Drunk Kitchen and Oodles of Trash

Last night was cray.  CRAY, I TELL YOU.  First of all, as I've mentioned before, Thursdays SUCK.  So hard.  My friend Shannon and I had a midterm at the end of that marathon day and afterwards we were like, fuck it-- it's time for drunk kitchen.  Because what's better than drinking and making breakfast for dinner after a long day of schlepping around at UVM?  Nothing, that's what.  So we scampered off to the Marche for breakfast materials and I ended up finding curly fries in the trash.  A great start to a great night of great food.

Curly fries, FTW!

Breakfast consisted of eggs with a smorgasbord of vegetables mixed in, along with toast and salsa.  The hunks of veggies were huge, but who has time to cut shit up when you're hungry and impatient?!  The concoction turned out wonderfully, which isn't surprising because breakfast is hard to mess up.  That's probably why I find myself eating it 3 meals a day.  Seriously.  Can't get enough uh' that brekkieeeee. 

Sidenote: They say the way to a man's heart is his stomach.  Well, the way to my heart is oatmeal.  Fo realz.  I could eat that goop every day for the rest of eternity.

This looks gooky and disgusting, but I assure you it wasn't gooky and disgusting when we ate it.

Drunk kitchen project #2: COOOOOKAYS!  But here's the problem: we ate most of the dough before even preheating the oven (typical).  SO.  Taylor kindly donated some cake mix she had lying around and we got creative.  We made cupcakes in those adorable crown thingies and then ate it with maple syrup.  That blobby thing in the pan is a base layer of the leftover cookie dough, cake mix layered on top of that, and then with a sprinkle of granola on top.  It was heavenly and I felt like throwing up afterwards.

Sidenote: Another way to my heart-- show me things in or on adorable other things.  Examples: cake in rubber crown cup thingies, people riding pygmy ponies, babies in animal costumes, crocheted stuff on smiley grandmas, etc.  Anyway.  Back to food.

And here's where the crazy starts.  LOOK AT ALL THAT STUFF FROM THE TRASH.  A cornucopia of wasted sustenance.  A plethora of unwanted goodness.  A superfluity of half-full snacks.  Since not everything is immediately visible in the picture, I'll list it all out for ya.

- Tortilla chips

- Sea salt and cracked pepper kettle cooked chips (FAVORITE)

- Family-sized box of Cheez-its

- Half a loaf of french bread

- 2 boxes of (opened) Annie's mac and cheese, but the cheese packet was unopened.

- Honey barbeque Frito twists.

- A box of glazed pop 'em donut holes

I kept the pasta and some of the bread (upon close inspection, there was a bit of mold starting, but a lot of slices were fine).  All the other stuff I left out in the kitchen for everyone to enjoy.  Just because you find stuff in the trash doesn't mean you're obligated to eat it.  There's sure to be someone else who will.

Leap Day Luck!

Happy Leap Day!  Happy Wednesday!  Happy 5th birthday, Megan and Allie!  Happy day full of free food!  Firstly, my dad and brother took a trip to good ol' Btown just to see my face and take me out for lunch.  Just kidding, my dad had a meeting and my brother was bored.  Typical.  But it was great to see them anyway!  We went to Denny's and had a typical Demars family-style meal involving picky eating, nonsense babble, and squabbling over non-consequential crap.  I had the veggie skillet, which looks like a big plop of bird poop on a pile of vegetables, but was actually quite good (read on for more about bird poop.... dun dun DUUNNNN.  Just wait).

Then, there was leftover chocolate, gluten-free cake in celebration of Allie's leap year birthday!  Speaking of chocolate though, I have an announcement to make:

I've given up chocolate for lent.  

I'm not religious, I just like the idea of trying to go without something that is part of a regular routine or way of life.  It's way harder than I anticipated.  I've fallen off the wagon twice-- once was unintentional (I mixed hot chocolate and coffee, like I usually do) and then tonight I (intentionally) had a spoonful of chocolate frosting because it was staring at me and who can say no to Betty Crocker?  But hey-- every day is a new one, and it's the effort that counts, so don't beat me up about it, kay?!

As for food found in the trash, I found a FANTASTIC salad.  Because I'm obsessed with finding the best quality food on campus, I know it's the cheddar/apple/walnut/craisin salad from Waterman Cafe-- which happens to be my salad of choice this week.  Most of the cheddar cheese squares and apples were picked out, but all the candied walnuts and craisins were still in there and there was no salad dressing, so... dream come true.

Okay, time for a random, non-food related story: a bird pooped on Mady's head today.  The end.  She thought it was hilarious and "lucky."  Weirdo. 

Beans EVERYWHERE.

It's 2 am.  You might be wondering why the heck I'm up so late...  And the answer to that question is: MEXIGLOP.  Most of tonight (i.e. 8 pm-present) has been spent eating bean dip/ cleaning up bean dip/ making bean puns.  Mexiglop is a (not so) secret family recipe that involves dumping ingredients into a pan and heating them up.  Easy enough for me not to screw up, but just barfy-looking enough for people to assume that I did screw up.  Please enjoy the following photo of my lovely roommate, Madeline, gettin' creative with the bean dip.

(Note: I did not find this mexiglop in the trash, and therefore it has no place in my blog, but I make the rules and I say beans are welcome any time.  Also, if this bean crap looks good to you, I'll gladly indulge the secret recipe because beans should not be kept secret.)

Anywhoozle! Now for the trashy stuff!  Found a half-full bag of puffy Cheetos in the kitchen trash.  I was too full on mexiglop to eat any of them, but tomorrow's a new day, folks.  Let's hope they're not stale or soggy!

It was an exciting day for the Health and Wellness dorm... there was a (ruined) surprise engagement party, which I regret not being able to attend (I was in beanland...).  On the upside though, there was a humongo cake that no one could finish, so someone hoisted it on up to floor 3 and said "let them eat cake!"  And we attacked it with vigor and reckless abandonment.  I must confess, I didn't actually eat any of the actual cake, but I did eat boatloads of the frosting, which is the best part because it's pure sugar.  A lot of people couldn't handle the amount of frosting stacked on top of that cake, but I can handle anything and therefore ended up eating way too much of it.  Oh, and no one actually said "let them eat cake," (including Marie Antoinette).

I wish I had taken a picture of the cake before it was demolished.  This was the sad little piece left at the end.  And then I swiped the frosting off of it.

Oh, and then this happened too.  Valentine's Day candy was on sale at the Marche for 50 cents, and I'm not one to pass up a disgusting bag of chalky hearts, so obviously I had to buy it.  They were terrible, as expected, as you can tell by this picture.  But with messages like "tweet me" and "U rock," I was sufficiently impressed.

Who in their right mind recycles a belt?!

It almost seems like there's a correlation between the amount/quality of food I find and the quality of day I'm having.  The worse my day gets, the more food I find.  Or maybe there's actually no correlation and it's just that when I'm having a less than thrilling day, finding food is more exciting.  Whatever the heck it is, it definitely brightened this dreary Monday.  I was having a "mondane" day.  Har har.

At approximately 11:30am, I looked at the exam review sheet for my healthcare ethics class and had a mini freakout.  And then I found a box of animal crackers.  With animal crackers in hand, I tackled that review sheet with the fierceness of a thousand honeybadgers, and for those who don't know, those things are fierce.  

Later on, I was on my way to the gym when I habitually glanced into the garbage and glimpsed the top of a Cheez-It box.  What little will power I have told me to keep walking, but of course that bit of will power failed and I grabbed the box.  FULL.  Opened, but FULL.  It's now sitting in the kitchen for all to share... take a stroll on over to my floor to partake in some Cheez-It eating, y'all!

And then, I found a skinny leather belt.  For some strange reason, it was in the recycling bin, which a) it shouldn't have been because it's a BELT, and b) I don't usually look in there, so this was a stroke of luck.  

People are dumbheads.  Why toss out a full box of Cheez-its?  Why not give them to someone who'd eat them?  Why throw away a belt?  And why throw it in the recycling bin?  Who taught that person to sort their trash?  This concerns me.  These are the questions that keep me awake at night.  Not really, but they do run through my mind whenever I find something that doesn't belong in the garbage.  Come on, guys, let's get it together.  

I think I just died.

Picture the most chocolatey delicious thing you can imagine.  Got it?  Okay, now multiply that by 50 and you might just begin to comprehend just how chocolatey and delicious I'm talkin'.

OREO AND PEANUT BUTTER STUFFED BROWNIES.  

2 stacked oreos with a layer of peanut butter between them and another layer on top, then baked within a brownie.  OM NOM.

Behold the layers of glory.  So much chocolatey goodness.  This is probably the most unhealthy food I think I've ever ingested.  And to that I say, WHATEVER.  If you're calorie-conscious enough to have the will power to say no to this, I'd actually feel bad for you.  You'd be missing out on quite possibly the most disgustingly delicious thing in the entire universe.


Kudos to Shannon and Dore for creating these beautiful works of art for Suzanne's birthday. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUZANNE!)

The Meaning of Life.

Fact: When life gets you down, just look in the trash and all your problems will be solved.

Supporting paragraph: Last night I found a bouquet of carnations in the trash.  Thursdays are my terrible class days where it's pretty much non-stop class from 10-7pm, so I'm always wiped out, brain dead, and not in the very best of moods when I get back to the dorms.  But finding a bouquet of flowers in the trash completely brightened the day.  Hallelujah for people who throw flowers away for seemingly no reason!  They're now in an empty tomato sauce jar I also found in the kitchen, brightening up the room.

You can just see the corner of the trash bin that I pulled these lovely flowers out from.  Aww.

Second supporting paragraph: I found a cannoli today.  Specifically, in a box from Mike's Pastry from the shop in Hanover, Boston.  There it was sitting right on top, with a huge intact cannoli inside.  I've never actually had a cannoli, so I don't know how they're supposed to taste, but I tried it anyway.  And it was yucky.  So I threw it away again.  But the point is, I came, I saw, I could've conquered, but chose not to. 

Conclusion: The kitchen garbage can is actually just a treasure chest of unwanted goodness set out to make me happy.  

The Tale of the Elusive Grapes

Well, I failed pretty hard today.  

There I was, on my way out of Waterman Cafe when I stopped to look in the trash, just out of habit.  I peered in, saw one of those to-go cups still half full of grapes, and was like, "YEAHHH!"  And then I looked up and there were a bunch of people staring at me because:

1) I had just screamed at the trash can.

2) My hand was still in the trash.

3) I happened to be wearing a garishly flower-patterned 50's style dress that makes me look like a school-marmish, box-shaped weirdo.  In fact, who let me outta the dorm wearing that thing?!  Sheesh.

So then, with everyone looking at me, my first instinct was to whip my hand out of the trash and run... which is pretty much what I did.  Sans grapes.  There was no way I was gonna reach back in and take that container now that the spotlight was on me.  

So, to summarize: didn't get any grapes, put myself in an awkward situation (as usual), and apparently got dressed in the dark this morning.  Awesome.