M.I.A.

Some few of you regulars may notice that I am posting rather at random, and then not very much at all.

Considering I am only a week or so away from my 1-year blogging anniversary, I really should be putting in a bit more time and effort.

Shot from the penultimate night at my regular joint.

The reasons are both good and bad. The sad part is that my usual karaoke bar is closing for good tonight, and none of us are happy about it. The family is being broken up against its will, and we're not sure where to go to next.

The GREAT distraction is that after a decade of illness and suffering, my dad has just gotten a new lung! So there is constant back-and-forth to the hospital and waiting and visiting and planning and figuring out what I can cook for him now that he will have so many new dietary restrictions.

It is both wonderful and emotionally exhausting.

So, forgive me if there's a bit of radio silence, or a lack of in-depth recipes for a little while.

Please check back in soon, as February 1st will be my 1-year, and I'll try to make a good post for that day especially. Besides, a girl's gotta eat.

Hope all of you and yours are happy and healthy.

-R'n'R Gourmet

Star Wars Karaoke

Just don't confuse your microphone with your lightsaber.


Oof. I got home from Karaoke Birthday Celebrations just after 4AM this morning. Shockingly I am not hungover today. Merely sleep-deprived and confused at how fast today is going by (waking up in the early PM, what with going to bed at 4:30AM, with a few interruptions by the cats. They even tried to wake me by knocking over my mirror. All that accomplished was me stumbling to the bedroom door and locking them out. Ha!) 
And I get Good Wife Points for making the hubs's lunch at 4:15AM, so he would not be hungry today.


Being a long night of singing with good friends, as well as people I met during the first year after I moved to NYC but haven't seen in a few years, there was a lot of reminiscing. And a LOT of singing.

Trying to remember all the songs I sang last night... let's see:

Jet City Woman - Queensryche

What About Love - Heart (requested by birthday boy)

Hunger Strike - Temple of the Dog (the Chris Cornell half of the song)

Hot 'n Cold - Katy Perry

Bring Me To Life - Evanescence

Mother, Mother - Tracy Bonham

Man In The Box - Alice in Chains (just the chorus for a friend singing it)

Gloria - Laura Branigan 

And of all those songs, I have to say "Gloria" felt the best to sing. Surprisingly, at the end of the night my voice was not shot to hell from shouting and drinking, so the notes came out solid and powerful. And also by 3AM or so the crowd had thinned enough so I could hear myself while singing, which helps immensely. (The rest of the night I couldn't hear jack.)

Time for photos!

Lucas, the birthday boy. (Note his face is on his tee instead of Han Solo)

Complete with Chewbacca cake!!

Could I be any paler or less buff?

This photo is an annual thing that goes back to when Lucas and I first met. When I still had some semblance of abdominal muscles.

Also, this would be the previously referenced "icing on cake" with forced removal of shirt.

We don't have to force him very hard. 

"Storm Trooper" helmets full of candy!

They seemed a bit more BSG than Star Wars, but, who cares?

They were full of candy!

And there were 3D glasses for some reason as well.

Basically it was a really fun night, and it was good to let out my inner Rock Star. If she gets cooped up for too long, things get ugly.

Also, the adulation of complete strangers is good for one's ego every now and again. Because they don't have to tell you you're awesome. So it means more in an incredibly shallow way.

Yeah.

I promise the next few posts will be about the yummy food I made this weekend.

Mmm... food.

Go eat food now.

Yes.

(Yoda told me to. And you don't argue with Yoda.)

The Elements Are Falling, My Dear Watson

Sunday night I may have made one of the most perfect roasted chickens ever. I didn't do anything differently than normal. It just came out superbly juicy and flavorful. A 6 lb. bird cooked for an hour and a half, and I was REALLY looking forward to eating the leftovers last night. To the point where I didn't plan to do any of my usual tricks to change up the leftovers. I just wanted a repeat of last night's dinner.
In the non-disgusting way.

Since it has been pouring rain for two and a half days, I thought this would be a good time to attempt Julia's onion soup, or maybe a pot of chicken chili. I think this afternoon will be perfect for the chili.
That post will be forthcoming.

We also went to karaoke last night, which is rare. The rare part being the "we" part of that sentence. Mike is on vacation this week, so I got to drag him along with me. But he totally wanted to go because our friend Jim was there as well, and while Jim and I talk food, the two of them talk boy-talk: comics, movies, video games, etc.. And then Cathy and I just drink and laugh at them. Which tends to be what I do whenever I'm hanging out with a girl and guys are up to their own devices.
But we had a good night. See?

Cheers!

I think we rolled in the door around a quarter to 2... isn't there a song that goes something like that? Oh well.

Finally, I'd just like to point out that I am SO HAPPY to own Sherlock Holmes on DVD. Even if I don't think that it was all that accurate a portrayal of the characters, and that Rachel McAdams did a horrible job portraying Irene Adler, tho I blame horrible writing for most of that. It was as though they had written an action flick and then realized they needed the complication of love, so they took a character from a great Sherlock Holmes mystery ("A Scandal in Bohemia"), and just threw her in for posterity. No one bothered to research who that character really was. She's supposed to be an Opera Contralto, and the only woman to have outwitted Holmes. Instead she's just a chick who gets in trouble and tries to pull a double-cross. I found it incredibly frustrating.
However, if you just take the movie as a fun ride, it's totally worth it.
Plus, Robert Downey Jr. is oh so much fun to look at.

And of course, the Karaoke Set List

Which depending on how I'm feeling on that night, or if it was empty enough for me to get to sing more than a song or two, I might post.

Last night was:

Hot 'n' Cold - Katy Perry

Use Somebody - Kings of Leon

(removed my Queensryche submission to go to location #2)

Hunger Strike - Temple of the Dog (tho they put in the Pearl Jam cover so there were no Chris Cornell lyrics, which was a bit of a challenge for me, but I managed to remember how it went.)

Cornflake Girl - Tori Amos (as requested by a friend in from CT)

Man In the Box - Alice in Chains

Gloria - Laura Branigan (anecdotes on this song another time)

Fairly well-rounded. A little cheese, a little rock, and a little pop. I made Cheese Pop Rock(s) last night :)