Archive for the ‘Cooking’ Category
It’s just turning 6 am on Thanksgiving morning. It’s a windy and chilly day as it seems to be every year on Thanksgiving and I love it. This just happens to be the one holiday that means more to me than any of the others. Many holidays are religious and since I’m not a religious person they mean very little to me. My best memories of my family are those from the many Thanksgivings we spent together. There is no anticipation of gifts and the many negatives associated with that mind set. It’s just a peaceful family gathering to share a meal and to be thankful for the good things in our lives.
I’m lying in bed with my better-half who’s sawing some serious logs next to me. My cat just jumped up on the bed to demand his Thanksgiving breakfast, and the coffee pot just came alive and is beeping to let me know it’s time to get up. This morning is going to be just about me and that big, fat, twenty pound bird awaiting me in the kitchen. I began thawing him out two days ago and yesterday I began some of the prep work for his debut today. Tradition means so much to me and I love preparing the bird.
As a youngster I spent all of my Thanksgivings with my immediate family at my grandmother’s home. She was an old school cook whose Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were the things of legend, just incredible. She was responsible for my undying love of cranberry sauce (the jelly kind) and the stuffing and gravy she was famous for. I begged her for years for her gravy recipe but she’d just smile and say “maybe when your a little older”. She went to her grave with the secret and I’ve spent years still trying to get it just right. Man do I miss her at this time of the year.
As a young man I married and moved away from my home area in Pittsburgh to Massachusetts and lived twenty minutes from Plymouth Plantation. I visited Plymouth every year and attended as many of the local celebrations as possible. I ate Thanksgiving dinner at the Plantation, was on and off the Mayflower many times, and really developed a love for the area. We even visited many of the Wampanoag Indian ceremonies that we were introduced to us by a friend who was a member of the tribe. It was a terrific tradition we’d developed but as in all things change was inevitable.
Divorce required me to find a new residence. I bought a small cottage near the ocean in Kingston, Massachusetts only 5 minutes from downtown Plymouth. I lived there for three years and submerged myself in the history of the Pilgrims, the Indians, and everything Thanksgiving. Again changes had to be made when my company bankrupted and I moved to Maine. For the next seven years I celebrated a rather lonely Thanksgiving tradition. I returned home to Pittsburgh once or twice during that time but for the most part it was just me, my cat and two ferrets. I maintained my own tradition with a large turkey breast, stuffing and all the trimmings and made the most of my crappy situation. The memories of all my past Thanksgiving’s helped tremendously but once again change was in the air. It arrived unexpectedly in the person of my better-half.
After a few years of adjusting to one another we’ve finally settled into a rather happy life and the holiday traditions had to change once more. We both maintain certain of our own family Thanksgiving traditions and are now creating a few of our own. This year we’re welcoming our new grandson to the table for the very first time. He was just a pooping and crying ball of flesh last Thanksgiving but now he’s grown into a walking and almost talking little person about to be officially seated at the holiday table. I hope in the years to come the memories of his grandmother will mean as much to him as mine do to me.
I also hope that your Thanksgiving will be even better than what you expected. The best thing about traditions is their flexibility. No matter how much change we’re forced to deal with, both good and bad, the traditions carry on regardless. The thoughts of years past and loved ones who are no longer with us are the real traditions and they can never be taken away.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
Is there something truly wrong with a person who insists on punishing himself over and over again with no appreciable result to show for his efforts? I know the answer but I just can’t seem to stop myself. If anyone you know ever suggests that you buy and use a treadmill, just kick their ass immediately. Don’t wait, don’t hesitate, just do it. You won’t be sorry. It’s just an underhanded karmic plot to make you pay for some past indiscretions in this life or another.
In the past six weeks in an attempt to lose 30 pounds of ugly fat I’ve been coerced into torturing myself by those I love and who I thought loved me on a machine just one step down from waterboarding. At first I got with the program after suffering some pulled muscles and the constant reminder that I was in the worst shape of my life. It was a humbling experience to say the least but I persevered through all of the pain and humiliation. The weight began falling away as my poor taste buds began to dry up and disappear.
I’ve always loved a good salad but those days are over. It’s true what I’ve always heard. Vegans or people that eat excessive amounts of vegetables and greens smell funny. It’s amazing just how bad that vegetable smell is when converted into methane gas. It’s appalling, embarrassing, and disgusting all at the same time. God help the poor schmuck who wanders into the room where my treadmill is kept when I’m attempting to walk myself to death.
I recall a chubby old red-neck named Larry the Cable Guy who talks about his grandmother who occasionally gets a case of the walking farts while shopping. I always thought that was a funny bit until the truth ran up and smacked me in the nose. I don’t just get the walking farts, I also get the breathing farts. The treadmill has slowly become a disgusting and never-ending fart inducer with no end in sight.
It’s painful at times not just for me but for others. My cat has abandoned me. The room where the treadmill is set up was once HIS room. He’d relax there, play with his toys, and generally kick back for a few hours every day. It’s been more than three weeks since we’ve been in that room at the same time. I walk in to begin my treadmill session and he’s gone in a heartbeat. He refuses to return until I’m finished and the air has cleared. I find him avoiding me in other areas of the house as well just to be on the safe side.
I’ve walked more than fifty-five miles on that effing treadmill and produced enough methane to shame a large herd of cattle. If this continues I may become an actual environmental disaster area. The EPA could show up at anytime with their trucks, white sealed suits, and handcuffs to take me away. I really need to be placed in isolation where I can’t harm anyone but myself. It’s a sad day for my family because they are now forced to live with the shame of it all.
Oh, the sacrifices we’re forced to make for good health.
I’m a huge fan of both the Cooking and Food channels. Being a huge fan of food makes it almost a requirement. Without a large assortment of food the human race would cease to exist in short order (no pun intended).
I’ve been a cook for most of my life and to this day maintain a large handwritten recipe book with family recipes and many of my own that I use on a regular basis. Nothing fascinates me more than finding a new dish that I’ve never experienced and attempting to remake it “my way” and then share it with friends.
Needless to say everyone who enjoys cooking thinks their family recipes are the best and that their mothers and grandmothers are the final word on anything food related. I fall into that category myself not so much with my mother’s cooking which was only so-so but with my grandmothers which was sooooo good.
I thought today I’d present you with a short trivia challenge on food and cooking related items. As with any other subject there’s thousands of trivia items available to stump and puzzles us all when it comes to food. Here are 10 that I found somewhat interesting and I hope you do as well. The answers will be posted tomorrow so you can check and see how you’ve done. Have fun with it and then go eat a sandwich.
* * *
1. In which American city is the greatest amount of ketchup consumed?
2. Who said: “Never eat more than you can lift”?
3. What was the first commercially manufactured breakfast cereal?
4. How many pounds of dry saffron does an acre of crocus plants yield?
5. Under federal food labeling regulations, how much caffeine must be removed from coffee for it to be called decaffeinated?
6. What are the five most frequently consumed fruits in the United States?
7. What snack food commercial was pulled off the air in 1970 because of complaints from an outraged ethnic group?
8. What popular lunch and snack food did an unidentified St. Louis doctor develop in 1890 for patients requiring an easily digested form of protein?
9. What do Eskimos use to prevent their food from freezing?
10. What eating utensil was first brought to America in 1630 by Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop, who carried it around with him in a specially made, velvet-lined leather case?
* * *
I selected these questions because I felt they could be answered easily if you just think about them for a moment. I could be wrong so check back tomorrow.
Gardening. It sounds so easy but in reality it’s not. I’d probably be more obsessed with it if I were a full fledged farmer who was supporting his family with what he could successfully produce. Being a part-time gardener gives me a great deal of satisfaction and almost as much aggravation.
Each spring my better-half and I spend a lot of time deciding what to grow, soil preparation, and how to process the things we’ll be consuming next winter. One of our goals has always been to grow what we want without the use of insecticides and other chemicals. To do that successfully for a couple of amateurs is difficult and at times impossible.
This year the weather’s been fairly well balanced with enough rain to keep watering to a minimum. Along with sufficient amounts of water comes sufficient amounts of slugs, bugs, grubs, and other visiting wildlife. It then becomes a full time job to maintain a decent level of control over the garden. Unforeseen problems make themselves known without warning and must be dealt with as quickly as possible.
For instance, I use a black fabric to cover the garden to prevent weeds from taking over. The fabric is expensive but in the long run will save hours of unnecessary efforts throughout the summer. Not this year. I bought what I thought was a product that will hinder weeds and allow water and nutrients to seep through. Buyer Beware. We are now more than half way through the growing season and my fabric purchase was a total scam. The weeds have grown under the fabric and now have penetrated into the sunlight. The fabric has virtually dissolved into nothingness in spots. This will make my end-of-season cleanup extremely difficult and time consuming. My only thought right now is that Home Depot blows. How can such a large company supply a product of such low caliber without some sort of pretesting before it hits the shelves. I guess I’ll be just like the prodigal returning to Lowe’s with my tail between my legs.
Let me tell you a little something about slugs. Not only are they disgusting, there are millions of them and they’re always hungry. They can strip a garden in short order if not controlled by insecticides. This year we were forced to give in and use a commercial product to kill as many of those little bastards as possible. I won’t even begin to explain my thoughts on the effing tomato worms. They’re green, voracious, fat, and make a satisfying "pop" when you step on them.
The cucumber patch is loaded already with dozens of future pickles and hundreds of blooms indicating a lot of canning in my future. Tomorrow will be my first official canning day of 2013. With any luck I’ll be canning approximates 15 pints of hot Bread & Butter pickles and four experimental pints of Kool Aid pickles. The Kool Aid pickles are something new I’m trying where you mix your dill brine with a double package of Cherry Kool Aid. It gives you a kosher dill pickle with a sweet cherry taste in a bright red pickle. It sounds crazy I know but a mixture of sweet and sour is one of my favorite taste combinations. I just hope it works and isn’t a little too bizarre making people afraid to even try it. We shall see.
I guess I can stop complaining now. I’ll get a good nights sleep and be ready to hit the ground running in the morning. A day of hot boiling water, pots of brine, and a huge pile of sliced cucumbers and jalapeño peppers. A fun day to be sure. The Fall harvest is finally beginning.
It’s time for a regular journal entry to help me to catch up on things as the summer moves along. The heat wave has finally broken and we’re having a few intermittent rain showers on some really beautiful and sunny days. For the past few days we’ve had family visitors from Rhode Island who needed a little Maine getaway to clear their heads and breath some clean fresh air.
The guests arrived late yesterday evening after a bout with car problems. It’s funny (or not) how and when batteries decide to die. It’s never in your driveway but always on the road, miles from anywhere, and raining. We were up chatting and catching up until 2am and and slept in the next morning since it was lightly raining. It gave us a chance to shop for a new battery and install it before the rain ended. That evening we decided a visit to the Old Orchard Beach amusement park was in order and we had a great time.
The rain stopped and the tourists and visitors were out in large numbers enjoying the cool evening air. We hit the arcades for a few games and after blowing ten bucks throwing bean bags at balloons I won an ugly green stuffed animal. My better-half was thrilled and I’ll probably be seeing that stupid thing for the rest of my life. She bonded with it immediately and gave it a cutsy name before we even returned home. Our group rode a few rides , took lots of photo’s, and had a really fun evening.
We were in bed at a reasonable hour in anticipation of an early start in the morning. We visited a local church fair the next day. It’s one we attend annually and really enjoy. My better-half loves the flea market and I’m there for the excellent french fries and hot sausage sandwiches. They have a huge tent filled with books at dirt cheap prices and I’m usually able to buy enough books to get me through the winter.
Our visitors left after a few hours to return home to Rhode Island. The better-half and I stayed a while longer after running into a few old friends. She loves the raffles and spent the last hour sitting at a table and filling out raffle tickets. The worst thing to happen last year was that she won one of the small raffles. Now she’s hooked and thinks she’s going o win every year. It’s all for a good cause though but I just wish she’d win something I could use.
All in all a good couple of days as we start our march towards the Fall season. I love the fact that there’s sure to be a small community fair almost every weekend from now until late October. Lots of fairs and lots of fun.
The rain in Maine is mostly a huge pain. This weather is continuing to wear on my nerves. Rain, rain, and more effing rain. I kind of feel like I’m living in India during the monsoon season. That lovely musty smell has now become the norm and I’m certainly not enjoying that at all. It would be nice to have three or four days of warm, non-humid weather that would allow the house and garage to dry out just a little. Unfortunately wishing doesn’t make it so.
Earlier this year I picked up a copy of Poor Richards Almanac for 2013 and I’m beginning to become a real believer. The almanac has been right on the money on the weather patterns for the last few months for this area. If their predictions continue to be as accurate this will be one of the wettest summers on record for Maine. Without a doubt it will be great for the garden but OMG. I already need a machete to walk through the garden and the amount of veggies is going to be huge.
I see many days of picking, cleaning, and canning of veggies like never before. We’re anticipating quantities of zucchini, cucumbers, and squashes that will be incredible. Thankfully we’re well prepared and have more than enough supplies to handle things. This year we may be canning a good quantity of mixed veggies with jalapeños to heat them up a little. Probably as many as sixty pints of hot Bread & Butter pickles and possibly some hot relish as well. It’s amazing just how much production we get from such a medium sized garden.
I grew two items this year that I ‘m experimenting with, mustard and curry. The mustard started off rather slowly but with all this rain the plants are almost three feet high now with brilliant yellow flowers. The leaves have the greatest taste and are making our salads much more flavorful. I should also be able to harvest enough seeds to make my first attempt at creating my own mustard. If that’s successful then I’ll plant at least three times as many plants next year. The curry was an aromatic plant which when dried will make one helluva good addition to our collection of cooking herbs.
My better-half has already started making her jams for the year. She just completed two batches of blueberry which is always the best. One of the batches was made with a new gadget we received as a gift. It’s sold by the Ball Company and made specifically for making jellies and jams. It the coolest thing ever. You put your crushed fruit into the cooking container, set the time, and it cooks the fruit until perfect. It then beeps four times to tell you when to add the sugar. It cooks a little longer, beeps once and then turns itself off. You then spoon it into jars and can as normal. Less mess and no possibility of cooking errors which have been an issue in the past. I can’t wait to try it with a few of my new experimental flavors once I get the recipes completed.
I’m still hoping for some dryer weather so some of the other crops can thrive as well but what can you do. Mother Nature cruises along at her own speed with absolutely no regard for us pitiful human beings.
I love cooking, I love eating, and I also love living. If the experts out there are correct those three things are no longer compatible with each other. For most of my life I’ve had one group or another of so called experts explaining to me in great detail what in their opinion would shorten or end my life. I’m not talking about guns or knives or any type of weapon but food and other consumables.
I can’t drink the water because most of it contains harmful or deadly toxins that could be fatal with extended consumption. I can’t breath the air because it’s polluted with toxins that could give me a cancer. Those two things are basic to all life on the earth of which there is plenty but they could kill me. Do I stop consuming them? If I do I’ll die for sure. A seriously flawed conundrum.
Don’t eat eggs. They’ll cause your cholesterol to soar putting you at risk. Don’t eat bacon. It will kill you. No more red meat. It will kill you too. Don’t eat too much oil. It will kill you. No sugar. It will also kill you. No sugar substitutes. They’ll kill you too. Stop eating salt. It could kill you. Drink only low fat milk. Whole milk contains something that will kill you. No dairy products. They can kill you too. Don’t eat fish or seafood. Too much mercury. Don’t eat potato chips. They’ll kill you. No fried foods. They can kill you. No coffee. It can kill you.
Carbs are bad. Protein is bad. Oil is bad. Salt is bad. Sugar is bad. Water is bad. The air is bad. Being fat is bad. Being skinny is bad. Being too active is bad. Not being active enough is bad too. Drinking alcohol is bad. It will kill you. Smoking is evil. You will day a horrible death. Don’ eat sweets. They have sugar and will kill you.
I guess my point is that if you never want to die you should stop doing and eating all of the above things. Wait, that can’t be right. You’re going to die anyway.
Let’ try this. I could become a Vegan who eats nothing but bland unseasoned organic veggies. I’ll drink nothing but pure filtered water, wear a mask to filter the air, and never touch any food that tastes good or even looks good. I’ll exercise just enough to keep me healthy and skinny and never consume caffeine, drugs of any kind, alcohol, or sweets. People would praise me as someone doing things the natural way, the way things ought to be for the entire world. I’ll form research groups to reinforce my opinions and write books and sell DVD’s to become rich and influential. I’ll then use all of my money and influence to pressure politicians to pass laws that will force everyone to be healthy. Once the entire country has been converted then I’ll do everything in my power to convince the world. After I’ve become the voice of reason for all things health related, I’ll live just long enough to finally die. Just like everyone else.
All that effort and BS just to die like every other unhealthy person on the planet. Hardly seems worth the effort to me. Just give me a cold beer, a bag of chips, a good bacon and egg breakfast, a nice juicy salted steak with all the trimmings, and a good smoke and glass of brandy. Then I’ll be ready to die too.
I’ll rather die happy eating a banana split covered with whipped cream, nuts, and a huge cherry on top than being a stinky and unhappy dead Vegan. If I’m gonna go I want it to be on my own terms. It’s something called freedom of which we have very little these days.
Bon Appetite
Today I get to play winemaker. I’ve been making homemade wines for more than twenty years and plan on making it for twenty more. My better-half became so interested that she began making her own batches about five years ago. She leans toward berry wines and her specialty has become Tripleberry Wine. It’s made from a mix of blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries. I have to admit it’s damn tasty and goes well with almost any dish.
For years I only made your basic wines. Some were made from fresh fruit while other were made from professionally produced concentrates. I’ve always tried to be creative with my winemaking and I’ve even made excellent wine from the fruit of the Mountain Ash tree. My all time favorite over the years has been dandelion wine made from blossoms collected from nearby fields. It’s a killer to make because you sit for hours removing only the yellow petals. The first time I attempted making it I found out much too late that rubber gloves should be worn. I had really disgusting yellow fingers and hands for weeks.
I enjoy experimenting a great deal and in recent years have made a number of cooking wines which turned out rather well. I first made onion and garlic wine which turned out to be an incredible marinade. Then I made twenty-five bottles of habanero wine to be used for marinades and cooking. I found as time went by it actually became hotter as it sat in the bottle. Some people actually like drinking it but that’s not for me. If your doing a stir-fry adding a cup of it will spark things up nicely. Again a safety tip, when making anything with habaneros wear a double layer of latex gloves.
Today is bottling day for a fifteen bottle batch of the better-half’s wine and a twenty-five bottle batch of my latest experiment, gin wine. I’m a big fan of gin but drinking the hard stuff is a little much sometimes. I decided to make a wine out of the same ingredients that actual gin brewers use. If recent taste tests are any indicator this batch isn’t all that good. It has an alcohol content of about ten percent and might just make a great tar remover for our cars. The smell of gin is there but that’s about it. It tastes like a cross between battery acid and Lysol. I’ll bottle up a few bottles for long term storage but the rest will unfortunately be discarded. The better-half’s Tripleberry tastes great and will be bottled and stored today.
Making wine is always risky and ever so often you’ll get a batch that is just God awful. I’m hoping this summer is hot and sunny making our blackberry crop fat and juicy. We have a few secret spots in certain areas of the county where we harvest blackberries by the bucket full. They make the best jams and wines and we’re looking forward to doing it again this summer.
I’ll be sure to have a glass or two today to toast the arrival of Spring and the demise of the gin wine.
I think I’m finally returning to my calm and normal self after the last two days of whining and complaining about every useless thing that was bothering me. It appeared to be a combination of finally finishing a difficult job I’d worried about for many weeks and the normal let down after the fact. Leave it up to my better-half to figure out a perfect solution.
She returned home from work in early afternoon and immediately advised me to clean up because we we going out for a Dutch Treat dinner. How could I possibly complain about that? Regardless of what you might think I clean up pretty good and it wasn’t long before I was ready for my night on the town. My chauffeur pulled up in her car and off we went.
We have a number of restaurants we frequent but for me it’s all about the food. If the food is good I can eat it sitting in the middle of a junk yard and still be happy. I worked for many years throughout the south and became hooked on that good old down home southern food that their so famous for. Catfish, collard greens, black eyed peas, somehow climbed to the top of my favorite foods list. No matter what northern restaurant chains claim their attempts to cook authentic southern cuisine is usually pitiful.
My all-time favorite southern dish is country fried chicken with that unbelievable white gravy and biscuits. One of our regular restaurants has a chef who must have been born down south and stolen his grandmother’s favorite recipes. That’s where my better-half planned our dinner and I wasn’t disappointed. The chicken was cooked perfectly and the biscuits and gravy were even better. Throw in a serving of coleslaw and a side of mashed red potatoes with just a hint or garlic and you’ve arrived in heaven. I pigged out and cleaned my plate like a freaking vacuum cleaner. I was fat and sassy as I downed an excellent gin and tonic to complete things.
My better-half was busy texting for few minutes and when she finished I was advised we’d be meeting some friends at another local establishment for a nightcap or two. She actually paid the bill, left a good tip, and we were off. We arrived at a place that is part sports bar, part restaurant, and part beach hangout in the summer. They were so busy it seemed a little like a hot summer evening with the place packed with beach people. I said that jokingly because it’s really April in Maine and cold as hell. Our friends arrived just as we finally were seated in our booth and we had a few drinks and a lot of laughs. My sober designated driver delivered me safely home at a reasonable hour to end a perfect night.
The night didn’t last much longer because the better-half had a 4am wake-up call. Fortunately she has a vacation week scheduled next week due to the anticipated arrival or her oldest son from LA. He’s in for a three day visit and that should keep her hopping and occupied for the entire week. Since next week is sure to a hectic one I plan on enjoying this weekend as much as humanly possible.
It’s been twelve hours since that great meal and I’m still tasting those garlic potatoes. Can’t wait to do it again.
Winter has returned with a vengeance here in Maine. It’s not snow this time but frigid cold. The wind chill has been below zero for a few days which means I don’t leave this house unless it’s on fire. These are the days when my list of winter projects becomes important.
After I finished reading the entire collection of Harry Potter books two weeks ago I then decided I wanted to see all of the movies now that I had a better understanding of the story line. Yesterday was the start of my Harry Potter movie marathon made possible by a grant made to me by my better-half’s daughter. I have in my hot little hand all of the HP movies in Blue Ray, I effing love it. This weather made it possible for me to watch the first three movies without much interruption yesterday.
One big surprise though, my better-half sat in for a few minutes at the beginning of movie number 4 and became mesmerized. She watched that entire movie and loved it. I was informed last night that I wasn’t to watch any of the other films unless she was here to watch them with me. I didn’t mind that too much since I actually like having her around most of the time. Besides if I happen to remain quiet and really still she’s likely to be the first person to raid the kitchen and make us popcorn.
The marathon will continue later tonight but this morning I’m back in the kitchen making a batch of hot and spicy barbecue sauce. If I manage it properly I can have it made, canned, and on the shelf before my better-half returns home from work. I’ll return shortly. . . .
(Time Passing)
Well I’m back and the sauce has been made and canned. The cleanup is actually easier since I made a smaller batch than normal. I was able to can 16 half pints of sauce with each one holding enough for a meal of chicken wings or a meat of choice. It was a newly developed recipe which offers a lot of flavor and a medium amount of heat. I decided to ease up on the heat since most of this batch will be given to friends and family. I’ll make a smaller batch in a few weeks which will be much hotter and more to our taste.
I’m just sitting here now waiting for the better-half to arrive. I went outside to check the mail earlier and OMG is it freaking cold. The deck is making gun shot noises as the nails are popping from the temperature. The first time made me jump a bit but the poor cat is going crazy. He no sooner gets to sleep then BANG. It’s harshing his buzz and making him extremely cranky.
Tomorrow is another day in paradise.
everyuselessthing.com 