Sunday, April 16, 2006

Weekend notes

Bittman's Best Recipes in the World, page 98, shrimp with garlic. A Spanish tapa classic, says the minimalist.

I think you should get this book so I won't give you the whole recipe, but the basic idea is:
-Heat a lot of olive oil with a lot of garlic and some chiles.
-Cook shrimp in this mixture.
-Eat while they're still warm with bread to dip in the sauce.

It might sound like practically nothing, but it's insanely good.

***

Ordinarily I pay almost no attention to how much money movies take in at the box office unless it is summertime, during which I participate in a movie pool to try to win money by predicting how much money movies will take in at the box office. If Scary Movie 4, which apparently has taken $41 million this weekend, had been slated for release between Memorial Day and Labor Day I would be loudly cursing the moviegoing public right now instead of stroking my chin calmly and wondering what this might portend. (I have seen none of the Scary Movies, btw, but my sources on SM4 (i.e., the TV Guide podcast) told me that it was the least impressive of the series. $41 million was less than SM3 earned its first weekend, believe it or not, so it should have come as no surprise.)

***

There is now a second blogger in Milwaukee who writes about cooking: meet Yulinka. She might have inspired me to make cheese, which is a project I have contemplated now and then. For many months I have envied places like the Bay Area and New York City for having their own communities of local food bloggers. I'm not sure if two makes a community and perhaps there are others I don't know about, but there are at least twice as many as there used to be, which sounds good to me.

***

Here's my newest workout playlist. It's around thirty minutes long, which is a standard duration on the ellipticals.

1. Bouncing Around the Room, Phish
2. My Old School, Steely Dan
3. Asleep on a Sunbeam, Belle & Sebastian
4. For Once in My Life, Stevie Wonder
5. We Both Go Down Together, The Decemberists
6. Oliver's Army, Elvis Costello
7. July Jones, The New Pornographers
8. Cinnamon Girl, Neil Young
9. For You, Bruce Springsteen

General principles of the workout mix:
1. nothing slow
2. every song makes you smile

***

Tanqueray No. 10 gin makes a nice Martini. Stir, don't shake. Give each drink a good half ounce of vermouth, not just a pathetic misting. Garnish with a regular old pimento-stuffed Manzanilla olive. One olive is enough; three are a snack. Drink with pleasure and abandon.

I confess a desire to try those "tipsy" olives that are twice as expensive as the regular ones but the price just seems extravagant. Every time I see them I pick up a jar and every time I put it back on the shelf. Anyone out there prepared to sell me on them?

6 Comments:

Blogger Mrs. M. said...

Hey, MZN,

Thanks for stopping by my blog! You may be my first real reader, besides my boyfriend and parents!

(This is terribly exciting for a new blogger.)

As for local food blogs, there's Taste of the Town (new)-- http://tasteofthetown.blogs.com/tasteofthetown/

Undelicious(rarely updated)--http://undelicious.blogspot.com/

The Adventures of the a Foodie--(defunct)-- http://adventuresofafoodie.blogspot.com/

10:07 AM  
Blogger The Jeff Next Door said...

Hi, mzn, why not make your own?

Just take a standard jar of cocktail olives (or 1/2 a jar, depending on how often you're drinking martinis!) remove the brine, and let them soak in dry vermouth in the 'fridge for a couple of weeks.

8:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Garlic shrimp..... Lovely!

1:55 AM  
Blogger Margaret Polaneczky, MD (aka TBTAM) said...

There's a tapas place near our apartment that has the best garlic shrimp. You've made me hunger for them, I think I'll head on over tonight.

12:24 PM  
Blogger the chocolate doctor מרת שאקאלאד said...

what are ellipticals?

10:35 PM  
Blogger mzn said...

Ellipticals is short for elliptical trainers. They're workout machines that are basically hybrids of cross-country skiing simulators and stair climbing simulators. Your feet go to and fro and up and down, tracing ellipses.

7:16 AM  

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