2001-07-19 - 6:19 p.m.
Last night�s self-taught cooking lesson was less stellar than the first, I must say. The main course was swordfish, and I must have underestimated how long it takes my stove to cook things because the steak was still sushi-like in the middle several minutes after it should have been done. A few seconds in the microwave fixed the problem, but of course it left the fish just a little bit rubbery. Not hockey-puck rubbery, but definitely chewier than it should have been.
Oh well, live and learn--at least it was edible. I highly recommend coating one side of the steak with finely chopped fresh garlic and a dash of black pepper before putting it on the grill, or in the pan, or wherever--your house will smell wonderful (if you love garlic, that is, and I do so you�re required to as well) for the next two days. Add some cold leftover pasta drizzled with spicy olive oil, some mango slices, and a glass or two of Pinot Grigio and you�ve got yourself a meal.
Teaching yourself to cook by trial and error is sort of like being the Iron Chef, the challenger and the stone-bitch food critic all at the same time. But I�m having fun doing it.
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So has anyone else gotten their "the check�s in the mail" tax-rebate notice from the IRS yet? It scared the hell out of me--anything official-looking from the IRS scares me--which was probably the intention. Someone high up in the administration is no doubt having wet dreams at the thought of millions of Americans opening that letter with trembling hands, reading the hilarious "all hail our Fearless Leader, George W. Bush--here�s 300 bucks" language, then falling to their knees with relief and gratitude that they can now pay their overdue gas and electric bills. How much of the taxpayers� money is being spent on these mailings proclaiming our liberation from Liberal Big Gummint anyway, I wonder?
If I were in Congress I wouldn�t have voted for the tax cut--our taxes are incredibly low compared with the rest of the industrialized world, particularly when you consider the sheer number of things we whiny Americans expect the government to do for us. These days, whenever I hear someone ranting about Big Gummint it makes me think of that scene in Life of Brian where the leader of the Judaean People�s Front (or is the the People�s Front of Judaea?) is all, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" and one person after another mentions the roads, the sanitation system, the aqueduct, and so on. We�re the only nation in the world that can order its rulers to give us things and then order them not to charge us.
But hey ... I�m just as greedy as the next guy and if somebody�s going to hand me three benjies who am I to say no? I haven�t decided how to spend it yet. I�m thinking I�ll give part of it to the Sierra Club, buy weed with part of it and spend the rest on new latex uniforms for my minions. Anything but gasoline or my electric bill.
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