Why hello there, and welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophe’s State of Catastrophe, our roughly annual check-in on the state of the site, our plans, and our goals. Today’s post is probably running a little late, because every time I try and work on it, Kado (my brother’s cat) decides THIS is the time she needs attention. And unlike when she wants to hang out with Nate, she refuses to just sit on my bed while I work, instead insisting that she has to be on the chair with me. Which, given that she’s 16 pounds, takes up a lot of my work space. Alright, she’s wandered off. (Editors’ Note: Since making that joking claim about potential delays, we ACTUALLY encountered several rather large delays, including a disk issue that crashed the word doc, a second one that resolved itself eventually, and an 7 hour series of interruptions to our internet, Followed by about an hour and a half of further technical difficulties stemming from the replaced hard drive. Which has been just a blast, and is why this went live at 2 in the morning Friday. Because I finally got it ALIVE at 1:40.)What was I saying?  

In on a Technicality

Last year, I started off the year showing you the haul of cooking gadgets I’d gotten for Christmas. Well, sadly, I have no similar haul this year. Or at least, the haul is MUCH less impressive. There has been something of a breakdown of communication in my family vis a vis Christmas requests since my father’s passing (and, indeed, in the O’Guin household at least, a sort of quiet collapse of holiday spirit in general. My mother didn’t decorate for Halloween OR Christmas this year. But perhaps this was due to her becoming addicted to Asian Day-time Television, and not grief.) and, in truth, while I had one or two gadgets I was interested in, they were mostly flourishes. Things like an infrared laser thermometer which would allow me to read pan or oil heats for more precise frying and searing. And, in truth, I had barely used the previous year’s technical supplies. Of the 4 pictured products (a wireless headset, a mandoline, a sous vide circulator, and a camera stand), the one I used most was the Camera stand for Patreon videos. I only used the circulator for the first time during the Congee post a week ago.  As such, this year, I ended up only asking for books in the food department. And, as is often the case when I ask for specific books, no one could find them, so I had to buy the one I found myself.

You can’t tell, but I shot this on the bed. So the blurriness is as a tasteful boudoir shot, and not at all because I failed to take a picture of a stationary object 2 feet in front of my face.

George Motz, the author of that book, is a frequent guest on The Burger Show, whose first season I reviewed a year and a half ago, and which has since gone on to make… 3 more seasons. And George is one of the constant joys of the series (which I have tuned into now and again): George is the Wolverine-looking Burger Historian I cited in the first review.  And his episodes are something of a delight because they almost always focus on regional hamburger styles in  America. Which, if you’re unaware, can be surprising different. We talked about Pastrami Burgers (just a burger with added pastrami) in our Utah post, but there are dozens of varieties: in the first season, he tackles The Tennessee Deep-fried Burger (no breading, they just deep fry the patty), The Oklahoma Fried Onion Burger (where you press thin-thin-thinly sliced onions into the beef patty, and griddle them together, so you don’t have to use as much beef), and the Connecticut Steamed Cheeseburger (the burger patty is placed in a tray in a steam cabinet to cook, as is the cheese.)  I grabbed his book A, because I like supporting creators whose work I like (which is why I personally spend $14 a month on Patreon), and B, because of Course I’m planning to cook some of them.

I’m also looking at incorporating more of the technical devices we have gained, I used my mandoline for cutting some veggies back in November/December, I used the Sous Vide circulator, and I intend to explore other uses for both of them, and the Multicooker, and the Wok we bought and have so far never used.  That’s my goal for this year: work in the more technical devices for some special meals every now and again. (Though I would really like a dehydrator…)

If You See Something, Say Something

One big focus I’m going to have this year is on really stepping up our social media game. Last year, we had a couple videos for our patreon supporters, but those fell off as it got later in the year, and I was pretty quiet on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I’m going to try and work in more stuff for all those places. I’ve started a weekly Wednesday post to Patreon talking about what’s going on with me personally, and what’s coming up on the site, so hopefully that will keep me more in touch, and I’m setting a goal to post on our social media pages more frequently. Nothing spammy, just like, one to two non-automated statements, pictures, etc per week.

Our Instagram followers, for instance, saw these bad boys Friday night instead of Monday afternoon.

That’s the part of working on the site I feel most weird about, as I tend not to toot my own horn in public spaces. I have a lot of personal arrogance and pride, but less professional self-promotion instinct, is I suppose the most accurate way to say it. So I’m working on that.  

A Man, No Plan, A canal: Ponnama

I had to re-read that three times to make sure I kept it a palindrome. ANYWAY, talking about planning/plans for the Site. And that’s always a rough subject. Because a great deal of the ideas I have for the site end up going nowhere. As an example, here’s a picture of one of many “foods I’m thinking about making” lists I write up over the course of the year, from last year.

I wonder what handwriting analysis reveals about me.
Let me look it up.
So I dot my lowercase i’s high, indicating a big imagination.
My lowercase Ts are crossed fairly low, indicating I set low goals.
My lowercase a’s and o’s aren’t closed, suggesting I’m bad at keeping secrets
Tight placement of letters in a word suggest something of an uptight nature, while large gaps between words suggest a difficulty connecting with others.
Tight lowercase e’s suggest I am skeptical, or uninfluenced by emotions.
That’s…interesting.

This was actually something of a progressive list, in that I know that several of those sections are written months apart: The idea of making a bunch of Chex Mix was from early January, because as part of our Christmas presents in Oregon, we always get a gallon bag of Puppy Chow (chex filled with peanut butter and chocolate, and coated in powdered sugar) and a gallon bag of our Grandmother’s homemade Chex Mix. And we had just picked up Furikake on our way home, so I thought “oh, hey, we can make multiple versions of this, and see which is best.” A process we did not do, because we ate the entire bag of grandma’s mix.

You can see a bunch of AA notations in darker ink, from when, around April or so, I thought of doing Asian August, and started coming up with ideas for what to make that month, including a whole section of 4 different Indian recipes, none of which ended up making the cut.

The bottom entry of Fries was even later, I think being put together sometime in August/September.

So that list is of SOME of the recipes I thought of making over the course of last year. And of the 5 crossed-out entries, one is due to misspelling, while the other 4 are because I actually DID make them. (They’re Kimchi Fried Rice, Leche De Tigre, Mapo Tofu, and the Pity Pate.) So on a sheet of 19 ideas, I did 4 of them. And that happens. Some ideas I put off because they seem like too much work, or I can’t find a perfect window for them. Mulligatawny, for instance, isn’t a hugely popular soup, but it IS notable for being, canonically, Batman’s favorite food. So I debated between posting it in Asian August, or holding off until something Batman related. And, oh, hey, will you look at that? This year, Batman’s “Birthday” is a Monday. It’s almost like I planned that (I did not).

As evidenced by the fact that this is way too much sugar for an 81 year old’s cake.

I CAN say that I planned one thing, though, which Is that I made Corned Beef last year, but I made it too late to upload before St Paddy’s Day, so I’ve been sitting on a recipe for 10 months now waiting for it to come back around. Which is something I’m proud of last year: I did a pretty solid job anticipating Holidays. Not perfect, by any means, but solid. That’s something I hope to continue this year.

My immediate plans are still heavily in flux, with things like the annual Super Bowl post still being up in the air until we know which teams are going and the only roughly planned post being for the 10th of February to make Chili Dogs in honor of the new Sonic, but maybe I’ll make that sooner, and do I want to just make Chili Dogs, at least make my own CHILI for it, or go the extra mile and make my own hot dogs?

I have a half plan for something probably weeks from now, where I finish up A Perfect Match, and make either something from the show, or something more connected to Taiwanese cuisine. And I need to get back on the food show wagon, as there have been a number of good Netflix and Youtube shows that have sprung up while I was in the wild and have failed to talk about. I’d say to keep expecting some Asian food content, as my family has an outstanding agreement to get soup dumplings at some point after I cruelly half-betrayed Nathan by eating dinner before picking him up from the Airport.

It was a half-betrayal because yes, I had my first soup dumpling without him present, but I didn’t do it at the restaurant we wanted to try them at.

And I’m thinking of ways to include more restaurant content on the site, or whether that’s a good idea. While I know many of my readers are personal friends or associates, I also know I have readers in other states, countries, and even continents, so while there are restaurants I’d be excited to talk about, I’m not sure how valuable the conversation would be.

So that’s a rough over-view. We have some plans, though they’re spotty as ever, (particularly in the short term), there’s some solid ideas and goals to hit. We did good work last year that we hope to keep up. All in All, I’d say we’re on a firm footing for some fun catastrophes, and I hope we can all make 2020 the best it can be.

MONDAY: I HAVEN’T PLANNED ANYTHING. I MIGHT MAKE RUSSIAN DUMPLINGS, OR A SANDWICH FROM THE PAST. I DON’T KNOW. NATE’S IN TECH, MY MOM IS SICK, AND I’M TRYING TO KEEP THE ANIMALS ALIVE.

THURSDAY: I HAVE EVEN LESS INSIGHT.