Superbowl Suckling Pig

Happy Superbowl everyone! A little belated, but here's my little celebratory review of our suckling pig roast. You read that right. A suckling pig. Roasting in my little oven. 1 pig in a NYC apartment... ok you get the picture. But we pulled it off and boy was it delicious. The pig was about a 12-13 pounder so definitely on the small side and I ordered him from D'Artagnan and in case anyone out there is thinking of doing this please note that it's pretty pricey. But our little pig easily fed about 10 people, so you should also take that into consideration too.

We called him Brady

There were tons of other goodies from our friends and a few dips that I threw together. There were collard greens cooked in bourbon with bacon and sweet sausage, a 7 layer dip (courtesy of my Texas self), roasted potato salad, spicy crab dip, chili, lumpia- which are absolutely delicious Filipino meat spring rolls, a bean dip, and a few other various goodies of both the eating and imbibing variety. It was so much fun, mostly to gather with friends, see how many people I could comfortably fit inside my apartment and do something absolutely crazy, like roast a pig! And while I won't pretend to even remotely be a Giants fan (in fact Wes Welker carried my fantasy team this year and Sterling Moore is a fellow SMU grad) I was happy that my city got to experience another win. New Yorkers really do know how to go crazy with those things.

Did you say there's a flamingo in that cake?

Officially checked off my list of life and things to make is the King Cake. Yes, that pastry that epitomizes Mardi Gras, New Orleans, debauchery, etc. That giant cinnamon bun monstrosity, the cake that really does take a day to make. There's scalding, rising, kneading, rolling, and icing involved over what ended up being an 8 hour time frame. Granted, while the rising was taking place there were not a lot of other things to do- besides make ceviche- so it's not like a slaving over the stove cake. But was it worth it? Well, let's just say even my vegan friends gave in and tried it at the anti-S.A.D. party, and said it was worth cheating.

King Cakes are another pastry of European descent. Associated with the festival of Epiphany in Europe and with Carnival in Brazil, in the U.S. they're most typically linked to Mardi Gras. Named for the biblical 3 Kings, New Orleans King Cake Parties started by French and Spanish immigrants in the Louisiana area are documented back to the eighteenth century. The most traditional New Orleans style King Cake is made with a bread similar to Brioche, stuffed with a mixture similar to a cinnamon roll and twisted into a ring. Iced and then topped with the Mardi Gras colors of gold, green and purple. Gold to represent power, green for faith and purple for justice.

Out with Dumb Holidays

I really don't want to do the seemingly obligatory single girl hate-on-V-day post but another part of me is finding this day so hard to ignore to the point that it's just really pissing me off (thanks Mark Zuckerberg with your targeted facebook ads, et al). But truth be told while there is definitely a heightened sensitivity to this most pointless of holidays this year in particular, I've always generally found it, well... a pretty pointless holiday. Even when I've been in relationships. And in no way am I belittling love, but rather the obligation to show someone you love that you love them. It defeats the purpose somewhat. Because there's nothing romantic about feeling obligated to do something.

My sentiments on this faux holiday may change if I got this bear. This bear is AWESOME!

Think about it for a sec. Some guy gets you some stuff not because he wants to but because he feels obligated by Hallmark  or some retarded jeweler to, you are constantly one-upped by co-workers and frienemies whose flowers are bigger, they're presents shinier (I would know, I've been that girl), you pay too much for an overrated "romantic" pre-fixe at some sucky restaurant because you couldn't get a reservation at a nicer one. This. Is. Not. Fun. So why do it?