Day 27: The Oscar Reckoning

Welcome to the 4th Annual Oscar Extravaganza! This year was the first in Austin so things would be a little different: less space, smaller kitchen, still lots of awesome friends.

Here's the menu for this year:

The Social Network- Beer Gel Web

The King's Speech- Strawberry and Rosemary Scones with Lemon Tart and English Tea
Black Swan- Blackened Chicken with Coconut Foam
Winter's Bone: Venison Sausage Stew
Toy Story 3- Deep-fried Slinky Dog with Tabasco Ketchup and Mustard
The Kids Are Alright- Brussel Sprout, Purple-top Turnip and Kale Salad with Oranges and Grapefruit from Johnson's Backyard Garden CSA Ingredients
True Grits- Steak and Grits
Inception- Cobb Salad, Inception Style (Red Vinegar, Tomato and Mixed Green Gels with Chicken and Bacon Powders, Blue Cheese and Chives)
The Fighter- Blue Icing Cake
127 Hours- Orange Gatorade Popsicles
All in all it was a terrific evening. Thanks to everyone who came!

Now that this month is over, I'm ready to take a short culinary nap. Onwards to leftovers!

Z is for...

Z is for...DONE! Z involves a few things, but certainly enough to get through the day. Zagnut bars, Zebra cakes and zucchini. Also ziti, but didn't really need to find any. Ate the Zagnuts at midnight, Zebra cakes and zucchini the next day with some Ziegen Bock to wash it down.

Finally finished the challenge but no reflections yet as there was Oscar to prepare...

Y is for...

Y is for yogurt and yams! Yes! Baked a few yams and brought some yogurt to work, then more yam and yogurt for dinner.

One more day and the month is over. Still lots of planning for Oscar night, but it's been crazy.

X is for...

X is for...the spot? Or at least the spot where people would be most likely to break. Twenty-four consecutive days of alphabet eating and you are stuck with a day that has essentially no edible items. Sure you can find the occasional Xtreme candy or gum, but standard food fare is non-existent when it comes to 'X'. I did find one dish, however, from the Goan region of India (where incidentally I'll be about two thirds of the way through the Rickshaw Run next year) called xacuti. It is a coconut curry based dish that I made with chicken. A huge batch the night before and three meals during the day. Oh, and in taking the graduate student recruits for a night on the town, there was always Dos Equis (XX)!

W is for...

W is for waffles!!! Also walnuts. Haven't had Eggos in forever and it was nice to have a convenient food source throughout the day. Waffles for breakfast, waffles and walnuts for lunch and more waffles for dinner. Hooray!

V is for...

V is for vegetables and vanilla in various variations. Vanilla pudding, V8 fusion and five Campbell's V soups: Vegetable, Old-fashioned vegetable, vegetarian, vegetable beef and vegetable orzo. So much soup! Still kind of exhausted after the marathon. Making some progress on the Oscar front though but now for bed.

U is for...

Welcome to the week of doom! Just as one is getting used to the challenge (or as used to as you can for eating differently alliterative foods each day) the alphabet springs on U, V, W, X, Y and Z. Couple that with preparing for an Oscar party and it leads to an interesting week. So this week I'll be doing a few more doubling up on meals to simplify things.

For example, today was all about Udon! Woke up late so I boiled some noodles, pounded some down and brought the rest for lunch. Unfortunately the rush caused massive blandness, so when I made more for dinner I spiced it up with some greens, garlic and olive brine. Went a little on the over-flavored, but it was a nice twist.