Ever since I saw Ina make Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic on Barefoot Contessa, I knew it was a dish for me. In fact her show, over time, wore down my resistance to only cooking chicken in one way–baking breasts–as well as encouraging me to try other dishes I’d always passed over before. While I hold her easy lemon & garlic roast chicken recipe in high esteem, it’s this recipe I find myself making more and more. I recently bought a full-grown crock-pot after having success with the smaller one Norman sent me and my maiden voyage was the official Rival Crock-Pot recipe for the same dish.

People say that you can adapt just about any recipe involving a select few methods for the crock-pot, and it seems true. I had make a few changes, leaving the garlic unpeeled, and creating a bed of celery underneath the chicken. Ina’s recipe is pretty different and does produce a more “French” result. I’m pleased with the crock-pot result, but cooking a few things in it has me thinking that I need to get a fat separator. I finally find out that schmaltz is a real thing, and I now have Tupperware containers full of it in my fridge.

People have asked for the recipe, and it’s really simple…
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I thought it was bad when there were talks to add a “pizza” button to World of Warcraft. Thankfully that never came about, but apparently they’re still marketing easy pizza access to people without having to get up. From a recent TiVo press release:

November 17, 2008 — TV has never tasted this good. That’s because TiVo Inc., the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), and Domino’s Pizza, Inc., the recognized world leader in pizza delivery, have teamed up to give broadband connected TiVo subscribers the ability to order pizza for delivery or pick-up, and track delivery timing, right from their TV sets using the TiVo® service. It’s a service that cooks up the perfect pizza purchasing recipe.

I’ve used a few “logon through TiVo” services, and they’re a pain. Just like mobile/internet-powered devices may be encouraging the simplification of passwords, it’s a hassle to enter in user details and passwords with your TiVo remote. Additionally, any TiVo application that has to access the internet, even with a wired connection, is still pretty slow. I tried to order movie tickets through it once and in a time trial against my computer, texting or calling, it would have lost out against all three.

I gotta wonder if we’re headed towards the combination toilet/easy chair/televisions featured in Idiocracy. I’m curious to try this out, except that I don’t really like Domino’s pizza. It could be good for a chuckle, but I’d rather see them deliver more useful information and services to the screen. Right now you’re pretty much limited to shopping–pizza, Amazon, movie tickets–and all of those applications are interrupts to the normal TV viewing. But perhaps pizza is a good gateway drug to new innovations. It was always the fuel for my research and studies back in school.

A worth-repeating piece of advice from Kung Fu Panda. You’re never just anything.

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I don’t normally enjoy Jack Black in movies, but he really did a great job in this one. He was still playing Jack Black, as he does in most of his films, but the role seemed a lot more suited to him in animated form. Dear Disney and Paramount: Please put out more animated films like this and The Incredibles, please please please! And don’t let them suck.

In completely unrelated news, I finally got out the ol’ Wii Fit yesterday and while it did not scold me for not having played–that’s right, I said played, it is a game after all–in nearly 100 days, it did note that I hadn’t reached a goal I set ages ago. So I set another one, let it do its thing and moved on. It told me that my Wii Fit Age was my exact age. I’ve always been at least 5-10 years younger before now! Mortifying, to say the least.

I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive Norman for sending me one of his cast-offs, a 2-quart crock pot, or as the more refined say, slow cooker. Yes, I know it says Crock Pot on the damn thing, but I’m trying to bring a little culture up in here, ok?

Hm, got called away for a few things around the office and completely lost the plot of where I was going. But it was going to end up with asking people for crock pot recipes, I know that much. So far I’ve managed to throw in a mirepoix under some chicken parts and come up with a fair effort of chicken and veggies when the meat held together, and the second round turned into more of a chicken soup when the meat fell apart. I actually added noodles to the second batch and enjoyed slurping away at the cure for the common cold a few nights in a row.

From what I’m told crock pot cooking is simple and easy, but it’s so not my style. There’s a level of preparedness to it that I generally don’t have. I’m fine running by the store on the way home and throwing something together in, dare I say it, 30-minutes. And while it was nice coming home to some simmering chicken and veggies, making sure that I was up and tossing raw parts into the pot (before my shower of course–chicken hands) before heading out felt like a bit of a pain. Still, I’m seeing a lot of options for slow cookers, I just need to find some fun recipes. Also since he sent me a little mini-pot, I’m still evaluating it before I decide to buy a larger one on my own. The small one makes great serving sizes for one person, but it would never fit a whole chicken or decent sized roast.

So feel free to tell me where I can go and just where I can stick it… Answers in the form of a crock pot recipe, please.

I had my own little conspiracy theory moment this morning on the train. I was watching this past Monday’s episode of Heroes on my iPhone. My DVR had to reboot itself right before the start of the show, so I missed the opening 6 minutes–which turned out to be sort of relevant. My time on the train isn’t that long, so I had to spread out the viewing over a few mornings. Yesterday morning, I had a few shoulder surfers peeking at my geeking, but today I was surrounded… by Sprint Instinct owners! I felt certain that if I let my guard down for a second, I’d look back at my iPhone and it would have been replaced by an Instinct.

I’m not sure the location-aware capabilities of the iPhone are a good thing. They found me all too easily and converged on my location. And since Sprint gets a roaming signal underground, they even knew which stations to use to intercept me! Still, I didn’t see any of them watching Heroes on their mobiles. And now that I’ve gotten my real-world advertisement, does that mean I can opt-out of commercials and product placement for next week’s episode?