MetaChat - So I'm excited about my shitterine dinner tonight...

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27 June 2006

So I'm excited about my shitterine dinner tonight... →[More:]

Shitterine... I know, it sounds dirty, but, alas, it isn't. In yiddisha-mama terms, it simply means cooking by the seat of your pants, i.e., a little of this, a little of that, sans recipe. My oft-mentioned 90-almost-91-year-old adopted mom rarely uses a recipe, though she owns many a cookbook, and I logged a lot of hours in her kitchen.

On the menu tonight, I picked up some boneless chicken and pork (not kosher, I realize) and some peach/apricot sitrfry sauce, which I plan to mix with this chili sauce jon and I picked up in Chinatown some time back, along with chopped green and red peppers and garlic (you have to have garlic -- I think it's a commandment), and I plan to serve the whole concoction over bowtie pasta.

It'll either be delicious, or haluscious (I had a fiasco involving terryaki shark some years back). I'll let you know if we have to order out for pizza.

post by: Pips at: 15:55 | 15 comments

Sounds good! I'd put it over rice, though...

posted by Specklet 27 June | 16:00

What does "haluscious" mean?

posted by eamondaly 27 June | 16:05

huhuhuhuh your WHAT? huhuhuhuhu

posted by keswick 27 June | 16:07

Specklet: Yeah, I was thinkin' rice, but jon's not a big fan of it (he never uses the rice when we get Chinese take-out), so I thought I'd try pasta... I hope it's "saucy" enough...

Haluscious, by the by, just means terrible. I tried googling it to check the spelling (google often helps me out this way), but I couldn't find it. Is it yiddish? I'm not even sure...

posted by Pips 27 June | 16:11

Heh, shitterine. Reminds me of my favorite word in modern Hebrew, "dafoqnik," which we used to describe a shiftless, lazy, good-for-nothing person. It's so easy to remember: "What da foq are you doing, you dafoqnik?"

Enjoy your repast!

posted by Hugh Janus 27 June | 16:16

I recommend listening to the Smithereens while you enjoy your shitterine.

posted by me3dia 27 June | 16:23

I actually figured it was pasta instead of rice because of jon. You should really freak him our and serve it over organic couscous or bulgur.

PS: Nectarine.

posted by Specklet 27 June | 16:29

Great word, HJ... I plan to be quite the "dafoqnik" myself after tomorrow (my last day before summer vacation... it's okay to hate me.)

I hope jon didn't stop off for Quiznos on the way home... if so, I suppose it'll taste just as good (or bad) tomorrow...

On preview: alas, it's a long "i" for the "-ine" at the end of "shitterine," rather than "ee." I rather like the suggestions anyway, though.

(And you figured right, Specklet... though I think he actually likes couscous.)

posted by Pips 27 June | 16:37

Hot sauce with fruitiness is tasty.

posted by StickyCarpet 27 June | 17:00

It makes me very happy to see the word "haluscious" used. It's a word that often springs to my tongue, but that I rarely use for fear that it won't be understood. Curiously, though, I have never heard anyone in my family (my source for all things Yiddish) say "shitterine." I'll have to ask my mom if she knows it or if it dropped out of my family's admittedly dwindling Yiddish lexicon at some point a generation or two back.

posted by amro 27 June | 17:08

"Shitterine" is also the closest I ever get to getting my little yiddisha-mama to curse... I've been trying for years just to get her to say "shit" (I think I may have discussed this before... forgive).

Thanks for the confirmation on "haluscious," amro. (I have to have a word with that google.)

posted by Pips 27 June | 17:18

I'm kind of shocked at the lack of Yiddish spelling info online. Someone needs to create a serach engine for this kind of thing. Shvoogle, anyone?

posted by jonmc 27 June | 17:19

That ain't no facocta suggestion, there, boychik.

(To give shvoogle its due, however, both "facocta" and "boychik" are represented.)

posted by Pips 27 June | 17:23

Problem is, we're just typing English transliterations of Yiddish words - they can be spelled a bunch of different ways (like Chanukah, Hanukah, Hanukka, ad infinitum - which of course is Hebrew, not Yiddish), although there are some Yiddish words that are common enough in English to have developed pretty standard English spellings.

posted by amro 27 June | 17:28

Very true, amro... I tried "haluscious" and "chaluscious"...

Now I'm off to cook my pork (so to speak)...

posted by Pips 27 June | 17:32

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