hot sauce

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Dinners This Week

Some of the people in my circle are expecting heat-advisory level heat waves this week, while others are hunkering down to face a winter storm warning. Good times.

I’m on the It’s Too Hot side of the summer weather spectrum, so my approach to dinners this week is avoid using my oven if at all possible. Even in the dead of winter, I start shedding layers and my face grows damp and tomatoey every time the oven fires up and that sounds downright unbearable when there’s no snowy porch to escape to. We have a crockpot, a grill, an air fryer, and (reluctantly) an Instant Pot, so I should be able to accomplish this.

What are your favorite no-cook meals? 

Dinners for the Week of June 17-23

  • Garlic Lime Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Something Green: If you dislike cilantro, look away. But if you are cool with it, this marinade/sauce is going to be your new bestie. The recipe is way more finicky than it needs to be; I think it’s fine to marinate a whole pork tenderloin (or protein of your choice) in the lime-y, garlicky liquid and then throw it on the grill.
  • Teriyaki Chicken with Chopped Salad: I love this salad, and the idea of adding fresh cool things like mandarin oranges, edamame, and red bell peppers makes me very happy. I am going to buy a ginger dressing from the grocery store and use store bought teriyaki. I will probably add chopped up cashews and some crunchy chow mein noodles as well.
  • Slow Cooker Salsa Verde Chicken Tacos: Would I ever turn down an excuse to make tacos? No, I would not. The only heat I like are the kinds you find in the bedroom or in a bottle of sriracha.
  • Birchie’s Chickpea Salad: What’s a better no-cook idea than FINALLY jumping on the Birchie Bandwagon and trying one of the chickpea salad recipes she’s been recommending? I wonder if I can get away with serving my husband a meat-free meal? Or maybe I could supply him a store-bought chicken breast on the side?
  • Street Corn Salad: Speaking of store-bought protein options, maybe I’ll snag a couple of chicken breasts and a salmon filet or two (or grilled shrimp?) and throw together this amazing street corn salad one night.

For lunches, I’m sticking with cherry smoothies and green peppers with cottage cheese.

Stay cool, or warm, out there Internet.

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Six on a Saturday

Boring But Hopeful Health Updates. I am going to say this very quietly, lest I jinx it: but I think that I can eat yogurt again? I have been avoiding dairy since May (which is not the same as giving it up; I still put half and half in my tea, I eat occasional sour cream and occasionally throw a dollop of yogurt onto stir fries and have had the occasional scoop of ice cream) after my acupuncturist suggested it might be negatively impacting my skin. My dermatologist was receptive to this idea and thought, based on some semi-related studies he’d read, that it could be exacerbating my rosacea. Based on some very non-scientific experimentation, it SEEMED true. There was a week when I ate white bean enchilada soup every day for lunch and my skin freaked out, for instance. And there is milk and yogurt in that soup (it is a fantastic soup), so I blamed the dairy. When I avoid dairy, I am mostly okay. I do also have to use a special face wash, though, so maybe that’s what’s keeping the bulk of the rosacea at bay. My family and I went on a weekend getaway recently and I decided to throw caution to the wind and eat some yogurt for breakfast every day. Nothing happened, skin wise. So when we got home from our mini-vacay, I continued to buy and eat yogurt. I have been doing it for several weeks now and things seem stable??? I am so hopeful about this, because I LOVE yogurt. It is delicious but it is also such a fantastic source of protein, especially since I dislike eggs. 

My usual breakfast of late: SmartLite bread with almond butter and honey, yogurt, and tea.

Now I am whispering so softly my voice is but a rustle: my plantar fasciitis seems like it is under control??? I don’t know what happened or when, but my feet just feel… better??? I am continuing to wear shoes in the house and I do calf stretches every night before bed but… I haven’t been to the acupuncturist in two months and I don’t feel like I need to make another appointment.

Puzzling Gynecological Visit. While we’re on the topic of health, why not discuss my recent visit to the gyn? I did promise Ally some speculum content, but I am immediately going to break that promise because there was no speculum involved. This wasn’t the puzzling part; current gynecological guidelines recommend that most people with a uterus have a pap test every 3 years as part of a screening for cervical cancer, and I’m not due for a pap until next year. However, I was there for my yearly reproductive parts exam. In years past, this has included a pelvic exam, a breast exam, and a discussion of my health concerns. This year, the nurse got me situated in a room and asked if I would be okay having a resident take part in the exam. 

The resident was lovely. Great bedside manner, seemed very knowledgeable about my questions (which were specific to breast cancer and perimenopause). She asked if I needed any prescriptions renewed (yes) and whether I wanted her to order a mammogram for me (yes). But then she finished the talking portion of the visit and said that the exam was optional. What????? OPTIONAL? I didn’t know what to do with that information! Listen, I think we’d be hard pressed to find anyone who ENJOYS a pelvic or breast exam. They are invasive and embarrassing and uncomfortable. But… the exam is the purpose of the annual gynecological well visit! If I just wanted a refill of birth control pills, I could simply call that in! I came to the office specifically so that the doctor could poke and prod my bits and tell me if anything was wrong! 

What I should have said was, “Of course I want an exam, that’s why I’m here.” But I got flustered when the resident gave me the option. Part of me, I think, was a little embarrassed to ask that she examine me. Which is dumb, because that is her job, and, again, WHY I WAS THERE, but I still felt like it was weird to request it, if it was optional. So I said, “Well, what do you recommend?” And instead of saying, “I recommend you get your reproductive parts examined” she said, “It’s up to you.” WHAT?! That is not a recommendation. We hemmed and hawed a little bit, and finally I said something like, “Well, I came here prepared for a physical exam, so I might as well do it.” But the whole thing was weird and awkward. 

And also: WHAT THE HELL? A) Why is the physical exam suddenly optional? And B) What is the point of the annual gynecological exam if there is no exam? The whole experience was baffling. 

Speaking of Perimenopause. A ridiculous spate of hot flashes has had me in a bit of a fret about whether I am beginning perimenopause. Doesn’t seem likely, considering my family history, but who really knows, right? There is a fine line between The Normal Joys of Having a Female Reproductive System and going through The Change. The gynecological resident reassured me, if a little dismissively, that I am too young for perimenopause and then moving along to other topics. Maybe so (although I am 42, so it’s not wildly out of the realm of possibility), but it’s something I want to prepare myself for, so I’m thinking about it now. I am listening to Hot and Bothered: What No One Tells You About Menopause (and How to Feel Like Yourself Again) by Jancee Dunn so it’s top of mind. The book is engagingly written – I like Dunn’s energetic voice and humorous/informative writing style. It seems like she did her research, and there are tons of practical tips for how to address various symptoms of menopause. But the book makes me so uncomfortable! In some cases, the physical discomfort is so severe that I find myself squirming in my car. Dunn is careful to interject, not infrequently, that not every person will experience every symptom, that a lot of people go through menopause with nary a hot flash. But this book covers the whole spectrum of menopause issues, so the whole thing feels REALLY OMINOUS. Yikes.  

Nature Is Healing. This is probably something I should say very quietly, as well, lest I scare it away, but it seems like sriracha is gradually making its way back into the world. Sriracha – specifically Huy Fong sriracha – is my favorite of all condiments. It would be one of my desert island foods, for SURE. I love it so very much. So I have been keeping an eye out for it in the years since its production has dwindled and have built myself a little stockpile. (There was a moment when I got down to one bottle and tried a bunch of alternatives to see if there was something else I could live with. No, there isn’t. So I have gradually replenished my stores.) I’ve almost always been able to get it on Amazon, although there were a few months this past spring when it was unavailable except for ridiculous prices. (Will I pay $17 per 14-ounce bottle? Yes, it turns out, I will, but that’s pretty much my limit.) But then I noticed it was readily available in Asian grocery stores. I made myself a deal that if I saw sriracha on the shelves, I would buy one bottle. That didn’t seem excessive. When I saw sriracha at Wegman’s recently, I bought a bottle. THEN I saw it at Target and bought another bottle. But this week, even my local grocery store had a small supply of sriracha! I did not buy a bottle; hopefully that won’t prove to be a mistake. Anyway. I am really cautiously optimistic about sriracha being BACK because I love it so much. 

I may have a wee bit of an addiction.

Wedding Gift Ideas? My hair stylist just got engaged. We have talked about her wedding for almost the entirety of my past two hair appointments. To be clear, I LOVE talking about weddings and wedding planning and enjoyed this line of conversation THOROUGHLY. Am I hoping that she has a baby immediately after she gets married, so we can talk about pregnancy and then babies and then parenting?! YES, with all my heart. She’s always a delight to talk to, but I much prefer this stuff to the usual “what are you doing this weekend, what kind of travel is coming up this year, what are you watching” kind of chitchat, which is pleasant but requires a lot of effort and doesn’t fuel my soul like wedding and baby talk. 

I have distracted myself. She is getting married and I want to buy her a wedding present. However. While I have a very well-developed generous impulse, I have a more well-developed gift giving anxiety that makes the whole thing gift giving process more complicated than it should be. I have several months to fret over and prepare for and acquire this gift but it would be really nice if I had A Real Idea instead of considering and discarding ideas for months and never buying anything and throwing some cash at her at the last minute. Maybe cash is the best gift! But a) I get the strong impression that her fiancé is loaded so she wants for nothing and b) she has been my hair stylist for several years now and I like her immensely and I would love to get her something more personal. Do I… ask her if she’s registered somewhere? I kind of think no, considering she and her spouse-to-be are established adults and live in a fully stocked house… but maybe? She likes alcohol, music (although her taste in music is very specific), travel, cats, Christmas, football. Maybe I could get her something she could take on her honeymoon? (Which will be to a tropical island type place.) But what would that be? I will see her again at least once before she gets married, so I could presumably ask her pointed questions to dig up additional information.  

HALP.

Persistent Grey. After our bout of snow and cold, we have now returned to abnormally warm temperatures and the persistent grey that weighs so heavily on my soul in the winter time. Yuck. For a few days, the grey seemed intent on inserting itself as forcefully into our lives as possible by way of fog. Fog is eerie and beautiful. But I am so ready to say goodbye to January and get on toward spring. February is my favorite month because it goes so quickly and then it’s practically spring and we can look forward to longer days and blooming flowers and BLUE SKIES. 

My poor photography skills don’t adequately capture how much it felt like being in an (the) Emily Bronte novel.

What’s on your mind this weekend?

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Thursday Randomosity: Hot Sauce and Gravel Edition

We are cartwheeling down the last grassy hills of summer – exhilarated, off-kilter, trying to soak up as much summertime fun and relaxation as possible before school begins (Fifth grade. FIFTH. GRADE. Eeep.) while also dealing with all the chaos of moving. My mind is going in a million different directions, which calls for some Randomosity.

We finally told our neighbors that we were moving. I don’t know why we waited, but we did. But we thought we should give people a heads up before the realtor stuck the for sale sign in our yard. The ones we told were a gratifying mix of sad that we are leaving and excited for us. One neighbor seemed genuinely distraught, but when I told her that we’ll be moving to a neighborhood where there are other ten-year-olds on all sides, she visibly relaxed. “Oh, I’m so glad,” she told me. “Every time a house on our block went up for sale, I used to pray that the new family would have someone her age to play with.” I found this so touching – that she would not just think about Carla, but that she would go out of her way to pray for her. This is the kind of neighbors we have. This is why I have such mixed feelings about moving away.

Our house has never looked better. We cleaned and tidied our house to the hilt for the realtor photos and it looks SO GOOD. It has never looked this good. It is impossible to keep this way. Poor Carla. She has been enjoying a TON of screen time because she can’t do anything to make a mess. So much of our stuff has been put away for the sake of tidiness, too. Our realtor specified that we needed to clear off the counters as much as possible, so in the kitchen I had to hide my tea kettle away along with the paper towel holder and the dish scraper and the hand towels. In the bathrooms, we have to put all the shower items (shampoo, conditioner, face wash, razors) under the sinks and swap out our normal towels for “pretty towels” (which I interpreted to mean The Guest Towels, because I am not buying new towels for the sake of aesthetics). All of our chargers have been relegated to the nightstand drawers. Makes normal day-to-day living a little awkward. 

Never have I been so thankful for my zooper. It is getting SUCH a workout. Potential buyers seem to completely ignore the sign we put up inside the front door that says “please remove your shoes or wear these foot covers.” I can tell because none of the shoe covers have been used (although I suppose people could be removing their shoes). And there is constantly grass and bits of dirt and other debris all over the floor. I am zooping all the time. Plus, I shed CONSTANTLY. I knew this about myself, but now that I have to tidy everything ALL THE TIME I am newly aware of how hairs seem to leap off of my skull every time I move. Thank goodness that my beloved zooper seems to have no problem sucking up the rogue hairs. 

It is also good at sucking up gravel. Yes, gravel. I picked up our paper towel holder (similar to this one, if you want to picture what it looks like) to move it from the counter into the pantry where all the shameful things go and the bottom sort of dropped out. Later, when I told my husband what happened, he said, “Oh, that’s probably because I dropped it the other day.” The weird thing was: it was full of gravel. GRAVEL. Like, that’s the weight that the manufacturers used to fill the base. I guess it makes a sort of sense? Maybe gravel isn’t particularly expensive, and maybe it’s easy to access, and it is heavy. But what a weird thing to put inside a paper towel holder, amirite?!?!?! And the gravel got all over my kitchen. Everywhere. Fifteen minutes before Carla and I were supposed to leave for a showing. 

One of Carla’s favorite birthday gifts was a dinosaur mask. I can’t remember if I told you this already? If so, you will just smile and nod through the retelling while you think of other things, yes? My husband and I got her these Therzinosaurus claws because she had specifically requested them. I guess a friend of hers had them? And she was excited to have them, but kept asking, “What about the mask?” (This friend apparently had the mask, too.) So we went to Target and she was able to spend some birthday money on the matching mask. The mask and claws come as a set, too; not sure why we didn’t get her the whole set to begin with. To be completely honest with you, I thought it was kind of a dumb present. But she asked for it, and I’m not sure how much longer she will want to play with toys, so we indulged the request. And I was WRONG. It is an awesome gift. The mask attaches to your face in such a way that the jaws open when the wearer’s jaws open. And the claws go on over top of the hands, so your fingers are still free to do things. It is VERY cool and I think any dinosaur loving kiddo would love it. 

I need to find a new favorite hot sauce. There has been a sriracha shortage for more than a year now, and I ordered a few bottles of my favorite sriracha sauce (Huy Fong) every few months while they were still available online, hoping to wait out the weather conditions that devastated chili crops and stopped production. But I am now on my last bottle. I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I will need to find a new favorite hot sauce. It’s sad, because it is really the perfect hot sauce. Sriracha is by far my most-used condiment. I eat it on tacos and salads and put it in stir fry sauce. This doesn’t convey just how dependent I am on sriracha sauce. We eat tacos pretty regularly, and I cannot eat a taco without hot sauce. Hot sauce is an essential ingredient. Although I haven’t been looking very hard for a replacement, I have tried some store brands of sriracha with no luck. Now that I’m on my last bottle of the real thing, I need to step up my search. I think that I need something that is not pretending to be sriracha.  El Yucateco is my go-to hot sauce for enchiladas and nachos, but it’s too intense for me to put on tacos. Cholula is wonderful on burritos and black beans and rice, but I don’t like the way it tastes with ground beef. The Ortega and Old El Paso taco sauces are okay in a pinch, but not my favorite. Before sriracha came into my life, I used La Victoria hot sauce on my tacos. I suppose I could return to that, even though it’s not as spicy. But maybe this is an opportunity to try NEW hot sauces. I have read a few “There’s a sriracha shortage, try these alternatives” articles and none of them has been helpful. (It turns out that I am extremely choosy about hot sauce. Chile crisp and sambal oelek are textured, not smooth; Tabasco is thin and vinegary. None of these are adequate sriracha substitutes, even if they have their place.) But hot sauce is expensive and it’s hard to know where to start. Do you have a favorite hot sauce? 

What non-essential-for-nutrition-or-life food item, if suddenly unavailable, would leave you feeling most bereft? Sriracha is mine, I think. My husband would probably choose peanut butter. My daughter would probably say ketchup – I don’t think she could live without ketchup. Do you have something you use ALL the time, or love so much that you would feel lost without it?

Speaking of food, as I usually am, I have reached the stage of packing where food preparation is becoming slightly tricky. I have been trying to pack away non-essentials, and have already put together several boxes of kitchen items. This came back to bite me this week when I tried to make paprikas and realized that I had packed the potato peeler. Hmm. Why did you do that, Past Suzanne? True, this is probably the one meal (besides Thanksgiving) that requires a potato peeler, but still. So I had to peel potatoes with a knife and it was not nearly so easy. Then I decided I was going to make muffins for my writing group. (One writing friend has moved to the city for the summer, so my regular writing buddy and I invited him to join us.) But… I had already packed away the muffin tins. THEN I looked for Carla’s dinosaur taco holder for taco night, and… I had already packed it. Womp womp. I wonder what essential non-essential cooking item I will need and be unable to use next. 

My hair is driving me bonkers. It’s been nearly four months since I last had my hair colored, and boy can you tell. The grey is really insidious, creeping in around my ears and in patches at the crown of my head. The worst part, for me, is that the way the grey grows in, it makes me look like I am balding. My hair parts naturally on the right side of my head, kind of at the outer edge of my right eyebrow. But the hair on the bottom side of the part is so pale that it looks like scalp. I don’t think it IS scalp, although it could be that my hair is also quite thin in that spot (gulp!), but whatever is going on, it doesn’t look good. I have been increasingly self-conscious in photos, to the point that I have begun parting my hair on the other side of my head. This is WEIRD. It looks weird, it feels weird. My hair flips up where it shouldn’t. But at least I look less bald, I guess. 

In other aging news, I have a new wrinkle. Wrinkle is kind of a charming word – that bright cheery i, the fun tongue-trip of nkle. But the object it refers to is less charming. This one is kind of like a double frown that bridges the inner corner of each eye over the top of my nose. I do not care for it. Also, I can’t figure out what facial expression is CAUSING it. If I knew what face I was making to develop this wrinkle, I would STOP DOING IT. I have sort of decided that it has something to do with my daily 3:00-5:00 am wakeup, because the wrinkle sometimes stretches over my eyelids into the portion that is swollen from lack of sleep. But I can’t correct THAT, lo how I’ve tried.

My husband and I have discovered a sad truth: we should have done a lot of these home improvements EARLIER, so we could ENJOY THEM. We have been enlisting a lot of professional help to get our home into selling shape, but we have also pulled out the old DIY artillery as well. He and I are GOOD at DIYing, and by “he and I” I mean that I am good at persuading him we can do a thing and then he is good at executing it. (DIY projects require a lot of skills that I lack, like patience and the ability to paint/cut/hang a straight line.) (I am, however, extremely good at driving to Home Depot and buying supplies.) One thing we did this weekend was to replace nearly all of our window screens. I am embarrassed to tell you the state of our screens, but they were ROUGH. And I have no idea why we never even EXPLORED the option of fixing them. Never! I mean, four or five years ago when I was determined to replace our windows, I guess I figured we’d replace the screens too… but beyond that, I never once thought about them except to lament the fact that if we wanted cool, fresh air in our bedroom at night we would also have to welcome a few bugs. The thing is, replacing screens is SUPER EASY. And inexpensive! I have gotten many, many quotes for screen replacement and they range from $42 per screen on the high end to $25 per screen on the low end. But we did it ourselves and it took maybe three hours and about $60 to replace seven screens. This has been the case for EVERY IMPROVEMENT we have done. Why did we wait until the literal last minute?!? When we move into the new house, I have vowed – to my husband, and now publicly – that we will fix things right away, not let them fester for a decade or two until we plan to move out. 

Do companies ever listen to their own hold music? This question is brought to you by being on hold for 26 minutes with the electric company as I waited for a human to help me transfer our service to the new house. My local hospital system has a pretty decent hold line – music, regularly interrupted by brief ads for critical health services, like “make sure you get your colonoscopy!” or “regular skin checks are a great way to identify skin cancer early!” That kind of thing. But the electric company’s hold music is NOT good. It vacillated wildly between normal volume and way too loud. When it got loud, it was full of static. And the “song” that kept playing on repeat would stop abruptly as though a customer service agent were finally going to answer my call, and then start playing again from the beginning. 

Have I mentioned how much I hate the idea of strangers TOUCHING my THINGS? Every time we get home after realtor showings, I feel like I should Lysol every possible surface people might have touched. Yuck. 

Okay, that’s it for now I think. What’s on your mind today?