Monday Cooking Diary, Pt. 1: Crock Pot, Talk Shows

Many of you may know that I am fairly new to eating mammal flesh. It's been about a year and a half now, and I have tried lots of things. But honestly I haven't cooked that many of them. So today I decided to take on beef stew. It's sort of perfect for the season, not just because it's getting chilly, but also because root vegetables are so delicious at this time of year. In a lot of ways stews are the perfect place for tubers because the other stew items lend the fleshy veggie chunks savory flavor. Reciprocally the starchiness of root veggies makes the stew thicker. My final inspiration was the fact that Josh has a crock pot (in the interest of full discourse, the crock pot belongs to his mother, he has been borrowing it since last winter).


Not to sound like a crazy TV advertisement but cooking with a crock pot is embarrassingly easy. Basically I bought a bunch of vegetables, some beef and a couple cans of Murphy's Irish Stout (I don't buy Irish stout in a bottle, it's not right). I chopped everything up and put it into the crock pot at two o'clock. It'll be ready around nine. I didn't even use a recipe!

This has left me with a lot of free time. I plan to make some kale (more on that later) but I don't need to start until eight-thirty or so. So I have basically spent the day in full domestic mode. I'm sure it would be ok to leave the crock pot a while, but it makes me nervous. An independent, heat-causing appliance left on while I leave the house??? Surely my father would climb through the phone lines from Boston to prevent such a mistake! So I have mopped, tidied, done dishes, done laundry and watched several daytime talk shows. Of course the hosts covered a variety of topics, but Ellen, through some bizarre cosmic synchronicity did a CROCK POT themed episode today! She was making some gross looking stuff like eight hour chicken breasts cooked in salsa. Which in turn makes me feel better about the delicious smells wafting from my kitchen. Yes, I think it will be alright. Look for an update later tonight!

*Did anyone catch the Tyra show today?? It was called "What's up down there?" and was awkwardly about gynecological health. I mean, has the Vagina Monologues done nothing in its eleven years of production? Does anyone want to learn about menstrual synchronicity and HPV from a woman so prone to dramatic facial expressions and self-involvement? It's embarrassing!