stay in the shallow end

Actually, there is no flame, it’s all electric… I’ve rediscovered my George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine.

We bought this Foreman grill right after we got married. We used it a lot in the beginning for burgers, veggies, fish, and other random things. Since this coincided with when we first started cooking, I didn’t realize that “fat reducing” really means “flavor sucking.” You know all those juices that drip away into that little tray in the commercial… that’s not fat, that’s flavor. The Foreman got put away and hasn’t really made an appearance until a few months ago.

I pulled it out again when I started buying frozen chicken breasts from Costco, and got impatient waiting 30 minutes for them to cook in the oven. Even outside on the grill, it was 25 minutes from starting up the grill to sitting down to eat. With the Foreman I can do it in 10. While I had it out, I tried it on a few leftovers. The results were awesome.

• Sanwiches: This is really a no brainer. Any sandwich that doesn’t have lettuce on it tastes great. Just spray a little Pam on the grill and you get a delicious golden brown crust on your sandwich.
• Chinese Food: The problem with microwaving Chinese food is that it’s always sitting in it’s own juices and ends up getting all soggy. With the Foreman, all of that liquid drips off, and what’s left has a much more concentrated flavor.
• Pasta: Take any leftover Italian, especially with a tomato sauce, toss it on the Foreman grill, and you now have baked whatever it was before. This works especially well if there was cheese in the dish as it browns and forms a crust around the pasta… delicious.
• Pizza: This was really the shocker for me. Leftover pizza almost never tastes good. The microwave makes it too soggy, and they oven makes it too dry. Somehow, the Foreman makes it taste nothing like it originally did, but also delicious. The crust comes out super crispy, the cheese gets browned but not burned, and the inside is still moist. It’s by far my favorite way to enjoy a day old slice of pizza.

So the Foreman has earned its way back on the counter. Joy.

After reading Michael’s post at Jagermeta regarding overhearing a conversation about Mario Kart at a bar, I had a brilliant idea: Now that Mario Kart DS is out, I could actually play Mario Kart in a bar!

A few words about MKDS. Nintendo basically released a “best of” Mario Kart for it’s dual screened handheld, the DS. It’s everything you’ve loved about all the past Karts, minus the stuff that sucked (*cough* Double Dash *cough*). In addition to all this goodness, you get free play over the internets via the Nintendo WiFi Connection. Needless to say this is the greatest thing ever, and my friends and I have geeked out playing Mario Kart while being conferenced via Skype for many hours now.

Anyway, Monday was my last final, and I’d decided that Tuesday night I was going to park myself on a couch at South Street and just drink and chill. After reading Michael’s post, it became obvious what chilling would entail. I grabbed my DS and headed out to South Street all by my lonesome. I got comfy on a couch, drank beer, ate nachos, and Karted out.

Since it was Tuesday night, a crowd started to develop, and some anthropologists asked if they could sit in the couch area with me. Since it was just me, I didn’t really have a problem with it. They had friends coming, and soon it was me on the couch playing Nintendo surrounded by 15 anthropologists who’d just finished grading papers.

I was there for three hours, and I can honestly say that I haven’t had so much fun alone in a bar in my life. It’s definitely becoming a regular event.