Category Archives: Non-Gwyneth

Rejoice, blog fans (if there are any of you left), for I am once again on native soil!

I am weary, jetlagged, battered, bruised, bandaged, and 10 pounds heavier.

I got propositioned for sex in exchange for drugs in Rome, I climbed ancient ruins I wasn’t supposed to climb in Pompeii, I swam in the Mediterranean, I helped get a 15-year-old kid from Louisiana into a nightclub (and helped him not get kicked out, as well), I fell in a canal in Venice and took an ambulance boat to the emergency room, I watched the most brutal sport I’ve ever heard of in Florence, and I took the drunkest plane ride of my life to Paris.

It was amazing.

Don’t worry, I’ll go into much more detail of all the best moments in the very near future, once I get around to actually writing about it all. For now, I’m attempting to catch up with everything I missed, which is completely overwhelming and I may just turn right around and get back on a plane. I also returned in the thick of Moving Week – my house is filled with boxes, I’ve already lost one roommate (and am losing another AS I TYPE THIS – don’t go, Lindsey!), and will, by the time the week is done, have lost two of my closest friends in Portland back to the frozen clutches of the Midwest. I also have to move myself into my cousin’s apartment, which will be hectic and awful and painful, considering my aforementioned Venetian injuries. But, as always, the spirit of Julie Powell will hold my hand, as she went through a similarly chaotic moving situation during her Julie/Julia Project. And she still managed to cook while living out of boxes! Damn you, Powell.

So, have no fear, the Danny/Gwyneth Project will soon return as regularly scheduled. Ugh.

For the moment, at least. Tomorrow, bright and early, I leave for a 10-day trip to Italy, so the Danny/Gwyneth Project will have to go on hold. So for the near future, things are going to be less Julie Powell and more Elizabeth Gilbert. God help us all.

I will do my best to provide updates – maybe one or two brief interludes, depending on internet availability – but no promises because, hello, I’ll be jaunting around Italy. You can expect a full report when I return, at the very least.

For those of you distraught at my imminent departure (I’m sure), think of it this way: This is exactly something Gwyneth would do. Just pretend I’m off in search of the perfect bottle of olive oil, or whatever. I’m just doing research to better understand my subject.

Adios. (That’s Italian, right?)

Why oh why did I drink last night?

I’m still nursing a bit of an upper respiratory cold, and I want to enjoy my birthday weekend to the fullest, so obviously in the days before I shouldn’t: A) Exert myself, B) Drink, or C) Stay up late. So what did I do? Worked out, played basketball, and went to a bar. Fantastic.

I also planned on cooking something last night, and that sure didn’t happen. You see, when I returned from work, I was greeted by the delicious smell of chicken. Turns out Danny B. was making Hungarian chicken soup for dinner (it was great, by the way), which meant all dinner responsibilities were thankfully off my plate. But I felt guilty about not having cooked for a while (since Sunday, actually?! Yikes), so I thought I would at least make a side, seeing as I’ve only cooked one of Gwyneth’s side dishes so far. But then I worked out, and then dinner was ready, and then we rushed off to play basketball, and then to Mississippi Pizza Co. to eat pizza and drink and see a super great band, and suddenly my alarm was waking me up and my throat felt a thousand times worse, and I have no one but myself to blame.

So, those are my excuses. But tonight I’ll do some cooking! And tomorrow, seeing as it’s my birthday and all, I’ll be making the only recipe in the cookbook that involves alcohol. And it’s tequila! SCANDALOUS, Gwyneth. Plus, I plan on doing something with duck this weekend.

Christ. So, I’m confident I can find whole ducks and specific duck parts from butchers in Portland, but I’m not so sure about the availability of duck bacon. It seems like a highly specialized item that most places probably wouldn’t bother with, right? Gwyneth recommends D’Artagnan, so I figured I’d use them for just the bacon. And $8.99 isn’t THAT expensive. So I went to order some just now, and was horrified to see the shipping cost added TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS. $34 for a mere 8 ounces of bacon? Fuuuuuck.

Portland people, I need your help: Is there anywhere you know of in the city where I can find duck bacon? Nightmares and empty wallets loom on the horizon.

When I awoke yesterday morning, my throat was on fire. Great, so now I’m sick. (Or, as roommate Danny B. suggested, I may be allergic to pasta. If anyone were to develop a pasta-specific allergy, it would probably occur after the kind of nonsense I went through on Sunday.) I’ve also completed another recipe, but I spent yesterday afternoon on the couch like an invalid instead of actually writing anything, so you will have to wait until tomorrow to hear what I made. It’s just a dessert, so don’t get your hopes up for anything wild.

Roommate Lindsey made a fantastic Martha Stewart shrimp/coconut/noodle soup last night, and she did it in about 20 minutes, and it was exactly what I needed when I wasn’t feeling well. Martha will always trump Gwyneth, this I know for sure.

In the meantime, dear Gwyneth is reportedly going to be on the cover of Bon Appetit magazine. Well done, Gwyneth! Finally, some publicity.

I’m also currently weighing my options for obtaining duck confit. Gwyneth suggests ordering from D’Artagnan, but 6 pieces will run me $45, which is nausea-inducing. I’m pretty sure I know of at least one really good butcher’s shop in Portland that offers duck confit, so I’ll have to give them a call and shop around. I’m also going to be needing at least two or three more whole duck carcasses, so I may as well get friendly with my local duck butchers.

There’s also the option of attempting to make my own duck confit, which would be hilarious and probably turn out awful. Who knows if I’m crazy enough to try it.

As for today, I’m just going to drink a lot of tea.

Yesterday was one of those perfect spring afternoons in Portland. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and every bar and restaurant was overflowing onto the sidewalks with beautiful hipsters. It was one of those days where, when your cousin texts and asks if you want to go out for drinks, dinner turns into hastily made mac and cheese, which you wolf down before walking to the nearest bar, where you enjoy mason jars filled with the some of the most delicious mixed drinks in Portland (I’m talking about Swift Lounge, Portlanders, and you’re missing out if you haven’t been).

So, definitely not an evening for Gwyneth-inspired dishes. I am, however, researching butchers and fishmongers, to try to figure out where I can get the best possible deals and products. I’m warily eying a couple of the more frightening recipes, as I feel I should try to tackle one of them soon, to give myself some confidence. Not sure if I’m ready to stab a lobster in the face yet, though. Or shell out $100 for one home-cooked meal. Ugh.

In other news, I have, with the aid of a few cardboard boxes, transformed my office desk into a standing desk. Because what’s the point of eating healthily and exercising all the time if you’re going to spend 8 hours a day with your big ass held up by a chair? The cardboard boxes and lack of a chair may make me look like a homeless lunatic (or possibly an eccentric genius? Let’s go with that one), but standing all day makes me feel less like a worthless office slob and more like an accomplished hero. I’m standing on my feet all day! Just like nurses, or firefighters! Plus, it lets me walk around the office like an entitled jerk, which is what I always dreamed I’d grow up to become. I can’t say one way or another if this trend of being as healthy as possible (please ignore what I said earlier about the mac and cheese and mason jars full of alcohol) can be entirely attributed to Gwyneth’s influence, but I’d like to think she’s partly responsible.

Is this post coming across as smug and self-absorbed as I suspect it is? It feels like I just wrote an issue of GOOP. Maybe I should start publishing DOOP.

Well, my plans for dinner last night fell apart. Mainly because a dreary morning had somehow, in the nine hours I spent crammed in a corner cubicle, transformed into a perfect afternoon. And I decided I didn’t really want to spend hours in the kitchen, and would much rather be outside, biking, playing tennis, and just getting generally sunburned. This is Portland, people, and we have to take sunny days when we get ’em.

So the sun means you get nothing interesting from me today. I’m contemplating tackling one of the harder dishes this weekend, though, so stay tuned. Loyal readers WILL be rewarded. Much to my chagrin.

Additionally, the sun has once again disappeared, and today is miserable. So, there will be cooking tonight. Nothing too complicated, because we are having people over tonight and I don’t want to still be cooking when they arrive. (Plus, I want to eat before they arrive, so I don’t have to feed everyone. This may not be in tune with the Gwyneth way, but some of us aren’t billionaires.)

On a semi-related note, I recently purchased Fuschia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty, and I’m dying to try out some of her recipes. Cooking only Gwyneth food recently — and for the foreseeable future — I’m going to be having mostly European-influenced cuisine. But I’m a sucker for Asian food, and I can feel some undeniable cravings beginning. I also have a Japanese cookbook I’ve been wanting to experiment with, and would love to try out this easy recipe for dashi I found.

I may cheat on Gwyneth.