Innocent Guilty Pleasures

Some times I get teased by my significant other about the the YouTube channels that I subscribe to, and they do not have anything to with inappropriate subjects. Of course I get teased about The Big Bang Theory, Nerdist News, and other geek related topics, but then there are the cooking channels. I say if you want to cook like another culture then cooking channels from these countries would not be a bad idea, especially the French ones (no offense to Jamie Oliver, the naked Chef). 

  For the last couple of years I have been watching Bruno Albouze make things that even Julia Child did not bother to write about and was done in a way that encouraged locally used vegetables (the only thing missing was pep talk about local sustainability to have me drooling even more). The cute-and-he-knows-it personal chef from France has done a professional job of creating interesting and humorous cooking shows for the modern foodie. Usually it just looks like a bored guy in his kitchen who is trying to be funny or a corny kind of suave that parallels the scenario typical idea of what a Frenchman is. Yes he has a cute accent, no he never has and never will be ugly, yes he stays fit with food from his own garden, and has a couple of episodes where he shows you the quaintness of a French outdoors market with his family. Even Martha Stewart would not mind to take a minute and to see this man at work (not sure if I like the man at work thing as much as I like the concept of his flour-less brownies). Also he got me hooked in the early years of his show when he would dress up like Indiana Jones with a pepper mill....I am the only girl in Texas who owns in Indiana Jones hat. 

  He inspires me to try and make hard to make dishes that he makes to look easy (he does use a gas stove while I struggle with electric), and not every meal has to only come from the touch of a microwave button. As of this morning he has found my one weak spot, ravioli. I have not sat down and figured out the art of simply wrapping up goo inside of dough in a way that does not make soup when submerged into boiling water. I can make the best fresh pasta in town...just not with filling in the middle. Then this morning I saw the latest video upload: red/green/yellow striped ravioli. I now have a much better plan when I do decide to tackle this masterpiece in culinary art. Think I will use spinach instead, not a big fan of kale, but then I am not very good a blanching greens...must watch more Bruno.

http://www.brunoskitchen.net/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxqzVxfBgw

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My Little Dictator....I mean Piggy

  How many of you have been trained by a guinea pig? How many of you make a noise in your bedroom to here the high pitched squeaks from a guinea pig in the kitchen? This noise is equal to the noises rodents make before a snake eats them, except my rodent is sitting safely in his cage demanding his drug of choice, also known as carrots. Normally he makes those cute little chortling noises that make it seem as if he is talking to you and only his opinion matters. But after six long agonizing hours after he ate his last carrot, he almost climbs up the side of his wire cage while screaming as he is if he is going to die or something trying to get him. 
  Ignoring his tantrum only lasts for so long. My refrigerator makes a weird deep humming sound, and when you open the door it makes a squeaky sound similar to Piggy. Because my guinea pig lives so close to this box he has learned to pay a lot of attention to it. Also he has learned that most of the time if he hears the sound of the fridge door open then a piece of carrot usually will fall from the sky into his cage. Now even when he is not scheduled to eat and he hears the fridge door open he starts with shrieking and the cage wall climbing. Some of this is my fault, but when a Piggy learns something they don't ever really un-learn it. He has learned the same way Pavlov's dogs learn to drool at the sound of a bell, when I was working more hours the only time the fridge door opened was when I was home and that was only twice a day. So now when I have a mixed schedule or come home early, guess what the little dictator....I mean Piggy wants, he is hooked on carrots like a meth addict. 
 I have tried other things, broccoli and lettuce have come close to satisfying he demands. Yet there is nothing so funny as throwing a big piece of dikon radish, which is the same hardness and is a root vegetable, and see him sniff it then go right back to begging and complaining that he wants food. I have also discovered that he has this habit of sniffing his food bowl when he is not climbing up the side of his cage. If he gets any fatter, he could play Jaba the Hut in the Lego man version of Star Wars. Normally he looks so cute curled up on side sleeping in the wood chips, but when he hears the fridge door open....lights, curtain, action, it's show time like a scene from Les Miserable of the lonely beggar dying from hunger. It has been only four hours since the last time he was given a carrot longer than his own body and he had dry kibble still in his dish....I hear guinea pig is a delicacy in South American countries.


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