Oh goodness, did I have the weekend of my life last weekend!!! Lord A-Mercy! But I can't go all into it now. I can only handle it one morsel at a time or else I will just die of over saturation of amazing events and it might just send me into shock! (Imagine that, to die, and then to go into shock! I am such a total airhead, but I am not changing it now cause it has made me smile and so it has rightly earned its 2 lines of real estate in this entry.) I am in love with this morsel right here:
Specifically, a sweet and chewy morsel of bulgar wheat which has been transformed into the most delicious tabbouleh I have probably ever tasted in my short but sexy life. We snagged some at my sister's friend Jim's crib, who's known her since high school at least and they both went to Texas for college, so here I was preparing for a weekend of a BBQ onslaught, which is a tough thing for me a recovering pork fanatic and currently a fairly pious pescatarian. But no, he was dead cool even after she gave him only a couple hours notice that we'd need to crash at his place after driving 12 hours or more straight and arriving in Austin at 4am last Friday morning. Who knew we'd arrive to find the most bad azz tabbouleh sitting in the fridge just waiting for us and we were too tired to eat when we got in, so we just passed out and then woke up around eleven and ate some of it for breakfast cause we are just those kinds of people with no food limits. I would have eaten it at 7am if I had woken then. You know that kind. That's us!
Anyway, I hope this isn't something his mom was planning on publishing cause I am sharing it now for all the world to see. I can't hold it in. Like I used to learn in Sunday School as a kid, you can't hide your light under a bushel. And neither can Jim and his amazing cook of a mom hide this fantastic secret to deliciousness and great health. It must shine for all people to see and enjoy. Or something like that.
So here it is. Eat and Enjoy. Thanks again Jim!!! And all respects go out to Jim's mom.
Jim Surface's mom's Tabbouleh recipe (as interpreted by Jim, the youth of tomorrow)
1 cup dry bulgar wheat
1/2 Cup boiling water
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 good olive oil (as a mom of 2 boys I foresee myself using "good"before a number of products when trying to drive it home, but olive oil is definitely a given. Go mom~)
1/4 lemon juice (Jim lets it flow over the cup a bit....the rebel.)
2 teaspoons crushed minced garlic (or in Jim's translation, 1 tablespoon.) Hope this isn't a date night, ladies! But if it was, cancel on him/her cause this recipe is gonna be so worth it. Or just serve it up so both of you can have garlic breath and each cancels the other out.
3 Tablespoons mint, chopped
1/2 Cup chopped green onions or scallions.
1 cucumber, seeded and chopped
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 Cup chopped, packed parsley (Flat leaf), chopped
Put Bulgar wheat and salt in a bowl and add the boiling water and cover and let it sit for 15 minutes. Add olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and mint to the bulgar. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Add green onions, cucumbers, tomatoes and parsley just before serving. Prepare to have your gaskets blown.
The pic doesn't do it justice, but this is going to end up being the most amazing taboulleh ever.
I know because I ate it. All of it. (a double recipe, at that.)
No regrets....
The next one is not so easy, but its even more astounding in its accomplishment. My childhood friend Dr. Sarah Passino (whoa, wait, she wasn't a doctor when we were children. She's my age, but clearly got further in school) was kind enough to let me tag along with her and her foodie friends (and I say that with ultimate respect and affection) on their Friday night (a couple weeks ago) get together to make chevre. Yeah, thats Sarah for ya. This is a feat I had previously thought could only be accomplished by huge machines in some romantic part of southern France or northern Italy or wherever goat cheese is made, but no, apparently it can be made, and made quite well in fact, in East Friggin' Nashville. Wow. I was absolutely inspired by the set up and all the hard work she had gone to in order to gather the materials and have the product ready at multiple stages for us to see and enjoy. Amazing. I got to take a huge portion with me and even though it was a bit strange to have to harvest it straight out of the cheesecloth, I went to town on that chevre. Dayum. It was amazing and I am sure I'll pay for it later cause it had to have some caloric consequences owning to the delicious taste and texture. I can't even think of it without getting a little eager again. It was soooo good and no, I will not bother to try and get the recipe cause I am sure at that level it's not even called a simple "recipe" anymore. Its like a lifestyle. I can't wait to adopt it and Lord knows both Sarah and I (along with countless chicks and dudes) have fantasized about tending goats and all that. ...But yeah, it was rad cheese and I def want to learn how to make some of that again. I was literally squeezing and straining the goat cheese whey and fragments out of the cheese cloth onto my cracker when I had sadly gotten to the last remnants of that curd of the gods. It did not end well. But hey, Bravo Dr. Passino!
Please check her out this Tuesday at her dinner she is organizing downtown called "Soup Up! Another Dinner is Possible" to help show solidarity with the Immokalee workers that will be visiting Nashville next week.
Check it out!!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=141115759268436Sarah was the one who opened my mind to the concept of cleaning out your fridge before you put a bunch of new groceries in there. Think about it. I guess its just biz as usual at your house but it was mind blowing to a slob and time-pressed mom like myself, so I finally went to town on my 2 fridges and that was the most liberating thing I could have done! Exhausting but Liberating. Thanks Sarah! More on that later....for now just check out the massive quantities of flat leaf parsley I had hunted down and of course who can't love a good Napa cabbage or two just sitting there waiting to become something delectable. I'm baaaack!!
My fridge after being inspired again to cook!
Or really, to just do anything in the kitchen save making black bean and cheese nachos in the microwave.
More zombie housewifery to come so keep checking me out!
And definitely more homages to those that inspire me like these rad human beings have.
luyu,
~rr
Holly Embroidered Hell Raisers
Bejeweled Bad Ass
Studded Santa (with Stars!)
Family Portrait 2010 including some new freaks for your erasable writing adventures!
Love this homage to the handlebar mustache.
These guys are the seed that will soon become a whole revamping and reinvention of the
This one is going to actually allow you to jot down a grocery list, mommies!
(Pennywise, you can go ahead and start putting your resume out on monster.com...
At this angle you can almost smell the lost dreams of a totally imaginary and non-viable industry...the country and western undead styling and photography industry.
Feminine Dandy wear sold here today!
Faux wingtip oxfords with neutral flava perforating the whole shoe!
And the best black oxfords by J.Crew with hella detailing
And one pair from when I first opened the shop. I've had these gems a while.
Ain't dat the truth?! (There should be a sign like this posted in heaven or wherever we live before we're made into human beings and start down this sometimes shitty and rocky road of life. Dayum..Deep.)
Sweet Rides
Tractor Babe
"Tractor Mama"
I loved this old rusty specimen. So primitive! So.. pointy!
One little part that wasn't metal and it was glass with a bit of oil in it.
Trying to look bigger by sitting on the smallest tractor there. I'm so transparent.
Please forgive this caption Mr W if you ever read this, but it has to be said.
I liked her facepaint WAYYYY better for this dress. How did I miss that?! DÃa de los Muertos? Hellooooo???? It's bordering on criminal in a shop themed like mine. No wonder it never sold. 
I was squinting to read the fine print font saying "now get the hell out of here!"
Farmall of me. Just farmall of me.
I know, I am sooo non-photogenic*, hence the affection for something so
The front of Mr. Wests 1940-sumthin' beaut.
Shoot....the thing's got a huge saw at the front. 
The pic doesn't do it justice, but this is going to end up being the most amazing taboulleh ever.
My fridge after being inspired again to cook!
Sorry for the late post.
So....Does this dress cut me at some weird angles or what? Its like it was specially made for an awkward short chick or a boringly perfect "tallie" (my new derogatory word for tall people). So I guess that gives me my answer. Definitely putting in the "For Sale" pile after years and years of proper hoarding. Look at me, speaking with such confidence as if I will actually pull that 20 cent trigger and let her go, oh you silly silly people. We'll see how strong I can really be when none of these show up in the shop. I'm such a wimp I sicken myself. Okay I'll shut up now and leave you with some parting shots. Don't be freaked out mom. Everyone knows I am prettier without facepaint. Some day this will be funny too, like all the other stuff I did to you. Luuuyyuuuu, c/rr
Anyone up for some croquet?
I promise I won't eat your brains.
Or we could just 'set' a while and talk....
