An Oxymoron? You Decide.

Points in Favor:*
1. Most radio stations play a “ Mandatory Metallica” feature during the five o’clock hour, during which listeners are exhorted to PARRRTAAYYY! Because it’s QUITTIN’ TIME!!!
2. Driving. Always. Everywhere. Discuss.
3. Hope you don’t want an avocado, ’cause we don’t have ‘em.
4. That band Nickelback: still popular!
Chad Kroeger prefers Summer’s Eve to Massengill

BTW, their latest video “reminds us that every second on earth is a precious one.” Write it down, kiddies.
5. Bumper stickers that time — and good sense — forgot, i.e. : “Save Disney! Impeach Michael, Bring Back Roy!” (spotted on a vehicle outside Famous Dave’s BBQ in Bloomington, IL). And no, I don’t think they’re protesting corporate malfeasance.
6. McDonald’s Asian Chicken Salad: too spicy? 9 out of 10 Central Illinois residents agree.

Points Against:**

1. Four drinks, $14.00.
2. Bubba Shot the Jukebox. A real song.
3. It is mostly unacceptable to curse or flip off someone who has committed a driving error.
4. Also unacceptable to come within three feet of another customer at the grocery store without muttering “Excuse me.” No touching under any circumstances! (Atlantic Center Pathmark shoppers, take note.)
5. It’s hard to feel trapped when the sky is so big:

or when the countryside is so beautiful:

6. Outside smells like sunshine, fresh grass, fairies, and angels. You do not involuntarily cease breathing through the nose when you step out of doors. If I could bottle the air as a perfume, it would be the last act of my working life.

Let the voting commence. . .

*of oxymoron status of phrase “Midwestern Living”
**same

 

Hot Dish Heaven Ain’t in New York

I am fully prepared to concede that there is a fair amount of Midwestern food that simply sucks. I’ve eaten all varieties of it and then some; for most of my childhood I attended parochial school, and the (leftover) funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the lunch tables — except for “baked meats” read “Jell-O salads.” Lutheran ladies are by and large a friendly, well-meaning bunch blessed with an abundance of common sense, but get those women around flavored gelatin and prudence flies out the window. Shredded carrots with grape Jello-O! Broccoli with orange! Throw some marshmallows in it, slather some cream cheese on top, and go pay your respects to Hubert.

Hot dish (“casserole” for those east of Cleveland) suffers from the same creativity. As long as there’s some cream of mushroom soup in there, Midwestern cooks play fast and loose with everything else– green beans, corn, ground beef, water chestnuts, rice, tater tots, egg noodles, sour cream, whatever. Just throw it in and stir. More often than not, Midwestern food -like some actual Midwesterners – suffers from being created solely to take to and from church. Beanie weenies, sloppy joes, seven layer salad (layers 2, 4, and 6 are Miracle Whip), and taco casserole are all quickly assembled from pre-packaged ingredients late Saturday night, travel well in Tupperware containers or Crock Pots, and re-heat easily.

But when you pry a can opener out of a Midwestern cook’s hand, hide the Jell-O, and forbid the use of processed potato products, the results can be mouth-watering to eat and behold. The flavors are fresh and simple — no foams or reductions for us! – the portions generous, and the desire to please (as opposed to intimidate) open and unabashed. Here’s one of my favorite recipes, a paramount example of the ingenious use of the Holy Trinity of Midwestern cooking: Cool Whip, Marshmallow Fluff, and mayonnaise.

One Bowl Chocolate Cake with Mocha Cream Frosting
Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup hot strong brewed coffee
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
Cooking spray
Mocha Cream:
1/4 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
1 (7-ounce) jar marshmallow fluff
1 (8-ounce) container frozen light whipped topping, thawed
1/3 cup light chocolate syrup (such as Hershey’s Lite Syrup)

Preheat oven to 350°.
To prepare cake, lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 6 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl. Add mayonnaise and oil; beat with a mixer at low speed until well blended. Slowly add brewed coffee and vanilla; beat with a mixer at low speed 1 minute or until well blended. Stir in chocolate; pour batter into a 13 x 9-inch baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack.
To prepare mocha cream, combine water and coffee granules in a large bowl; stir until granules dissolve. Add marshmallow creme; beat with a mixer at low speed until smooth. Fold in whipped topping. Spread mocha cream over top of cake; drizzle with chocolate syrup. Chill until ready to serve.

Serve this at your next dinner party and bask in the compliments you undoubtedly will receive. You’re well on your way to being the culinary star of the next funeral.

 

Idaho vs. Iowa

I am dying to share my adventures on City Island with y’all, but until I can find some new batteries for my piece-of-shit camera and thus disgorge the pictures it’s clutching in its wizened crusty digital heart, I’m going to post about something that’s neither New York nor New Zealand.

The Midwest gets short shrift here on the East Coast. Most New Yorkers seem to think of the Midwest as a morass of red states dusted in corn meal, deep fried, and left on the coffee table to watch reality TV and Fox News. I have even been a party where a grown woman confused Iowa and Idaho and excused herself by saying, “Same difference.” What? They’re over a thousand miles apart! Potatoes vs. corn! Come on! And what really gets me is that I’m sure this woman would have gotten her panties in a knot had anyone suggested that she lived in Washington Heights instead of Washington Square.

Regardless of those who can’t find their way around a map, the Midwest has a lot going for it.
First off, the best drinking songs. Just between the Jayhawks, Uncle Tupelo, and Dylan, the Midwest has birthed enough downtempo dirges about deserted hometowns, mornings after, ruined friendships, road trips, and the occasional vein-opener about love gone wrong to keep you gazing at your navel through the bottom of a beer glass until last call.

But, the Midwest can also represent with the raucous pour ‘em back-throw ‘em down – puke and rally and order another round variety of drinking songs, like Pour Me Another by Minneapolis hip-hop collective Atmosphere (Listen to a sample by scrolling down and clicking on track 8). This song sounds just as great on the Monday morning elevator ride up to the cubicle as it does in between rounds 3 and 4 on Saturday night. Listen at your own risk — I put it on repeat for hours.

Tomorrow, I wax poetic on another undiscovered virtue of the Midwest — the food. Yes, you read that correctly.

And PS – Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois are all blue states.

 

Quick And Sleazy

In the small town that abutted the even-smaller town where I grew up, there was a gas station called Quick N’ Easy — or it may have even been Quik N’ EZ (shudder). For reasons that became obvious upon entering the minimart, or even just wandering in the general area, locals always referred to it as Quick and Sleazy. There were corn nuggets. There was beef jerky — several varieties. There were pork rinds. There were Nascar beer can holders made of foam, perfectly sized to fit in the cup holder located on the dash of your F-150, which you may have tricked out with some Yosemite Sam mudflaps. There were bumper stickers offering driving advice. There were pressurized cheese products. The counter attendant was one of a rotating crew of obese women in their mid-twenties sporting oversized Dallas Cowboys jerseys and thick eyeliner, and you couldn’t pay for your gas without overhearing one of the other patrons talk about what he shot last weekend (not in golf, dear readers) and how his sister had turned into such a slut since she started doing crystal.

I said Goodbye To All That when I moved to New York. Yet I still feel a twinge of homesickness when I recall the flourescent charms of the Quik N’ EZ. When I think back on New York, though, I don’t want to feel homesick at the memory of the NYC equivalent of a Quik N’EZ (which I guess would be a bodega on Grand where a freelance woodworker is talking about how his roommate has turned into such a slut since she was on Cobrasnake). That’s why I’m starting Friday Nights With Ruth. Join me each week on this special night as I engage in a distinctly New York activity and make Memories to Last a Lifetime. So far I have come up with

A. Indian food in Flushing
B. Free Night at the Guggenheim
C. East Village Bar Crawl
D. West Village Bar Crawl
E. Fifth Avenue (Park Slope) Bar Crawl

I sense a theme developing here. . . . . anyway, suggestions are welcome in the form of a Comment! Friday Nights with Ruth will start tomorrow, and overzealous capitalizing will end immediately. Email if you’re interested.