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By rmg (Sun Feb 13, 2005 at 06:16:05 AM EST) (all tags)
two weeks ago i was heard to remark that a vietnamese chili and garlic sauce i had purchased was "horrid, horrid stuff."

i would like to take the opportunity to set the record straight. in the past two weeks, i have found that in the proper proportions and prefried in the oil i use to fry the eggs for my fried rice, the sauce adds a pleasant hotness with just the right touch of garlic. more than that, it is quite a versatile general seasoning. for example, it is most excellent mixed into cottage cheese, making a delicious, nutritious snack of the otherwise bland and unpleasant curdles. this, incidentally, has become my primary source of calcium and protein.


i might not have discovered the utility of the rooster-bedeckt sauce had it not been for a miscalculation in the selection of a different seasoning for my cottage cheese. you see, i am taking a weight lifting course this semester and i have found my former diet of pizza and lebanese food is completely inadequate given the demands the course places on my system. i needed significantly more protein and cottage cheese was the only affordable source i could think of.

in any case, i went to the bourgeois supermarket nearby to purchase some of the protein rich dairy product and a suitable seasoning. i had my heart set on tabasco seasoning salt -- wonderful stuff, though it is very salty. i would have settled for the standard issue celery flavored stuff, though. well, they didn't have it, god damn them.

i had to assess my other options. their spice rack was substantially less diverse than even my mother's, so i was in a bit of a bind. my only promising options were ms. dash, some kind of weird crap with a fat chef on the front, and a corn-based seasoning that claimed to make everything taste better, particularly low-fat, vegetarian things. well, being the gullible idiot of a consumer i am, i was sold.

now their claim to making everything taste better should have tipped me off right away, since there is only one known substance that has that property, but i wasn't thinking chemically, so as i said i bought the stuff. i got home and decided to give it a taste, as it had gotten me very curious. i put some of the colorless flakes (i was already suspicious when i saw the flakes) on my finger tip and give it a taste. it had vaguely salty, very full-bodied, mushroomy flavor. fuck, i thought, this is mostly monosodium glutimate. what's in this stuff? i turned the can around to look at the ingredients:

MONOSODIUM GLUTIMATE.

fuck you, capitalist swine! i can't eat this shit. so i was stuck. can't eat my seasoning, can't eat my cottage cheese without seasoning.

then i remembered my vietnamese sauce. i gave it another shot. heavens to betsy, this is fantastic! and that is how the vietnamese chili and garlic sauce got its groove back.

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an update on vietnamese chili and garlic sauce. | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback
cute, very cute by calla (4.00 / 1) #1 Sun Feb 13, 2005 at 06:22:59 AM EST
Its very hard to eat in this steak and chemical eatin' world.

How do I set my laser printer on stun?


Rooster Sauce + Peanut Butter by MohammedNiyalSayeed (4.00 / 2) #2 Sun Feb 13, 2005 at 06:37:59 AM EST

On Bread, Grilled = GOOD SHIT.

Try it today.


-
You can build the most elegant fountain in the world, but eventually a winged rat will be using it as a drinking bowl.


You should get a job by CrocoStimpy (4.00 / 1) #3 Sun Feb 13, 2005 at 08:56:18 AM EST
or move to a different neighborhood.

After all, the only reason to work is to earn money, and the only reason to live anywhere is economic.

The fact that you'd be throwing away your scholarship is irrelevant.  You'd be able to afford bagels to put that cottage cheese on.

Hmmm.  Cheap protein for a student, who probably has limited cooking options.  Most of my sources, being soy derived and expensive, are probably out.  Maybe this?

Also, make sure you're getting plenty of carbohydrates.  Your brain runs on glucose, and presents a constant demand for glucose.  Dietary fat does not convert to glucose.  So if you don't have sufficient carbohydrates in your diet, your body goes looking for another source - protein in your diet, and when that runs out within an  hour or so of ingestion, protein from your muscles.



indeed. by rmg (4.00 / 1) #4 Sun Feb 13, 2005 at 09:15:46 AM EST
well, if i wanted expensive protein, i'd buy meat. i mean, i'm not a vegetarian or anything. i just can't afford to be having steak dinners every night.

my cooking options aren't so bad, as i mentioned in the kuro5hin diary. i do, in fact, have access to a range now, so in principle i could make bagels the way i was talking about it.

but yes, what i found so irksome about the comments you allude to was not so much that it was reductionist, but that it presented a value system in which monetary exchange is paramount. i mean, what a burgermeister that fellow was.




[t]rolling retards conversation, period.
[ Parent ]

I recommend a cassoulet. by ti dave (2.00 / 0) #5 Sun Feb 13, 2005 at 10:26:25 AM EST
Cheap, white beans.

I don't care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do.
The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. --W.S. Burroughs
[ Parent ]

Thanks a bunch by CrocoStimpy (4.00 / 1) #6 Sun Feb 13, 2005 at 11:51:05 AM EST
for putting Burgermeister Meister Burger into my head.

From a purely economic standpoint, that fellow has no empathy.  He can't see past his whitebread middle class nose.

Moving to a neighborhood without predatory stores or getting a better job isn't an option for a highschool dropout single mother making six dollars an hour working a cash register, or for an old couple on a fixed income.

Oh right - working mothers don't exist - they're all welfare mothers driving Cadillacs.  And old people?  They should just hurry up and die.

[ Parent ]

Cheap protein? by Canthros (2.00 / 0) #7 Sun Feb 13, 2005 at 03:58:14 PM EST
Tofu? Rice and beans? Peanut butter? Peanut butter, at least, was practically a staple of college life, like boxed mac and cheese, ramen noodles, and Mountain Dew™®. Personal choice of cheap protein during college was microwave burritoes, which could be had for something approaching a reasonable price from Wal-Mart. Alternately, eggs in your ramen. Maybe what you need is a means of transportation, be it your own car, a friend's car, a bike a bus or whatever.

Also, MNS is right. Rooster sauce goes extraordinarily well with peanut butter. Plus, I don't think the stuff goes bad.

--
I'm not here, man.




eggs by tps12 (4.00 / 1) #8 Mon Feb 14, 2005 at 01:10:06 AM EST
That's a good one. I used to do noodles + soft-boiled egg quite a bit in college.

[ Parent ]

Mac and cheese was my standby by Canthros (2.00 / 0) #9 Mon Feb 14, 2005 at 01:52:46 AM EST
but that's because I lived on campus and had a meal plan. Not that I didn't eat ramen, but after the first two years of having just ramen noodles on the weekend, it took a while before I even wanted to think about ramen again. I picked up this idea last summer, when unemployed.

Best thing to do with ramen (that I've noticed so far) is to fry up some lightly marinated, thinly sliced pieces of meat in your pot/saucepan first, evacuate the cooked meat, then add water to deglaze and cook the noodles. Toss in as much of the seasoning packet as you like, a cup of frozen veggies or similar accoutrements (I like mushrooms), then the meat, and finally the egg when all is back to a nice boil. Shouldn't take long to cook the egg. Serves at least one. Around here, I think that comes out to just a couple of bucks per meal. Most of the expense is probably in the meat.

As regards cheap meat, boneless, skinless chicken breasts can often be had on the cheap in large-ish bags at Wal-Mart, as can drumsticks, wings or thighs. Dark meat is less expensive than white meat -- it's got more fat in it, so more flavor. Flank or skirt steak makes a good choice if you've got more money to spare. My favored marinade/sauce for this comes from a Chinese cookbook I've got laying around.

Damn, I have gotten wordy.

--
I'm not here, man.


[ Parent ]

an update on vietnamese chili and garlic sauce. | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

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