Daisy

Chicago: The Curious Case(s)

February 22, 2012

I’ve always said there is nothing more boring than watching the local news in an area you don’t live in. When I travel I try to read national or international news, but in Chicago, since I’m a local I read and watch the local news with great regularity. It makes me feel very grown up, and at a minimum allows me to join into adult conversations with a well placed “Well did you see what is happening with the school board?” and nod my head in all the right places. Also, the weather report is incredibly helpful when getting dressed.

As of late though, there have been 2 news stories dominating the headlines here in Chicago. Not the same 2 news stories, but rather the same 2 incidents happening over and over again.

Children dying or being severely injured by a falling television
People driving the wrong way down an expressway

I mean, say what? What sort of sick and twisted groundhog day is this? Sure these things happen from time to time, but since the end of 2011? Five children have been hurt by a falling television, most of them older models sitting on a piece of furniture (not a wall mounted flat screen like you might think). We’ve also had at least 5 wrong-way expressway drivers (and 4 crashes) since December as well, the latest one being this morning and causing the outbound Kennedy Expressway (which, by the by, is how I get to work) to be shut down while they worked the scene of the accident. In fact, we’ve had 3 serious wrong way crashes with injuries in February.

You read about epidemics and pandemics and crime sprees and cold snaps, but right now Chicago is afflicted by something much stranger.

Most likely we will have a public safety campaign, and since we are short on money I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to merge it into one public safety campaign, something snazzy, albeit long, like PLEASE PROPERLY SECURE YOUR TELEVISIONS AND ALSO DON’T ENTER AN EXPRESSWAY EXIT. PPSYTAADEAEE for short. There will be mayoral meetings, and an unveiling, and a graphic design company will draw something to encourage people not to place old school heavy televisions on twee Ikea furniture. Perhaps all the off ramps in Chicago will get bright orange crossing gates and we will all pay a nominal fee (read: high tax) for some sort of wireless device that opens the gates for you when you exit the expressway but beeps loudly and tells you NO YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY if you try to enter an exit.

If that doesn’t work Chicago could give us all a tax credit to buy super lightweight flat televisions made out of carbon (I’m sure these exist, no?) and then employ strapping young men to come around to all the homes in Chicago and professionally mount them (the televisions you sickos) to the wall, all safe like. That will go well until one collapses, ala the back porch and the lawsuits start, but in the interim? Genius. It doesn’t solve the Expressway problem, ~~but Chicago has tons of money~~, we can probably just put a police officer at every exit to keep an eye on them all. Or something.

I mean these are just general solutions, but you can see where it is going.

Save the people! From…themselves!

TGI Tuesday

February 21, 2012

By Daisy

This morning I turned to B and with great conviction stated that I was so glad it was Tuesday and the weekend was over. Seeing as how no one ever says that, ever, you might raise an eyebrow, but after the “weekend” we had (three days no less!) B agreed, exhausted. He’d spent the better portion of last night sleeping on the couch as a lovely cold has turned me into a snoring sensation. That was the least awful thing to happen this weekend, both the cold and the snoring.

Saturday seemed to be going well, as far as Saturday’s go. A trip to Costco, where you can buy enough dish soap to last you three years! (We did). We also stocked up on essentials such as trash bags, paper towels and a set of dishwasher safe cutting boards that led no less than three people to approach us and ask us where they too could find some brightly colored cutting boards for culinary adventures. Aisle four, for those curious, near the blenders.

Later in the evening we went to dinner with friends and had them back to our house and this is when things started to go downhill fast. First there was what can only be referred to as the Wine Incident. Somehow, in the midst of reaching up to scratch my forehead I snagged my wine glass with my pinky finger (true story) and simultaneously dumped and threw my entire glass of wine all over my couch, myself and one of our guests.

This was approximately 1/4 of all the wine, adorning the two bottom cushions of our couch (along with a lot of water as I was trying to rinse out the fabric):

The wine also covered the back cushions of the couch, and in attempt to clean them with dripping water all over the bottom of the couch we flipped the whole thing over on its back so I could dab and blot to my hearts content. Our friends, no doubt concerned after one of them took a red wine shower, left soon after and that is when we realized our dog wasn’t just being strangely antisocial but he was clearly in some sort of distress. After coaxing him out of his hiding spot in the guest bathroom we realized he was crying whenever anyone touched his belly and couldn’t jump up and down off the bed.

Forget about the couch, we bundled him up and drove across town to the emergency veterinarian (don’t worry, spilling my wine was not the result of inebriation and no one drove under the influence) hoping that they would charge us $100 to tell us we were overreacting to something simple.

I bet you can guess how this goes, can’t you? It wasn’t something simple, poor Rhett Butler had pancreatitis and after x-rays and an exam had to get an IV and stay the night at the strange vet. I cried the entire way home as I pictured him in his E-collar with his leg bandaged, scared and not understanding why he didn’t feel right and why I left him in a cage, his biggest fear after living in the shelter for a few months.

No, I’m not dramatic, why do you ask.

Certain everything would look better in the morning we fell asleep somewhere around 4 am. When I woke up around 9 I gave the couch another rinse off only to discover that the cushion covers that I’d washed (on the gentle cycle) had come apart at the seams. Then when I flipped the couch upright I discovered the wine had SOAKED THROUGH THE BACK OF THE COUCH in a large, wine-y puddle. *Shakes fist at sky*

And that is how we ended up rearranging our entire house so our living room has/had seating. But not before I shoved the ruined couch into our guest bedroom, had a good cry and then shuffled to the vet to visit our dog. Two hours, one emergency (another dog, not RB) and a cup of coffee later and we brought a very woozy, incredibly annoyed dog home. Let me tell you how he felt about coming home to an entirely upended house with furniture everywhere. On second thought, no. You can guess. (Hint: he was displeased.)

The “good” news was our very large master bedroom had a settee and reading chair in it, so we brought them out into the living room, took the one good couch back into our bedroom (to replace the settee so we have a spot to read) and rearranged our living room with the “new” pieces. The bad news is we definitely lost seating (our old arrangement was a couch + love seat, I ruined the love seat) that we replaced with a couch with no back and a chair. So a quick trip to Target later, a few things ordered off of Amazon and voila, here is what I’m going for:

Color palate inspired by the china (which I own and we have a platter from the set in the living room). Chair (not pictured) and couch procured, ottoman and bench being ordered. I snagged the plain pillows and wicker basket at Target and I’m now contemplating the lime green and embroidered pillows (to bring in the rest of the colors) and perusing inexpensive curtains to try and tie it all together. Living room on a budget! Whoo! The bench, ottoman and wicker basket all have storage inside of them, which is crucial and the bench will be tucked back and brought out when needed, not on a regular basis. So far, it looks like this:

Give or take.

And now, I need a long weekend from my long weekend. And my bank account to magically refill. Emergency vets, as it turns out, are quite expensive. (Thanks goodness for pet insurance, eh?) (Speaking of budgets, we’d eventually planned on updating our living room decor at some point (later rather than sooner) but previously it had a lot of khaki and chocolate brown so I’m just adding a little more visual interest and storage…or so I hope)

Rhett Butler says he is feeling just fine now, thank you very much. He isn’t sure why we worried and he definitely doesn’t like his shaved leg.

Ah well. There is always…the weekend.

Mardi Gras Mambo

February 17, 2012

By Daisy

For most Americans today marks the beginning of a 3 day weekend (at least after 5:00) but if you live in Louisiana (or Mobile) well…today marks something way better.

Here, I’ll let you guess:

If that wasn’t helpful enough:

Yup, it is Mardi Gras weekend. And I’m not there…again.

Last night was Muses, one of my favorite parades/krewes of Mardi Gras- it is an all female krewe and they throw beads with little shoes on them. Each krewe member has a coveted throw as well, a Muses glitter shoes. I’ve caught a lot of “coveted” Mardi Gras throws- a golden coconut, light up beads, glass beads times eight, etc – but I’ve never caught a Muses shoe. One day!!

Of course around these parts, Mardi Gras is scarce. I do have a pretty glass canister on our bookshelf full of yellow, green and purple throws year round, and right now our dining room table centerpiece has beads in it. From time to time I actually wear my glass bead catches:

But for the most part, this is as Mardi Gras as we get….

Yes, he is eating one of the stars. Sigh. Not a cajun beagle, that is for sure.

If you feel like celebrating this weekend, let me suggest my favorite red beans and rice recipe, my favorite King Cake recipe and of course, remember not to pick up the dead beads that fall on the ground- bad luck for a year!
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About Those Crabcakes

February 15, 2012

By Daisy

It is no secret that a few times a year B and I bust out the “fancy” cookbooks and make what we call a Celebration Meal. Previous Celebration Meals have included sea scallops, various (delicious) cuts of beef and potatoes lovingly made into a creamy, goat cheese wonder. Last year I poked fun at B, for choosing a February 14th menu that included ingredients such as “chive oil” (that I had to make), “parsley water” (again, had to be made) and clarified butter (which they sell, but alas, we made it). I declared that next year I was choosing the recipes, and choose I did. Crabcakes and potato hash ala Thomas Keller & spinach Rockefeller ala Galatoires with carrot cake cupcakes for dessert (ala Pioneer Woman). So simple! So easy! Potatoes! Spinach! Crab!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I should have known better.

Thomas Keller’s recipes, while divine (and worth making, don’t get me wrong) have the small issue of having single ingredients that are an entire recipe unto themselves. Oh, the crabcakes recipe is so simple until you realize, oh, heyo, that aioli is its own recipe that requires an ingredient that I need to order from Amazon, and the potato hash includes melted onions which, oh look at that, take an hour all by themselves (and one of the ingredients within the melted onions is a whole other recipe AGAIN, I’m looking at you “sachet”), and spinach Rockefeller requires, I kid you not, one million ingredients, give or take, including Herbsaint. (We substituted Pernod.)

Whew.

As my friend Cheesefiend said, sometimes you inexplicably find yourself with a roux that has turned into cement that is congealed in your eyebrows as you frantically search for the button to turn the vent on as it all burns.

Or sometimes you find yourself forming crabcake after crabcake and after watching all of them fall apart and crying into the bowl of (expensive) crab and wondering why it won’t just STICK TOGETHER DAMNIT. At this point your husband quietly suggests, as he surveys the scene of 8 sauce pans and various baking sheets and the food processor being used and reused that maybe, just this once, we go by the McDonald’s Rule and order pizza.

SOB.

When he realized that no, I was not letting this crab go without a fight, he disappeared and came back 10 minutes later with a list of all the tips he found On The Internet for making crabcakes stick. He found me staring sheepishly into the bowl.

I forgot the eggs…. I admitted.

He raised an eyebrow.

You mean the glue? he asked quietly.

Pretty much.

And with that I beat some eggs and poured them into the crab mixture while wiping my cheeks with the back of my Panko covered hands.

I know you would be surprised to learn that this is when he decided it was time to open the wine.

The meal was delicious….and we ate at 8:30 pm, a mere two and a half hours after beginning our journey. But those crabcakes stuck together. And I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if those melted onions were not amazing.