Yum 7: A Stir Fry, Sort Of

It's blood orange season, so I'm squeezing those scarlet drops into all kinds of dishes, including something resembling a stir-fry. I say "resembling" because I don't use a wok and I like to cook the vegetables longer than you would in a regular stir-fry. Anyway, this is it:

THE SAUCE

1) Squeeze three to six oranges (depending on juiciness and size) into a bowl. Today, I used four blood oranges and two cara-cara oranges.

2) Squeeze another type of citrus in the bowl. A lime or lemon is good.

3) Add a few slurps of low-sodium soy sauce.

4) Add a generous slurp of maple syrup.

5) Add a minced smallish garlic clove.

THE FRY

1) Lightly coat a skillet with oil. I use olive oil, but -- obviously -- a more traditional stir-fry grease would be fine.

2) Saute some sliced leeks, several minced garlic cloves and a third of a jalapeno.

3) Add sliced sweet bell pepper (red, yellow or orange), sliced baby portobello mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, a few grape tomatoes, sliced zucchini. (Or, really, whatever you like.)

4) Add salt, black pepper, a little ground coriander, maybe some cilantro. 

5) After it's softened some, add the sauce.

6) Cook another 10 minutes or so.

THE CARBS

1) Brown rice or ...

2) Couscous or ...

3) Bread.

MORE PROTEIN

1) A medium-hard cheese like gouda or jarlsberg, chunked.

Yum.

More Mood Than Shiver

I'm not a big horror flick guy, but I love foreign films, so I watched "Shiver" (or "Eskalofrio" in Spain) the other day. The plot is pretty predictable -- light-sensitive kid moves to the mountains, people die, he becomes a suspect, turns out the monster's a psycho girl -- but the atmosphere is indeed terrifying. The movie appears to be set in a remote region of northern Spain called Asturias, a wet place of steep canyons and dark forests. The director, Isidro Ortiz, captures the insular dread of the setting perfectly. By the end of the flick, he also achieves his goal of making the dark a sanctuary. "I've tried in 'Eskalofrio' to build a horror thriller where the monsters are the heroes and where you must flee from the light to take refuge in the darkness," he wrote. "A back to front tale." That in itself is creepy.

Perceptive Bitch

So I'm having dinner with a young Mentos guy. (What's Mentos? Please.) And the young waitress -- who, inexplicably, apparently has the hots for me -- brings separate checks to our table. "The top is yours," she tells me. "The bottom is yours," she tells Gabe. Hmmm. Was she upset? Anyway, as Gabe said, how dare she presume? 

(OK. Mentos. That's what I call cool, hip, multicultural, well-traveled guys. You know, like the EuroKid commercials for the Freshmaker. ;)

Dumb and Dumber

The absolute worst thing in the world: dining alone in a crowded restaurant on Valentine's Day. Yes, it's dumb, but nothing screams "PATHETIC" louder. So, of course, I ate alone in my home tonight, thank you. Hmm. Dumb and dumber?

So, So, Soooo Gay

Although I apparently am the only homosexual in America who didn't watch "Sex and the City" when it initially aired on HBO, I'm making amends. Not long ago, I buzzed through the first season on DVD. Drooling, I then bought the complete series -- for only $99, I might add -- and am officially hooked.

As everyone knows, this is a "gay" show in drag. Yes, it's about four women's sexual adventures in NYC, but queers can totally relate to the plots and emotions. Maybe it's the promiscuity. I mean, we all know men are horny as shit 24/7. So are these girls. That alone makes it relate-able. Then there's the fashion, the sassy wit, the shopping, the ... OK, so I'm getting a wee bit stereotypical. And, of course, the TV series was created by a gay dude.

Anyway, the show's writing is hit and miss. But -- and here's where the "omg, i'm so gay" comes into play -- I watched an episode yesterday and wept like a 6-year-old girl. It's when a devastated Aiden comes to Charlotte's wedding and breaks up with Carrie, who had earlier told him she had slept with Mr. Big. So everyone's crying, including me. Then, as a still-tearful Carrie poses with her three pals in a wedding picture, she says: "It's hard to find people who will love you no matter what. I was lucky enough to find three of them."  Lost it. Why, I really don't know. But sometimes, as cynical as I am, sappy romance knocks me flat.

A Reminder

It's important to remember -- even belatedly. Last October was the 10th year since Matthew Shepard's murder. Savagely beaten and tied to a fence in the Wyoming prairie -- the only places on his face free of blood were where his tears had fallen -- the 21-year-old gay college student was discovered the next day by a cyclist who thought he was a scarecrow. Shepard died five days later. Most evidence suggests the two young killers were fueled by drugs and homophobia.

But, trite as it sounds, his death did not go unnoticed. Shepard became a symbol in the battle to protect gay people from hate crimes. Those crimes still exist, but -- a decade later -- a majority of Americans appear to accept gays. They might not want them to marry. They might not want to get too close to them. But they don't want to exterminate them. The subsequent humanization of this innocent kid was one small step along the way.

Just Take The Freakin Subway

The only thing about Taxgate that bothers me is this: What made Tom Daschle feel he needed -- and perhaps deserved -- a car and driver at his command ... 24/7 ... as a private citizen? It's just another deliciously nasty little snapshot of this greedy era. Daschle apparently felt he was just too important to do what 95 percent of people do: either drive themselves or take the subway, the bus or even a cab. Instead -- and I'm guessing here -- he felt his time was so important, his station in life so lofty, his service to the nation already so generous that he was entitled to a round-the-clock chauffeur. It actually wouldn't bug me so much if Daschle had been spending his own $100,000-plus a year for the livery. But to accept it as a gift? From a rich guy trying to rub shoulders with "powerful" people? That's pathetic.

(The picture: THAT'S what Daschle should have been driving -- a 100 mpg car that was quite popular on Capitol Hill, at least for photo ops.)

A Serious Party

So, I stayed home tonight, cooked dinner (soft-shell tacos with freshly made salsa) and clicked the evening away on the Net. As you might know, I'm fascinated with Justin TV, so -- in the background as I did other things -- I watched a very young, very cute Marine get drunk. He was with two buddies (down from six the night before) in a penthouse at Myrtle Beach ($16 a day each for seven guys), downing beer and booze most of the night. A few minutes ago -- he's now talking to buddies at another party that HE'S watching on the Web -- Stephen told a friend that he'll be spending the next month on the boat he's attached to. Then he'll be stateside for two weeks, presumably at his base in Jacksonville, N.C., before going back to sea for a while. After some time off, he said, his unit will be "deployed" in May. He didn't say where it was being sent, but I'm guessing Iraq or Afghanistan. When I heard him say that, the partying suddenly didn't seem so frivolous. It seemed more like a defensive mechanism, a last chance for normalcy. I wanted to hug him. And thank him.