cynthia at the sandwich life Champaign-Urbana, Ernie, Ernie's Big Box of 45's..., Food and Cooking, Friends, Music, The Guys

Some Things Never Change and Other Random Notes

1. Score one for Harvest Market. You can buy three pound chickens there. I know, that may not sound exciting to you, but I'm tired of chickens being so big…they just aren't as good for roasting. When I first tried to conquer the perfect roast chicken years ago, it was with chickens that were between three and four pounds. And they were GREAT. My favorite version initially was Marcella Hazan's Roast Chicken with Lemons (which is still fabulous) but now I've moved onto my own even simpler version which is "take a three-four pound chicken, lots of kosher salt and black pepper inside and out, throw it in pan and cook it at 500 for 45-50 minutes, no turning, no nothing." Now this works with bigger chickens…but you know what? It's just not as good. When you get a rotisserie chicken at the store, or a roast chicken at a restaurant….they are three pound chickens….the way they are SUPPOSED to be! Ah. I feel better now.

2. The other night we cooked our delightful little three pound chicken, pairing it with beautiful salad greens from Farmer Greg (with just avocados, olive oil, salt and a dash of white balsamic vinegar) and some french fries (just because we had some in the freezer and it seemed like the thing to do…if you call them frites it's less embarrassing), with a bit of a pan sauce, and it was outrageously good. Here's my bad phone pic to document:

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3. Here's Owen, last night, wearing his Romantics t-shirt, sucking on a sucker that he discovered God knows where, and holding my favorite Van Halen album, Women and Children First, under his arm. I just thought it was worth documenting.

IMG_7786 (1)

4. Last night for dinner was a stir fry, per Owen's request. Nothing particularly culturally authentic about it but it was damned good. I've found the best way to get vegetables into Owen is to throw them in a stir fry. Last night we had  gold and red bell pepper, sugar snap peas, and lots of onions and garlic with day old rice, some sliced sirloin, a bit of soy sauce and a dash of hoisin as I found we were out of sesame oil.

IMG_7803

5. Later, Ernie and I turned off the tv because we were just tv'd out. We curled up in the living room, with me desultorily reading the Springsteen book on my laptop, and Ernie digging through stacks of old 45s. He looks so good when he does that.

IMG_7828

IMG_7822
IMG_7822
IMG_7822
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Some things never change. Indeed.

 

6. Just now. Ernie and Owen headed off to get Owen's driver's permit:

IMG_7834

 

cynthia at the sandwich life Champaign-Urbana, Ernie, Ernie's Big Box of 45's..., Food and Cooking, Friends, Music, The Guys

Some Things Never Change and Other Random Notes

1. Score one for Harvest Market. You can buy three pound chickens there. I know, that may not sound exciting to you, but I'm tired of chickens being so big…they just aren't as good for roasting. When I first tried to conquer the perfect roast chicken years ago, it was with chickens that were between three and four pounds. And they were GREAT. My favorite version initially was Marcella Hazan's Roast Chicken with Lemons (which is still fabulous) but now I've moved onto my own even simpler version which is "take a three-four pound chicken, lots of kosher salt and black pepper inside and out, throw it in pan and cook it at 500 for 45-50 minutes, no turning, no nothing." Now this works with bigger chickens…but you know what? It's just not as good. When you get a rotisserie chicken at the store, or a roast chicken at a restaurant….they are three pound chickens….the way they are SUPPOSED to be! Ah. I feel better now.

2. The other night we cooked our delightful little three pound chicken, pairing it with beautiful salad greens from Farmer Greg (with just avocados, olive oil, salt and a dash of white balsamic vinegar) and some french fries (just because we had some in the freezer and it seemed like the thing to do…if you call them frites it's less embarrassing), with a bit of a pan sauce, and it was outrageously good. Here's my bad phone pic to document:

IMG_7779

3. Here's Owen, last night, wearing his Romantics t-shirt, sucking on a sucker that he discovered God knows where, and holding my favorite Van Halen album, Women and Children First, under his arm. I just thought it was worth documenting.

IMG_7786 (1)

4. Last night for dinner was a stir fry, per Owen's request. Nothing particularly culturally authentic about it but it was damned good. I've found the best way to get vegetables into Owen is to throw them in a stir fry. Last night we had  gold and red bell pepper, sugar snap peas, and lots of onions and garlic with day old rice, some sliced sirloin, a bit of soy sauce and a dash of hoisin as I found we were out of sesame oil.

IMG_7803

5. Later, Ernie and I turned off the tv because we were just tv'd out. We curled up in the living room, with me desultorily reading the Springsteen book on my laptop, and Ernie digging through stacks of old 45s. He looks so good when he does that.

IMG_7828

IMG_7822
IMG_7822
IMG_7822
IMG_7822

Some things never change. Indeed.

 

6. Just now. Ernie and Owen headed off to get Owen's driver's permit:

IMG_7834

 

cynthia at the sandwich life Ernie's Big Box of 45's..., Me, Music

Random Notes from the Turntable

Ernie brought his turntable downstairs a few months back, from the Fourth Room where it had been languishing. In theory we were going to turn the Fourth Room into a little music room for Ernie but honestly…..the Fourth Room is really the place where we put all the junk we don't know what to do with. We call it the Fourth Room because it's the fourth tiny bedroom upstairs and I refuse to call it anything else until it becomes something other than a big junk pile. So it stays the Fourth Room…..and downstairs came the turntable. We've had great fun…..he pulled out a big stack of his old 45s and has been playing them.

He played the Adverts the other day…and frankly I don't know all that much by them other than Gary Gilmore's Eyes…but good lord…it sounded like Rush. I kid you not. Not the whole song, but at least the beginning….and the turntable may be running a little fast which just made it even more Rush-like… Listen…

 

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 My brain works like shit these days so I sit there listening to whatever he's put on, thinking "I'm NOT going to ask who this is. I'm NOT going to ask who this is. I KNOW I'll think of it in a minute. I'm NOT going to ask who this is" and then of course I break down and say "Who is this?" If it's not a 45 and it is really embarrassing that I couldn't come up with it, I try to cover with "Well yeah, but what ALBUM?" as though I knew all along who it was. 

He played the Fountains of Wayne and I tried and tried to think of who it was. I knew the song and I knew it was the band Robbie Fulks wrote the hotline song about but still I couldn't come up with it. He said "Ffffff……wwwwwww"….and I said "FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE!" and sagged with relief. Whew. We sat and listened and Ernie laughed, saying, "A lot of words in every song, and some of the songs sound alike….but they're still great."  I christened them the Gilmore Girls of pop. I mean, I couldn't adore the Gilmore Girls more but there ARE a lot of words and some of the episodes did seem alike after a while…..

I remember when Owen was pretty little and his favorite song was California Sex Lawyer. He played it for my Mom and she told him it was very nice and just looked at me and said, "California Sex Lawyer?" I shrugged. It was sort of like when I brought my first Buzzcock's record home many years ago. She looked at the name of the band and said, "I don't want to know."

 

 

Then he played one of my favorite Comsat Angels song….really this should be my theme song at times….

And I can't stand up and I can't sit down
'cause a great big problem stop me in my tracks
I can't relax 'cause I haven't done a thing
And I can't do a thing 'cause I can't relax

Finally we stopped playing music and went and cooked a piss-poor dinner. Oh well…can't win them all.

I didn't really care though….because I had ALL that music in my head….