Some Things Should Not Be Eaten

Next week I have vacation! Even though certain someones at work don't like this, as I should spend time only raising money and not having fun, ever. Too bad! I am going and I ain't checking email and I ain't answering the phone and, although I heard rumors that a faculty member wants to submit a grant next week, they have not talked to me yet, so they might miss their deadline. Ooops. Too bad!

Nice, GG. Be nice! Nice! You raised $75,000 this last week, almost $1.2 million for the year (so far). Be nice! Kind! Go play and have fun...

Well, having fun for me involves food - shopping for it, cooking it, eating out, bringing food to other people. And since I am having visitors who have never really visited Chicago (well, I haven't visited Chicago all that much despite living just north of it), I thought it might be fun to visit some ethnic restaurants. I was noodling around the intertubes and found an interesting Malaysian place called, naturally, Penang.

There's some good looking stuff on the menu - lemongrass crab, chicken and potato red curry, chili tofu, chicken feet with black mushrooms (yum!), but there is also something that I just think should never be eaten.

What might that be, GG? Pig's head? Nope, like that. Intestines? Never had that and not likely to do so, but you want it, knock yourself out. Rather that thing that should never be eaten is a vegetable dish called, lyrically enough, kang kung belacan. Its description?

"Sauteed conscious with spicy malaysian shrimp sauce," bargain priced at only $9.95.

Caprese Pasta Salad

Last night, I joined a group of fine females (and one fine male) for a trip to see the Indigo Girls perform at the Ravinia Festival. Now the nice thing about Ravinia is that the lawn seats are cheap and it is a picnic haven. So, everything brought something - some cheese, some wine, a billion or so cookies, hummus, etc etc. My contribution was a delicious caprese pasta salad.

Now a basic caprese salad is fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil - arranged neatly and drizzled with good olive oil. I made my salad by cooking a pound of pasta (I used rotelle) and then cooling in the fridge and then adding 1 pint of grape tomatoes, 1 container of marinated mozzarella balls, some lemon juice (about 1 large lemon), and a bunch of chopped up basil and Italian parsley from my garden. I overcooked the pasta just a touch and I could have chopped the parsley and basil smaller, but I was making it at 11 at night, so sue me. The only thing I might do differently in the future is to chop the mozzarella balls into smaller bits. They were quite salty and, as I hadn't salted the rst of the salad, being smaller would have spread the salty goodness throughout. Still, a good invention and one that will be repeated.

Also, today, I learned a new term. Bed-oaf. I found it hilarious. I hope you do, too.