Not that I have a bucket list, but if I did, i could now cross this one off of it: eat fake meat.

Ever since I found out such a thing exists, I’ve been slightly curious as to what a “tofurkey” tastes like.  The last time I was home, around Thanksgiving, when shopping at Trader Joe’s with my mom, we passed the larger-than-usual selection of tofurkeys and picked one up.  I was joking that we should get one–my mom was adventurous enough to go along with it (and they were only $10 for the entire kit that includes the tofurkey with stuffing and gravy).  We didn’t get a chance to make it until Monday.  It was an interesting process, to say the least.

Cooking a tofurkey is similar to cooking a regular turkey breast.  You put it, along with some potatoes/onion/carrots (for aromatics/flavor) and a baste made from olive oil, sage, and soy sauce into a casserole/roaster and cook it the required length of time.  The box shows it sliced thick with sections of stuffing the middle of each piece, but they actually suggest you carve it like a typical turkey, thin shavings on the sides with the stuffing removed later.

I’m not sure what I was initially expecting, but I was prepared for the worst.  I’m not a fan of tofu as it usually comes–there’s something creepy about its sterile whiteness and texture that generally doesn’t appeal to me.  The tofurkey is actually a mixture of tofu and wheat gluten (seitan) that’s closer to a loaf of bread than the gross assumptions I normally have with tofu.  On the other hand, the company’s been in business for a number of years–if the product sucks, no one’s going to buy it.

I think the thing that surprised me most was the fact that the flavor of the tofurkey wasn’t all that bad.  I’m not saying it’s good–it’s a little dry and nothing to write home about, really, but had I not known beforehand that what I was eating wasn’t meat, I could’ve easily believed it was (especially with the provided gravy covering the pieces).  The other off part is the color–it’s a little too tan/yellow to be truly believed as turkey.  Would I get it again?  maybe, maybe not.  If nothing else, should we encounter some sort of meat-apocalypse where only fake meat products remain, I wouldn’t hesitate to go for the tofurkey.

I LOVE giving gifts this time of year.  I sort of hate the phrase “you didn’t have to get me anything”–I KNOW I didn’t, but I did because I generally feel the person I’m giving something too is a good enough friend to deserve something for Christmas.

Granted, I did give most people I knew at Rose some sort of infectious disease this year.

l to r: common cold, mad cow, malaria, the pox, rabies

I went with something different for my suitemates, though.  I know CS is into robotics, so I got him a robot (pencil sharpener).  SC is a mechanical engineer as well, so I got him something sufficiently nerdy while still something kind of cool: a hypertrochoid drawing set (basically a fancy/geeky spirograph kit).  And then, since we agreed to exchange gifts after break, I can’t list what I got for D, but suffice to say, I think it’s awesome.

I gave my boss from over the summer and close friend a gift certificate to Amazon–I wanted to make sure he knew how much I appreciated all he did for me in the past year.

I won’t go into what I got my immediate family–it’s not all that important, really.  I’ll just summarize the “giving” portion of this post with how giving things went: great.  Everyone seemed to really like what they got, which to me is even better than getting gifts in return.

Not to say I don’t like getting stuff.  Here’s a quick rundown of what I got:

• Jeeves and Wooster: The Complete Series
• Logan’s Run
• Trader Joe’s giftcard (already used to fill up on goodies for the rest of the term)
• $50 to use at the Mall of America (there’s a cookware store I want to visit, but because of weather it’ll have to wait until next time I’m home)
• Pastoralia, George Saunders
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace
• Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
• Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman
• Super Mario Brothers Wii
• ICU Cookbook (a compilation of recipes from my mom’s workplace)
• A completely awesome 1980s Doctor Who board game from a friend I hadn’t seen in over a year
• Call Me Ted, Ted Turner The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, Editors of Cook’s Illustrated (exchange at Borders)

The last one was not from family, but from a friend’s mom who thought that since I’m working on my senior project for Turner that I chose it because I profess a deep persisting interest in the life of Ted Turner.  This is not true; said interest, if any, could be satiated by a 5-minute wikipedia search.  I appreciated the thought that went into choosing the book.  I also appreciated the thought that went into including the gift receipt inside the front cover.  Since I am a larger fan of cooking than I am of Ted Turner’s life story, I got a highly-rated cookbook that looks to be an excellent addition to my apartment’s kitchen–I’ve already found 2 or 3 recipes I’m planning on trying the next few times it’s my turn to cook.

All in all, a good Christmas.  On to the New Year.

I’ve been considering getting my own hosting for the past few years, and for whatever reason, the time seemed right.  I’m still filling stuff in, but it seemed wrong to announce a new blog without a post on it.

Work is still awesome.  Despite clients which are sometimes a pain to deal with (no, we will not work for free on your plugin if you make a blog post about how awesome we are), I enjoy what I’m doing and the impact it has on Nick’s business.  He’s entrusted me with a lot and I’m handling my duties well.  There’s been some uneasiness in working on a large side project, but it’s helping me learn to trust my intuition and know that I’m in a situation where if things aren’t working, we have time to change them.  Business, on the other hand, hasn’t been so great.  I haven’t sold a book in a week.  I sold most of Paranoid’s mom’s books to resellers, but I need to take the ones that wouldn’t sell back to her and pick up some more to see if I can get any more profit from Amazon this summer.

My sister’s birthday was celebrated this weekend.  I should have booked alternate arrangements for the night.  The noise she and her 6 friends can create is mindboggling.  Even with the doors shut and her and her friends in a tent (it was a campout in our backyard), I could still hear them from the other end of the house.  It’s a wonder they can understand their conversation–each one is trying to be heard at the same time so they talk louder and louder.  The plus side of this was that I got to test out the tent the next night.  It was a nice tent–it could sleep up to 7 (not super comfortably if they were all my general size, I’d imagine) so there was plenty of room.  I was a little sore in the morning, but overall it was nice to get some rest in a less stuffy environment (my bedroom/office suffers from this problem, especially when my door’s shut).

For whatever reason, I’m reading at a fast pace again.  Tonight was the second time in the last few weeks that I picked up a book and finished it in just over a day (and these aren’t short books).  Lately I’ve finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which was better than I expected–downright excellent, deftly blending the classic text with zombies and kung fu) and Duma Key (Stephen King has been writing some of his best stuff in a while since coming out of “retirement”) rather ravenously.  I think I’m going to try and attack House of Leaves next and see if I can get that in a fairly quick fashion (that one’s more of a challenge because of the way it’s formatted).

I’m reaching a turning point I reach every summer, where I start anticipating the academic year starting again.  Right now, having all my finances in check, I just want confirmation that my group is in the apartments so we can begin the dialogue of “Who’s Bringing What”.  The fact that one of my suitemates (who has the nerve to claim he’s bored while traveling THROUGH EUROPE with his girlfriend) is out of the country may complicate things, but I guess we’ll see.  I’ve still got a reasonable amount to do before heading back–I haven’t been to Trader Joe’s yet this summer, and I need to refill my tea canisters at Teavana before heading back south to Rose as well.  In two weeks I’m taking a weekend trip with family to see House on the Rock– a bit of a vacation, I guess, which will be nice.  There was talk of going up north or possibly to SD as well, but money’s been tight lately, so that may be out of the question, which is fine by me.

All for now.  I’ve got more posts planned (something about the skinnerfest puzzle hunt I’ve been meaning to write up, a goals post for the coming academic year, that about me page, maybe an online version of my resume) but I need to get some sleep.  I’ve got work tomorrow.