turkey break
turkey break is like foodie heaven. i went to halalco (legendary in my area; best halal place ever) yesterday and was reminded of how much cheaper spices and herbs are from fob owned institutions. i went a little crazy and got dried dill, sage, allspice berries, black peppercorns, powdered cinnamon, sumac, and rosemary. had i got all that stuff from a normal grocery store it probably would have cost me $25, but it was just under $8. :-) and to celebrate the ridiculous amounts of sumac and dill that i got, i decided to give a go at making stuffed grape leaves. not that stuffed grape leaves contain those things, but i think they do. the problem is that every time i eat grape leaves, i never know what’s in them. sometimes the rice is tomato-y. sometimes it has ground beef. sometimes ground lamb. i know for sure there’s rice, lemon juice, vinegar, and grape leaves. so i searched it and found nothing consistent. i decided, to be on the safe side, to fully cook the ground beef (with tons of dill and sumac) and parboil the basmati rice before stuffing the leaves. stuffed them (pretty terribly; i’m not good at this…yet), packed them in tightly in the pan on top of a few leaves, put a leaf on top, filled the pot halfway with liquid (part pickling juice, part water), and cooked until i thought the rice was done. and i guess it’s the bangali in me, but dang that rice was *perfectly* done, and the whole shebang didn’t taste half bad either. i’m sure it’s all wrong, but it tastes good anyway.
obviously, i got a turkey while i was there. but! i didnt realize this when i bought it, and i’m kinda ticked- midamar (company) injects their turkeys with salt/other stuff solution. not fair! i was going to brine it, like i did last year, because brining = best way to prepare a turkey. so now im gonna soak it first, partially brine it, then cook it. how annoying. dear turkey preparation companies: keep your machine hands out of my turkey. what bothers me more is that i could have gotten a fresh turkey w/o additives from another halal grocery store, but i specifically went to halalco. it’s ok, this one time, halalco; i’ll let it slide.
and the phone; i finally got another phone. it’s my brother in law’s old treo (i dont know what model; working on squeezing things like usb cords and software out of the abyss that is my sister’s apartment), and it won’t stop blinking that annoying green light at me. oh yeah; it’s a pda phone. so it’s the size of half my face (kidding, sort of). no, wait, i just held it up to my face and it actually is about half the size of it. really, i just want the blinking to stop. ive tried going into all sorts of settings and i cant fiiind itttt. the up side is that now i have the phone number and contact information of pretty much everyone on the planet (thank you, well connected sister and her husband!). i looked myself up, for fun, and found my email addresses from about 10 years ago. no joke. i think what i like about this phone is the slot for the sim card- it’s ridiculously cute. i don’t know how exactly to explain it, but theres this little indentation near the top of the phone that you slide out and put the card in, then slide it back in. for some reason, that feature alone makes my day. irrational? maybe.
November 24th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpti looked myself up, for fun, and found my email addresses from about 10 years ago. no joke. i think what i like about this phone is the slot for the sim card- it’s ridiculously cute. i don’t know how exactly to explain it, … […]