Thursday, July 5, 2012

Cooking and Sech

Every time in the last four years or so that I have happened to catch a glimpse of myself naked in the mirror, I have immediately declared "I am going to work out every day, and eat only healthy food, starting tomorrow!" Then tomorrow comes along, and I rephrase my statement "I'll work out every other day, and eat better!" By the time day three comes along, and I buy two McDoubles and a large fry on my way home from work, My grandiose claims are as forgotten as that chick I met at that thing that time. Katelyn? Bathsheba? idk.

Roughly 15 days ago, I once again saw myself in the mirror, and decided that changes were in order. I went out and bought healthy food, pulled my p90x dvds out from behind my copy of FFXIII (I'll finish it. I will!) and... actually did the workouts, and actually ate healthy food! for more than a week! I'll admit I'm not sticking to the diet exactly, but when you've lived primarily on ramen and frozen pizza for the better part of 24 years, replacing even two of your three meals with veggies, good proteins and vitamins is a very significant accomplishment that I am not ashamed to brag about.

Unfortunately, people who live the better part of 24 years on ramen and frozen pizza also tend to lack the ability to prepare food that isn't flash frozen on a Chinese assembly line. I decided that I was going to learn to cook shit, and then told number one to make it so.

My first goal was to make chicken. This actually turned out to be easy, you just put it on the grill until the middle isn't pink. Done! Sadly, with little effort comes little reward. I discovered plain chicken without batter to be edible only in the broadest sense of the word; eating it doesn't seem to cause instant death, but my taste buds wished they were dead.

OK, I just need to make some kind of sauce to conceal the taste of ass. Honey-Chile sauce! sounds great! I excitedly acquired all the ingredients and followed the directions until I got to the step "Bring to a boil, then reduce by half. Add to blender and blend until smooth". Wtf does that mean? I assumed it meant "Reduce the temperature to half" so I did. Just after it stopped boiling, I dumped the contents into the blender, firmly held the lid down with my hand, and hit the button.

A geyser of almost-boiling fluid blasted upwards with enough force to knock the lid off the blender, burning my hand in the process. The kitchen was covered in steaming hot liquefied honey-Chile sauce, which believe it or not is as sticky and hard to remove as those really old lollipops you find stuck to the carpet.

Cooking is hard.