Beans on Buns

I need to figure out why Summit-anything in Greensboro is called “Summit.” I need to know the origins of such things! That knowledge is my life-force (or is it life-source?).

Oh, and my other motivation to make do every day is a good home-made veggie burger. Ok, not home-made, because though it seems like it would be easy enough, I’m not trying to make any anytime soon. I am still dealing with my cupcake-hangover.

I used to default to the burger section of menus at restaurants because I figured that there would be a veggie burger option. Soon enough, though, I got irritated by the fact that these “burgers” were most likely the Boca or Morningstar Farms variety. Sometimes, the restaurant would point out the brand with no shame. Alright, alright, there shan’t be any shame (oh my goodness I didn’t know that “shan’t” was a real contraction); the restaurant is just trying to cater to that set of customers, right? They gave us something! Um, yeah.

Well, if you do like I do and go to Five Guys and complain that even their grilled cheese sandwich is, um…not good…you really can’t complain. Some places just may not take the initiative to create dishes that are vegetarian or vegan. Now, one often enough finds dishes that happen to be vegetarian or vegan and are also pretty complex, even haute, or just plain great. Is that just being lucky?

Anyhow, before I depress myself too much, I know that what makes me happy is when I see that a restaurant has an in-house made veggie burger. Even if the restaurant used the same basic ingredients or flavors as a Morningstar or Boca mushroom or black bean burger that would be fine with me because those flavors ain’t that bad. Perhaps the worst thing about those frozen patties is just that—they’re patties. They are “veggie burgers” to be categorized with the other burgers on the menu. If we called it anything else, it would just be a sandwich, right? But, who makes sandwiches with patties that aren’t hamburgers? Oh, sure, there are chicken patties, yes, yes. Hmmm…can we just call it flavor-fun on a bun? Because, you know, all good sandwiches come on buns. Of course.

Last week I tried two, count ‘em, two veggie burgers of the house at The Summit Station and from Hogan’s Groovy Gourmet. Both were very different and very flavorful on non-competitive levels. The buns were different, the patty ingredients were different, and the toppings were different. Yes, even the veggie burger can have variety beyond “Grillers,” mushroom, and black bean.

The Pinto Burger at The Summit Station.

Can I have fries with that?

Oh, English.

I just Googled "football cupcakes" for some images to inspire me as I plan a Super Bowl menu for tomorrow. I was a bit confused/peeved that some of the first images were of little soccer balls on the cupcakes and it took me way to long to realize that, oh yeaaaah..."football."

*Sigh* Cupcake-inspiration-searching is serious, people! Every second counts!

Patronizing Greensboro

I'm finally going to go grocery shopping today for what seems like the first time in 2010! I've mostly been stopping in here and there to get one of three things: celery, powdered sugar, or Clif and Full bars.

What well-rounded meals!

In fact, I finally made my way to Harris Teeter this week and bought out the entire shelf stock of one brand of powdered sugar. This, folks, is apparently how I prepare for winter storms.

One of my resolutions--or, let's just say "goals" now--was to eat what I already had at home in the pantry and fridge. So far that's meant a lot of pasta and cupcakes, but, boy, it's been a fun, carbalicious ride.

That's also meant that I haven't eaten out a lot lately, which is great. My main problem was eating out for lunch during the work week. On the one hand, I felt bad for spending so much money on lunch every week that I didn't even realize until the 5 bucks here and 10 bucks there became too-many-bucks at the end of the month. On the other hand, I felt bad because I wanted to try out new restaurants in the area, try something new and pump some of my money into the local economy. I don't know how much my one lunch would help, but it made me feel good to think about patronizing an establishment.

Wow, "patronize" has a bad connotation.

Anyways, I have been craving some Greensboro eats forever but kudos to me for just saying "No!" Here is a list of some things that I yearn for and will at some point reward my self with. Try them out!

1. Salmon sushi and vegetable fried rice from Bamboo Grille.
2. Grilled cheese sandwich and house chips from Jay's Deli.
3. Caprese pasta at Vito's.
4. Vegetable boxty from M'Coul's.
5. Wildflower Witbier from Natty Greene's.

Ok, the last one isn't a food (but I love it) and, honestly, the first two from Bamboo Grille and Jay's Deli are the things I yearn for so much that it hurts.

Well, I'm saving money, really starting to appreciate the art of the grilled cheese sandwich (vegan fail) and "treating" myself to the above.

Oh, great. The Super Bowl is tomorrow. I gotta shop now! All the bean dip in Greensboro is gonna run out!

Good morning!

"La inflamacio'n de precio"

Estoy leyendo este articulo y al terminar esta frase, "Siete años después, las discográficas lloraban por un cambio en la política de precios, una que al menos les permitiese ajustar la inflación," you lei' la u'ltima palabra como "inflamacio'n." Que fuerte. haha At least I know that my vocabulary is that much bigger--cognate or not--and that I remember el vocabulario me'dico que aprendi'...*sigh* Pobrecitos.

¿Qué acento tengo?

I like to think that I make an extraordinary effort to not be lazy and speak foreign languages with my so-called "Valley girl" accent (I've lived on the East coast all my life, by the way).

Please take a moment to listen to a clip of me reading an excerpt from elmundo.es by Fran Marti'nez. Do I just sound like an American speaking Spanish? Am I on my way to sounding more like a hispanohablante de verdad? Let me know in my Comments section or @gsossa.

Here is the link to the article's text.
Here is the link to my reading of the article. (Sorry, I didn't know how to upload audio to the internet before posting this!)

Check out how I try to slip in some German pronunciation in "Brandenburgo." Ha! I crack myself up.

Oh, and please notify me of any other mistakes or oddities you hear. Well, I am reading from a Spanish-language newspaper so I hope there aren't any grammatical errors or anything like that!

Well, I believe I have the guttural down in German, pronounce the "gl" digraph in Italian with some ease, and I try to always stress the first syllable with Finnish words. I still have trouble rolling my "r"s with ease in Spanish which is funny because that is the language I have been learning the longest.

Since about...1998.

I didn't have any particular desire to start learning Spanish other than probably just trying to take the same foreign language class that I thought most people in my high school freshman class were taking. It was a bumpy ride at first but I became shockingly adept at picking up the language once I started my second, consecutive year in high school.

I suppose that my accent influence first came from Eros Ramazzotti. My second-year Spanish teacher played "La cosa mas bella" from his "Donde hay mu'sica" album and I instantly fell in love with the song. I bought the album as soon as possible. Years later, I picked up the Italian version of the album, "Dove c'e' musica." And, so, I came to realize that ol' Eros was un italiano de verdad; I soon wondered how his new accent was affecting mine.

I lived in a dorm all through undergrad and for the most part I lived with a roommate from Ecuador who was always speaking Spanish (often enough, by her suggestion/my request!). At the same time, I lived with a constant flow of international students who spoke many languages, nonetheless many types of Spanish. Though accent and vocabulary differences seemed the most obvious between los hispanohablantes de Espania y los hispanohablantes de every other country, I still realized through all of the chit-chat that there was no such thing as one kind of Spanish.

My method of learning has been a mishmash of strategies and serendipity and one must at some point in the process be happy that so many Spanish-language learning materials--from a local Spanish-language newspaper to a grammar workbooks--are available. All politics aside, they're there, so take advantage if you can!

Thanks!

Though I love a good alphabet...

In case you ever follow me to the letter...via this blog or elsewhere...just know that if I ever make a spelling mistake and catch it later, I explode with shame. Yes, I depend on spellcheck programs when available (in fact, right now, I am being told by a low-key red underline that "spellcheck" is not one word...*sigh*). But, of course, spell-check-ers don't always catch what you mean to say. You meant "cup?" Well, you just typed "up" and that's a real word in my book! Doesn't make sense in your sentence? Too bad!

Many of us have already giggled in self-righteous/self-loathing judgment at The Oatmeal's Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling. Well, I honestly make some of those mistakes in typing but mostly because I decided to not take Keyboarding in middle school. Future of technology FAIL.

I have more personal writing/typing snafus that always irk me but, hey, they make me me, right? Perhaps. Or, they just make me a reckless writer.

Ok, and so here are my usual mistakes:
--When typing a word that ends with the letters "th," like "bath," I type an "e" at the end of the word because I think I am in the process of writing "the."
--When I write by hand (which is increasingly awkward and hasty because I do it less and less it seems), I usually cross the "l"s or "h"s instead if the "t"s in a word that contains those letters.
--I don't dot my "i"s or "j"s.
--Sometimes, I don't even attempt to cross my "t"s.
--I almost ALWAYS type the word "just" as "jsut". Christ almighty, that is a pet peeve I've inflicted on myself.
--When connected letters like "m"s, "n"s, and "u"s in handwriting...I usually just let them all run together and the word just ends up looking like the loopty-loop scribble I used to think cursive looked like when I was in first or second grade.

For shame.

Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, I totally overuse the ellipsis but that's a punctuation thing.

Speaking of me and punctuation...

I should really consult a physician first. #snomg!

Well, since it's snowing like a mother here in Greensboro, I'm cooped up in la casa, and January is winding down, I might as well try to rush some fake intent to jump on the bandwagon and set goals for the cosmopolitan New Year's resolution of losing weight.

Oops, I mean "getting healthy." Whatever.

Ok, and no goal-setting here. I have tweaked my lifestyle-eating this month but I think it had less to do with planning and more to do with "just doing it." Ew, I just gerund-ed a Nike ad.

So far, I have rediscovered Clif Bars and discovered those Full Bars. They are great meal replacements for me and my day-to-day life though I know you can't live on those. Those I'm pretty sure you can.

I also rediscovered celery. I didn't realize how much I liked it. I always describe it as "salty" but it's probably more like "earthy." In any case, it's cheap, crunchy, and potentially versatile though I've pretty much stuck with the celery sticks for dipping thang. But, I make it fancy: I slice them up thin and serve my buttermilk ranch dip in a shot glass for portion control (vegan fail, but since that bottle or ranch ran out, I've stuck with peanut butter).

Well, yesterday night I was about to break up with celery sticks when I thought, Hey, what else can I do with you? How can I change you. This relationship is all about me.

I Googled "celery soup." (Side note: Writing that sentence just made me equate "Google" with "buscar" to mean "to search for." Qué fuerte.) I hoped, hoped, hoped that the search results wouldn't ooze diet/fast/hunger plans (which I've done since Googled) and to my sweet surprise, I found a wealth of hot and hearty sounding celery recipes. Damn, I didn't know there was such a thing as celery soup.

Anywho (not a typo), this was at around way-too-late-o'clock at night so I wasn't going to make a batch anyhow, but I starting getting frustrated/sad because most recipes simple and complex all called for chopped onion. I ain't got no onion in this house! And, guess what? Jack Frost just crashed the party so I'm not driving anywhere soon (though we've got that tease of a new Food Lion in the neighborhood).

Well, I've come up with a solution and I hope procrastination doesn't get the best of me today so I actually carry out this solution of mine. I mean, I'm snowed in, right? What else am I gonna do? Not eat and instead read my spankin' new copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma? That's like when I wouldn't eat for hours as I drooled over Food Network shows. Back when I had cable. I'm that post-college poor now.

Anyways, back to my solution. I have this lifesaver, as I call it. It's a bag of frozen mixed veggies and such with pearl onions (yay! onions!), chopped celery, sliced carrots, and diced potatoes. Can we say hearty?! I had been using these bags before (less than $3 at Wal-Mart, Pictsweet brand, unabashedly capitalistic) to have me some roasted vegetables. Yuuuuum. I am more comfortable now with tweaking recipes or letting my imagination figure out substitutions. I am no chef and I feel like I don't have that skill to create recipes on purpose, so I stick with by-the-book for the most part. Laaaame. So, with the inspiration from the many recipes I found that weren't diet/fast/hunger recipes of celery and water, I figured that I could cook the veggies one way or another, blend them 'til smooth, then cook again? Whatever. I guess I'm into the whole experimenting with food although it (1) makes me feel like I'm wasting food and ignoring world hunger issues and (2)produces dirty dishes galore--sadface.

This reminds me of back in the day when my family first moved to NC. We were caught up in a hurricane-ish type thing (yay for my bachelor's in Geography!) that insisted that you don't leave your house. Power went in and out but I that didn't matter because I was too caught up in the genius creation I made for everyone to eat from whatever we had left in the house. It was some kind of English muffin/hardboiled egg/relish/something-else sandwich. I individually wrapped them in foil and created a mountain of them in the fridge for everyone's ease. I was way too impressed with myself with all that.

My New Year's resolutions, if we are to call them that, are a mish mash of things that are just really connected. I wanted to spend less money on eating out for lunch everyday (which usually just consisted of me picking something up at the Friendly HT, or as some call, the Taj MaTeeter or Gucci Teeter for all you non-locals). I wanted to use up everything in my pantry and fridge, donate some, or throw some out if necessary. I sort of got in the habit of buying cans and cans of stuff when they were on sale for 3/$5 or whatever and so now I must use my imagination to utilize many cans on peaches in their own juice (though my attempts at a vegan peach pie with these peaches didn't come out right) and one can of organic jellied cranberry sauce. Random.

Well, I've got my bag o' Pictsweet veggies, some plain soymilk, oil and that should be the base of some awesome soup. I hope it's surprisingly awesome. I'll make it aaaaall the time then!

I heart celery.