So it's that time of year again, the time of year when PepsiCo irritates the universe with its sugar-water extreme election, which it has dubbed "Dewmocracy" for the express purpose of pissing me off.

So here's the deal. I bought these borsetti at Costco last week, because they were filled with goat cheese and herbs, and sounded really good. So the weekend rolled around, and I hadn't gotten to them yet.

Bastardcam I came solely from the need to have a camera dedicated to food pictures, so that half a dozen shots of a dinner plate didn't end up mixed in with all the other stuff we take pictures of.

That's it, right there. The last of the corned beef, in sandwich form. Some cheddar cheese, corned beef, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and a horseradish slaw on toasted roasted garlic bread.

The slaw was just a bit of quickly shredded red and green cabbage, tossed in some white wine vinegar, olive oil, cracked black pepper, and about a half-forkful of horseradish, whisked together. 

If I ever compile a list of shit I really should never, ever, eat, the Strawberry Twizzler has got to be near the top of that list.

Depending on how you look at things, there is, for the most part, only one Indian restaurant in Minneapolis. It has different owners, and goes by different names (Taste of India, India Palace, etc.) but it generally serves the same dishes in the same way. You've got your chicken, beef, or lamb options for your vindaloo, korma, and tikka masala. And it's decent food, but there's nothing particularly inspiring about it.

There isn't only war, actually. Sorry about that. It's just that ever since Krugman started a blood feud covered by every minor news organization out there, I'm in a feud state of mind.

Anyway, a week or so ago, Ruhlman put up a post called "My Essential Kitchen Tools" on his blog, and I thought I'd just run down his list and see how I compare with world-famous food author, television personality, and Bourdain confidante Michael J. Ruhlman.

KNIVES:

But I kid quinoa. I mean, I'm fairly open-minded culinarily. But quinoa has a certain amount of baggage. Health food baggage, super-food baggage, hippie baggage, food nerd baggage. Quinoa's growing popularity isn't because of hedonism, after all. It's because it's good food. But is it good food?

I bought a four-pound bag at Costco, which I admit is fairly stupid for something I've never cooked with before and wasn't sure I'd like, but it's a grain, dammit. Grains are almost never offensively bad. I figured it'd at leat be OK, from everything I'd heard about it.

One of the things about food-blogging is that you tend to focus almost exclusively on the experiments, the successes, the really nice and/or new meals. But that runs the risk of painting a... somewhat biased picture of one's food life. So, in the interests of humility, here's a brief picture of what a week of dinners look like amidst a combination of work hell and mild viral infestation.

MONDAY: Take-out! Specifically, Whole Foods for soup and sandwich.

TUESDAY: Take-out! Yum for burger and fries (and pastrami and matzoh soup for Cathy)