I must be depressed if my hair is all in my face, right?

for a few months there, but I’m making a very serious effort to be more like this.

Damn, I look pretty happy here, right?

Well, whatever.  I know everyone has their fair share of struggles, and that in so many ways, I’m very lucky, but understanding those things doesn’t always work to convince myself that I’m not an alien from another planet, which is honestly how I feel so much of the time.  I’m something of a perennial outsider, never quite fitting in at any point in my whole life.  And, you know, it’s lonesome.  Even when I’m around friends, I so often feel lonesome.  But hey, I’m starting therapy really soon.  Actual therapy, not kitchen therapy.  The kitchen therapy starts NOW.

I thought I’d make my official return by cooking some difficult-to-photograph-in-an-appealing way red gunk! 

OK, actually, it’s Red Lentil Dal from Lindsay S. Nixon’s book The Happy Herbivore, one of the many, many cookbooks I’ve obtained since I really posted on this blog.  Nixon has some kind of thing where she feels she has to cook entirely fat free, so she sautes the onion and garlic with water instead of oil.  That’s all fine and good for her, I guess, and I support her eating however she sees fit, but me?  I used oil.  I’m just not very concerned about eliminating fat or whatever supposed toxins are naturally created by heating olive oil.  I welcome death.  Oh wait!  Fighting…depressive…urges….

There, that’s better.

But yeah, Red Lentil Dal.  I used oil and I cut the garam masala in half (1 tablespoon instead of 2).  I don’t know if it is just the garam masala I have right now or if I’m simply not a big garam masala fan, but I knew better than to put 2 tablespoons of it into the dal if I was going to enjoy it.  Also, I made it nice and spicy hot, with 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper cuz, brother, that’s just how I roll.  Made it salty, too, about 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt.  I tell you what. it’s really good! And so easy.  I dig.

Plus, since I posted last, I procured a RICE COOKER!!!!!  I say “procured” because it was 100% free.  I got it from some nice people over in Oakland who offered it on Pittsburgh’s Freecycle.  I don’t know if you people out there do Freecycle where you live, but I’ve given and gotten so many things from it, including this freakin’ unused, brand new rice cooker that cooks brown basmati rice perfectly with no effort!  I’ve dreamed of having restaurant-quality rice for some time now, now my dreams have finally come true, thanks to my amazing rice cooker, Pittsburgh Freecycle, and some nice folks in Oakland. 

During this time of not posting, I certainly did not quit cooking, and I certainly did not quit making ice cream.  People who read this blog know I’m super into making ice cream.  My most recent creation was a suggestion from my friend Sara, who is a fan of the blueberry and lemon combination.  When she suggested it, I was kind of like, “But then I’ll have to buy frozen organic blueberries and cook them with sugar and then let them cool in the fridge overnight before actually making the ice cream, but I’m so very lazy!”  She was all, “Bitch, just get yourself a can of blueberries.”  Whoa.  I had not thought of that, but it’s brilliant.  A CAN OF BLUEBERRIES.  It’s not organic, and it’s kind of decidedly lowbrow, but you know?  It’s brilliant.  I topped it with some  Hershey’s chocolate syrup, which PETA says is vegan, but vegans fight about whether or not it actually is vegan 100% of the time (something about diglycerides being sometimes plant-sourced and sometimes animal-sourced).  Christ.  I don’t know.  Truth be told, I’m not looking like this

 about it.  We all do our bests.  Anyway. here’s the delicious ice creamy magic:

Mmmm… diglycerides…

In other Pittsburgh news, some friends of mine had a potluck every Monday for the past few months in order to watch the highly entertaining reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race, where one of the contenders was a Pittsburgher.  There was so much vegan goodness to photograph, and I photographed, well, none of it.  The very last week was breakfast-themed because, we joked, RuPaul had left us in a state of a hangover after unexpectedly extending the contest one more week to allow the audience to vote amongst the 3 finalists.  And, luckily, someone DID take some pictures.  Here’s what I made:

It’s the Tempeh Sausage Pastry Puffs from Vegan Brunch.  It got mad compliments, which is awesome because do you know how expensive puff pastry is these days?  It’s definitely a special occasion kind of splurge — and I would say that the crowning of Pittsburgh-dweller Sharon Needles as the next drag superstar was reason enough to splurge.  Behind the Puffs, you can kinda see these amazing Silk Yogurt Parfait things someone else made.  They were so good that they made me become faint.  Oh, and do want to see some super-cleverness?  Check this out:

OK, you won’t get it if you didn’t watch the show, but one of the best contestants, Latrisse Royale, would sing this song that went “Jesus is a biscuit and I let him sop me up.”  Carrie, the woman who made this, always brought such creative homemade vegan goodness. 

Seeing as how Sharon Needles is a true local, I got to meet her the night after she won at Brillo Box, a bar that I walk to from my apartment.  Here we are together, looking like $100K.

Funniest shirt ever, right?

Also, I don’t know if this link will be alive forever, but it’s alive now.   On this, you can hear me read a little something I wrote about Sharon Needles on Essential Pittsburgh, a show on the local Essential Public Radio Station.  My actual voice!  At the beginning!  Hear it!