Category Archives: photos

A picture is worth more than a thousand words

Posted on April 6, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 7 Comments

Well, since my last post, it hasn’t quite been boils, fell beasts and death– but there have been a vari­ety of dra­mas and ail­ments.  To acknowl­edge the hard times of late, my Bet­ter Half bought me a present on what was– for me– not a Good Fri­day at all.

Pics, ’cause it happened.

Not Only on South Park

But wait.  There is more.  There’s the BACK of the box.

You know this is for reals, yo. This shit’s in HEBREW.

You know you want the man­u­fac­turer infor­ma­tion.  YOU DO.

You’re Googling this right now, aren’t you? Don’t lie.

They also make a walk­ing matzah ball.  To tell you the truth, I’m afraid to assem­ble the 9 pc. puz­zle that cor­re­sponds with the death of the first­born.  Wouldn’t you be?

I also got flowers.

If that’s not the best present ever, well– may a plague of locusts and frogs descend upon you.  (See pic­tures and prod­uct num­ber above.  Order your own, this seems to be the new, updated pack­age in a PYRAMID.  Come on.  You’ve always wanted your own pyramid.)

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Posted in Better Half, bipolar, flickr, good things, links, photos, sparkly

Pan-fried curried lamb shoulder chops with steamed cauliflower and yogurt sauce.

Posted on January 4, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 1 Comment

Holy crap, y’all.  I cooked twice this week and not only lived to tell the tale, I also took pic­tures. After all of the work­ing I’ve been doing, this hit the spot.

See?  See?  It’s true!  The cook thing in my screen name isn’t all a vile lie.  Pinky-swear.

This is roughly– very– based on this recipe from January’s Bon Appetit recipe.  I liked the basic idea, but, well, I thought it needed some changes, spice-wise.

I pre-salted and spiced my chops two hours before serv­ing with a tea­spoon each (be not afraid to be bold, we’re going for lay­ers of fla­vor) sweet curry pow­der, cayenne, cumin and ground corian­der, then let them rest (cov­ered in plas­tic wrap, because we have a MOUSE in the house, rrrrrrr) at room temperature.

You pan-sear the chops to your desired level of done-ness.  Mine was medium-rare, about 7 min­utes.  Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Every­thing (if you don’t own it, you should, even if you’re a good cook) has great done-ness temps and times charts at the back of his book.

I steamed the cau­li­flower as ordered, but in place of the reg­u­lar dress­ing, I did this:

2 bunches scal­lions, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2– 2/3 plain full-fat yogurt, chopped
2 limes, juiced and zested (these are try­ing times, friends, don’t waste the rind)
a large pinch of salt
2 dashes tabasco
2 table­spoons mango conserve

I would have used chut­ney and the cream sauce like the recipe said, but the co-op was out, they’re quirky like that.  They did have the plain con­serve, how­ever, and thus the ersatz yogurt chut­ney idea was born.  It was yummy, even the hus­band said so, and he’s not a fan of yogurt at all.

Serve with some clemen­tines or a peeled orange and one of those bot­tles of cham­pagne you didn’t open at New Year’s.


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Posted in cooking, flickr, food, links, photos, recipes

New Year’s Eve Soup and Salad

Posted on January 3, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 2 Comments

So, there’s this “cook” thing in my screen name.  And I do it, some­times.  Amaz­ing, I know.

Et voila, proof of the pho­to­graphic vari­ety, because you’re all no, we do not believe it.  All you do is bitch about peo­ple with­out their receipts.  Because you’ve never lost one piece of paper­work in your life.

So.  Recipes, of a sort.

Zuc­chini, shred­ded on the man­do­line, salted with kosher salt and tossed with fresh ground black pep­per, extra vir­gin olive oil, a cap­ful of bot­tled lemon juice (shh, it’s my real gourmet secret) and blood orange sec­tions and the juice of the post-sectioned fruit, all smushed up in my hand as a way of get­ting out my petty frustrations.

And then there was soup.  Lucky soup, all round coin-like shapes of lentils and sausage, green spinach for money to boot.  The recipe’s here at Epi­cu­ri­ous, though I used sweet sausage, not hot.  I’m con­trary like that.

Light and crunchy, sweet and tart– fol­lowed by warm, earthy, hearty and fill­ing.  Not con­trary at all.  Just damned lucky.

Yummy, too.

Yields– lots of left­overs, good for crummy days like today, when there’s shov­el­ing to be done.

Happy New Year, my friends.  May you have bright con­trasts, fol­lowed by warm, pleas­ing ful­fill­ment that sticks with you for hours.

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Posted in Deep Thoughts, cooking, flickr, friends, links, photos

Obligatory post about my awesome nephew

Posted on October 5, 2009 by bipolarlawyercook| 3 Comments

I mean… look at him.  Do I even need to add words?

He’s teething, and yet he was soooo good when I walked him around the block a few times while his Mom was get­ting her back cracked.  He’s so smi­ley and … gah.  Just adorable.  (Although, not hav­ing to change his dia­per and his actu­ally eat­ing when I give him a bot­tle helps.)

Now all I need is some cats and I can post pho­tos of them!

(I can haz crazy cat lady child­less aunt blc?  Wai yes, u can haev that.)

022

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Posted in good things, photos

It’s not a road trip without ice cream

Posted on May 27, 2009 by bipolarlawyercook| 8 Comments

There are a vari­ety of things we’d stopped doing as a cou­ple, one of which was Road Trips.  Not every week­end, but many, the BH and I used to just go for a drive and see where we landed.  It’s not great for the planet, sure, but it was good for us.  We lis­tened to music, laughed, talked, pointed out the win­dows at cows and chick­ens and made the respec­tive ani­mal noises and oth­er­wise ensured that A Good Time Was Had By All.  And one of the ways we ensured a good time was ice cream.  There always had to be ice cream, prefer­ably at a road­side stand along the way– if we came up dry there was a really good soft serve place in town that more than suf­ficed before we got home.

It started to peter out when we moved back to Boston, then moreso this last year or so.  So on Mon­day, the BH sug­gested a road trip.

We mean­dered, we wan­dered, we let the GPS squawk with­out heed­ing it over­much.  We ended up in New Hamp­shire and were wend­ing our way home when the below caught our eye.  We screeched to a halt in the midst of the road and engaged in a bold U-turn, then descended on the ice cream stand like a bunch of kids after lit­tle league.  (Ok.  We slowed respon­si­bly, turned into an insur­ance agency park­ing lot, turned around and parked before pro­ceed­ing in a rea­son­able man­ner into the store while only elbow­ing three or four tod­dlers in the head.)

Our road­trip was there­fore successful.

Brightly painted exte­rior?  Check.  Amer­i­can flag?  Check.  That char­ac­ter­is­tic low build­ing with an over­hang above the walkup counter with pil­lars out front?  Check.

All the sun­dae fla­vors and top­pings your greedy heart can desire, plus Richardson’s (16% but­ter­fat, yeah baby), the Ice Cream of My Youth?  Check.

Com­mem­o­ra­tive t-shirts and ice cream cakes, Party Food of the Gods?  Also a check.

And last but not least, a medium cup of But­ter Crunch ice cream eaten out­side on a sticky pic­nic table.  I tell you, but­ter is jeal­ous of this ice cream for its but­tery good­ness, com­plete with but­ter­scotch shards.

And lo, A Good Time Was Had By All.

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Posted in Better Half, flickr, food, links, photos