Sunday 11 October 2009

Yam, bam, thank-you ma-am...

I love the holidays!

Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, all those fun little holly days in between. Not for their religious value of course, not for the child-like intrinsic quality these holidays bring,
but because I
like
to
Feed
people.

And not just a meal either, not just a feast, not just a Gourmet feast, but something more like a Big-Yummy-Little-Old-Ukrainian-Grandmother-Style-Stuff-You-Til-You-Puke-And-Then-Make-You-Another-Plate-And-Complain-About-How-Skinny-You-Look Gourmet Feast.

I like to cook. lots.

So, I'm on the web this morning looking for side dishes to make, cuz wouldn't you know, I don't think that Turkey, Ham, Chorizo stuffing, mashed taters, broccoli and cauliflower bake, Red pepper salad, corn muffins, cinnamon buns, 2 kinds of pie, and homemade breadsticks and buns are going to be enough. Plus, I totally forgot about Yams! My poor little tubers! Now how could I do such a thing?

So I look up the fated tuber, and up pops all these icky sweet desserty thing to do with yams. Really? eww. candied yams? Saw a picture and it looked like upchucked peach slices. yuck. Baked in a pie? with marshmallows?
I remember a friend tried to do that once for a dinner I went to , but he was poor and didn't have marshmallows, but amazingly enough had marshmallow topping, and he wasn't really a good cook either, cuz the crust was burnt, and the eggs had separated from the yam mixture so there was hard baked egg bits in it, and he put the topping on after baking the pie, and cuz the pie was still hot the marshmallow topping started melting and it looked like somebody sneezed on the pie, but that's not the real reason I have a substantial fear of cooking with yams, nope...

Anyways, I thought that the sweet desserty thing was the sweet potatoes job. What? they're the same thing? No... really? You wouldn't believe how many recipes I found where the chef thought it was the same thing! you probably wouldn't even care!

Well I looked it up, cuz I was Really Confused. and No. For all you fantastic would-be chefs out there, The Sweet Potato, and the Yam are two completely different tubers.
Idiots.

So I spent the next hour or so reading up on why these two tubers are so different, how a yam is actually naturally sweeter than a sweet potato, and how yams are actually tropical, and can grow to be 7 feet tall (takes a backhoe to get it out of the damn ground), and all about the amazing health benefits of each tuber, (I Really like the word Tuber), and where the word Yam even comes from (for all you geeks, it's from the african term njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat,". who knew?)

and basically wasted my morning without finding a single recipe to cure my side dish blues.
well...

Wednesday 8 July 2009

whoa!! long time!!!

hokay...
HI!.....
it's been a long time....
how's it going?
yeah, yeah me too. really busy.
no time really to even scratch my ass or pick my nose.
yep.
busy.
that's me.

uh-huh.
eeyeeahh......
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Okay, okay, I lied, I've been doing nothing but scratching my ass and/or picking my nose, but I can explain.

I was, at one point,*insert dramatic sigh* too poor for internet.*insert 'pity me' sob*


Okay, okay, that's a lie too, I'm obviously rolling in the "dough", but really I'm sure if you're patient enough with me, I can come up with some kind of excuse you can be happy with, just hold on.

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nope, nothing. oh well.