have overindulged just a skosh.

And that baklava in my ‘fridge. It calls to me. Sings to me. Beckons me to come and sample of the tasty goodness inside.

I. Can’t. Resist.

The chicken liver is already gone. I couldn’t resist it so much I had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner and every snack in between.

*burp*

Feliz Cumpleaños para me!

In search of The Perfect Bite

I knew this guy, back in the hazy college days, who really, really loved to eat.

It was a whole fantastic sensory experience for him to have a good meal.

He’d dropped out of college and was doing some freelance cowboying at the time, so he could eat big heavy meals and work it off the next day.

So, obviously, we were fast friends. I also love a good meal (but am less adept at working it off).

This friend introduced me to the concept of “The Perfect Bite.”

Say, for example, you are sitting at Thanksgiving dinner. On your plate is a slab of hot turkey, mashed taters, gravy, stuffing, corn (if you’re into that sort of thing) and cranberries (also a pass for me, but this is for example’s sake).

The Perfect Bite means you take your fork and you get a piece of turkey, some stuffing, a swoop of mashed taters (with gravy on it), some corn and then seal the end with a bit of cranberry.

The Perfect Bite encompasses all that is good on your plate. All the wonderful tastes together to make a forkful of delicious.

The Perfect Bite generally happens during what you consider to be a really, really good meal. It is sort of a way to savor the delicious.

The friend and I, we used to compete on The Perfect Bite. “Look, looky here…I got the perfect bite, look….yuuuuumm…..” as the fork would slide home and the yummy face would come on.

The best time for The Perfect Bite is really as you are getting to the end of your plate of food. Most stuff on there has already managed to mingle over the course of your eating along, so it’s super easy to make a Perfect Bite.

For whatever reason, this concept has stuck with me and I’ve managed to introduce it to The Good Man.

I recently made some kick ass green chile chicken enchiladas. As I ate, from the other side of the table I heard, “hey, look at this! The Perfect Bite!” He had a good piece of enchilada with plenty sauce, beans, salad and capped the fork with BOTH sour cream and guacamole.

It really was a perfect bite and his yummy face proved it was true. I was envious because I no longer had on my plate the resources to make a Perfect Bite. I’d already devoured the guac and sour cream so I had no horse in that race.

Ah well.

I thought about this concept again last night. We splurged on a rib eye steak dinner. We so rarely eat beef anymore, hence the “splurge” part of the deal. Lovely steak, baked tater and steamed asparagus made up the plate.

I kept trying for a Perfect Bite but couldn’t quite get there. Either the potato wouldn’t cooperate and would fall off the fork. Once I lost the meat bite in my puddle of steak sauce. And those dang slidy asparagus spears were too recalcitrant to be the sealing factor on the fork.

So no true Perfect Bite. But I sure had a whole lotta fun trying!