Friends on Food

I swear, I have been cooking!  I've been recycling back through some of my old favorites, eating some super easy meals, and trying to get reoriented with my new schedule at this new job.  But today I finally had some time to sit down and think about planning a menu I can share with all of you.  My CSA share started last week (and they still have some prorated shares available if you want to check out this delightful little farm!) so I'm anticipating a lot of fresh, veggie-filled recipes in the future.

But for now, enjoy a long-delayed Friends on Food, courtesy of the episode I'm watching right now!

Season 1 - The One with All the Poker
Monica: Alright, here we go. We've got salmon roulettes and assorted crudites.
Joey: Whoa, whoa, whoa, Monica, what're you doin'? This is a poker game. You can't serve food with more than one syllable. It's gotta be like chips, or dip, or pretz--
Monica: I'm sorry, I guess I was all out of pretz!

Friends on Food

I have been known to eat some strange combinations of food for my meals.  I'll sometimes have pickles and popcorn for dinner, and once I ate an entire can of Pillsbury crescent rolls and a can of baked beans for dinner.  Many evenings I'll just go home and eat whatever I find in my cupboards and refrigerator: crackers, chips and salsa, frozen naan, leftovers, whatever!  One of the perks of being a grown-up is that you can kind of eat whatever you want.  And you can pair it with a beer.  Luckily, I've never had to eat the entire contents of my refrigerator.  Can't say the same for Joey from this episode of Friends!

The One with Joey's Fridge - Season 6

Chandler: Well, you …you don’t look good Joe.

Joey: The fridge broke. I had to eat everything. Cold cuts, ice cream, limes—Hey, what was in that brown jar?

Chandler: That’s still in there?!

Joey: Not anymore.

Friends on Food

Not everything that you cook is going to be a complete success.  Sometimes a recipe just isn't good, or you read it wrong, or the ingredients you buy are not very tasty.  Other times you try something new and it is just a complete failure.  It happens to me with some amount of regularity, most recently, at Thanksgiving dinner.  I made a pumpkin pie completely from scratch, but my pumpkin did not completely puree.  So the pie filling was stringy and chewy.  And gross.  Luckily, my aunt had brought along a French silk pie from Baker's Square, so the dinner was saved!  One of my favorite episodes of Friends is "The One Where Ross Got High," and it features a completely disastrous Thanksgiving dessert.  I'd like to think that I would never confuse an English trifle and a shepherd's pie, but you really never know!

Season 6 - The One Where Ross Got High

Ross: That tastes like feet!

Joey: I like it!

Ross: Are you kidding?

Joey: What's not to like?  Custard?  Good.  Jam?  Good.  Meat?  Gooooooood.

Friends on Food

I love garlic.  I feel as though I use garlic in everything, even when the recipe doesn't call for it.  I usually double the amount of garlic called for in a recipe, and 98% of the time, my hands smell like garlic.  I'm like walking vampire repellent.  But instead of cooking with garlic today, I'm going to indulge my love for garlic with a Friends on Food.  Love it!

Also, I'd totally try a garlic martini.  Could be delicious. 

Season 9 - The One with Rachel's Dream

Phoebe: Well at least all my songs don't taste like garlic. Yeah, there are other ingredients Monica.
Monica: Okay, so that's what we're doing. You know, when I'm in the coffee house bopping along to one of your songs, I'm wearing ear plugs.
Phoebe: Ear plugs, or cloves of garlic?!
Monica: You know what? I take back what I said before. You keep playing at the restaurant, because with your music driving people inside, my bar sales are going up like crazy.
Phoebe: What are people having, the garlic Martini?!

Friends on Food :: Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  Although this quote doesn't have much to do about food, it's still one of my favorite holiday episodes of Friends.  So happy holidays from me to you.  And the Holiday Armadillo!

Monica: Wow, come in, have a seat. You must be exhausted coming all the way from…Texas.
Ben: Texas?
Ross: That's right, Ben. I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!

Friends on Food :: Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!  To celebrate this holiday of thanks and gratitude, I thought I would post a Thanksgiving-themed Friends on Food.  There are so many great Thanksgiving episodes to choose from, but I opted for the one with a cameo by Brad Pitt.  He's just as delicious as Thanksgiving dinner :)  Have a wonderful holiday everybody!

Season 8 - The One with the Rumor

Will: Look at her standing there with those yams.  My two greatest enemies Ross: Rachel Green and complex carbohydrates!

Friends on Food :: Baking Soda & Beer

Do you ever have those weeks (months....) where you are so short on cash that you can't justify going to the grocery store to buy new ingredients for a fabulous dinner?  That's where I am at right now!  My pantry is full of random ingredients, and my task this week has been trying to make those random things into a decent dinner.  Last night I cooked up some rice, mashed in a chipotle veggie burger, and topped it off with shredded cheese....not bad!  Hopefully in the coming days I'll be able to wow you with some culinary skills and get back to blogging.  In the meantime, I'm going to post a Friends on Food that sprung immediately to mind when I was thinking about the sad state of my bank account! 

Season Nine -- The One with the Boob Job

Chandler: You know what? You know what? I think we're making too big a deal out of this, okay? So we pay our bills a little late this month and maybe next month we cut back on a few things. And maybe we start eating out of Joey's refrigerator for a change. You're a chef...what can you make out of baking soda and beer?

Friends on Drinks -- Helping the Kids

Food and beverages can be very closely related.  I've always enjoyed wine with dinner, but it wasn't until I went to a wine pairings event a few years ago that I really understood how intertwined food and drink can really be.  It's amazing how the right glass of wine can illuminate certain flavors or highlight certain ingredients in a dish.  I'm far from an expert on this subject, but if you have the opportunity to attend a pairings event, you should jump on it!  It is an eye-opening experience.  And now I ask the people at my local liquor store which drinks would go well with whatever it is that I am serving.  More often than not, they'll have an answer for you, and your food will taste just that much better. 

That whole introduction was just my excuse to be able to post my absolute FAVORITE Friends quote of all time.  Since food and drinks can be very related, I figured I could turn to a quote that revolved mostly around drinks, and it would relate to my blog.  (My process of reasoning may be flawed, but what can you do?) 

The One with the Proposal: Season Six

Rachel: Phoebe, don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?

Phoebe: I’m just helping the kids!

Rachel: How is you drinking helping the kids?

Phoebe: Because the more I drink, the less there is for the kids to drink.

Friends on Food - Nestle Tollhouse

It's only Tuesday and I'm already counting down the minutes until the weekend.  Do you ever have one of those weeks?!  It's approximately seven billion degrees outside, which inhibits my ability to run (making me cranky) and my desire to cook (making me hungry and therefore more cranky)!  Today I could not really fathom getting up off my couch, let alone turning on the oven, so it was a bowl of cereal and a big glass of water for dinner tonight!  In lieu of a tasty recipe, I thought I'd post a little food humor instead.  This exchange always cracks me up!

From Season 7 - The One With Phoebe's Cookies



Monica: Well, I mean what about friends of your grandmother’s? Wouldn’t they have the recipe?
Phoebe: Well, you know I may have relatives in France who would know. My grandmother said she got the recipe from her grandmother, Nesele Tolouse.
Monica: What was her name?
Phoebe: Nesele Toulouse.
Monica: Nestle Tollhouse?!
Phoebe: Oh, you Americans always butcher the French language.

If you really want to see the exchange, there is a slightly-blurry video with Spanish subtitles HERE :)

Friends on Food

Annoyingly enough, I developed a sensitivity to lactose during college. Or at least that is when I noticed that eating too much dairy made my stomach want to die. I cut out a lot of dairy from my diet, but when it comes to cheese and baking, it's all dairy all the way. So because I haven't posted in a while, I thought I'd do a little Friends on Food to jump start my week, and this one is a homage to dairy.

Season 8: The One with the Cooking Class

Cooking Teacher: Your Fettuccine Alfredo looks a little dry, did you use all your cheese?
Joey: When you say used, do you mean eat as a pre-cooking snack?
Cooking Teacher: And the cream?
Joey: Cheese makes me thirsty.
Cooking Teacher: Okay.......Let’s move on.

Friends on Food - Fancy on the Inside

Today has been highly unmotivating and pretty boring, so I thought I'd post a little Friends on Food to raise my spirits! 

Season Two: The One with Two Parties

MONICA: So, I'll get candles and my mom's lace tablecloth, and since it's Rachel's birthday, I mean, we want it to be special, I thought I'd poach a salmon.

ALL: Ohhh.
MONICA: What?
ROSS: Question. Why do we always have to have parties where you poach things?
MONICA: You wanna be in charge of the food committee?
ROSS: Question two. Why do we always have to have parties with committees?

JOEY: Really. Why can't we just get some pizzas and get some beers and have fun?

ROSS: Yeah.
PHOEBE: Yeah, I agree. You know, I think fancy parties are only fun if you're fancy on the inside and I'm just not sure we are.

***So are you fancy on the inside?!***

Friends on Food -- Veggie Fakeout

Today in of one of the capitol cafeterias, Leigh and I witnessed some pretty bad raw chicken cross contamination when we were waiting for our lunch.  That's pretty damn disgusting, and not just because I don't eat meat.  On a lesser note, this morning the lady at the bagel store was ripping some bacon half before putting together my bagel and didn't do a glove switch.  All of these little events got me thinking about how strong my vegetarianism really is.  Should I eat something that was cooked on the same surface as meat?  What if it just touched the meat?  I have no idea, but I'd never eat anything that touched raw chicken, and I think this little bit from Friends also demonstrates a pretty solid line!  So in honor of April Fools Day and all of these weird food happenings today, enjoy Friends on Food!

Season One - The One with George Stephanopoulous:

MONICA: Remember that vegetarian pate that I made that you loved so much?
PHOEBE: Uh-huh.
MONICA: Well, unless goose is a vegetable...!!!

Friends on Food -- Creepy Interview

Because even food can be creepy at times.....
Monica, Season Two, "The One With the Prom Video":

INTERVIEWER: Alright, lets see if you're as good in person as you are on paper. Make me a salad.
MONICA: A salad? Really I could do something a little more complicated if you like.
INTERVIEWER: No, just a salad will be fine.
MONICA: You got it.

INTERVIEWER: Now, I want you to tell me what you're doing while you're doing it.
MONICA: Alright, well I'm tearing the lettuce.
INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh. Is it dirty?
MONICA: Oh-oh, no no don't worry, I'm gonna wash it.
INTERVIEWER: Don't ..... I like it.....dirty.
MONICA: That's your call.

INTERVIEWER: So, uh, what are you going to do next?
MONICA: Well, I thought that I would cut up the tomatos.
INTERVIEWER: Are they, uh, firm?
MONICA: They're alright.
INTERVIEWER: You sure they haven't gone bad? You're sure they're not very, very bad?
MONICA: No really, they're OK.

INTERVIEWER: You gonna slice them up real nice?
MONICA: Actually, I was gonna do them jullienne.
INTERVIEWER: Aaaahhhhhhh.
MONICA: I'm outa here!

Friends on Food

One of my absolute favorite television shows is Friends. I am willing to bet that you can't find one problem in life that Friends cannot solve with a snappy quote. One of the best parts about Friends (at least for purposes of this blog) is that Monica is a chef. So there is no shortage of food-related quotes and hilarious stories to repost here. Combining my love of food and my love of Friends? It's almost too good to be true.

Rachel in Season Six -- "The One Where Ross Got High":
"I don't know what you guys are talking about. Cooking is easy!  You just follow the recipe. If it says 'boil two cups of salt' you just boil two cups of salt!"