Category Archives: random

What bacons look like after you soaked them in Vodka for 4 weeks…

10 Replies

This post is Part 5 of a series of posts documenting an impromptu DIY project I took on when I done and gone nuts on one Sunday afternoon…  It is indeed very interesting that the whole thing started on a Sunday afternoon, don’t ya think, after I’d been alone with the kids for 2 whole days…  (And, I believe, it is mandatory by law, that whenever I complain about being with the kids for a long period of time, to add this, “…despite the fact that I love them dearly, and yes, I know I will go to the HELL designated for Mothers Who Do Not Enjoy Being With Their Kids 24/7”.)

You can see the Genesis of the Bacon-flavored vodka, my trip to Walmart for the ingredients, 12 Steps to making your own, what it looked like a week before (Hint: LESS disgusting and questionable).  Or you can just take my word for it.

So according to the recipe, I am supposed to soak the  bacon strips in da Vodka for at least 3 weeks and then put the jar in the freezer to separate the fat.  This is the 4th week, so I am doing ok.  Although I have no excuse for why it took me a whole week to perform the step of “Bringing the jar from the cabinet and putting it inside the freezer”.   “I have a full-time job with 2 kids and a husband” just does not seem to work in this case.

Anyhoo, here is how the vodka looks like today:

DRUM ROLL PLEASE…
…
…
…
…

cat can sleep anywhere

Awww. Isn’t he (she?) cute? I just thought as an apology for showing you the disgusting picture below, I should reward you with a cute sleeping kitty picture.  Ok, here it is.  For real.  Are you ready?

Here it is…

…

Bacon Week 4

Why does the smiley face look like a pervert?

14 Replies

Seriously.  Have you looked at it closely?  What is wrong with Wordpress?  Why do the smiley faces on my posts look like a f*cking pervert?   I have never seen a smiley face with arched eyebrows like these…

🙂

🙂

🙂

Tell me they don’t look sinister.  I mean, come on.

Even Google’s smileys, though I do consider them to be on the dunce side, can be said to convey cuteness, or at least attempt to.

smiley-in-gmail

I now feel extremely self-conscious when I leave a comment on other people’s blogs and I want to add a smiley to convey my friendliness:

“I come in peace.  I mean you no harm.”  And by the way, here is what I look like when I am saying this, smiling:

🙂

Whoa.  I scare myself just looking at it.  Now my comment looks like a death threat from a psychotic serial killer. Great.

If I add enough tomato juice, I may be able to swallow it…

8 Replies

To recap: I embarked on an experiment to concoct my own bacon vodka, an one-woman moonshine operation on August 30.  The mason jar was wrapped in 3 layers of plastic bags and I had not been able to muster enough courage to peek inside it.  What was I afraid that I might see floating in the jar?

Alien babies?

Van Gogh’s ear?

Mundane green goo?

Tadpoles? (I have a REAL, as opposed to fake…, phobia against frogs so that would indeed be part of my worst nightmares…)

I can’t really tell ya.  The fact is: I didn’t take a look at my concoction until two weeks afterwards, and it looked like this:

bacon vodka 2nd week checkin

As opposed to how it looked in the very beginning:

bacon vodka 020

I am not sure I will be brave enough to put it anywhere near my mouth or nose, to be completely honest…

One more week to go, my friends.  In the mean time, let’s read about the Bacon Beer, shall we?

“We just about lost it when we heard Brooklyn Brewery brew master Garrett Oliver was working on a beer made from Benton’s Country Smokehouse bacon, and now it’s a reality.

The catch is: You’ll have to pay $350 for a taste of Reinschweinsgebot, as Oliver is calling it.”

Ugh. People in New York City slay me.  $350 for a sip of that beer?  Forget it.  Give me enough tomato juice and add a lot of alcohol, I should be able to swallow my DIY bacon vodka when the time comes.

Stay tuned.  Oh, and you are ALL invited to the launch cum tasting party!

I went to get Starbucks and I got an Existential Crisis instead…

Leave a reply

One thing about working is that, when you are assigned a project whose essence you detest, you become very easily distracted.  After finding it extremely difficult to focus on the tasks at hand, while the clock tick tick tick away, and truth be told, a trip to the restroom to reapply my makeup, I made a resolution to

STOP BEING A LOSER!

I stormed back into the office.

“I am going to stop being a loser!” I announced.

“How are you going to do that?!” My lone co-worker chuckled.  Don’t worry.  You don’t have to beat him up for me.  He’s in the same boat.  Or so I think…  Hmmm…

Anyway.  I decided that a cup of Starbucks would help me leave my loser-dom.  Or at least help me get away from the computer for a while.

Ummm. Pumpkin spice latte.  One of the reasons I love autumn.

“Pumpkin spice. Skim. Extra Shot. Please.”

“And what size would you like that?”

“Extra large.”

Pause.  Uh-oh.  This one is not MY usual barista who’s threatened to not sell me anything because I used the wrong term and whom I readily forgave on account of his hotness.  This is a new guy.  Younger.  Hello!

“Extra large please.”

He looked so confused.  I almost had pity on him and was about to translate it into Starbucks lingo for him, when he asked, tentatively,

“Did you say Extra Hot?”

He he he.  I was laughing inside.  Yeah, I am Extra Hot.  Ha ha. Then, quickly, God. I need to get a life.

“Miss?”

Now it’s me who lost their bearing.  I think he’s only 7 years older than my oldest.  My mind at the same time had a flashback to the Mama Mia episode on 30 Rock when Liz Lemon realizes she does not know how old Tracy is nor can she tell…

So it applies to my group too!  Awesome! I thought.  Ooo.  I need to write a paper on that one. Then quickly, Dude, you are one of the vainest people I know.  Is this part of the mid-life crisis you are going through?

Wait.  I didn’t know I was going through a mid-life crisis…  WTF?!

I pointed at myself quizzically, like an idiot, then realized what I was doing, quickly, yet probably not as smoothly as I’d hope, moved my finger to my temple to pretend that I was going to press on my temple all along.  I raised my eye brow,

“No.”

“Would you like whipped cream with that?”

“Of course.”  Too quickly. Damn. This totally contracted with “SKIM”.  I hate irony, when it happens to me.

I don’t think I was being paranoid, but he had a look that said he also recognized the irony and was laughing inside. Probably was going to tweet about it too:

@NewYoungBarista Have to laugh at people who order Skim and then ask for Whipped cream.

Fine. Smartie pants. Then why did you ask me then? It’s totally not fair if you laid out a trap just waiting for me to walk right in.

Tomorrow I am going to go to Dunkin Donuts instead.  The man just screams at you,

“What size? Cream and Sugar?”

Then he screams back,

“Extra Large. Cream and Sugar. $2.03. NEXT!”

There is NO judgement whatsoever.

12 Steps to the Bacon Vodka Experiment

6 Replies

Before I got distracted by Kanye West, and Joe “You Lie” Wilson, and other entertaining news happening on the Interweb (and I guess, also in the real world), on August 30 I got inspired and decided to make my own moonshine based on a recipe I got from, where else? the Interweb:

“Add cooked bacon to a clean pint sized mason jar. Trim the ends of the bacon if they are too tall to fit. Or you can just throw in a bunch of fried up bacon scraps. Crushed black peppercorns can be added for a real zing, but check your zinger scale of tolerance first.

Fill the jar up with vodka. Cap and place in a dark cupboard for at least three weeks. Then place the bacon vodka in the freezer to solidify the fats. Contact local authorities to be on hand before opening and then strain out the fats through a coffee filter. The yield should be clear, pale yellow bacon vodka. (If it is any other color, check with health officials.) Decant into decorative bottles and enjoy.”

(I naturally blogged about how I came to this madness: here, and also my shopping trip & prep for the experiment, called “Step 1” here.  My apology for having lied: there’ll be no post called Step 2 as you might have expected…)

Step 1: Cook bacon.  Open the bag of raw bacon and gingerly remove them one by one from the said bag while thinking,

Yew. This is so disgusting!

bacon vodka 009

Step 2: Wash hands so as not to get grease on microwave oven when you “cook” the bason

Step 3: Cook bacon for, hmm, how long?  Your guess is as good as mine.  How about 2 minutes since you have no patience?

Step 4: Open microwave to check on bacon.  Yew.  Still raw.  Continue to zap bacon in microwave.

Step 5: Bat off hungry kids who are hungry because you forgot to feed them, for the sake of SCIENCE, y’all!  “I smell bacon?  Is that bacon?  Mom, can we have some bacon?”

Step 6: Admonish children for calling Perfectly Edible Food “disgusting” by saying, “There are starving children in China, you know?”

Step 7: Gingerly transport the grease-soaked paper towels to the trash, mindful not to drip any grease on the floor.  Oh, and take a picture of the bacon ’cause you know you are going to blog about it.  (Only you don’t know that it’ll take you more than 2 weeks to actually blog about it because you are lazy that way).

bacon vodka 013

Step 8: Curse yourself when you open the fridge and see this:

bacon vodka 005

Then immediately comfort yourself with the conviction that YOUR bacon vodka is going to turn out so much better ’cause you used the REAL, raw, greasy, fat-dripping bacon.  Oh, yeah.

Step 9: Add cooked bacon to mason jar and fill jar with vodka.  The good kind!  Another sacrifice you’ll make for SCIENCE…

bacon vodka 006

Cry when you see the bottle of vodka more than half gone because the mason jar is deceptively roomy…

And remember: You are doing this for SCIENCE!

Step 10: Try and think of something quickly to explain to your children:

“What the hack is that?”

“Don’t use that kind of language.”

“Mom, what is that?  Is that your bacon vodka?”  “Are you really going to drink that?”  “That is so disgusting!”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Mom.  Why?”

bacon vodka 020

The final step: Wrap it in 3 layers of plastic bag because you are not sure whether it will have some chemical reaction and either ooze goo or worse, burst open the glass jar.   Leave it in the cupboard.  And wait…

p.s. Do NOT forget to tell your husband about it before you leave for a business trip.  Imagine his surprise when he finds it…

In addition to the Pre-nuptial agreement, draw up a chore chart and sign on the dotted line!

4 Replies

The following is a rant against men who do not help out around the house.  You have been forewarned…

I hesitate in calling myself a feminist. Because I am embarrassed.  Not because of the label, but because I would be living a lie if I call myself one.  I am the woman that Feminists hold up as a bad example.

An enabler.

The truth is: I still do most of the housework around here. I work full time. My commute is over an hour each way.  I travel for business.  I make as much money as my husband. (Even though this is not supposed to make any difference?)  I have a Ph.D. (I regretted putting this here: it was not my intention to brag. But rather a perpetual regret that I have wasted the best five years of my life getting a degree that has proven to be quite useless. And oftentimes a burden on my soul. I have let everybody down, myself especially).

Other couples fight about money, or so the myriad of studies showed.  We fight over who is doing what how much when with which one of the children for how long.  We fight over fairness.

“If you care about the house being neat, you should be the one that cleans up.  You are the one that’s anal.  I don’t care.”

I guess I can’t say anything about that if I don’t want to live a bachelor’s life.  And, seriously, I cannot expect everybody to want to get up in the middle of the night, like 3 am, to do the dishes, pick up the house, vacuum the carpet.  I am like Mr. Monk.  Mrs. Monk.  Ha.

I am one of those crazy women that get turned on when their husbands do the housework.  I am not making this up.  One of those women’s magazines did a survey and an overwhelming number of wives selected “My husband doing the household chore” as the thing that arouses them the most.

“How can you complain about doing housework if we have a cleaning lady?”

The cleaning lady comes every other week.  I guess it never dawns on him that ours is not ALICE from The Brady Bunch who lives with the family?

Hey, if they don’t mind a disgusting toilet bowl, why should they be the one to clean it up?  I can see the logic in that one too.

“If you spend less time on the Internet, you could have finished doing the dishes already.”

Oh. That. Is. A. Good. One.  Let me write it down for future references.

I have walked out many times in a fit of rage. Oh yes, believe me. Because I have a chip on my shoulder.

PSA to Men: You seriously don’t want an over-educated wife.  Just sayin’  Especially those that have taken Women’s Studies.

Most of the time though, I just swallow things that I want to say.  Because, when it comes down to it, do you divorce your husband if he does not pitch in a fair share of housework, on your mental scale?  Do you deprive your children of a father because you are tired of being the one responsible for doing the dishes, folding the laundry, picking up the house, and oh, everything related to the children?

Yes, he mows the lawn.  And he fixes things when things break inside the house.

Am I asking too much for some sort of help?

“I am going to clean up the house now.  I am going to turn on the music.  Do you mind moving somewhere?”

“Can I listen to the music too?”

“NO. To be honest, it annoys me to no end to clean up the house while you sit here and read your book.  So, it really would be better if you move somewhere else.  Just get out of here.”

He moved upstairs.  I turned up the music.  Way high.

Who is the Queen of Passive Aggressiveness??!!

p.s. Depiste my lament, I am relieved that I don’t have a daughter.  I don’t know what kind of an example I would be setting for a girl: “Don’t bother. It doesn’t matter whether you get an advanced degree or not. Probably worse. Because now you know to feel resentment AND guilt when you do everything around the house.”

“They’re Made Out of Meat” by Terry Bisson – One of the best short stories found on the Interweb

Leave a reply

Here is how the story begins…

“They’re made out of meat.”

“Meat?”

“Meat. They’re made out of meat.”

“Meat?”

“There’s no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”

… … …

Please do continue to read the short story, “They’re Made Out Of Meat“, the original on Terry Bisson’s website

Of course I learned of this short story from one of the Tweets on my Twitter stream.  After I RTed it and stumbled it and emailed it to everybody that I know of who will get a kick out of this, it simply was not enough.

I truly feel it is our duty as Interweb citizens to share all the wonderful things available on the Net. (Yes, I admit.  I am a dork. Notice that I said, a dork, and not a geek.  As Geeks have now gained some sort of mythical status in our pop culture.  They are the cool dorks, with potential to make millions…)

So here it is: my meager attempt to do my part. To let as many people know as possible of this great, humorous, thought-provoking, piece of science fiction.  It will make you laugh, and it may also make you think about our existence in this dark, cold, lonely universe…

Now I am off to read more about the science fiction writer, Terry Bisson.

Posted via web from The Absence of Alternatives

Step 1. I went to Walmart for my Bacon-Flavored Vodka Experiment…

5 Replies

To recap, I decided to follow the recipe for Bacon-flavored vodka…

Why? Because I love Bacon. And I love Vodka. So it seems like a no-brainer…

I went to Walmart to gather my supply. Why Walmart when we know they are evil? Because Walmart was the only place where I recall for having ever seen mason jars being sold.  I was lucky I even knew what mason jars are considering how I am basically illiterate in the cooking & food prep jargon department.  I didn’t even know what Blanch means until recently.

Hint: It is not the name of Vivien Leigh’s character in A Streetcar Named Desire… Seriously.

Besides,  ever since I knew the existence of peopleofwalmart.com, I couldn’t wait to go back and see for myself.

Eh. Yeah. Way too many people wearing Zubaz pants still. I didn’t take any photos though. It is actually kind of difficult to do that surreptitiously! So my hat’s off to all the brave souls who have submitted photos to People of Walmart. I was worried that I might get punched by the woman with wiry blond hair that looked like she just touched a plasma globe to dare.

Also, knowing that this website exists makes me extremely self-conscious at Walmart.

Is it just me?  I mean, I am absolutely paranoid now. I actually dressed up to go to fucking Walmart! I made sure I wear my control-top so my tummy didn’t flop out.  I even put on full make-up so I didn’t look like someone who’s on meth. I also combed my hair.

But the friggin’ kids did not cooperate at all.  Within 10 minutes after we got into the store, I was hissing loudly:

“Stop touching your brother with the umbrella or I will stick it in your…”

“I don’t care if he is friggin’ sitting on YOUR pizza rolls.  They are frozen! They are hard like rocks!”

“What do you mean you won’t eat them? Listen here, buddy.  If I buy them for you, you are going to eat them, you hear me? Otherwise I am going to rip you a new one…”

“I don’t friggin’ care if he’s putting the shrimps on top of his feet.  You don’t even eat shrimps. What do you care?”

“OK.  Both of you.  Stop doing that! You are going to get IT when we get home!”

(No. I don’t know what IT is. I never do.)

The best part is?  When we finally got out of the store, I looked at the dusty passenger window of a monster truck and saw myself all disheveled.  So much for combing my hair.  I also had the look of someone who was willing and ready to commit manslaughter.  I won’t be surprised if we get on People of Walmart, or even YouTube.

The shopping part was not really a success either – I was able to only cross two items off of my list:

  1. Cheap vodka
  2. Bacon
  3. Mason jar
  4. Tarp
  5. Waders
  6. Safety goggles

This Walmart seemed to have recently revamped itself to focus on the frozen food section.  It does not seem to carry items that a manly man will need on a daily basis, such as tarp, fishing waders, and safety goggles.  So I was rather disappointed.  Truth be told, I was rather happy to save the money: I just could NOT go with the Number 1 item on my list: Cheap Vodka…

What if the experiment turns out to be a failure because I use CHEAP vodka? Huh?

I kept on asking myself this ever since I read the recipe.  So here is what I got from Walmart for the Bacon-flavored Vodka experiment:

Mason jars & bason

I was pissed I had to get 12 mason jars at once.  TWELVE!  So you all can now expect to get pickled plum from me for Christmas…

Ok, not really.  I guess if the first batch turns out to be a success, I will be glad that I have extras lying around the house.

I wonder whether the teachers will be happy to receive home-made Bacon-flavored vodka this Christmas instead of Bath and Body Works lotions?

p.s. I am not sure whether you can see the gigantic mixing batter bowl with lid on the side of the picture? Anyway, that was a total impulse buy. The idea of having a mixing bowl with a lid so you can have home-made pancakes on demand appealed to me at the moment when I saw it.  But after I got home and opened the fridge I saw this:

sprayed on pancake batter

WTF? Oh. I’d completely forgot I had gotten this the other day!  I also remembered how I had made the kids pancakes “from scratch” by mixing Hungry Jack with water and they had both refused to eat them and I had vowed to never make them anything “from scratch” again…

But I felt better when I found an immediate use for the new mixing bowl that will probably never experience the sensation of batter lolling around inside it…

What do you mean I need to wash the mason jars first?

Yeah…  Apparently you need to wash and dry the mason jars in “hot soapy water” before you can use them.  WTF?

First of all, I am going to add vodka to it. It looks like water.  So I am not even going to bother with drying them.

And can I just please ask this question that’s been bothering me for a long time…

Why do the instructions always demand “HOT” water?

Seriously.

How hot does the water have to get to be able to kill the germs? Won’t that water melt your hands together? If the “hot water” is for killing the germs, then why can’t we use “just water”? What is the point?!

Don’t get too excited because I washed three of the dozen mason jars.  I had started out being quite ambitious.  But later reason kicked in: I realized that one of these suckers is going to take almost HALF bottle of my GOOD Vodka.

I mean, really good Vodka.

Stay tuned.

Announcing my new project: Bacon-flavored Vodka…

8 Replies

Apparently Pork-flavored Vodka is gaining some traction now in the Northeast, originated from Seattle, more specifically, the Seattle-based Black Rock Spirits.  According to this online article, Bacon-Flavored Vodka: What’s Next? Eggs Bourbon? , BAKON, the vodka with an oink in it, is getting some dedicated followers because people just love bacon.

800x600

Thanks to the same article, a recipe for a home-made concoction to spice up your Vodka and martini with bacon is also available:

“Add cooked bacon to a clean pint sized mason jar. Trim the ends of the bacon if they are too tall to fit. Or you can just throw in a bunch of fried up bacon scraps. Crushed black peppercorns can be added for a real zing, but check your zinger scale of tolerance first.

Fill the jar up with vodka. Cap and place in a dark cupboard for at least three weeks. Then place the bacon vodka in the freezer to solidify the fats. Contact local authorities to be on hand before opening and then strain out the fats through a coffee filter. The yield should be clear, pale yellow bacon vodka. (If it is any other color, check with health officials.) Decant into decorative bottles and enjoy.”

I am PUMPED!  I think I owe it to myself to experiment on this.  Here is my shopping list (which of course I tweeted, that’s what Twitter is for, no?):

  1. Cheap vodka
  2. Bacon
  3. Mason jar
  4. Tarp
  5. Waders
  6. Safety goggles

A very funny @Andjelija suggested that I check out prices for my  supplies at Walmart, and take pictures while I am at it.

I will blog my experiment, so stay tuned…

*pouring Vodka*

Here’s to a successful experiment!

And to me not getting punched while taking pictures of people at Walmart!

And also to no pictures of me getting submitted to peopleofwalmart.com!