Kinda Sorta Cooking...but mostly deals and winging it

 So over the years I have slowly realized I don't make food the way other people do.

Apparently most people learn how to make several recipes and then that's it. They know the stuff to buy and they are comfortable with it. They use a cookbook for other things and make it once - maybe twice. At least this is what I've gleaned by shopping with people and watching them cook with a book open.

But my cooking style has been informed greatly by two pervasive parts of my personality: the love of winging it and the love of things on sale.

Now the sale part my grandmother has the audacity to be angry about. She's always like "Alexandra! You are so cheap! You've got money! Spend it!" But I learned my love of sales from that woman. Like damn. Does she not remember my childhood? She shopped at the super rich people thrift stores so I could look like an expensive toddler (a strange oxymoron that people for some reason aspire to) for the price of 'we think we're rich'. I mean some of my earliest memories are of my mom and aunts chorusing "SALE!!" as they run into stores - which she molded them to do! So yeah. How dare she get pissy with me about my frugality. 

....But ok. I do have a minor variant on the sale gene. Theirs is more like Oooo a TEN THOUSAND dollar coat is marked down to thirty five hundred dollars. It'd be absurd not to get it. That's $6500 in savings (yes shopping math is not just a joke in my family). Mine is more like anything that costs over $2.50 is a rip off and it wounds me. Yes, NYC Subway - I'm looking at you. It's only worth $2.75 if i'm on the train for more than 45 minutes. When you get me to my destination in just a few minutes exactly how I want, it isn't worth full price! (yeah, I see the cognitive dissonance but I've been trying to get rid of it for a while. It has roots right in the middle of my life. I ground the stump down as best I could but I still trip over it a lot.)

My mother once tried to make me see the light. You see she sells kitchens - a notoriously spendy thing already - and high end ones at that. So she thinks she can amortize her way out of a paper bag (yes a miele dishwasher is 8 million dollars but if you run it nightly for the next 5 years it'll only cost you a cent a day to never have to do dishes again). Well not this paper bag, lady! I was talking about shoes - something I always think I'm willing to pay more for because I love them - but turns out that's a lie the stump has propagated so I'll trip over it more. Dick stump. Anyway back to the story. She realizes I only buy $40 shoes and this outrages my mother who drops $100 on shoes she will literally never wear every week. So she tries the amortization trick when I'm viscerally horrified by the prospect of spending $300 on ONE PAIR of shoes. Allow me to paraphrase:

You know, your aunt has a pair of magnificent Givenchy* knee high boots she bought like 8 years ago. She wears them at least 3x a week in the winter and they are still in good condition because they're such high quality. You should invest in a pair like that.

* I really don't remember the brand - maybe it was Gucci or Prada or whatever. I don't even know if Givenchy makes boots but I know they make perfume. But Ji-vaghn-schay is super fun to say so you're welcome.

Now in my mother's head she's like an Olympic gymnast having just stuck the landing with both feet. Little does she know much as I would like to engage with her nicely (you know listen enthusiastically, affirmingly and then conveniently forget she said anything) that tree I cut down and ground into a stump - well the trunk got made into a baseball bat and the voice in my head only has it and a desire to never let my mother get on the uneven bars again.

So it comes out that these shoes are the unacceptable price of like 5k. First of all - fuck's sake. Second, I'm like a shark in the water now. Oh yeah. So mom. Okay. Let's say the shoes last 15 years and that they somehow never need maintenance. Okay. Now the cost of the boots is like $333 a year. (5k/15 for those of you amateur mathematicians following along). Now let's say boot weather in Chicago is just under 2/3 of the year or roughly 33 weeks. So that's $10 a week. So about $3 a wear. (At this point she's like SEEE NOT BAD ALEXANDRA!! INVESTMENTS AMORTIZE).

Now you can imagine that voice in my head - let's call him frigal because he's both frigid and frugal - is making that grinchy smile where his whole face sinks into the grin in the ugliest way. This is too easy.

So I say uh-huh. uh-huh. $3 a wear. impressive. yeah. Well my favorite pair of beige heels - I bought them 5 years ago and I wear them probably 2x a week every week over 50 degrees in NYC. Let's say that's May to October for argument's sake - or like 30 weeks a year. They're not too much longer for this world and I did have them resoled a couple years back. So $40 to buy and $40 for a resole. So $80 for 300 wears if I tossed them tomorrow. That's 27 cents a wear. Kinda feels like the shoes pay me at this point, huh?

Mmm. Victory is so sweet that frigal doesn't even mind when she furiously tells me I'm the worst and invents a reason to get off the phone. I ignore the voice that says what about the other $40 pair you bought that fell apart the first time you wore them so much that you just threw them away.

Okay you get the picture on my strange form of frugality (we don't have time to go into its intersection with my conservationism/sustainability. Quite complicated really).

Now onto my perverse love of winging it. I do a fair amount of public speaking and I gotta tell you preparing a speech feels great but actually giving a speech is the pits - why? because in your head (okay maybe just my head) it's like this defining moment where the world realizes your glory and they cheer and body surf you to supreme ruler of the universe. This is never what happens. Even if people are nice after you severely fuck up or tell you this is exactly what they needed and you changed their life - you still feel like IF I COULD JUST HAVE GOTTEN EVERY WORD IN ORDER. Thus - I prefer panels. On a panel I can shine - be funny and charismatic and have no expectations of what I'll say - and there are 4 other people who will be talking and giving me the space between jokes to think of more stuff. YES. Oh winging it how I love you so. It doesn't just apply to extempore speaking. - everything feels like you nailed it (or did at least better than could have been expected given you made that shit up on the spot). And people awe over it. Great feeling. Highly suggest. Winging it is my form of spontaneity - and what other people might call 'creativity'. We'll come back to this.

Meanwhile back at the grocery store - I'm the absolute worst shopper. I walk along most aisles (okay I don't need to go into the soda, chips, and candy aisle. Those are not my preferred way to waste calories). I inspect every price tag and deeply consider what is a good deal. Not what I need - what is a good deal. Do you see that gene coming back? If I have to spend more than 2.50 for it then it has to be a deal.

tangent: last week I saw bags of onions were on sale 2 for $3. So I grabbed 2 bags and handed them to my lovely assistant to stow properly before something in my brain was like "THIS ISN'T RIGHT" and sure enough it was a trick. The tiny bagged onions were $1.50 per pound and the big old monstrosities I love were $1/lb. I properly snatched the bags back and loaded up so I could live that #bigonionlife. Oh, yeah.

So as I shop I see things and I'm like these two things can go together! I think? probably. I'll find a way. My surefire thing is to buy a bunch of fake meats then think about what starches go with those fake meats then work in a ton of veggies. Honestly though since stores aren't laid out this way it means I get a lot of cardio when I grocery shop. I know all the list makers are horrified. Especially since they're like lists make you stay on budget! and I'm like my frugality is not budget based - it's about feeling like I got a win. Budgeting is the long game. This is about going to the cash register with a bursting cart and having it be under $100. HA take that, suckers!

So I get home with this random mishmash of things. And I'm tired. But I've learned this lesson in the past. shopping day and cooking days don't align. So I usually buy myself something pre-made and heat that up after I put everything away.

Now we have all the foods and the next day the cooking is ON. So my personal philosophy is that if I have to cook for 30 mins to make a meal or 2 I may as well cook for 2 hours and make 18 portions. Other people call this meal prepping. I have been calling this consolidating the pain of cooking for over a decade.

Remember that 'creativity' I mentioned before? It's just taking inspiration and combining it into something kinda new. Basically what I'm saying is I don't follow recipes - I look up a ton of different recipes by googling random ingredients together then looking at the images tab. If it looks delicious then I open the recipe and try to gauge how many of the necessary ingredients I have or could figure a way around. I skim it through to understand the order that things go into pots then find the next interesting picture and do the same thing. I do this until my brain says "I've had enough of looking at food" or "Oh I got this." You'd think the latter bodes better but winging it is winging it. The chance it will be good is pretty much the same.

I should also mention that I'm usually just cooking for myself so the stakes are low. And one pot meals are everything to me

Here are some of the things that have come out of my brain recently...I'd give you the stuff from the past but I honestly can't remember all the things I've randomly cooked. Easy come, easy go. Also most things I make are somewhere between a slop and a mush. But they do taste good. Feel free to add nooch to any of these. Hell yeah.

Vaguely Irish, mostly potatoes - some interesting (read: lazy) mixture of colcannon and coddle:

Take a 5lb bag of potatoes and a 2 lb bag of carrots. wash and cut them into 1.5 inch chunks (leave as much skin as you like). Also rough chop a very big yellow onion. 1 pack of tofurky sausage, half coined. and the leaves of probably 2 bunches of kale - any one will do.

now I've done this two ways:

A) sautee the onions in a deep pot and then pile in the starches and cover with water, boil and keep doing so until most water is gone/absorbed, add in the sausage and keep cooking until it starts to loose its shape a bit

B) dump starches into boiling water and let get fork tender. meanwhile saute the onions and sausage separately and add them in to the starches once they are in that waterlogged but not swimming state. The water should be cooking off

Now either way: the kale. you'll want to make into quite small pieces - like 1/3 of an oreo. and quickly pan fry it so it wilts. then dump it into the big pot and stir for your life.

You can add in some vegan butter while the starches are hot if you like - and of course salt/pepper to taste.

makes like 6 servings

The next one is minorly mexican mush.

I sauteed a chopped onion with the thinly chopped kale stems leftover from another meal. Simultaneously I was boiling up some red/yellow lentils. Then I took my cauliflower and thin sliced the florets (I eat the stems while cooking since they're so sweet - or I store them to make some crunch in salads/ as snacks). saute the cauli and add in some TJ's soyrizo (completely unwrapped so it crumbles). Add it all together and, season with cumin/ paprika/ chili and top it with sour cream, maybe serve it over lettuce or as a taco filling. makes about 5 servings

Bigass Bean stew:

saute a big onion then add (previously soaked) mixed bean soup - 2 packs and cover with water. while it's boiling small chop your veggies - really anything but your starches should go in first (carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rutabaga, rice, quinoa) then fresh non-leafy veggies (squashes, brocc, cauli, brussels) then frozen veggies then (5 mins to the end) leafy veggies (kale, spinach). really just cook until desired result is achieved. and lastly - vinegar! It makes every bean or lentil stew better. Trust me. If you're new to it try seasoned rice vinegar, else balsamic will do. I even tried the balsamic mustard once - really complemented the flavor profile. (I'm not sure people who make slop are allowed to say flavor profile but nobody's arrested me yet) Servings will change drastically depending on what you add - but last time I made it like 10 servings came out.

One unmoving pot pasta:

I hate when they say one pot but you boil the pasta first then put it the side and make the dish. I'm not moving a pot filled with boiling water. No. I reject your loophole.

This is a favorite easy crowd pleaser. decide which veggies and protein you want. Make that. For this we'll assume I'm using tj's meatballs (2 packs) and frozen veggie foursome (3 packs) - I'd saute a big onion then toss in the balls - let them sear a bit then toss in the veggies. cook for a bit then toss in the canned (bpa-free!) tomatoes (one large crushed with basil and another chunky tomato sauce) and 1.5-2 of those cans of water. let it boil then toss in 24 oz of pasta - I like brown rice or veggie pasta as it takes overcooking better and this process is finicky. stir it under the water as best you can and close the lid. halfway through stir again to make sure all of them are submerged and the stuff at the bottom isn't sticking. top with a packet of your favorite vegan cheese and close the lid again. once done open the lid and stir the cheese in. makes like 11 servings.

Fusion Melted Plastic Chandelier P1

So for the third Chandelier in my room I have a conundrum. My other fixtures are so dark. The plastic, thought translucent, really mutes the light. And this third light is the main source of light in my room for getting dressed and seeing the room; I've gotten used to the absurd brightness of 3 bare bulbs. So it just cannot be so dark. Let's take a step back before we face that dilemma:

I was walking through Ikea's warehouse very shortly after Christmas of 2015 when I saw ornaments were marked down to almost nothing. I saw some ornaments that looks like crystal chandelier pieces that had been painted. I immediately wanted them. But I'd need so many for my project! Luckily they were marked from $7 for a pack of 8 kinds to 99 cents! So naturally I bought 32 packs of them in gold. I then took them all out of their plastic packaging, organized them by shape and shoved them into grocery bags for storage...18 months of storage.



Shopping list ($74):
32 packs of 8 Vintermys Gold ornaments in 7 shapes (see above)
3 large purple swirl bowls 9 small purple swirl bowls
6 tall purple flared bowls
9 small purple flared bowls
6 large purple flared bowls
Of course: a heat gun. Maybe a glue gun, too.


So going back to our light intensity conundrum. My other lamps are plastic almost all the way around the bulb. I decided maybe this time I could let more light through by making the chandelier only be melted plastic on certain sides, the lovely gold pieces hanging on the other sides, distracting from the bulbs within without blocking so much light. I also considered buying clear plastic and interspersing it with the purple - but I like the more saturated effect for my room's Arabian Nights theme.

So for months and months I've delayed the project because I wasn't sure how to design it. This is a big step up for me - utilizing the melted plastic AND the ornaments together - it's not something that's easy to find and duplicate from the internet. Chihuly seems never to have had a crystal phase. Gah!

I decided my design would be a circle (oval) or large open purple pieces at the top along the ceiling. A point of small bud-like pieces at the bottom would be connected to the top by multiple levels of hanging gold pieces on circles, cascading down from the top to the point.

First I started just melting as some of this plastic I've never melted before - I wanted to see how it'd behave under the heat.
 
Once I had melted down all the large pieces I made a lump (with old jeans) in my drop cloth to mold the top oval part around.

The overlap was difficult - these new blue purple pieces did NOT want to stick to each other or the other redder purple plastic. Ugh - it look forever and a lot of finger burns to make these pieces stick together.

I left it like that - still not sure how I wanted it to look. My Artist's block was stubborn and when I run at that wall, it has maybe shaken but never crumbled. So I left it for 2 months all over my bedroom floor to basically shame myself into finishing the art.

Then one night It was dim in my room and I missed my depth perception. And I kicked the piece. It cracked - leaving jagged edges. I felt something break inside of me. Dammit. It can't be fixed. and then the next day I hit it with my foot again - more damage. Eventually it all broke down and I felt like - ugh! I just need to put it all together and make an organic piece of my soul. Whatever comes out I'll cover it in the gold stuff and get it done. Somehow I'll make it work. I'll let it stream from my somewhere and allow it to be. Worst thing that happens? I throw it out and stay in my current situation. Or I just use the gold pieces. Whatever. It will work. Here goes nothing...

Stud Holder

I swear I'll get to the stud holder. But first, some gloating: I have this beautiful set of ombre shelves that I made (I measured, cut and painted the wood and installed the brackets for them). They go wall-to-wall over a recessed window and provide all the shelf storage in my room.

Including a pristine hook display that I implemented (bought a box of hooks from ikea, drilled a ton of tiny holes and screwed the hooks into those holes) to display all my necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings....well...my hanging earrings.

All those studs can't easily be hung from hooks. The super large ones you can kinda squeeze so they sandwich the hook..but they sometimes fall down.

So I set out on a journey to get my studs up on a display. I googled and pinterested until my fingers wearied and my eyes fell out. Then I utilized a piece of stryofoam that I got from a shipment of nuvarings.

And for the past 2 years that piece of styrofoam has been laying on its back on the bottom shelf. But this week I got poster tack to get all those "must do this" papers off my entry table and onto the wall where I can see them (in hindsight a magnetic board probably would have worked, but now I can use the tack anywhere in the room! glory!...or so I thought).

So I embarked on a heroic saga to mount my studs to the wall. I looked at my nuvaring foam holder and while it had served me well I really couldn't cut the back of it at an angle and if the studs are in a vertical piece of styrofoam they just heed gravity. Not good. So as I was thinking I decided to take out my trash and in the refuse room (in NYC apartments there is a teeny room on each floor with recycling and a trash shoot) I found exactly what I needed! Angled pieces of styrofoam! One person's trash really is another's treasure. So I mocked it up into a shape that would sit flush to the wall but let the studs sit at an angle antagonizing gravity with a lip below just in case.

Glueing this together without epoxy was kinda awful...hot glue just melts the styrofoam...so I had to let the glue drip from above - that way it cooled a little before it hit the styrofoam. then I flipped the joint upside down so the glue would stick to both slabs of foam instead of settling into the first piece. Yeah, not optimal.

Then I got to mounting. Remember that poster tack? Well it hates styrofoam. I originally combated this by gluing strips of paper to the back of my foam. I then put it on the wall for a day with no earrings..it eventually fell. Turns out poster tack is really just for paper.

So I decided I should just suck it up and screw it to the wall...what's two more holes when there are 15+ in that wall already? I think it looks quite nice with the earrings:

 

and next to my other jewelry but to be fair it is kinda too large for my existing studs..maybe I'll move more stuff onto it? Maybe I'll paint it? We'll see!

 

Sticky socks: Not everything should be DIYed

So I was doing Pure Barre 6x a week for 3 months. And the only real required gear for barre is a pair of "sticky socks" also known as yoga socks or hospital socks, etc. They are socks with grip stuff on the bottom so your feet are covered but not slippery. And - this should bring you no shock given how expensive barre is, $350 a month - they are about $15 a pair; more if you want a snazzy pair with top of foot cutouts (maryjane style) or other exciting patterns. I had one pair of toe yoga socks from Santa years back...but I couldn't wear the same socks 6x a week for 3 months. ick. And I'm averse to paying crazy prices so I decided: hell, I can make these! I thought about three ways to execute:

1) Caulk. Why not? it's stayed permanently embedded in my jeans from my years of home improvement. Unfortunately I then promptly and stubbornly messed up my caulk gun so it's now stuck with a hardened tube of caulk inside it. Oops. Next plan.

2) Hot glue. Duh - it's sticky/ grippy. So I broke out my early model glue gun

 

and two pairs of ooooold socks - look they have not one but TWO holes. and the stains. Ugh, girrrrl get rid of your ancient socks. Anyway - they came in handy for this. I stuck some flip flops inside the socks to hold them in position.

 

and then squirted glue on the bottoms in whatever pattern seemed good. I used the flat edge tip to smear the glue on the first sock. But that was so hard! and it seemed like it wasn't the most sticky?
 

So I just left the latter three more three dimensional.

 

They weren't awful in class, but then they went through the wash and the three dimensional stuff just basically fell off. And the stuck down one just became sloughy and gross.

 

3) Puffy Fabric Paint. So I then went for what the interwebs said! I bought some fabric paint and then set to work on some not-as-old-socks. Fabric paint is not as easy to use as they make it out to be! But I did what I could as a first draft. Look at that color coordination. Damn, I'm good.

The lines and dots I made didn't quite line up where I wanted them. Figuring out the exact position of your foot in a sock that's not on your feet is super hard. The puff paint takes hours and hours to dry so using your own feet as models is a bad idea. But maybe I should have put the socks on my foot, marked them and then put them on the flip flops and used the markers? Oh well. I knew from the first class they were taking damage. The green ones started almost flaking off and I would see small chunks of green puff paint in the carpet at the barre studio. The pink ones were applied thinner and so they just got less sticky. Also the non-uniform thickness of the applied paint kinda hurt my feet, especially my heels) in class. Like having a rock in your shoe.

 

I did also win a free pair of sticky socks from Pure Barre. So all of my socks have been worn about the same number of classes. And the Pure Barre socks have held up so much better. Even my from-Santa Namaste yoga toe socks didn't hold up super well to the 90 second planks. The ball of my foot on my DIY and my yoga socks are worn to almost nothing.

The moral of this story is that you should just buck up and buy sticky socks. DIY was not effective. Wait for a deal and buy a couple pair of good quality sticky socks!

Molded Plastic Lighting

I was going to hold this post until I was done with the final lighting installment but at this time I'm having artist's block. So - I'm going to write this for now and try again soon. Basically, I was inspired by Chihuly and my past project melting plastic to make some translucent light fixtures out of melted plastic.

So one thing adults do in the privacy of their rooms makes you want to not have too much harsh lighting. And pink light makes the skin look best. So I set out to make a full bed canopy with a light in the center. You know, to set the mood. I spent a few days on a ladder draping fabric and came out with this view from laying inside my bed (disclaimer: I was really into snapchat at the time):

Buying list ($19) for this chandelier was as follows: 

One package of 20 pink cups 

One large red bowl 

Six small red bowls

First I made the large bowl into a center base. If you need to know how to use a heat gun please see my previous post. So I heated the edges down to flatten and create textural interest. Then I heated the center so much it became a large hole. That's where the light bulb hangs. I then heated the small red bowls much the same way - flattened and textured - but I accidentally gave them holes in the center, too. So I used the bottoms of the glasses to fill them in. Honestly I think it looks stupid - like a demented wheel. But luckily for me that part (the top) is less visible because of the drapery.
Then I melted down the cups - I would heat them, so they became a little wonky - remember: "textural interest" and then I'd stick them to the bottom of the big bowl in an overall conical shape. I kind of sat the chandelier top upside down and then pushed a bunch of wonky cups together so they formed a nice gradual point - then I heated them so they stuck together. Making sure they stuck together was a terrible time - many scorched fingers as the cup plastic isn't as "sticky" as the bowl plastic. Finally I made sure any large holes (mainly where the 'wheels' hit the base big bowl) were covered with the cup bottoms. And it was done!

 

Once I had finished, I hung it - this took forever and so much balance on top of a stool on my bed. At one point I fell down and the lamp fell and broke into two pieces so I had to stop and fix it. Crying may have ensued. Why do I make my life difficult? The pictures below are me holding the completed chandelier (that's my hand inside it showing where the bulb sits), and views from laying in the center of the bed staring straight up with the chandelier off and the bedroom light on, then with chandelier on and bedroom light off. 

I think it's pretty boss. And so does really everybody else. Every person who has gotten lucky (pun intended) enough to see it has been like "HOLY FREAKING WHAT. THIS IS CRAZY AWESOME." And the red light from it makes it seem like I'm blushing under compliment - when really I'm drinking that ego stroke in like "oh yeah, tell me I'm great again." Even my Mom, who I had talked to about it repeatedly, and also gives a lot of (deserved) side eye to my crazy projects, asked me why I was doing a real people job instead of putting my art in the MoMA when she saw it waiting to be hung up. Yeah, I was pretty smug about that. 

But as a disclaimer, heat guns are VERY hot. I sustained a large burn during this project that, 11 months later, is still visible. I also burned straight through my multiple layers of canvas drop cloth and burned my carpet. (strangely enough I was able to clean the burn out of the fibers....still not sure exactly how...seems wrong.) So don't try this at home without proper precautions - like a covering clothes and a substantial drop cloth/ floor you don't care about.

So the second lamp is blue (my bedroom is mildly "Arabian nights" themed - decadent drapery, jewel tones {Reds for the canopy, Blues for the desk/shelves, Purple closet/bedding} and Gold accents.) The light sits above where I should keep my desk - that's a long story I might tell in this blog in the future if I even find a good arrangement for my furniture. But the desk is dark blue, the shelves go from medium blue to very light aqua.

On a very snowy day I got everything out and prepared. The $22 buying list is:

One package of 20 royal blue wine glasses

One large Aqua bowl

3 Small blue bowls

6 small aqua bowls

So I started with some sketches this time around (snapchat actually helped here):

I, of course, melted down the big aqua bowl as a base with a hole burned into the center. Then gave the cups and bowls some melty texture (flipped the base on it's head) and started making them into a conical shape. 

 

Finally I finished it by breaking the dark blue bowls into thirds and attaching them to the top of the base. It's not my favorite choice. But it's hung up now and Done is better than favorite. The lamp really blunts the light that it puts out now. (This is the reason for my artist's block as the next lamp is the main light of my room and I need it to put out a generous functional amount of light.)

Here are videos of the lights going on an off so you can see! (They do have sound...so mute as you like)