I didn't start watching LOST until we had an ice storm about a year and a half ago and I had nothing else to do. I raced through the first season and immediately started watching season five with my friends and filled in the gaps as quickly as possible in what spare time I had. Since then, LOST night has been an institution that usually involves a lot of heckling and homemade snack foods. Even though basically everyone in the free world (except for Shaun) agrees that the show has not achieved its former greatness in several years, the social traditions we've built around LOST have kept us watching. As you might expect, last night's two-and-a-half-hour series finale was a pretty big deal.
Now it seems like the whole internet is in an argument between people who love the finale, people who h8 the finale, and people who are flailing their arms around going, "WHAT? I DON'T UNDERSTAND!" For me, all the finale proved was that Unitarians have a lot more patience for these angsty bitches than I do. It was like being hit in the face with a stained glass version of this:
This wasn't SO surprising, but let's be real: LOST is totally Catholic. But not in the know-your-catechism, pious kind of way. (Mr. Eko was a testament to that.) It's Catholic in the drunk-on-guilt-and-maybe-liquor, apologetic kind of way, the kind of way that makes you hope it's Purgatory and continues to intrigue you even though you can't really explain why. And the details! There's so many that they could NEVER all be explained, and frankly, a lot of people prefer it that way.
Srsly.
So, I'm okay with the ending. I didn't love it, but let's face it, it could have been MUCH worse. If I had had my way, it would have ended like this:
And then Hurley and Lapidus would get high and laugh for two hours. And then Ben would say something extra creepy:
Anyway, we had snacks. Fish biscuits, fruit salsa and chocolate cake, all on white octagon Dharma-esque plates. Admittedly, the "fish biscuits" were more like this than this, but I love cheesy snack crackers, damn it.
The salsa is one of my favorites, too.
1/3 pineapple 1 large mango 1 orange 1/3 red onion a LOT of cilantro 1/2 tsp Marie Sharp's Grapefruit Pulp Habañero Hot Sauce (if you can't get Marie Sharp's, substitute regular habanero sauce and extra citrus)
The cake was dedicated to our LOSTbros' H8K8 Consortium, which is one of the most fun aspects of our group viewings. It bears repeating, however, that Evangeline Lilly, before playing Kate, starred in quite a few Live Links commercials.
To commemorate her acting history (because she has such a good acting face), I made this:
I relied heavily on fondant here, because I H8 it almost as much as I H8K8.
Anyway, here is the whole spread:
Here is Amy B displaying her intense K8H8:
And here's what I was wearing:
Dress: Carole Little Petites (part of an uber-90s skirt set stolen from Mom) Glitter belt: Found it...
Earrings: Vintage, inherited from Great-Grandma Irene
First of all, sorry things have been so slow around here, but finals week and the subsequent grade-a-thon chewed us up and spit us out, and now we're back. Although we focus on food and fashion, I like to think what sets this blog apart (aside from being at the mercy of the academic calendar) is a willingness to engage wholeheartedly with the lowbrow. Thus, this post is dedicated to that great staple of the school year's end, convenience food.*
Don't get me wrong: there are many, many delicious, cheap, and easy** meals out there, but I've tried to narrow it down to the most comforting, tried-and-true favorites. I suspect Laine and I might disagree on several of these. But as far as I'm concerned, these are the Top Ten Greatest Convenience Foods of the Modern Age.***
10) Michelina's Fettucine Alfredo
Okay, so it's not the best fettucine alfredo. But let's say you're in a hurry and you just want to eat something that is the perfect mix of comforting and maudlin--this is the appropriate dish. Make sure you put it in the microwave for a bit longer that the recommended cook time; this will ensure that the noodles are soft and that the edges are just golden brown and crunchy enough to be totally satisfying.
9) Smucker's Uncrustables (Grape)
You might be thinking "It's sort of pathetic to purchase frozen PBJ. How fucking lazy are you?!" The answer is totally lazy. And I'll have you know that it's deliciously pathetic. The beauty of these things is that you literally do nothing. You take them out of the freezer, put them into your bag, and by lunch time, they are room temperature. No sogginess, no gooey Ziploc bags--only tender, crustless magic that you can devour in four bites before the heinous student you have to meet with rushes into your office.
8) El Monterey Taquitos (Chicken & Cheese, Flour Tortillas)
I can't remember who the patron saint of drunk college girls is (St. Catherine of Alexandria? St. Jude?), but if ever there were a good offering, this is it. Apparently these taquitos have an Award Winning Taste! I believe it. A friend insisted that we get these one Saturday, and I acquiesced. Ever since, I occasionally crave these, and on those occasions, NOTHING ELSE WILL DO.
7) Maruchan Instant Lunch (Lime Chili Flavor with Shrimp)
So, it's cold outside, you have a stuffy nose, and you have seven pages to write before tomorrow? This little Styrofoam cup (with the addition of hot curry or cayenne pepper) will give you the strength to power through. It has the added bonus of costing less than thirty minutes of campus parking.
6) Red Baron Deep Dish Singles (4 Cheese)
These are awesome. They taste like what those personal pan pizzas from your high school cafeteria would taste like if your school was trying to piss off Jamie Oliver for being such a condescending little bitch by making the pizzas even more delicious.**** Put the little cooking tray on a plate, or your microwave will be covered in melted cheese. Delicious, delicious melted cheese.
For the singular hippie type. Surprisingly convincing as an adequate, tasty meal, as long as you put it on a plate.
4) Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup
Perhaps the most famous convenience food of all, and for good reason. Tomato soup and grilled cheese will never not make you feel better. Too lazy even to make grilled cheese? Throw a handful of Cheez-Its in your soup. Seriously, it's upsettingly amazing.
3) Morningstar Farms Chik Patties Original
Despite the truly horrible name, the conceptual offensiveness of imitation meat, and the alarmist horror of those who haven't Wikipedia'd hexane, these sandwich patties are truly delectable. Literally everyone I know, vegetarian or not, is totally thrilled whenever these appear at a cookout. They, too, have an Award Winning Taste.
2) Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese
I don't know why they even bother advertising. Everyone knows this shit is good.
1) Eggo Waffles (Homestyle)
As Tina would say, these are simply the best. When I was a little kid, my favorite part of the day was waking up at 5:30 AM, eating Eggo waffles, and watching Jemreruns with my dad. I even sent away for an Eggosaurus watch. When I was in junior high, we had to do this project for math class that involved gridding off the box from some kind of food product and making a larger scale model. That's right: I drew and colored an ENTIRE Eggo box, and I enjoyed every second of it. When I had to take the Little Rock city bus to work the summer after high school, I ran out the door every single day with two Eggo waffles slathered with Nutella and peanut butter and stuck together like a sandwich. Whenever I go home, I eat these for breakfast with vanilla yogurt and fresh berries on top. I guess what I'm trying to say, Eggo, is thanks for all the memories.
And for those of you who doubt the cultural importance of convenience foods, watch this:
*CAVEAT LECTOR:
I'm well aware that people all over the internet have rants about nutrition, environmental degradation, classiness, and the emotional importance of sharing good food with people you love. While these rants are often justifiable, I am going to admit that I simply cannot muster the energy to care at this time of year. For those that want to judge or tell me that these foods can't compare to their homemade versions (duh), I encourage you to take three classes, teach three, attempt to have a social life, nurse a questionably healthy addiction to putting one's hair in complicated updos, and THEN make me a damned paella. There's a good chance that there are humans who do this, but I'm willing to admit my inferiority to them and/or their robot taskmasters.
**I bet you thought I was going to say "your mom." But I won't, because it's Mothers' Day. Hi, Mom! <3
***It occurs to me that "convenience foods" is a pretty general category. For the purposes of this list, I've tried to make things comparable by limiting myself to things that are acceptable as a meal. Also, I'm not advocating that you try to subsist on these things; I'm just saying that if you are a consenting adult, you should be allowed to choose what you put in your body, including some bullshit from the microwave on occasion.
****I'm all for healthier foods in school cafeterias, and I'll leave blogging on food politics to Laine, who's better informed than I am. However, I'm convinced that it's possible to encourage positive change without resorting to namecalling and shaming tactics.
This past weekend, Laine and I celebrated our favorite holiday of all, APRILWEEN! Here to talk you through the festivities is our dear friend, first guest blogger, and hostessss with the mostessss, Amy B. Here's what she sent us:
Raspberry-blackberry Champagne punch
It all starts on my vacation to Portland, Oregon, on my way to the 24-Hour Church of Elvis.
I was wasting a few hours until a lunch date, and a strobe of pink and black caught my eye-- a Betsey Johnson boutique! I'd only touched a Betsey dress once at Dillard's, so to see a whole store of it, tangible and try-on-able, I was ecstatic. The saleslady was a little too good at her job, and when I told her I really didn't have a lot of money and was mostly day-dreaming, asked me if I had a camera so I could at least take away a picture of myself in my favorite dress.
The devil made me do it.
She brought me more dresses, some awesome rhinestone bow-tie shoes to try them on with, and kept things light, and an hour later I was leaving all of my spending money with her and taking two awesome dresses (on sale!) with me.
The problem with buying designer dresses is that 1) they need shoes and 2) someplace to wear them. I tried to remedy the situation while I was still in PDX, and bought a pair of vintage heels with silver/brown leaf applicques and small rhinestones. I haven't worn these yet, as they need some work done on the busted-out elastics.
Via some huge thrift shop on Division
When I got back home, I scoured eBay for a used pair of the shoes I'd worn at the store. Fail! I cannot find that pair anywhere, even on the Betsey site. I did a quick search on eBay and found something better-- silver pumps with a clear plastic upper. (Someone referred to these as stripper heels, but I think they're more like bridesmaid shoes.) I trotted to Hobby Lobby and found both sequined trim and shiny silver fabric, as well as some white lace ribbon to match the blue dress.
How to make a bow? I've been pretty averse to bows since I stopped wearing them in my hair, but Instructables had a pretty easy tutorial. The sequined trim looked too much like a clown accessory, so I stuck with the silver, white lace, and some red satin left over from a strange charity craft project. And voila!
Betsey Johnson knock-offs a la Hobby Lobby
Blue dress by Betsey Johnson and Lace shoes
Close-up on shoes
Cherry shoes!
You'll notice the over-sized cherry-- that is an Aprilween product. I had to wear my pink Betsey dress somewhere, so a party in my own home seemed a safe bet. Aprilween is a tradition beloved by my husband Justin and Sam King. A month warmer than October, this means no coats over your beautiful costume. So as not to eclipse the dress, I choose to simply adorn myself with a cherry hat and go as a cupcake (or a strawberry sundae, if you please). I made red satin bows for the bridesmaid shoes and did a simple papier-maché job on a balloon. Other materials included a coat hanger, electrical tape, red glitter and elastic. Also quite a few layers of decoupage.
From Portland, OR to Fayetteville, AR, it felt pretty perfect.
Pretty pretty please, with a cherry on top.
Dress: Betsey Johnson Shoes: Palovio with adornments by A. Brown Earrings: Forever 21 Hat: A. Brown
I am lucky to have friends who not only love costume parties, but the craft of costume-making and organizing. Case in point: the lovely Laine and Dolly of Purity and Danger put together a spot-on group costume of the cast of Heathers, including a whole set of croquet mallets, taper candle dynamite, lunchtime survey clipboard and two men in drag to complete the Heather triumvirate:
Veronica Sawyer and JD:
Heather Chandler:
Heather Duke :
Heather McNamara:
Laine and Dolly were also the perpetrators of the Being Sam Kingovitch birthday theme that ran parallel to Aprilween:
I also made Justin's costume, The Call Center of Cthulhu, which we came up with jointly. Three colors of green felt, two colors of embroidery and a little elastic:
and you get an Elder God who still doesn't know where to transfer your call:
As for food, I spent the majority of my time crafting costumes and putting up streamers. We hit up Aldi for some cheap salty and sweets, and broke out the punch bowl for some raspberry-champagne goodness. The only fancy thing was the trifle, brought by Laine and Dolly [Eds.--And prepared by our friend Andrew, who can make magical treats out of thin air!]
And muted streamers and balloons in honor of Sam King.
This past weekend, the guys and I watched Until the Light Takes Us, an awesome documentary about the aesthetics and infamy of Norwegian black metal. For those not in the know, this includes murders, church burnings, and making necklaces out of your dead friends. This includes, above all, being an EVIL MOTHERFUCKER (really NSFW, but crucial):
Okay, so not like that. But it IS equally exciting. I kind of wish I'd seen the movie before we planned our film series on identity performance, or I would have insisted on its inclusion. According to the elaborate mythology surrounding black metal, these guys are basically committing hate crimes, but it seems to be more out of an escalating game of one-upsmanship more than any strongly-held ideology. I don't know enough about the history of metal (Laine is much more knowledgeable on this subject) to give this much other context, but I assure you that the film is worth your time.
Immortal is one of the bands that, you know, didn't kill people. Although a few of their members have gotten in trouble after leaving the band, they (as far as I can tell) seem more involved in painting their faces than going around being dicks. Which brings us to Joel.
Today marks the birth of Freakin' Joel, my boyfriend's roommate and one of the most adorable people I know. To celebrate his existence, I made him a cake. Joel is fan of many things, but the three that spring to mind first are God, sandwiches, and metal. Of these, I thought the last would be the most fun to illustrate in confections. I've been wanting to try this tutorial for a while now, so I thought I would do my best at representing the guys of Immortal...
...in chocolate.
To achieve this, I melted three shades of chocolate (semisweet, semisweet+white, and white) and used them to trace a reversed version of the above image in three stages.
Here is the image, topped with parchment and taped to a clipboard:
Here is Stage 1:
While these were chilling in the freezer, I baked Joel's favorite, yellow cake. Then I moved on to Stage 2:
And after they'd had time to chill again, Stage 3:
While they were chilling one more time, I topped the cake with chocolate frosting, then made Shaun take pictures of my outfit. If you are going to bake a metal cake, it's important to wear attire that is practical and thematic. Here's what I picked:
Dress: Hand-made vintage
Socks: Xhilaration Shoes: Where via Urban Outfitters
I can only wear this dress so often, for obvious reasons.
No one really knows what kind of creature this is supposed to be...
...or why these pockets are here.
But, hey--take a look at these SHOES! For the first time, there is a pair that fit my (giant) feet and not Laine's.
I'm not trying to rub it in, but usually it's the TOTALLY HEARTBREAKING other way around.
And then, the unveiling/flipping/placing on the cake!
Not too bad for a first effort, eh?
If I had the time or inclination to do this over again, I would probably add more white chocolate to the midtone color, and I would try to figure out some way to prevent the bleeding that happened between colors here. Still, I'm pretty happy with the final results, and I think the birthday boy was, too.
and THEN being forced to endure Matthew Fox's crying face (© Claire Danes, 1994).
1/3 pineapple
Earrings: Vintage, inherited from Great-Grandma Irene
Shoes: Antonio Melani
Deuces.
Earrings: Vintage, inherited from Great-Grandma Irene
Shoes: Antonio Melani
Deuces.
