Liter O' Kefir Lunch

Liter is French for give me some fuckin' kefir!

I've been pounding liters of kefir for my lunch for the past week or so as part of my diet. My record is 27 seconds. What's your record?

Vegetarianism One Month at a Time

I missed Thanksgiving this year, so here's the post from last year I've been sitting on forever.

Thanksgiving: sixteen pounds of turkey, five pounds of pork (in the sausage stuffing), and a pound or so of bacon bits in the potato salad. Although we had a few guests, we had all the leftovers to ourselves. Now that's what I call a meat orgy.

Now what do people do the morning after an orgy? Bang, again? No, they just leave to go home without looking too many people in the eye. So I figured it should be after a meat orgy: let's try living without meat for a month.

Rules: no new meat from November 27th until Christmas Eve. I would have said Christmas but the Christmas Eve fish counts. I decided to go all out (Moacir) instead of vegetarian light (Ed). However, the exception (and it's a big exception) is that I could still eat old meat, such as the leftovers from Thanksgiving. But this is reasonable: I figure, okay, so you become a vegetarian--that doesn't mean you toss all the meat you already own, right? I abhor food waste. But besides this one exception I was determined to make no others, particularly regarding eating out, so that I would get a real glimpse of what a few of my friends live like.

Those leftovers kept me meated up for a good week...you wouldn't believe how much stuffing you just keep finding in the bird, it's like it's multiplying! This was very lucky, because I could bring turkey sandwiches to work each day. The cafeteria where I work is not the most vegetarian friendly place around ("Excuse me, is there any meat in this vegetable soup?" "Of course there is, how can you have soup with no meat?!").

My first incident came on Friday: I was invited to lunch with a group of education experts visiting us from around Europe. Usually I'm happy to get a free lunch, and usually I enjoy sticking out, but this is a serious crowd. I ate my salad being careful to scrape all the crab meat to the side of my plate. That was no biggie, but I knew they'd be serving meat as the entrée (How can you have lunch with no meat?). They did. But one of the experts who is Lithuanian pointed out that our French guest doesn't eat meat, and I was able to slip in with "Neither do I!" Phew. So everybody began eating his meat while they went back to the kitchen to make us crepes, naturally, it would get cold. They were about done eating when I said to my French colleague, "These are gonna be some great crepes!" We all laughed, but is this really the life of a vegetarian? Sometimes, when a lunch is poorly organized, you have to wait while everybody else is eating? That sucks.

My next incident came that very evening. I wrote it up here. I wonder if real vegetarians are ever caught so off guard.

The next week I went to a seminar that was better organized: the coordinator asked everybody ahead of time about dietary restrictions. She thought I was joking when I said no meat. How about fish, she asked. No, fish is meat I said, it's just poor man's meat. One of the seminar participants knew me from my old job in Klaipeda. When she went into the lunch room and and saw the styrophome box seperate from all the
normalother food, she said, "Somebody's a vegetarian? It's probably Aras." She said it in a positive way, so I was happy to get this unexpected compliment.

Incidentally, I later asked her why she jumped to that conclusion. Turns out she remembers once at college when I tried this diet where I order kefir and vegetables for lunch, put them in a blender I brought from home, and gag it all down. I remember it as gross, but she remembers it as innovative and unusual (like vegetarianism).

My next incident came when I got the reminder about the upcoming Gentlemen's Dinner that takes place every 6 weeks. Here's my email reply to Alex, who organizes them:

During the meat orgy we call Thanksgiving, I decided to try eating less meat over the following month--as a challenge. A sort of vegetarian light--no new meat purchases: I still ate the leftover from the holiday, those lasted almost a week, and I can eat meat from the freezer. The purpose isn't weight loss, but my pants do feel a little looser after two weeks.

It's going quite well sociologically also. I've had several interesting/uncomfortable experiences of having to say "Oh, sorry, I won't be able to eat that," and I've made good friends with my Vegetables cook book and the vegetable chapters in several volumes.

And then I got your reminder. First I thought, "Oh nice!" and then I thought "Oh crap! Well actually, this will be another interesting vegetarian experience...eating around the meat with a bunch of people all enjoying the same thing except for me...but shit, 100 lits is alot of money even with the meat, can I afford to drop that just for a little anomie? Wait a second...I RSVPed to this before Thanksgiving, so maybe this counts as food from the freezer...yes, sure it does, food from the freezer. I'm going!"

The last incident was my office's Christmas party. We went to Bravaria, which I organized. I organized it based on the beer, not the food, which turned out to be a mistake. When I asked her to show me the vegetarian entrées, the waitress told me, "Uhm, not really, take a look at the salads." And voilá! There was indeed one salad without meat in it. Is this the life of a vegetarian, choosing from a menu with one vegetarian item on it?

The incidents would have been far more if I hadn't avoided eating out. It seemed like too much hassle, and as I said to Alex, I'm not going to pay restaurant prices for something with no meat! Furthermore, Gedas once undertook a study that proved that vegetarian dishes are significantly more expensive than meat dishes at Lithuanian restaurants.

Besides these incidents, there was one fun aspect of the meat-free month, as I mentioned in my email to Alex: I spent much more time than usual with my Vegetables and other cook books. One recipe that is definitely here to stay is Ratatouille. Man, how can it be so good with no meat?? Fried eggplant sandwiches, too, so I guess eggplant is the big winner here.

The other upside of this month was that it gave me an excuse I always welcome: an excuse to make myself a BBQ Bacon Explosion for Christmas!

Have Diarrhea, Will Travel

Or, ‎"From each according to his ability to give a shit"

Or, ‎"Dos and Don'ts of a Trip to China"

• Don't drink the water, even from water coolers, even at classy hotels: they fill them up from the hose, I saw them at it, and I spent my last four days there running to the john
• Do get the Chinese medicine when you get diarrhea; it won't cure you, but it's so cheap, you'd be stupid not to buy it!
• Don't bother bringing booze: their local ~90 proof liquor is cheaper than western brand name bottled water, and if you like, it comes in gallon jugs.
• Do BYOB if you don't like liquorice, that's what they flavor their stuff with.
• Don't expect anybody to speak (or admit to speaking) much English, even in four star hotels.
• Do make sure taxi drivers turn on the meter, unless you like having incoherent bilingual arguments
• Don't expect anybody to care outside of the markets: the only place anybody cares what you have to say is the place they get your cash direct; hotels, restaurants, shops, all the places where employees get paid by someone other than you will have the worst customer service ever

Incidentally, I was in China summer of 2011. I just found this draft lying around my blog post draft box now. 

More Success than Not (though it was close)

This weekend we threw our first warm weather party of the year. Things quicky got, not exactly out of control, but you might say the control was sub par. This was in large part due to the arrival of Donatas and Giedre first. Donatas had some very tasty moon shine, man it was good.

• Success: drinking tasty moonshine.

I mean, this was so good I couldn't believe some farmer made it in the woods. It was easily better than cheap whiskey, which is what it tasted most similar to. However, this led to us going through it pretty quickly, which led to lowered hand-eye coordination and time sense for both of us. That was particular detrimental to our Beirut game because partners were chosen randomly and Donatas and I ended up together.

• Unsuccess: losing the first 2 games of Beirut.

First Gvidas and Linas beat us, finishing with two bounced balls which both made it when we had exactly four cups left. Why didn't we block them? I tried, and I almost got one, but I was distracted by Donatas's absence! I realized at the last moment that I have to block both and ended up knocking in the one I almost blocked and letting the other one bounce in too. Where was he? Ten feet away doing something.

While we were getting the grill going my special lady came over and said something, and I replied with a really hilarious remark, a perfectly cued and timed "that's what she said" style remark.

• Success: making a hilarious a joke.

It was so funny that Linas, Paulius, and I then talked about how none of us could believe I came up with it so rapidly, instantly really. It was like I was born to make that joke even though I didin't know it. What was that joke, exactly?

• Unsuccess: forgetting all the funny jokes you made last night.

I talked about it with Linas the next day, neither of us could remember.

Then came the meat. I'd prepared chicken wings and a pork loin, which I was precooking in the oven. I wasn't confident that it'd cook through on the grill. We got everything going and put on my wings, and the sausages, burgers, and two steaks that Linas and Paulius had brought. All that stuff took up the whole grill, so the pork loin had to wait. But when it came off it was delicious.

• Success: eating delicious barbequed food.

I told the men to get some more embers going for the pork loin. When I went inside I found that it was already completely cooked.

• Unsuccess x 2: losing track of time and burning too much wood.

I pretended this wasn't true, though, and I put it on the grill for a couple mintes. Then, Voilà , it's done! We ate all the food with my homemade barbeque sauces.

• Success x 2: making delicious barbeque sauces, plus my spicy whiskey one was better than the non-spicy brandy one I made fore my special lady.

Everybody loves a good sauce, right? Spice rules! Whiskey beats brandy every time!

Then Donatas and I took on Egle and Gvidas for another round of Beirut. Egle is one of the best players around, so they should have beat us for sure if Gvidas and Linas had beaten us. But no, we prevailed! I don't think I sunk all ten cups by myself, but I did sink the first six at least.

• Success: redeeming yourself at the Beirut table.

However, Donatas was so happy he gave me a high five that I can still feel on my hand four days later.

• Unsuccess: hurting your Beirut partner.

Then it was time to mellow out. Because women love to have their girl-time, the men decided to leave them be and went out to the beer barrel down the street for a drink. We are aware that ladies need time in person to talk about their ovulations and shopping plans, and we don't mind accommodating them.

• Success x 3: drinking and winning at cards while accommodating your special lady

Apparently, we may have overestimated the amount of girl-time that could be spent productively. Actually, what is more likely is that we underestimated how long we spent out. But, really, what is most likely is they my special lady, Asta, Giedre, and Egle overestimated how long we spent out and convinced each other we must have done it because we're inconsiderate—which you know is the opposite of the truth if you've been paying any attention at all. It was a classic example of groupthink, unfortunately not an atypical result of girl-time.

• Unsuccess: upsetting your special lady.

Sunday we still had a couple guests over, so we figured the best way to get through the dry pork loin was with sandwiches. I baked two loaves of beer bread with left over beer and 24 onion mustard rolls.

• Success: baking delicious food.

Four adults, one child, and one toddler managed to eat all the rolls and one of the loaves of bread in one day. It was a fun day.

• Successes: bearing mention too, we fired up the sauna and had a good time in there, went swimming both days, and got rather toasty in the sun on Sunday.

Sunday is my daughter's favorite day (because it's so sunny, unlike Windsday).

Vegetarianism One Month at a Time

Thanksgiving: sixteen pounds of turkey, five pounds of pork (in the sausage stuffing), and a pound or so of bacon bits in the potato salad. Although we had a few guests, we had all the leftovers to ourselves. Now that's what I call a meat orgy.

Now what do people do the morning after an orgy? Bang, again? No, they just leave to go home without looking too many people in the eye. So I figured it should be after a meat orgy: let's try living without meat for a month.

Rules: no new meat from November 27th until Christmas Eve. I would have said Christmas but the Christmas Eve fish counts. I decided to go all out (Moacir) instead of pesco-vegetarian (Ed). However, the exception (and it's a big exception) is that I could still eat old meat, such as the leftovers from Thanksgiving. But this is reasonable: I figure, okay, so you become a vegetarian--that doesn't mean you toss all the meat you already own, right? I abhor food waste. But besides this one exception I was determined to make no others, particularly regarding eating out, so that I would get a real glimpse of what a few of my friends live like.

Those leftovers kept me meated up for a good week...you wouldn't believe how much stuffing you just keep finding in the bird, it's like it's multiplying! This was very lucky, because I could bring turkey sandwiches to work each day. The cafeteria where I work is not the most vegetarian friendly place around ("Excuse me, is there any meat in this vegetable soup?" "Of course there is, how can you have soup with no meat?!").

My first incident came on Friday: I was invited to lunch with a group of education experts visiting us from around Europe. Usually I'm happy to get a free lunch, and usually I enjoy sticking out, but this is a serious crowd. I ate my salad being careful to scrape all the crab meat to the side of my plate. That was no biggie, but I knew they'd be serving meat as the entrée (How can you have lunch with no meat?). They did. But one of the experts who is Lithuanian pointed out that our French guest doesn't eat meat, and I was able to slip in with "Neither do I!" Phew. So, naturally, everybody began eating his meat while they went back to the kitchen to make us crepes; otherwise, their food would get cold. They were about done eating when I said to my French colleague, "These are gonna be some great crepes!" We all laughed, but is this really the life of a vegetarian? Sometimes, when a lunch is poorly organized, you have to wait while everybody else is eating? That sucks.

My next incident came that very evening. I wrote it up here. I wonder if real vegetarians are ever caught so off guard.

The next week I went to a seminar that was better organized: the coordinator asked everybody ahead of time about dietary restrictions. She thought I was joking when I said no meat. How about fish, she asked. No, fish is meat I said, it's just poor man's meat. One of the seminar participants knew me from my old job in Klaipeda. When she went into the lunch room and and saw the styrophome box seperate from all the normal other food, she said, "Somebody's a vegetarian? It's probably Aras." She said it in a positive way, so I was happy to get this unexpected compliment.

Incidentally, I later asked her why she jumped to that conclusion. Turns out she remembers once at college when I tried this diet where I order kefir and vegetables including tomatoes, beets, and cabbage for lunch, put them in a blender I brought from home, and gag the cocktail down. I remember it as gross, but she remembers it as innovative and unusual (like vegetarianism).

My next incident came when I got the reminder about the upcoming Gentlemen's Dinner that takes place every 6 weeks. Here's my email reply to Alex, who organizes them:

During the meat orgy we call Thanksgiving, I decided to try eating less meat over the following month--as a challenge. A sort of vegetarian light--no new meat purchases: I still ate the leftover from the holiday, those lasted almost a week, and I can eat meat from the freezer. The purpose isn't weight loss, but my pants do feel a little looser after two weeks.

It's going quite well sociologically also. I've had several interesting/uncomfortable experiences of having to say "Oh, sorry, I won't be able to eat that," and I've made good friends with my Vegetables cook book and the vegetable chapters in several volumes.

And then I got your reminder. First I thought, "Oh nice!" and then I thought "Oh crap! Well actually, this will be another interesting vegetarian experience...eating around the meat with a bunch of people all enjoying the same thing except for me...but shit, 100 lits is alot of money even with the meat, can I afford to drop that just for a little anomie? Wait a second...I RSVPed to this before Thanksgiving, so maybe this counts as food from the freezer...yes, sure it does, food from the freezer. I'm going!"

The last incident was my office's Christmas party. We went to Bravaria, which I organized. I chose it based on the beer, not the food, which turned out to be a mistake. When I asked her to show me the vegetarian entrées, the waitress told me, "Uhm, not really, we don't make those. Take a look at the salads." And voilá! There was indeed one salad without meat in it. Is this the life of a vegetarian?

Now, at this point, if you're vegetarian, you may be thinking, just go to vegetarian restaurants. Well guess what, vegetarian restaurants are few and of dubious quality, at least in Vilnius. I remember how anxious Ed was about the fate of the Lebanese place on Traku; it's one of the good ones.

The incidents would have been far more if I hadn't avoided eating out. It seemed like too much hassle, and as I said to Alex, I'm not going to pay restaurant prices for something with no meat! Furthermore, Gedas once undertook a study that proved that vegetarian dishes are significantly more expensive than meat dishes at Lithuanian restaurants.

Besides these incidents, there was one fun aspect of the meat-free month, as I mentioned in my email to Alex: I spent much more time than usual with my Vegetables and other cook books. One recipe that is definitely here to stay is Ratatouille. Man, how can it be so good with no meat? Fried eggplant sandwiches, too, so I guess eggplant is the big winner here. Also Old Maids, which are pretty similar to English muffins.

The other upside of this month was that it gave me an excuse I always welcome: an excuse to make myself a BBQ Bacon Explosion for Christmas!

Misadventure to the Beer Store

Stupid bus.

I stayed late at work Friday, till after six. I was supposed to meet somebody, but plans changed, so I went to catch the 6:15 #50 bus, which was lucky because it's the only bus I can take and it only runs every 45 or so.

I was out there by 6:10, because the Stupid #50 Bus has a propensity for earliness. Technically the bus schedule should be read +/- 3 minutes, but the #50 has no regard for punctuality, or the lives ruined by leaving bus stops without the people they should be carrying. At 6:25 I gave up waiting.

Instead of waiting a half hour for the next bus, I decided to hike to the beer store--make the most of my time, do something productive. It's not that far from work, fifteen minutes in the snow, but I wouldn't normally go after work because I'm always in a rush to get home. The beer store is a place that sells micro-brewed beer from the tap--it's the only Lithuanian beer I'll buy besides Gubernijos, and it's very good but also cheap: great combo!

I slip on the ice a few times on the way, without falling but with some strain on my left quadricep. The beer store is in a large shopping complex including a mall surrounded by other smaller buildings each with one or more shops or service business.

I'd never come from that direction so I wasn't sure if I was at the right place--there was no beer store. I called my special lady to ask, because the one time we'd been to this location together she was driving. I'm just not finding it, she thought. But no, asking around got me the truth: the beer store has moved about 80 meters to a different location. Where is it, exactly? Nobody can tell me. The information booth in the mall is closed. But I've come too far now to quit, so I just keep wandering around in the dark asking people if they know.

My special lady gave me the administrative phone number from the beer store website, which is supposed to operate 24/7. No answer. I talked to Auriukas, who lives close to there, but he just new that they'd moved not far and "on the same side." Hmm.

Finally I went into a farmers marker. There were a just a few vendors left. I went up to a booth with a woman and her son and asked them. "Yes," she said, "they're new location is right over there," she pointed, "but they haven't opened yet, they're still just moving in." Ugh. When the woman offered me some kvass instead I felt too defeated to say no. Then she offered me some bacon, and I ate two pieces before realizing that I'm a vegetarian this month. Oops. I felt bad for not living up to Ed and Moacir better--but, really, wouldn't you be caught off guard if somebody randomly offered you some bacon in that situation?! It's only my second active day of vegetarianism.

After that I walk to the closest bus stop and am pleased that the #50 bus is about to come. Five minutes later I give up waiting for it yet again. Stupid bus.

Thanks Time

As always we celebrated Thanksgiving on the Saturday following the holiday. That week I gave all of my students articles to read about the objectivist perspective on it.

We decided to do a smaller, more family oriented celebration this year, which we soon realized was a mistake when we couldn't invite everyone we wanted to. But everything was delicious:

• 16 lb. Turkey, freshly slaughtered and kefir marinated
• Gravy
• Cream of Pumpkin Soup
• Potato Dinner Rolls from my McCall's cookbook
• Roasted Carrots with Whiskey Glaze
• Sausage Stuffing
• Guacamole and fresh vegetables
• Potato and Bacon Salad
• Sauerkraut Rye Bread
• Fresh Pumpkin Pie 1 normal, 1 with whiskey mixed in
• Fresh Pumpkin Cake

The pumpkin cake was unplanned. I made two pies, but that only used up about two thirds of the batter! To use up the rest of the batter without a pie crust to pour it into I mixed in some flour and baking power, tossed in some walnuts, and baked it. It turned out really well, and it stayed moist for a whole week as I took a piece to work with my lunch each day.

The turkey was succulent. I'll be marinating it this way from now on.

The stuffing was the best part of the meal, as always. Well, maybe the gravy was better, but when combined they were unstoppable.

After dinner we played Oh Hell a couple times, then Octopus, then Tūkstantis, then we hit the sauna and the pool. The pool was frozen, so we went polar bear style. I'm not sure how it happened, but after jumping into the hole in the ice I had some scrapes on my legs. Very fun night!

Did George Carlin dress up as a fat old druid woman and get a job at Maxima?

The water coolers at my new workplace are in interesting places: inside the offices of people you shouldn't bother, certainly not for water. Therefore, every Monday I walk to a grocery store during my lunch break and buy a five liter jug of cheap water to drink throughout the week.

Today I had an interesting time. It began as every other: I walk in, see how many people are in line at each register: three or four. I decide to leave, turn around, take two steps, then change my mind. I need water, and I can just play backgammon on my phone while I wait in line.

I find my water, five liters for 2.25 lits. Did you know there's no symbol for lits? No $, no €, no £, no ¥: we are a nation whose currency has no face, merely a name. Anyways, I find my water, and resist all urges to buy food: I already have some food, left over fried chicken from last night, a drumstick and a thigh, and half a large cucumber. I get in line.

When I get up to the register I have this conversation:

"Just the water?"

"Yup."

"Coulda brought some from home. "

"What?"

"If you just brought some water from home you wouldn't need to buy any."

"Um...yeah. I guess. "

I immediately though, well I'd rather spend 2.25 a week on water than lug a jug from home on the bus. But then I though, what the hell was that, a delusion?! Did I dream that? Did the cashier at Maxima really purposely verbally discourage me from grocery shopping?

I don't have audio at the moment, but here's my best guess at the george carlin bit I remember. It should be the one when he's talking about how crazy it is to buy bottled water.

Oh, now I get it!

I went out the the trolley stop after my Legal English class today. I thought, "I just missed my trolley, how could I forget that I only have five minutes? Oh well, I've got 17 minutes till the next one, I'll see if I can find a kibinas."

That's because I only had a banana and orange for lunch, but I was pretty hungry. I just wanted to be moving around really, also, because it's so cold. I crossed one street and then I saw a promising place, and then another street to get to it: Greek Kebabs. There was a sign in the window for kebabs in a pita for five lits, which is only double what I expected to pay for a kibinas. Good deal!

As they made me my kebab I still had eight minutes left to make the three minute walk to the bus stop. However, shockingly, I saw my trolley roll right by. I thought, "Can this possibly be an eight minute long red light?!" Alas no, either the last trolly was ten minutes late, or the next one was seven minutes early. Shit!

I walked back to the bus stop with my kebab, and saw that the next trolley was in 17 more minutes. At least I could eat in peace (it's probably illegal to eat kebabs on the trolley). Soon after I finished my kebab, which was a pretty good one, incidentally, the trolley came...ten minutes early! "Wow," I thought, "maybe somethings blocking traffic between here and the beginning of the route or something."

When I got to work I checked the trolley schedule online to see if it had changed or something. Furthermore, according to my google calendar, the times I expected the trolley match neither the schedule posted at the stop nor what I have noted in my planner. Then I realized: I was looking at 12 o'clock times instead of 1 o'clock times. Oops.

Diet Guidlines according to Bloodtype

Blood type I

Eat lots of:
spinach
tomatoes
brussel sprouts
poultry
rabbit
grains
peanut butter soup
mustard
lemons
raw currants
spicy

Don't eat:
pork
mayonnaise
sour cream
avocados
coffee
beer

Rabbit Meat

For my birthday this year my aunt Silvija taught me how to slaughter and skin a rabbit. It's not difficult, but it's also not that easy: there's a sort of mental hump you have to get over. It's a bizarre stream of consciousness: she takes out a largish bunny and has to calm him down, saying things to him, "there there, shhh, everything's okay, just relax buddy"; then she says to me, "now grab one of those sticks and whack him here or here," pointing between his ears or right behind them. I decided between the ears made for a better angle. Should I whack it as hard as I can? "Yup," she said. I had to go through the motion of bringing the stick down on it's head several times before I actually did it. I wasn't sure I could even do it; she'd offered to just let me watch this time, if I wanted, but I thought, I can do this. And I did: I brought the stick down right between the ears with a mighty whack that crushed his skull immediately. His extremities shot out and he shook for a moment, but no sound betrayed the slaughter, which was very good: my aunt told me if you don't get the job done at once they start squealing, and then all the other rabbits in the other room start squealing, and that's a sound the neighbors can hear. We then hung him up by a back foot off a roof beam and left.

You can leave rabbits hung up in the cold for days, but if you do they'll be frozen when you skin them, which will freeze your hands, so told me Silvija. So just a couple hours later we went back to finish the job. "Cut his feet off," she said, handing me a pair of tree shears. Holy shit I thought, what if he's just knocked out? Before we'd started she'd told me about a time the rabbit was only knocked out, and when she came back for it it'd escaped. What if it's like that? Well, I sure hoped not, which is about all I could do. I cut the front feet off.

Now if you're going to skin a rabbit, you should string him up first. That way, when you get to the skinning, you can just pull the skin down: otherwise you have to hold the rabbit in one hand and pull with the other, which I can't imagine is very easy. She showed me how to slice through the skin on one back leg, then I did the other one. The important thing is not to cut into the meat: first, that makes the meat not as good; second, then it gets bloody (we got through the whole process with barely any blood on our hands). We next cut down to connect the incisions and start pulling the skin down over the belly. As you pull the skin down, minus the little bit around the butt hole, steam rises, which is kind of gross. You have to keep snipping away at the transparent paper like thing that keeps the skin attached, which is even more delicate: if you cut through the intestines you'll ruin the whole meat.

Once you've pulled off the skin you snip though the same paper like thing to get at the organs. First you remove the good ones, the liver and kidneys. The most delicate cut of all is to remove the gall blatter: it's tiny organ the shape of a large vitamin, and nicking it rather than snipping it off would ruin the liver. She did that of course, and I was very impressed. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, her son is one of the most highly regarded surgeons in Vilnius. Last, only the intestines are left; you cut through the pelvis so you can remove them still connected to the butt hole (without cutting them and risking getting shitty). A similar risk is present when removing the bladder, but luckily our rabbit had just relieved itself, apparently.

Once we got down to the end I understood why I had to cut the front feet off: the skin came off the front legs together with the feet intact easily, instead of having to pull the skin off the feet. once we got to the head it was sort of stuck, and I asked isn't it simpler to just chop the head off at this point. You don't cook the head anyway, right? And that's what we did. We actually cut it a bit farther down the neck than is necessary, but we did that because of the might whack I'd struck: there was a big bloody bruise under the skin all the way down the neck from the skull, which is apparently considered bad to eat. Although she did tell me about a blood soup that my grandfather's mother used to make when they slaughtered bigger animals. She also told me she used to save the tails for Liepa and Sirvydas to use in school plays.

I took the carcass home to butcher. I couldn't find a cook book that showed how to do it exactly, but it wasn't complicated, just like a chicken really, except with no breast. There were six good pieces: the back legs had the most meat, the front legs had less but some, the lower-back had plenty, and the ribs and upper-back had some too. Silvija said some people prefer the lower-back, which has two loin shaped pieces, and some prefer the back legs, which look sort of like chicken thighs, because the drum stick part of the leg is just bone, really.

After two days of brining I used this recipe for rabbit fricassee, and it turned out really well, the gravy especially was very tasty. My special lady and I each ate a back leg, and my five year old took a bite or two of a front leg. She was rather squeamish about eating it, because rabbits are "so polite." I made sure to butcher it out of her sight, but I didn't lie to her when she asked what's for dinner. My special lady, especially, having grown up on a farm, thought it appropriate for her to understand where food comes from.

Thanks Be To Good Times

Thanksgiving was a tremendous success this year. The preparation and cooking lasted several days as usual, but for the first time we had so much fun the festivities lasted into the night, the next day, and the next night too, almost until midnight: a thirty hour Thanksgiving!

The menu included:
Perfect Turkey
Gravy made from Awesome Turkey Giblet Stock
Sausage Stuffing
Awesome Sausage, Apple and Cranberry Stuffing
Sweet Potato Casserole I
Stir Fried Broccoli
Cheese Garlic Biscuits II
Fetaki Mushroom Noodle Casserole*
Roasted Carrots with Whiskey Glaze
Cranberry Sauce
Chutney (Ed's delicious home made chutney)
Wild Mushroom Sauce
Zucchini-Chocolate Chip Muffins
Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Graham Cracker Crust

*One item that had to be scrapped was the Zucchini Alfredo. The zucchini was over ripe and did not tenderize while cooking. Thank God I tasted it before pouring it over the fantastic noodles that special lady brought me back from Italy. I redid the sauce as a fetaki mushroom sauce.

And the morning after I made beer bread with the left overs.

Aidas won the food eating competition as usual, but may have overeaten. He and Kristina had to leave more than 24 hours earlier than the others without much drinking to blame.

The first evening we hit the sauna, the man cave, and played a beirut tournament. After several rounds of play while Gintaras and I were still in the sauna we decided we needed some breweries to rehydrate. We beat my special lady and Linas, then we beat Ed and Donatas, and no challengers arose: Eglė and Giedrė either pussed or were too drunk. We won! Luckily the games were close enough that we got to quench our thirst anyway. And just in case we didn't, back to the man cave!

Next day we did the sauna again after being party to the shampoo effect. We had a terrific afternoon playing Alias and Cranium, but then made the mistake of playing Žodžių Bokštas (Up-Words). That took forever; towards the end it was high time to say labanaktis! I was really glad they stayed because it's nearly impossible to get a game of Cranium going, it's only the second time I've been able to play it in Lietuva since getting it for Christmas. You need four people with a decent knowledge of American pop culture, and it always seems more appropriate to play something like Beirut during the party proper. The stragglers left on the day after the party turned out to be perfect cranium players.

A good time was had by all!

Is that a pickle in your pants, or...?

You bet your sweet ass it is! Sweet ass, that's a funny expression, isn't it?

I went downstairs today at work with a bowl of chili and a delicious pickle from the market. I had to slice up the pickle and heat up the chili. When I finished my lunch prep I went back upstairs to eat and watch Jim Gaffigan on the tube. I had to use both hands to carry the chili because it was so hot. I guess in addition to the hotness the chili was so good I totally forgot I'd had to put the pickle in my pocket (it was in a plastic bag). I didn't remember until I felt something cold and wet on my leg.

Restaurant Blunders

Because we're mostly moved out of our current dwelling (the freezer, spices and pantry items are gone already) we're eating out more and eating simple things at home. We've had Godawful luck with the restaurants. As I pointed out in another post, our wedding restaurant has been on a six month hiatus and the one we went to instead sucked for three big reasons. Since then we stopped at Pusynelis half way between Maisiagala and Vievis: half the menu was unavailable, the fried bread with cheese was microwaved, and the soup was so tepid I returned it. Yesterday we went out for dinner at the restaurant in Karkle: the Lowlander pancakes were obviously frozen the the potato pancakes devoid of salt. Today we went to the Chinese place near the Old Ferry on the New Town side of the river that is apparently under new management or has a new chef or both: the rice was extremely over-boiled, and when I asked for new rice they just said all the rice is make ahead of time and heated before serving; they can't possibly make me any new rice. What the fuck I says?!

Easter Fupdate

I'll skip to Easter this week since that's the most interesting (before that we did have awesome sausages, incidentally). We were so busy cooking (I) and cleaning (special lady) that we didn't even start decorating eggs until embarrassingly late in the day. But that's okay because Easter is two days long in Lithuania, and most of our guests didn't arrive until the second day. Photos of the food and eggs will come later, when I develop the film.

Sunday:
Herb Roasted Pork
Red Skinned Potato Salad
Green Beans
Broccoli with Bread Crumbs
Fresh Tomatoes and Cucumber
Cheese Garlic Biscuits
Authentic Curd Cake

Monday:
Chicken North Hudson
Chicken Liver and Pistachio Nut Pate
Colleen's Potato Crescent Rolls
Cold cuts from the left over meat


Notes
If you've been following the Fupdates you noticed that I made Herb Roasted pork a month ago. However, this was different: for Easter I got the biggest one they had, four and a half pounds; also I ended up being out of sage so I substituted a mix of seasonings so it was indeed something new. Especially new was the glaze, which I made this time anticipating the early doneness of the meat, which I didn't last time. The glaze is really really good, I spooned some drippings on every piece of meat I took.

Lokys would like the Potato Salad quite a bit: it includes two cups of mayonnaise and a pound of bacon for just two pounds of potatoes. Everybody else like it too, I'd say it was the most popular dish. To make this, if you're using cold smoked bacon, you should get five pounds, in case you eat two on the way home from the market and two more while you're preparing the dish. An additional note is that you should taste your bacon before cooking it: if it's on the salty side you won't need to add any salt at all.

The reason I called the curd cake authentic is that I could not find a single recipe for curd cake in English that used actual curd. Here's what the dictionary throws out:

1.	Often, curds. a substance consisting mainly of casein and the like, obtained from milk by coagulation, and used as food or made into cheese.

2.	any substance resembling this.

I was looking for a recipe for curd, and all I could fine were recipes for things that "resemble" curd. What the fuck good is that??? And now a questions: it tasted alright to me, but my wife though it tasted a bit artificial due to all the pudding powder that went into it; does anybody know what I can use instead that will be more natural? Cause it was pretty easy, I'd keep it as a standby cake. The crust was especially tasty.

Green beans are disgusting. I added them because I felt guilty about having so few vegetables on the table, but I was unable to eat more than one bite. Maybe there is a tasty way to prep fresh green beans, but forget about canned ones. I solemnly pledge never to buy canned green beans as long as I live, even if that's a million years.

Both the biscuits and rolls got complements from my wife and guests. Personally I preferred the biscuits: they are much easier to make and for me, at least, tastier thanks to crunchiness and cheesiness.

It's hard to go wrong with Chicken North Hudson. It's my father's recipe, and the high fat content pretty much makes it sure fire. Just make sure you check your garlic ahead of time, mine was past its prime and I had to surgically remove bad parts from half of the cloves, as if I wasn't busy enough in the kitchen as it was. You cannot make it without at least a clove of garlic per pair of thighs.

The pate was the least popular dish, but I don't have enough pate experience to write a bad review. I thought it was too dry, so I added a half cup of whipping cream that happened to be sitting in the fridge. That improved the texture, and the taste was okay, but only about 5% of it got eaten. I think by the end of the week I'm going to be sick of pate for the rest of my million-year-long life.

Fupdate

The theme this week is certainly Kugelis, which we ate four times for dinner as leftovers after last Sunday. Maybe next time I'll use less than seven pounds of potatoes. The other theme is chicken, since after the chili/kugelis adventures I hadn't had poultry in almost two weeks.

• Fried Kugelis slices with Fried Onions
• Chicken Fingers
• A Popeyesque Sunday Dinner: Fried Chicken and Red Beans and Rice
• Old Fashioned Potato Bread

Question: would anybody like to suggest things for my Easter menu? Traditionally we make a fresh ham, but there'll only be five of us this year, and Alfonsas and Silvija abarely eat anything, and we're returning to Klaipeda the very next day; a ham would be too much. I'm thinking some kind of pork loin, possible a sage and onion stuffed one (as pictured on the cover of my pork book).

Fupdate

Week 5 of the food updates. The theme this week will be chili, because when I make chili I make a bunch, and it tends to be too spicy for anyone but me to eat.

• Granola Bars for a certain pregnant somebody to take to work for a snack
• Macaroni and Cheese and Broccoli Casserole
• Chili--with read beans, pinto beans, black beans my wife brought me back from Hungary, and a 13 Bean Mix Darius passed on to me from the States
• Chili Sandwiches
• Chili Cheese Dip for corn chips
• Egg Salad
• Egg Salad Sandwiches
• Chili mixed with Egg Salad and Cheese
  
• Cream of Broccoli Soup for my ladies same day as the chili, in case it was too spicy for them
• Kugelis
  

Note on the Chili: midway through cooking it (I simmered it for about six hours) a couple students walked by my kitchen and I heard one say "Awe, you smell how good that smells?! I wanna eat so bad now!"

Note on the Kugelis: there are a couple Kugelis recipes on allrecipes, and neither are perfect. I thought I would post mine, but my wife said, as great as mine was (is, and will be fore three more days at least) she's had better. Therefore, I'm instead going to try working out how to perfect it first. My first attemt will be to increase the fat content. One of the recipes I found said to add butter to the batter. But maybe lard would be even better? Or olive oil. Or all three!

Another more on the Kugelis: recipes for kugelis are a little out of the ordinary. When I asked my aunt Silvija for a kugelis recipe years ago she just laughed at me and told me I don't need a recipe, I just need to put in whatever I have. That is the authentic way, I guess.

Fupdate

Week 3 in the food updates. Some trends are broccoli, for my pregnant wife, eggs, because I have to do the grocery shopping now, and making eggs is a way to skip the store for one more day. Finally, I'm baking my own breads and buns more often: I'm getting fed up with additives in our food, so I'm trying more and more to merely buy raw goods and make things instead of buying prepared food, like bread.

Crustless Broccoli Quiche
Roast Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes
Mashed Potato Pancakes
Meatloaf Sandwiches on Onion Mustard Buns (I think Darius would like them. Hint: quadruple the onions.)
Scrambled Eggs with Broccoli
Baked Salmon
Country Seed Bread
And for my buddy Evaldo birthday I baked a perfect chocolate cake:

Fupdate

Week 3 in the food updates. No recurrent theme, thought I did make guacamole twice. I found avocados on sale twice, and I do love guacamole, but lately avocados have been too expensive...so I didn't pass up the chance...chances. The week included:

Nachos with Guacamole
Potato Pancakes with Home Made Applesauce
Eggs Benedict for breakfast on Independence Day
Cheesy Broccoli Pasta Alfredo
Tuna Salad Wrap with Pepperoni
Garlic-Lemon Double Stuffed Chicken
Guacamole
Cajan Fried Potatos

Note: Trust your instinct. I had a hunch the Hollandaise sauce would be really sour from too much lemon juice, so I checked another recipe. It said about the same thing, so I did it. Bad move. The wife ended up scraping most of it off. It was a fantastic breakfast anyway.

Another note: I read that if you don't grind your flax seeds, you don't get most of its nutrients: they're packed in there so tight your digestive system isn't corrosive enough to get all the way through.

Update: I forgot to mention two loaves of banana bread. I also froze three more loaves worth of banana mush because bananas were on sale for 80% off! I've never done that before, but I read you can do it. I'll let you know when I try out the frozen mush.

Oh, a Gime!

Last week I measured off at having lost 700 grams after my first week at the gym. After my second week I'm down another 850. However, I think last time I went and weighed myself after lunch, and this time it was before lunch; I'm gonna round down and say I just reached my goal of keeping my weight loss steady. Actually, I'm still ahead since it's only been 6 days, but I don't know if I'll go tomorrow since it's Independence Day. In your face diets! All I need to do is sweat my balls off for an hour five times a week.