Everyone smokes pot for their own reasons. Some use it to medicate, to motivate, to pass the time, to escape, to relax. For the past six months, the reasons that I smoke pot changed.
I remember way back when I started smoking, I loved the euphoria I got from smoking. The first time I smoked - really smoked and got high - and just laid on my friends bed and laughed for what seemed like a long time. Since then I've had many different reactions to smoking - mostly the munchies - but some sessions still stand out in memory.
I remember inaugurating a newly remodeled bathroom quietly with an old friend.
I remember discovering new burn ride routes.
I remember the thrill from smoking at work.
I remember the joy of new pieces.
I remember the first time I smoked with family, and with old friends.
I remember the first time I wanted to smoke because I was angry at being evicted.
The last one is the most similar to what I recently experienced, when smoking went from being recreational to an escape from life. Between troubles with work, school, family, money, time management, friends, maturation, everything became overwhelming. No longer did I come home from a long day and smoke till I got high and enjoyed it, but I started power smoking more and buying larger quantities. I stashed lighters away in drawers, pockets, and corners so that there would always be one accessible. I had travel kits/smoking supplies ready to go.
Smoking was still a daily ritual, but now with a very different emphasis. It was a darker time for me, and as a result of me getting lost in the transitions of life, I lost the interest in blogging. Who wants to talk about how much they enjoyed smoking because their boss yelled at them, or they got a bad evaluation from a professor. I didn't have enough time for all the cooking projects or travel or exciting things that I wanted to do. I didn't even have enough energy to get my writing partner involved in the blog.
I managed to have some fun along the way, but now that it is all said and done, I am glad to be free of the pressure that I felt. I have things to talk about now that life is getting exciting again.
So friends, I apologize for the delay of fun, and welcome you back to the blog about the best times around.
Smoke Well,
XY
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Cleaner Smoking
I think a great thing about pot is that I can use it to make mundane tasks fun. The vacuum sounds louder. Driving is smooth sailing. Just moving in repetitive ways can be fun if my body is relaxed enough. Getting to the point of being relaxed and capable of doing stuff can be a tough balancing act. It is often far too easy to just take one more hit and then – stuck on the couch.
One of the routine tasks that I had to do the other day was one of my least favorite, cleaning my piece. Not only does it leave my hands smelly and sticky, it takes time and effort and caution to do correctly. The worst part – not being able to smoke the piece for several hours while it dries.
As things happen, it was late and I was bored. I decided that I was tired of working hard to pull hits and wanted to clean Littlefoot. The significantly details about Littlefoot as far as cleaning goes – a big chamber, a long pipe, and thin glassed. Littlefoot, like in The Land Before Time, is a brontosaurus. The shotgun is the tail and the mouthpiece is...the mouth. More details on this piece, and others, later
Cleaning bowls is tough. Making sure the water is the right temperature, the right chemicals and tools need to be available. For a long time I used only Bling, a combo of liquid and sediments that worked well with smaller pieces. As my collection of gear grew, so did my resources. Pipe cleaners were used for a while, toothpicks became a staple for scraping resin, I tried using salt as an additional scrub.
Typically, when I clean Littlefoot, I run hot water through him and then use some Bling. Once some of the resin has softened, I'll use toothpicks to start picking away resin from the bowl or mouthpiece. I will let the bowl fill with water, plugging all holes, and then shake loose anything that I can. I'll drain, add an abrasive like salt or Bling, refill with water, and shake again, repeating as necessary. I also use rubbing alcohol to clean bowls and it works really well to freshen scents. Sometimes, if I have a large enough container or a small enough bowl, I will fill that with a solution and shake that with the piece inside of it.
One problem that routinely develops as a result of Littlefoot's shape is that salt drains down into his feet and doesn't easily come out. In addition, his legs are hourglass shaped. I usually have to rock sediment out of him using water to lubricate the process. This time, instead of salt, I tried using baking soda as my scrubbing agent. The results were similar but left a strange aftertaste.
After 20 or so minutes of cleaning, I usually have resin on my hands and Littlefoot is only looking marginally cleaner. The souls of his feet stay dark and the top of the chamber stays dirty because the water level doesn't rise enough. His tail and neck stay pretty clean, but he gets dirty again at the mouth. The underside of the bowl has dingle-berries that are parallel to the glass and impossible to remove.
Why I don't boil bowls: One time my friend, I'll call him Simple Matt, offered to clean my bowl Snackpack by boiling it along with his. At the time, I was a relatively new smoker and had no techniques for cleaning developed yet. Well, he got stoned and forgot to remove the bowls from the uncovered pot of water. After maybe 20 minutes the water had evaporated and the bowls were simply sitting on a very hot surface. To make matters even worse, in his frantic scramble to remove the bowls from the empty but hot pot, Snackpack was dropped, splitting in two.
What do you think is the best way to clean pieces, whether they be bowls, bongs, pipes, steamrollers, slides, one-hitter, or anything else you have. Any recommended products or processes?
Good luck and smoke well.
-XY
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Lasagna - Sauce
I think I nailed the sauce, but we'll have to wait several hours before I can test it and find out for sure. Here's how the sauce happened:
1. Peel skin from onion, 5 small/medium garlic cloves (I was getting towards the middle of a head so I used what I had, but I'd say this is equivalent to about 3 large cloves), and shallot. Chop coarsely.
2. Peel skin off sausage (if necessary) by slitting skin down length of sausage with sharp knife and gently pulling casing away from the filling.
3. Drop large pieces of sausage (pull apart with fingers or gently cut with knife) and the ground beef into a large pot with 1 tbsp olive oil and the chopped garlic, onions, and shallots.
4. Cook together in own juices on medium low heat until meat is pale brown with a slight pink tinge. The meat shouldn't over cook because of the amount of juice in the pan keeping it moist, but you might want to keep an eye on it. Remember, the meat will cook all the way through while it simmers with the rest of the sauce!
5. While the meat etc cooks chop the green bell pepper and Serrano chili.
6. When the meat looks like it's been cooked to your satisfaction (the onions should still hold their form but they'll look like they're beginning to become slightly transparent), add about half of the chopped Serrano, stir into meat mixture, and simmer together for about 2 more minutes.
7. After the 2 minutes is up add a 29 oz can of crushed tomatoes along with the rest of the Serrano and the green bell pepper.
8. Stir together until well combined.
9. Cover pot and simmer for 2-4 hours. I'll probably end up close to 4 hours.
I chose to make the sauce on the stove top for convenience since I'll be building a whole other dish and only wanted to dirty one pot, but if I were planning on leaving the apartment or just making a pasta sauce then I would use our Crock Pot. If you wanted to use a slow cooker you would simply transfer the mear/onion/garlic/shallot/Serrano mixture into the crock pot after Step 7, taking or leaving as much of the juices as you want (more juice means more flavor but also more fat...it's personal preference). Proceed with Step 8 and then cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours or, preferably, on low for 4-6 hours. It's tough to overcook things like this in the Crock Pot so don't worry about exact times. DO NOT OPEN CROCK POT COVER DURING COOKING.
In the time that it took me to write this all out the apartment has begun to smell delicious. I love these pasta sauce/chili type recipes because the aromas slowly change through the cooking process. While I wait (im)patiently for the sauce to cook I'll chill and watch "How the States Got Their Shapes" on the History Channel, then I'll forge ahead with the cheese sauce filling for the lasagna. Until then...
1. Peel skin from onion, 5 small/medium garlic cloves (I was getting towards the middle of a head so I used what I had, but I'd say this is equivalent to about 3 large cloves), and shallot. Chop coarsely.
2. Peel skin off sausage (if necessary) by slitting skin down length of sausage with sharp knife and gently pulling casing away from the filling.
3. Drop large pieces of sausage (pull apart with fingers or gently cut with knife) and the ground beef into a large pot with 1 tbsp olive oil and the chopped garlic, onions, and shallots.
4. Cook together in own juices on medium low heat until meat is pale brown with a slight pink tinge. The meat shouldn't over cook because of the amount of juice in the pan keeping it moist, but you might want to keep an eye on it. Remember, the meat will cook all the way through while it simmers with the rest of the sauce!
5. While the meat etc cooks chop the green bell pepper and Serrano chili.
6. When the meat looks like it's been cooked to your satisfaction (the onions should still hold their form but they'll look like they're beginning to become slightly transparent), add about half of the chopped Serrano, stir into meat mixture, and simmer together for about 2 more minutes.
7. After the 2 minutes is up add a 29 oz can of crushed tomatoes along with the rest of the Serrano and the green bell pepper.
8. Stir together until well combined.
9. Cover pot and simmer for 2-4 hours. I'll probably end up close to 4 hours.
I chose to make the sauce on the stove top for convenience since I'll be building a whole other dish and only wanted to dirty one pot, but if I were planning on leaving the apartment or just making a pasta sauce then I would use our Crock Pot. If you wanted to use a slow cooker you would simply transfer the mear/onion/garlic/shallot/Serrano mixture into the crock pot after Step 7, taking or leaving as much of the juices as you want (more juice means more flavor but also more fat...it's personal preference). Proceed with Step 8 and then cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours or, preferably, on low for 4-6 hours. It's tough to overcook things like this in the Crock Pot so don't worry about exact times. DO NOT OPEN CROCK POT COVER DURING COOKING.
In the time that it took me to write this all out the apartment has begun to smell delicious. I love these pasta sauce/chili type recipes because the aromas slowly change through the cooking process. While I wait (im)patiently for the sauce to cook I'll chill and watch "How the States Got Their Shapes" on the History Channel, then I'll forge ahead with the cheese sauce filling for the lasagna. Until then...
Lasagna
I'm planning to make lasagna this weekend and, if all goes as planned, you can follow along through the steps. I usually go "off-book" (as in recipe book...obvi) when I cook and eyeball the amounts of ingredients that I add, but I'll try my damnedest to keep up with what I add and/or document it all photographically so that we know exactly how to re-make the dish if it's good and so anyone else who accesses this page can try to make it to.
First, the ingredients. Now, this is only what we're planning on putting in it right now but I usually raid the spice cabinet a few times when I'm in the middle of recipes so this is subject to change. Also note that I'm making the sauce from scratch so many of these ingredients are for that.
1 29 oz can tomato puree
1 29 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 6 oz can of tomato paste
4 large hot Italian sausages (it's okay if it's in the casing...we can cut off the part we don't want pretty easily)
1/4-1/2 lb ground beef (we're going with 85/15 because we like the flavor)
medium-large Spanish or yellow onion
1 medium shallot
1 head of garlic (okay, that's a lot...but we haven't decided how much to use or whether or not to roast it first so we're keeping our options open for now)
1 green bell pepper
1 fresh Serrano chili pepper (this is a shot in the dark - we know we want spicy but we don't know peppers well enough to figure out which variety will give us what we want)
1 box no-boil lasagna noodles
1 small container ricotta cheese
1 cup grated mozzerella cheese
1 cup parmesan/romano cheese blend
2 medium-small zucchinis
1 lb frozen spinach
2 fresh tomatoes
~2 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper
It looks like a lot of ingredients but they're all relatively inexpensive, especially considering the sheer volume of food that it will produce.
So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to pack a bowl and watch some Food Network to get myself revved up and then I'm going to cook the sauce. After the chopping and meat browning is done and the ingredients are assembled I'll let it simmer together for anywhere from 2-4 hours and probably do another minor cooking project which is yet to be determined and may or may not be related to this recipe. Once the sauce is finished I'll make some sort of cheese blend sauce and prep the veggies. When I finish THAT I'll go ahead and assemble the whole thing and then refrigerate it until tomorrow night, at which time the lovely boyfriend and myself will enjoy dinner, wine, and a movie.
Check back later for my progress and possibly some pictures!
First, the ingredients. Now, this is only what we're planning on putting in it right now but I usually raid the spice cabinet a few times when I'm in the middle of recipes so this is subject to change. Also note that I'm making the sauce from scratch so many of these ingredients are for that.
1 29 oz can tomato puree
1 29 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 6 oz can of tomato paste
4 large hot Italian sausages (it's okay if it's in the casing...we can cut off the part we don't want pretty easily)
1/4-1/2 lb ground beef (we're going with 85/15 because we like the flavor)
medium-large Spanish or yellow onion
1 medium shallot
1 head of garlic (okay, that's a lot...but we haven't decided how much to use or whether or not to roast it first so we're keeping our options open for now)
1 green bell pepper
1 fresh Serrano chili pepper (this is a shot in the dark - we know we want spicy but we don't know peppers well enough to figure out which variety will give us what we want)
1 box no-boil lasagna noodles
1 small container ricotta cheese
1 cup grated mozzerella cheese
1 cup parmesan/romano cheese blend
2 medium-small zucchinis
1 lb frozen spinach
2 fresh tomatoes
~2 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper
It looks like a lot of ingredients but they're all relatively inexpensive, especially considering the sheer volume of food that it will produce.
So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to pack a bowl and watch some Food Network to get myself revved up and then I'm going to cook the sauce. After the chopping and meat browning is done and the ingredients are assembled I'll let it simmer together for anywhere from 2-4 hours and probably do another minor cooking project which is yet to be determined and may or may not be related to this recipe. Once the sauce is finished I'll make some sort of cheese blend sauce and prep the veggies. When I finish THAT I'll go ahead and assemble the whole thing and then refrigerate it until tomorrow night, at which time the lovely boyfriend and myself will enjoy dinner, wine, and a movie.
Check back later for my progress and possibly some pictures!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Why hello there big bad world...we meet again.
Arriving home from a family vacation right around New Years time means that an empty fridge (sad face) and the possibilities for new years resolutions (double sad face) stand before me. I don't generally believe in resolutions (if you're really going to be serious about doing things differently then why put off the start date til January 1? Or why bother to embark on an endeavor that's just a spur of the moment thought thrown on to your list of other poorly thought out resolutions?), but this year seems different to me. Maybe it's because I graduated college and got a job in the middle of 2010 and I'm the type of person who needs distinct beginnings, middles, and ends, but I somehow feel as if this is really it for me - life starts now. This is a beginning for me. I'm not getting any younger but I have a ways to go before I need to start worrying about getting old. I have bills to pay but no kids, pets, or other major responsibilities. It's totally cool if I don't call home every week and - get this - sometimes I actually WANT to call my mother just to say hey. Having gradually eased in to all of those things I feel a distinct need for a starting point from which I can measure my successes, failures, and everything in between.
As you may have guessed, I will not be making any formal resolutions this year, but from here on out I will try my damnedest to take full control and ownership over the things that are mine, relinquish control over things that are not, and do all that I can to just take it easy on the in between things until they fall into one category or the other. I'm optimistic that by doing these things I can effectively keep my shit together and have a happy and (relatively) healthy 2011.
Enjoy my badly spaced run on paragraphs and, more importantly, happy New Year!
-xx
As you may have guessed, I will not be making any formal resolutions this year, but from here on out I will try my damnedest to take full control and ownership over the things that are mine, relinquish control over things that are not, and do all that I can to just take it easy on the in between things until they fall into one category or the other. I'm optimistic that by doing these things I can effectively keep my shit together and have a happy and (relatively) healthy 2011.
Enjoy my badly spaced run on paragraphs and, more importantly, happy New Year!
-xx
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