In which we "make pasta..."

Upon being recently gifted with an All-Amazing-Superfabulously-Hawt-KitchenAid Mixer, my first thought was somehow that I could totally make pasta. Can't be that hard, I thought, it's just dough... I can make dough... and homemade pasta would be so... homey! interesting! so very... from scratch. Because I'm cool and good at making things from scratch. Perhaps I could even come off as looking talented.

Naturally, I'm not THAT good and for some reason, despite the fact that I bake my own bread on a regular basis and cook all the time, I don't own a rolling pin and am more prone to using large cans of the dog's green beans or whatever is in my cabinet when I'm trying to roll something out. So I tried to find the Kitchenaid Pasta attachment.

I googled and found little plates that you can attach to your meat grinder, which came complete with reviews like "caused kitchenaid motor to smoke like crazy" and the ilk and then, found reviews for the Kitchenaid Pasta Maker... which cost nearly as much as the mixer. Bah! I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on a pasta maker, sez I.

So dad and I impulsively went E-Bay shopping and the first thing that popped up was the Atlas Regina, circa the early 90s and made of plastic. We totally missed the all the other pasta makers on ebay, because the Atlas Regina promised to make SHAPES! SHAPES! None of the other pasta makers made SHAPES!

Drawn by the promises of homemade fusili, we ponied up for the Atlas Regina:



In all of it's completely weird-ass glory.

and then Brother Ari came over for an evening of pasta making.

First the All-Amazing-Superfabulous-Hawt KitchenAid mixer churned up Dough Batch One...



and Brother Ari kneaded the dough...



We have dough...



We have no idea what dough is supposed to look like... but it weighs a TON!



OMG! LITTLE BITTY PASTAS!!!



It's called an "extruder."



See them extrude?



Like... um, fuck, worms. Flour dusted worms. Unfortunately, they were too dense to really DO much with... Ari and I ate a few of them and they were reasonably pasta-like, just... very very dense. And very very sticky. Which is why we floured them.




WORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

We will try again through a proper pasta roller. Meanwhile, does anyone want a Atlas Regina?

Locally Grown Mexican Mangos

In which our local grocery store attempts to capitalize on the expanding "local food" movement, in support of small farmers and communities nearby.



Except freakin MANGOS don't grow in Virginia.

Come on, safeway, WTF? Product of Mexico? Mexico isn't local to Virginia either.



I also spotted some local plums (product of California).

More from our neighbors to the north...

http://www.vancouversun.com/Life/Yarn+bombers+take+Vancouver+streets/1342756/story.html

I'm sure I'm going to get some major hate mail from artistes for this one... but YARN BOMBING?!?!?!?!? These so-called "activists" are "bombing" the inner city with doorknob koozies. "Guerrilla knitters!?!?” In surreptitious UNIFORM (one admits to knitting herself a pink balaclava guerilla suit)?

"Knitting tags is almost all i do now," said one person on "www.yarnbombing.com."

Seriously, the rest of us only wish we had so much free time.

The world will burst forth with warm fuzzy yarns of every breed and color, every heart will soften as it connects looping love across the planet stitch by stitch till there is no separation in our smiles.

Maybe I'm just from DC, and we're too damn practical. But I did go to art school, and I can say damn well that anyone who rambles about "looping love across the planet" really, really needs to step out more. I daresay there are a lot of folks and animals out there that could benefit from some warm knitted clothing, you know, instead of a lightpost that's been "tagged." Once upon a time, activism had a pratical purpose beyond "looping love."

Ohhh. CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/01/16/mom.son.dead.pet/index.html


REALLY?


Names of the Week: Turqwaz. Gi'Norria.

The Nation Prepares...

... of the day...

CNN Headlines at this present time:



"Legendary band has 'unfinished music'"

"Harrison Ford's chest hair waxed, ripped off" (WITH VIDEO!)

"What will apple debut at Macworld swan song?"

"Obama reviewed cobbler on TV in '01"

"Artist tests Facebook 'nipple rule'"



This is the news.



Name of the day: Le-a.

Pronounciation: Le-DASH-A.

That dash ain't silent.

Divinity, served cold with onion and miracle whip

In searching for a nice, basic pasta recipe that I could make for this evening: something involving maybe some good parmesan cheese, broccoli, spinach, olive oil, garlic, maybe some asparagus or sundried tomatoes or something... I came across one of the reasons that, from a culinary perspective, sometimes America sucks.

I give you MAC RANCH!

1/2 bottle ranch dressing
1/2 container vegetable dip
1/3 cup purchased salad dressing
4 stalks celery, diced
4 hard boiled eggs, peeled
1 box spaghetti noodles, cooked
1/4 cup milk
5 scallions, chopped

Chill noodles and eggs. Chop eggs into noodles. Add mixture of onions and celery. Add ranch dressing and vegetable dip. Add salad dressing and milk then mix.

The author helpfully notes that her favorite salad dressing "is Miracle Whip."

I'd never thought of Miracle Whip as "salad dressing." I'd also never thought of mixing the above ingredients and calling them a meal.

I'm reminded of the casserole made for us last XMAS, with canned asparagus, hard-boiled eggs, canned peas, cream of mushroom soup, and crackers.

If you haven't seen it before, check out The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan. It's snappy and it makes me die a little inside every time I read it.

Oh, DC. You're so efficient.

So, I got protested on my way into work tonight. Quite literally, got the glare face on my way into a govt-type conference cocktail party by a woman holding a sign and wearing ugly shoes.

However, DC called in the friggin BOMB SQUAD due to an extremely suspicious stuffed polar bear outside the Columbia Heights Metro.

http://www.nbc4.com/news/17484808/detail.html

And shut down the metro. And the street.

Please go to the NBC site for a photo of the bomb squad approaching the polar bear. Just when I thought today couldn't get ANY stranger.

http://www.nbc4.com/slideshow/news/17485520/detail.html

invtnv splng

I heard on the radio this morning that more schools are allowing the practice of "inventive spelling," which allows children to spell incorrectly as a reflection of their development as a speller. It does not deem the child's spelling "incorrect," as that would be damaging to the child's self-esteem.

I'm constantly hearing grown ups bitch that their young new hires can't write a sentence, can't spell, and are somewhat illiterate despite their degrees. Heck, *I* bitch about that all the time and in my day, we didn't walk uphill both ways in the snow, barefoot, just to get some good old fashioned book learning. However, we did learn to spell. And I do not feel that my "development" as a writer or a person was hampered by it, in fact, I am grateful that I was taught properly. And I went to Liberal Land for school, if there was ANY evidence that this truly helped our self-esteem, believe me, they would've done it. We had Diversity Awareness Week, for goodness sake, where we devoted time to figuring out that we were mostly white but that Different is Good.

"constructivists are likely to believe that the child is inventing spellings in accord with his or her understanding of language and print," claims Wikipedia. I'm pretty sure this means that NO ADULT READS TO THEM therefore they have NO understanding of language or print. Then again, they also claim that "constructivists" also feel that "because knowledge is cultural, there are no right answers."

Let me get this straight: it is acceptable to allow a child to misspell because you may hamper their development as a speller and harm their self-esteem if you insist that they do it correctly, however, you're complaining because now your workforce can't write and calls mommy every time someone corrects them?

I'm not having children. Not if this is what they have to contend with. On the plus side, I now totally understand all those resumes I'd previously just been throwing out and writing off as "too stupid to work here."