Another way I aid in the atrophying of my brain is by watching too much television, especially cooking shows. I think it is genetic. One of my earliest memories is of staying at my paternal grandmother’s house when I was just two. My parents were on one of their trips to England to do research, and they had felt I was too young to go with my brothers to a neighbours, or that three of us were too many for Granny Tiny, and I totally lucked out.
Granny Tiny, Dad and Grandfaether (they were Scots, and that’s what we called him)
My dad was a bit of a surprise baby, 8 years younger than his closest sibling, and handsome and blue-eyed. He was spoiled, and favoured by his siblings too, with his two older sisters saving up to send him to university, the only one of the four children to get to go. He ran with it, one must say. And then when grandchildren appeared, his were naturally the youngest, and then after two boys, I came along, with his blue eyes and somebody’s blonde hair. To this day my brothers will complain that I was allowed to ride my tricycle around her kitchen. That she let us also dig enormous holes in her vegetable garden makes me think she spoiled us all, but that I was on the favoured nation list could not be denied.
During that early week, that kind of kickstarted my memory process (the change from routine so important and yet so traumatic: anti-fragility at work), she would make me toast with honey, with the crusts cut off, another sign of great favour, as they had been immensely poor, and were now just fairly poor. And then we would watch The Galloping Gourmet. I gather now that he was not just Galloping, but possibly Guzzling, but he had pots on the stove and things sizzling and it was all terribly exciting.
Fast-forward four decades,
and you would find me and three kids and sometimes hard-working dad, lying on the enormous couch, glued to the Food Network or watching Anthony Bourdain eat his way around the world. And while I drool over food and foodies, he did a lovely episode of his cleverly titled series, No Reservations, about Provence, where they sat eating lunch while discussing what to make for supper. Now that’s life.
Here he is, explaining himself, about how he gets to travel the world, eating and drinking and making self-indulgent television. A mentor!
Fast-forward another decade and you would have found me on the couch, drooling over the turkey Chef Ramsey, whom I don’t drool over because he is so fucking rude, cooked the other day. Yes, I knew about putting butter under the skin. But he mixed up a whole bowl of herb butter and put it everywhere – under and over the skin. In the cavity he placed nothing but a lemon and some onion [well, garlic and a bay leaf too, but I was enjoying riffing off Seuss, Xty. [Don’t, ed.]], which he left rudely protruding, so it could roast too. And yes, I knew about putting the bird in a hot oven and then turning it down. And I knew about covering the breast with bacon.
But I didn’t know to let the bird rest for as long as you had cooked it! And I certainly never knew to chop the bacon, onion and lemon up and fry them in the turkey pan, having poured off most of the fat, and then to throw in any turkey parts you wouldn’t serve like wing tips, and a quartered tomato! and frying the whole mess for a bit. Then came apple cider, chicken stock, the juice from the sitting turkey, some mashing and straining. But I was sold. Rarely do I remember a recipe so clearly. And breakfast – he even cooked scrambled eggs slightly differently and I had to try it – mouth-watering!
Sorry, I have to go …
But here he is, bacon sizzling audio and all. An important 9 minutes and 25 seconds, if you are in anyway involved in the annual sacrificial bird roasting:
1st…hell yeah! tune for the lady.
I just read the article about overthinking. Me in a nutshell. And the timing felt like you all had been reading what is left of my mind.
What an awesome line, you’re the best.
While I was reading it, I was thinking “This is hilarious. The guy is totally overthinking the whole overthinking thing, probably on purpose as satire, but it does sort of get me thinking…”
I agree, Bourdain is highly entertaining at all times. I’m not as familiar with Ramsay, though when I was trying to help out my kid at college on how to pan fry a steak I sent him some youtubes and one of them was a Ramsay. I’m happy to report that the vids and a new pan have gotten the kid to the point where he is seriously crushing it now.
Ramsay does have a certain flair, which I do like. I really like the yummy sounds right at the end when he takes a bite. Mmmmm, that’s what it’s all about.
He is not my favourite by a long shot, but this kind of redeemed him. His enthusiasm is palpable.
And it is great when you see your kids getting the cooking bug … I have three quite adequate chefs coming up.
I remember Graham Kerr as well. The thing that always stuck with me is the clarified butter everywhere. Clarified butter seems to be something that has gone extinct among foodies, more’s the pity.
In this blast from the past clip he’s doing a pot roast with added lard, clarified butter, and bacon too just for good measure. Those were the days. 😛
Kinda hard to type much w/ a 2 yr old on my lap, but I’ll just chime in and say Bourdain is my fave.
I love the way she points a calculator at the monitor and thinks it will change the channel.
I’m not a cook/chef in the least.
But,… having watched Xty’s “How to Cook a Steak in a Pan” video, i swerved past the steaks in the grocery store today.
I was looking at a Sirloin i think it was, and got to talking to the head butcher. He was showing me a package of 3 great big thick fillets, and then said.. “wait right here”. He took the filets in the back and marked them down to 10 bucks, or 3.33 a piece and handed them to me. Cool, thanks! (this stuff happens to me so often that my wife even gets amazingly aggravated by it. I thank God for everything and keep on rolling)
So i came home, dug out an iron pan and proceeded to follow the video as closely as possible. I sliced one of the fillets into two that were as thick as the one in the video.
MAN, WERE THOSE THINGS GOOD. wow. I ate the first one while i cooked the second one and just thinking about it makes me want to go cook another one.
I’m just an unrefined American, so yeah i stood there cooking and eating and never even sat down. (wife wasn’t home, so it’s ok 😎 ) But if any of you guys ever drop by Douglasville Ga,…. thanks to Xty’s post, I can now gladly cook you an awesome steak.
EO and Xty both know that i love cooking. Xty’s write up and the above posts made me smile. i still remember watching Julia Childs as a kid! my favorite guy right now probably is Alton. i tend to be quite experimental, even adventurous with food. i also like cooking with real wood, and often in cast iron.
DN – i was in Douglasville a few years back. i’m pretty sure that i’d know less about cooking if i had one of these close by! i am jealous as hell!
http://williamsonbros.com/
my wife actually bought one of Gaida’s recipe books not knowing that i secretly had already been watching the show. it started one day when my brother called me up on the phone and told me to put on the food network right away…
lol, yes indeed, that is some tasty bar-b-q. Another reason I don’t cook much.
this video… something about juggling, a pool.. travelling? will get it eventually maybe.
here’s how the coldest night so far of 2013 went for the tough and hardy, and for the wimps. i don’t know your exact location 44 if i was a bit off.
EO 2F -15C
DP 5F -15C
Xty 18F -8C
Pete 31 -1C
DN 41 5c
no complaints from me 40 degrees w/rain, i’m in norfolk va and truly not very fond of the place. 😯
Sunny and cold, or cloudy and warmer. Today is sunny and cold. And we have achieved our seasonal coating of sheer packed snow-ice, which makes all travel treacherous. I actually have yaktracks and wear them, those stretchy ugly things you attach to your boots.
Xty yes, yaktrax a must here too. Glad to see you left the d off of oc, I am oc as well.
Speaking of birds of a feather, here is an essay on the challenges to being a black birdwatcher:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7812
I took it at face value so I found it humorous. There are also challenges to being an old, fat, one-eyed, colorblind birder.
Did anyone else look up how to make shortnin bread? I will probably try it but not until my johnnycake experiment is finished, using cornmeal I ground from the corn I grew.
Snowing now, ground white, 3″ to 5″ more expected. Grandma making cookies w/ the little ones, Mommy and Daddy should be in the air soon from Vegas (NFR) to O’Hare then catch a bus home. Hopefully no delays.
oops, sorry Dude. were you the coldest?
i looked up shortnin’ bread, and i was convinced to try it at/after the word bacon. i have some home rendered leaf lard as well – thanks EO.
“Shortnin’ bread – a term used to describe the preparation of many Southern quick breads – is like corn bread with strips of bacon.”
http://askville.amazon.com/Shortnin%27-Bread/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=2238666
my wife and i make shortbread cookies often. they are are so very simple, and require only 4 ingredients that we almost always have on hand – flour, butter, sugar, salt. compare to 4+ dollars for Walker’s shortbread, 9 per box, you know the imported Scottish one’s. you’ve seen them – the ones in the red plaid. 🙂
yes – it’s snowing here too. it doesn’t moderate temperature wise in Wisco during the winter before receiving a good dump of the white stuff.
yak tracks? are they anything like gaf hooks? i need a pair to go cut my Christmas tree. the trees in my neighborhood are all too mature (tall). 😀
i have been wanting to post this here for a long time – and was afraid EO would get to it first. so here it goes…
where the fuck is EO? vanished? dis appeared?…alien abduction for body parts and such? NOTE to et’s..EO’s liver is fried!
I had bacon for breakfast just this morning! Seems like it’s been months and months. I think I was getting withdrawal symptoms. I know I had run out of my bacon grease supply in the fridge, and that’s a sure sign I’ve been slacking off on one of the basic food groups.
Home alone, cranking the tunes:
what if the aliens like their liver marinated? one of my favorite marinades uses bourbon. EO is a Canadian whiskey guy, which probably is close enough.
Alice Cooper is said to have peaked at up to two cases of Budweiser and a bottle of whiskey a day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Cooper
EO, what no Packers? Grandma took the kids outside, her turn, I pulled duty yesterday.
the one I turn to when I think of this song
roots version original
What about you peckerbird- no Packers either?
i swear…beer and my stomach don’t get along these days….bourbon it is.
Oh ya, Pack hanging in there on life support. Will go run dogs in the snow as soon as game’s over.
you’re dead to me. 😀
but it’s alright now. in fact it’s a gas…
now i get to shovel snow.
Pete’s recipe: mix some Jerry with some weed. shaken not stirred.
sorry Dude. if you were a Packer fan, you would know that it is customary to observe radio silence during the game. it was a close one too, so i was feeling more superstitious than usual, or less inclined to risk it anyway. 🙂
good game, and sorry for the loss DN.
edit: my recipe calls for Jim. and i have decided to wait for the snow to melt on its own.
I watched this game thanks to Sunday Ticket and being harpooned into my chair by a lap nap.
that happens to me too, but cats are easier to eject. they live in the now, so can’t hold a grudge, plus they fall back asleep easily somewhere else near by.
poor Detroit. i think they should relocate across the river. the Windsor Lions. they would be the best football team in Canada. 😉
looks like i’m going to get snowed in. i hate to do it, but i’m going to have to bust into my emergency beer supply.
Leon’s facial expressions in this video are hilarious.
This one goes out to Va
Better video, poorer audio
Backward- I remember when this came out
forward- Grandson’s fave
light up
No naughty bashing Canadian football!
Ten teams and we couldn’t even come up with ten different names! But you guys cheat by making it all too easy with your little field and extra down, and more clement weather.
It is a snowy day here, and we have a nice Christmas tree in the living room which smells amazing, and masks our gross disfunction nicely.
http://www.livescience.com/25779-christmas-traditions-history-paganism.html
Perhaps the fact that they smell nice is the true historical bottom line. It’s midwinter and the house is getting some funk on. Prehistoric air freshener. Oftentimes the simplest explanation cuts closest to the truth.
http://www.chicaandjo.com/2012/12/21/pine-tree-air-freshener-christmas-wreath/
Refractory (Word of the Day)
Makes me think of those damn little penny miners again. Here’s how it usually goes:
You read some article about this little miner that nobody seems to know about. Ridiculously cheap. Buying gold in the ground for pennies. It’s a sure thing. Just buy it and wait. Buy right and sit tight. Wow, you feel so smart. Plus, a feasibility study should be coming out any time now, and then the cat will be out of the bag and it will rocket and it will be too late to buy it. So you get in now, before it pops. Well maybe it’s doubled already when you buy it, but we are talking an easy 10-bagger here, starting as soon as that news hits the wire, so don’t quibble, just close your eyes and buy. Days go by, then weeks, and you are a bit underwater. News comes, but it’s just that the company just did a big financing. Raised a lot of money for shares. That’s good, right? Looks like you bought at a recent high, but no matter, when the news hits the wire you are going to be golden. Months go by, still no news. It was a screaming bargain before, and it’s twice as good now. If you hadn’t bought it before, you’d sure as hell be buying it now. So you average down. This is going to be the killing of a lifetime.
Then, the big day arrives! News release! Glowing numbers in the headline. Fantastically huge gold reserve in the millions of ounces. In the premarket your stock just sits there, but wait until the market opens, that baby is going to scream! You consider buying a little more before market open, because when the sheeple finally get out of bed and read the news, you’ll be sitting pretty.
But now before the market even opens, it starts to sell off! WTF? You are down 9% so fast your head spins. No point in selling now, the damage is done. But now you go back to the news release and read the fine print. Cash costs seem just OK, not great, but OK. The IRR is just OK. But wait, what are these huge numbers for initial Capex? Somewhere in the detail you see that the orebody is mostly “refractory ore”. What does that mean? You get busy on Google and find out that refractory ore is high in sulphides. There are some workarounds, but all of them cost money. Lots and lots of money. And good luck getting a permit in the first place. You start to realize that a refractory orebody has little or no chance of ever being developed into a mine unless gold itself goes to the moon first. This “mine” you bought for pennies per ounce in reality wasn’t even worth that! Crap. You dig into the company website trying to find out if there was prior disclosure of this “refractory” thing. Maybe you just missed it. Surely the big boyz did their homework before siging off on that financing a month ago. Hmmmm…not seeing it….
You are already screwed. You hit the bottle early, seeing as how you are now down 42% on the day, and 63% since you bought the damn thing. What’s the point of selling it now? Maybe it will come back. What was that newsletter I first read about this turkey in?
Yup, the killing of a lifetime.
By the time it is down 80% you finally bail out and put the cash toward a different miner. Just saw it in a (different) newsletter. Buyout rumors are in the works. Rick Rule is involved. When that thing pops you’ll make all your money back, and then some. And so it goes. The killing of a lifetime…
Not that any of this ever happened to ME of course! I knew a guy, who knew a guy, who knew a guy. Poor dumb bastard…
i get rid of my old spices in the winter by throwing them in a stock pot full of boiling water on the stove. the house needs the humidity, and it freshens up the air. today i got rid of an old jar of savory. man is the smell ever making me hungry. it smells just like Grandma’s house!