Category Archives for Food

A Delicious Treat That Can’t Be Beat

Is everyone familiar with tomato sandwiches? No? I had assumed that this particular dish was a staple in everyone’s summer diet, but recent conversations have led me to question this perhaps broad assumption. If this is in fact the case and you’ve lived a life unfulfilled, fret no more – tomato season is in full swing, and there are days left to indulge in this most refreshing treat. Instructions below:

1. First, slice tomatoes. Or rather, maybe pick them first. Picking is crucial! The best specimen for this delight of all delights is one straight from your garden, hopefully still warm from baking in the summer sun. If you must buy elsewhere try a farmer’s market – never refrigerate first.

2. Toast bread. Under no circumstances should you even consider anything but the fluffiest of fluffy white bread. Down with complex carbs; whole grains be damned! The goal here is deliciousness, not health. If even for a moment you feel the fine glow of general well-being, you’re doing it wrong. That said, I prefer potato bread, but don’t let me tell you how to live.

3. Mayonnaise. Delicious, delicious mayonnaise. As previously stated, this is not a meal of good choices or dietary guidelines. Spread generously.

4. Add tomatoes, clearly. Slices should be cut very thickly, as thick as the Northeastern humidity to which you’ve begrudgingly become accustomed.  Additionally, do what you must to create an even layer of tomato – overlapping will almost certainly lead to a slip ‘n slide situation that you’d be best advised to avoid. Apply salt and pepper, use a heavy hand.

5. Devour. Lather, rinse, repeat.

On Using Your Friends Effectively

Remember what we learned on Wednesday about your friends having real jobs with start times and responsibilities, and no they can’t just come and join you for a midday adventure? Well sometimes that’s just not true at all, and with nary a nag you can secure yourself enough social interaction to ward off insanity for days to come.

 

The best way to this is twofold. First, find friends who bring a touch of class to breakfast. The sartorial accomplishments of those in your company reflect just as well on you as on them, and you’ll feel more as though you deserve the bum day that lies ahead. Second, only include folks either going to or coming from something terribly important. You’re so impressionable these days, and these are your only connections to the working world.

(Also, above: eat only round things for breakfast. Like the tandem, you’ll enjoy thinking of metaphors comparing your bagel to your life.)

Now, it’s important to have the next meal of the day lined up. This one’s easy, as everyone has a lunch break and your schedule is, big surprise, very open.

 

Friends! Document them to affirm their existence, and even try some backlighting – no one really needs to see faces anyway, it’s cool. As with breakfast, try to track down people with busy and important schedules: their accomplishments are now your accomplishments, and living vicariously is totally your jam.

Again with the canning: in efforts to save your dwindling dollars and appease your company, try making a delicious bag lunch. If possible, incorporate some vegetables. Scurvy sounds dreadful, and with your current diet of macaroni and cheese and encased meats, it’s also right around the corner.

 

After lunch, take a walk. Take a long walk, your new diet isn’t doing you any favors and you could use the Vitamin D – imperative for morale. If you’re really feeling ambitious, stop in at one of the many museums your delightful little city has to offer. Learn something new, then pat yourself on the back for maintaining such a cultured lifestyle.

Later, very casually and organically summon your friends to the second picnic of the day. Make sure it’s in a different park so you look like you’ve really “gone somewhere”.

Drink a beer, enjoy a snack or two and revel. You’ve had such a hard day of entertaining, maybe have 2 beers. Really relax, for once. Just take it easy already! It’s like you never stop and just take some time for yourself, you know? I don’t know how you do it, I really don’t.

 

Day Two: Talking Tactics

One great thing about having an eternity of time on your hands is really embracing those opportunities for self-improvement that you maybe never thought you’d care about. We’re talking domesticity, folks. Cooking, cleaning, organizing, laundering, showering – how will you ever score that sugar daddy (goal for next week, for rreeaaaalllls) if you can’t even roast a whole pig while simultaneously bleaching your whites and creating the perfect table-scape for that last minute dinner party you just agreed to? You won’t, that’s the answer here.

That said, start slow – no need to overdo it with this much time to fill. Today we’ve got jam on the brain, even more so than usual.

Step 1: Put some laundry in the wash. The key to being a prize-winning trophy mistress is multi-tasking (or so I hear, from my reputable sources).

Step 2: Pour a glass of wine. Not because you deserve it, but because day-drinking is now your forte, and you need practice.

Step 2: Strawberries: mash them.

(Note: buy a masher. A whisk will not do what you want it to, and then you’ll just get grumpy and quit and end up with lumpy jam – albeit not the worst plague of mankind)

Step 4: Add sugar and pectin mix. Pour into jars.

Step 5: Buy a bread product. I didn’t do this, so now I just have “lookin’ jam” and not “eatin’ jam”, the enjoyment of which is highly limited.

Step 6: Bask. Crucial step here! You just made one thing out of another thing, high-five yourself if you have to.

Step 7: Find something to do with the other 15 or so hours you’re awake.

Step 7.5: Watch this