Aug 31, 2010

GARLIC AND CINNAMON AND HOUSEWIVES, OH MY

Oey. I am nursing a hangover of epic proportions today.

Now before you think that I've gone round the bend and developed some form of Merlot addiction, please allow me to explain that my hangover is the result of roasted vegetables, an unfortunate choice of Yankee Candle, and Danielle Staub.

So there I was, minding my own business and trying to recover from my escapades in the garden, when I decided to make chicken and roasted veggies for dinner. Aunt Chrissy and I started making roasted veg last winter, and since I hadn't had them for a while I thought it would be a tasty break from the salads and tomato bagels I've been eating for four months.

Potatoes, shallots, and garlic. Olive oil. Salt and pepper.

Roast in a hot oven (like 425-450 or so) for about a half hour and viola! you've got yourself some tasty eats.

Unless, of course, you're me and you put about eighty cloves of garlic in amongst the other things and then you forget to spray the cookie sheet with the damn Pam and everything sticks and burns and crisps very nicely, but stinks up the house bad enough that you and the dog contemplate sleeping in the car.

And then you glue yourself to the Tee Vee to catch the first part of the Real Housewives of New Jersey debacle and feel compelled to call Aunt Chrissy every ten minutes to say "OH MY GOD! I THOUGHT THERESA WAS GOING TO THROW ANDY COHEN ACROSS THE ROOM!" and then you wonder why the hell you didn't just watch the thing together in the first darn place and the dog pees on the drapes and then hides under the bed.

Such is life here today. I am completely bobcomdistulated and wondering what I did with myself before I got wrapped up in silly (yet somehow completely compelling) TeeVee dramas. And I'm doing all of this while trying to de-stink my house by burning a "Sparkling Cinnamon" Yankee Candle that I found in the back of one of the cupboards that I've yet to clean and organize because I just can't seem to get my act together and start the Spring Cleaning once and for all despite the fact that it is now Autumn and who the heck ever heard of Autumn Cleaning anyhow?

(pause for breath)

I used to do things like read books and go to movies and think profound thoughts. Now I just stumble through the day wondering if Kim G will join the show next season or when Aunt Chrissy and I will take a trip to Italy to see Santa Cosulino and ride the gondolas in Venice. I ponder the daily menu selections at the Brownstone (do they have sangweech?), will Albie get into another law school? When will Ashley and Derrik get married? I fantasize that Theresa and I are the best of friends and that we come up with a plot to rid New Jersey of Danielle once and for all and then Caroline and Jacqueline make cookies and we all sit around and wait for Dina to come over with leopard print bathrobes while we get our nails done.

Eye yai yai, but I need to re-evaluate my evening TeeVee viewing habits. There's just too many good things out there that I'm NOT watching so that I can get myself all twisted up in knots over things that I AM watching.

I ask myself: Is it the story lines? The characters? The intricate pairing of culture and scandal that makes for suspenseful plots and back stories?

What the hell is it about these people that makes me want to know more and then spend hours and hours and hours discussing it with a little sister who now knows for sure that I am in need of some very serious psychoanalysis.

I suppose that these are questions for the ages, and that...

um....

Sorry. Got distracted there for a minute.

So as I was saying....

Oh, bloody hell. I've got to go. I just caught sight of today's line up, and I see that Jackie Warner is doing something interesting in the kitchen with her mother and her girlfriend's family. I didn't even know Jackie was back! I thought that Thintervention didn't premier until next Monday! I need to figure out if this is related to that or if....

(A little dog walks into the room, takes one look at his stupefied mo-ther sitting with rapt attention in front of the television and decides that some things in life just aren't worth getting bothered over. He peens on the drapes, emits a loud sigh, and heads for his little fort under the bed where classical music plays softly in the background and the stuffed animals gather for riveting discussions of Jonathen Franzen's latest book and the alarming trend in the political world for inflammatory rhetoric and national discord.)

10 comments:

  1. Quaker Diamonds looks fabulous! I'd not seen such colorful Quakers before...I just may have to part with my smoking credit card again!

    (This is really a comment on your (Stewey's) last post. I know it is hot,...it's in the 90's down state... but just open the windows for a few minutes and the smell(s) should dissapate.)

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  2. Take a wide flat bowl or saucer and fill it with white vinegar. Place it near the oven and let it sit for a day. You will smell the vinegar for a while, but the other odors will disappear and you can throw out the vinegar. I do this before I cook some aromatic foods and leave it sit overnight. In the morning the smell is gone. I used to do this before I had a party and people smoked in my house. I place the bowls somewhere out of sight. Now they have stopped smoking or go outside.

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  3. I think we ALL wonder about our Tee Vee viewing habits from time to time, LOL!!!

    I'm sorry you made a mess of your dinner. It sure sounds yummy!!!

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  4. Your Q.D. is looking good! I am not a garlic lover so I use barely any in my cooking. TV has a way of insinuating itself into our lives doesn't it - I never would have thought I'd be following a group of commericial crab fishermen either!!

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  5. So, what else are we supposed to do while mindlessly stitching except watch mindless TV that makes you wonder about humanity or the lack of it? The NJ Housewives are a particularly nasty bunch of ladies but intriguing none the less.

    P.S., has Stewey read The Corrections?

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  6. I am sure the writers of real tv dramas and not reality tv dramas would be hard pressed to write what the Jersey girls come up with!
    You need to get the newest issue of Life and Style and read about Danielle's escapades since filming stopped.

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  7. Love your stitching progress (from last post) - absolutely beautiful! I have not watched that particular show - but I am at this very moment awaiting Teen Mom to come on at 10...and anxiously awaiting several shows this fall!

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  8. I love your Quaker diamonds Coni. So pretty! The rose bush, however, has my sympathy!

    Have you tried stitching while watching The History Channel? The Chasing Mummies show is great!You can pretend that you are scholarly while watching the head archeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, pitch a hissy fit that rivals Theresa`s table tossing incident (I saw that ep, not knowing what the heck I had stumbled into. It was like a car crash...I couldn`t look away!). Stewey may even don his smoking jacket and join you!

    Looking forward to a stitchy post soon...ttfn.

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  9. Hswives of NJ - seems to be the #1 Guilty Pleasure of many not-Housewives of NJ. Enjoy the absurdity. Just don't start shaving your face.

    Roasted veggies + Parchment on cookie sheet = happiness, easy clean-up, no- spillage or scraping getting them to the serving bowl (or plate, or mouth). Seriously - even buy it in the grocery store not fancy parchment will increase the roasted veggie enjoyment. Same way to cook - oil, spices drizzle- but on the lined baking sheet. The paper will be crunchy when done, and you just toss it.

    Quaker Diamonds look just lovely.

    Ellice (in No VA where it's 96 & wilting out)

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  10. It's like looking at a car accident - it's hard not to check out what's going on!

    <-----not embarassed to admit that she knows EXACTLY what you're talking about!

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