I had a wonderful few days this past weekend in the desert, which is the furthest from my home that I have been in 167 days. It was 120 degrees in the day and 95 and night and I spent the entirety of it lounging in the pool, enjoying rich person house central air, and napping. I got high and looked at the stars and ate my weight in tiny bags of chips. It was lovely.

And now I am back home and feeling slow and sleepy and dull; I keep eating fistfuls of chocolate bridge mix like it will have an impact other than making me feel sort of full and gross. I took a 45-minute nap after work and woke up sweaty and disoriented in the way that only an ill-advised REM-cycle-and-a-half nap can make you. I spent all day feeling like I was unable to get the thoughts from my brain to my hands, which is frustrating as someone for whom that is sort of a singular professional skill.

This is the sort of set of feelings that would be concerning in the Before Times and now feels just like the ongoing summer flavor of depression that is being alive in 2020. The beatings will continue until the empire falls, etc.

Because my brain is totally gone, I’m reduced to watching old favorites. Normally that’s BoJack Horseman, but I’ve gone so far past that that I’ve landed at Parks and Rec, which is comforting and bland and from some past era. It’s the cream of wheat of shows.

I’m excited to order something from the taqueria tonight, and watch TV with my friends, and hopefully go to be soon after. Here’s hoping for more energy.

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Shit to eat

Buy a cauliflower because you like cauliflower.
As is tradition, wait two weeks before going “oh fuck I should eat that cauliflower.”
Pull it out of its plastic and cut off any bits that look a little bit dodgy and rinse it. Pause to look up a video on how to process a cauliflower.
Pull off the leaves and use a paring knife to cut the stalks off the core bit of the plant. Toss the leaves and the core into a bowl you’ve prepared for this purpose after reading an article about how Rachel Ray recommends it. You were alive in 2002, who are you to avoid her guidance.
Tear the florets up into smaller chunks. Put them all in a big bowl and cover them with salt and pepper and paprika and oil. Toss it around.
Turn a gas burner on to high or turn on your broiler, and let a red bell pepper sit on the flame until its skin turns black. Rotate it for complete coverage.
Put it in a third bowl, covering the top with foil.
Meanwhile, heat a cast iron pan on high high heat. Dump the cauliflower in there and stir it around until it’s a bit charred and looks good, somewhere around 10 minutes.
Kill the heat, dump the cauliflower back into its bowl.
Grab the pepper from its bowl and run it under cool water to help you pull the skin off of it. Pull out its top and seeds and pop them in the trash bowl. Cut it into quarter-inch strips and toss it in with the florets.
Add some scallions to the mix, if you have them.
In a small bowl (number four!) mix up yogurt and lime juice and some salt.
Char taco-sized tortillas for fifteen seconds on each side on your gas burners. Toss them on a plate and fill each with a taco’s worth of cauliflower and friends. Top with cheese if you want, and the yogurt regardless. Enjoy.

(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Charred Cauliflower Quesadilla recipe.)

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A love song for our times. (Don’t sexually harass your grocery employees.)

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Emchap's Shit from the Internet 08/26/20 🍠

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