A Beautiful Turd

It's 7:38 PM and I am outside with a scotch and a cigar licking my wounds because my roasted chicken didn't turn out right.  I am being a petulant turd.  Did you ever see "A Beautiful Mind"?  The scene where John Nash loses at the board game  -"The Hubris of the Defeated"  he claims the game is flawed, his play was perfect.

My roasted chicken was flawed, but my play was not perfect:  whole chicken, stuffed with fresh thyme, onion, lemon.  Seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper.  Oven baked for eighty minutes at 375...  it should have cooked all the way through.  It did not.  Damn.

Why?  AAAARRRGGGGHHH!  Well, I fucked up.  I ran out of propane for the grill.  I ALWAYS do this on the grill.  The grill thermometer reads 375.  It takes about an hour and twenty minutes on my grill.  I move to plan B... the oven.  Specifically the oven at 375.  Not the same thing...

My play was not perfect.  Nope.  Not done.  

I got impatient.  We are hungry.  Took it out, carved the breast meat.  The bird was giving me the bird.  Hahahaha!  You carnivorous bastard!  Still pink!

I'd love to say I microwaved the somewhat uncooked chicken, topped it with a marvelous sauce, poured more wine and salvaged the evening.  Nope.  Not suave.

The most recent issue of "Food & Wine" magazine has this sweet recipe from Grace Parisi for Scallops with Grapefruit and Bacon.  (I would give you a link here, but there is none!  God, could this day get any shittier?)  She (is awesome by the way...) says cook bacon at moderate heat until crisp ABOUT 3 MINUTES!  There is no freaking way bacon is going to be crisp on my stove after just 3 minutes!  Maybe hers, but not mine!

Lesson learned:  adjust times to your cooking modulus.  I have cooked bacon on my stove often enough to know that CRISP bacon is going to take longer than three fucking minutes.  I know the desired result.  Duh.  Bacon.  Crisp.  

I also know my stove.  And my oven.  And my grill.  The first rule in cooking something great (or at least good) - know your kitchen.  Then think about what you are doing.

The good news... tomorrow we will eat again.  I let you down, but I will be better.

By the way, John Nash turned that game theory into a Nobel Prize.

That chicken?  It's gonna be some awesome soup...take that you poultry bastard.  Until we eat again...  Peace.

Second City Sushi

Chopsticks: love 'em or hate 'em?  Did you catch the report on CNN about the American company that exports chopsticks to China (instead of the other way around)?  Georgia Chopsticks is an exporter of chopsticks and the company cannot keep up with the demand!

I happen to love chopsticks.  I learned to use chopsticks at an early age. When we were kids the choice of restaurant to celebrate our birthdays was DOMINATED by Benihana!  I loved watching the chef flipping knives, working fast, tapping rhythms with salt and pepper shakers.  This certainly was an influence and piqued my interest in learning to cook.

Sooo...  Fast forward.  Buddy of mine is in town, wants to take me to dinner.  I suggested a place near the office: Marc's Fusion Cafe for some amazing sushi.

You'd think he just ate a lemon.  His face contorts, his shoulders lift, "Sushi??  Ewww."

Dude.

It's fresh, it's fun.  Going out for sushi encourages chatting at the table, relaxing.  Not for Bob.

Okayyy... got me thinking here.  It's gotta be the very idea of raw fish.  (Now I know that "maki" is a sliced roll and "sashimi"  is a piece of fish, but we're gonna go with this one...)

Uncooked fish making you squirm a bit?  Fine.  Try my Second City Sushi!  We live in the Midwest!  It's steak and potato with a red-wine reduction for the sauce.  (Umm...Doug, why not just make a steak and potato?)  Good question, glad ya asked!

1. Small pieces, you can eat with your hands!  (Dudes love finger food!)  
2. Lots and lots of combinations here:

• Substitute chicken, pork, shrimp for the protein.  
• Substitute for the rice: potato, pasta, sprouts, cucumber (or leave the rice in there)

      3.  It's fun  (Gee it seems like a lot of work)  Yeah - but fun sometimes means work - ever go camping?

Play with your food!  Let me know what you think!

You Will Never Be Jessica Simpson

Bread plus heat equals toast.  Toast plus more heat equals charcoal-like crap.  Too much of a good thing creates bad thing.  Gotta know when to quit.

One martini, good.  Five martini, bad.  (Latin plural of martini is what?  Martinaes?  Interesting, funny article on latin plurals can be found at http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2139/what-is-the-plural-of-penis)

The small paragraph above is another example of "Gotta know when to quit".  Should never have gone there with the whole Latin nonsense.  Didn't even take Latin in school.  I took French.  Four years in high school.  (The teacher was hot!  She drove a sports car, had long blonde hair...there were a lot of guys in that class.)

Apparently Jessica Simpson didn't know when to quit.  She confessed to eating anything she wanted during her pregnancy in an interview with USA Today , then was surprised when the weight didn't come off after delivery of the baby.

"I let myself indulge in everything I wanted because it was the first time I was ever pregnant, and I wanted to enjoy it," Simpson told the paper. "I wanted to be happy and eat what I wanted."

I believe men have no business telling women what they can and cannot do.  (And vice-versa thankyouverymuch!)  I especially believe the evolved male will tread very lightly where weight issues are concerned when a woman is pregnant.

It is sad however that celebrities have carte blanche.  Fame and money allow them to give anyone and everyone the giant middle finger. Celebrities need, NEED our love and money! They can and do fall off the wagon du jour, and don't really give a shit about our forgiveness, yet ask for it anyway.  

Why do they not care?  Because there is always some corporate endorsement waiting for them.  (Hear that Paula Deen?)  Should you or I indulge in everything we want because it's our first time being pregnant (never thought I would type those words!) then pack on pounds, we will not be rewarded with a $4,000,000 endorsement deal from Weight Watchers to drop the added pounds.  Come on!  Four million dollars!??!  Shit...

I hope Jessica loses her baby-weight and stays healthy.  But we should all know by now that "happy" doesn't come from a fork.

Do yourself a favor, and soon: try eating from the "small plates" menu from your favorite restaurant.  Go to a tapas-style restaurant.  Eat light, linger, laugh a lot.

Be A Stud

Oven Poach - It Ain't That Damn Hard

Okay gentlemen... put down the tongs and step away from the grill.  If you are slapping your famous (insert meat of your choice here) on the grill and feeling like a hero, that's cool.  But you aren't cooking dinner if you aren't doing the side dish as well.

Specifically, if the One-You-Are-Out-To-Impress is doing everything else and handing you the raw meat on the platter, you may be feeling like The Shizzle.  (Dude nobody says that anymore.)  Really?  I just didn't think I could say you're The Shit.  I can?  Cool.

If you're feeling like doing everything: meat, rice, vegetable is too hectic a feat to pull off - I want you to feel awesome about yourself and impress the hell out of yourself as well as She-Who-Digs-You.  It's time to be a stud.


Try this: oven poaching.  Typically a poached meat is cooked on the stove in simmering liquid.  Nothing wrong with that, of course.  But I like the even, gentle heat of the oven.  If you put the fish (or chicken or whatev) in a baking dish and add just enough flavored broth to cover the bottom of the dish, the meat will have a yummy sauna to hang out in.  It gets all tender and juicy in the sauna sauce.

Sauna Sauce - Rich stock with fresh thyme, bay leaf and pepper!

The cool thing about oven-poaching is "you can't screw this up and it tastes fantastic".  Often when doing fish there is a very small window for doneness.  Two minutes less and your filet is still raw in the middle (frowns and pathetic pats on the arm); two minutes more and you got the typical, "oh it's too dry" (eye rolls when you're not looking, lots of water to wash it down).  Harsh, isn't it?

Here's the order of operations (math nerds rejoice!)

  Thaw the fish if it isn't already...

  Open a can of ready to use broth, put it in a pan with some pepper, herbs, etc.  Garlic?  Sure man!

  Simmer that for like 20 minutes while you have a drink.  You're setting the stage.  Chick noticing... um hmm

  Turn oven on to 375.  Smile like the badass you are.  (Oh, it's nothing... you want some more wine?)

  When the oven is up to temp, put all that stuff together in the baking dish and toss it in.

Sauteed Mushrooms with Cherry Tomatoes - going on top of the fish

  You've got like 15 to 20 minutes to put together the rest.  Can you handle it?  Hell yeah.  Uncle Ben's whole grain microwave rice (90 seconds!) and heat up a vegetable.  I did sauteed spinach (120 seconds!)  Figured I got time, I sauteed mushrooms, and tossed in quartered cherry tomatoes to top off the fish.

Got it?  Put it all on the plate.  This is a nice light meal leaving you plenty of room and calories to have a light dessert after.  Healthy, easy, smart.  Just like you - stud!

Be Good To Yourself

Be good to yourself.

This is a sexy refreshing cocktail that I made out of whatever we happened to have on hand.  The green stuff is fresh basil.  (Or do you say "baah sil"?)  No, you don't because that would sound stupid and pretentious.  Ahh screw it.  If it makes you laugh, do whatever you want.  We're all friends here.

The brown stuff is whiskey.  If I had bourbon on hand I would have done that, but I didn't.

The floating stuff is ice.  Yeah, duh.

What you don't see is the simple syrup.  Sugar, water and mixing.  How simple is that?  

You know what this recipe would be if you had rum?  And instead of baah sil you had mint?  It would be a mojito.  I did not want a mojito.  Watch Brian Griffin drink a mojito.  And I did not have mint.

 Put equal parts sugar and water into a glass and mash that up.  (There are better ways to do this involving boiling and cooling, but do you want to cook or do you want to drink?  Yeah, I thought so.)  Add a half dozen basil leaves and mash that up too.

Strain that into a glass and add whiskey.  Good stuff if you have it.  Add ice.  Swirl and enjoy.

Earlier this evening I was going to make dinner.  Mrs. Digs-Me was out for the evening.  Eating left-overs is not my thing, but it makes her happy when they get eaten.  I found some chicken, feta, couscous thing in the fridge.  That would be nice over some sauteed spinach...

It occurred to me to skip adding garlic to the oil.  It's just me after all.  Hey, screw that.  Add flavors!  You're worth it.  It's the little things!  Be good to yourself, my friends.